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When veteran CFO Ivor Macleod first contemplated joining an early-stage pharma company, the condition \xa0known as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) was not appearing in nightly news headlines and was yet to be ranked as the \xa0number one cause of death among COVID-19 patients. Nevertheless, ARDS captured his attention\u2014or rather, Athersys did.\xa0

The Cleveland, Ohio\u2013based company, with fewer than 100 employees, met one of Macleod\u2019s foremost criteria in that the company was \xa0focused on the area of medicine known as \u201ccritical care\u201d\u2014a space that Macleod characterizes as having \xa0\u201chigh unmet medical needs.\u201d

\u201cIt was the science that attracted me and not necessarily the capital structure,\u201d explains Macleod, when asked whether he may have preferred to join a privately held firm instead of a public one.

As the former CFO of F. Hoffmann\u2013La Roche, Inc., North America, and vice president of finance for Merck Research Labs, Macleod knows better than most the risks being taken and the high rate of failure when it comes to introducing new medications.

\u201cYou take big swings at big diseases, and you are not always going to be successful. So you have to be prepared for failure,\u201d explains Macleod, who says that he came to view \u201cthe job\u201d of finance leadership in pharma as being one of enablement.

Says Macleod: \u201cI didn\u2019t want scientists to be worrying about resources. I would take care of that. I had to make certain that they had all of what they needed to continue on their path.\u201d

Last January, when he entered Athersys\u2019s CFO office for the first time, he would have only a mere few weeks to work alongside his new colleagues before the spread of COVID-19 within the U.S. led management to encourage employees to work from home.

Suddenly, as the disease spread, ARDS began to garner headlines, and last spring, within a span of 6 weeks, Athersys was granted FDA approval for a COVID-induced ARDS study and subsequently began populating designated sites with patients. \xa0\xa0

\u201cThere is no known treatment for ARDS,\u201d comments Macleod, who appears to be savoring his role as an enabler of science now more than ever.\xa0\u2013Jack Sweeney Subscribe