No matter one’s career experience or level of industry expertise, working at a start-up company is not for the faint of heart. This is especially the case when it comes to radiopharmaceutical startups, companies developing the radiation-based medicines used in cancer treatment.
Exciting, fast-paced environments where teams of committed employees work to refine and sell forward-thinking products mean that every newcomer must be highly adaptable. If they fail to quickly learn the company’s evolving workflow and objectives, they’re at risk of getting left behind.
In her co-op at RadioSyn, a Canadian radiopharmaceutical startup designing a device to fast track the creation of critical cancer medications, Northeastern University master’s student Patricia Mallari not only met the challenge of joining a start-up, but quickly entered a leadership role, according to several people who worked closely with her.
The startup is developing a small, shoebox-sized device that can create peptides without human intervention. If the invention earns a patent and regulatory approval from Health Canada, the country’s federal health authority, it could reduce the time of peptide generation and even personalize medications for cancer patients based on their individual needs, Mallari said.
The box “streamlines the whole thing and makes it much more centralized,” she said. Using disposable microfluidic chips, which perform the miniscule radiochemical reactions needed to create specific peptides, “it should actually produce [the peptide] in an hour. That is the goal.”
Finding RadioSyn for her co-op assignment was a stroke of luck, Mallari said. Though she had a wealth of experience in the field, she had never before found work with a company focused on radiopharmaceuticals.
While biopharmaceuticals are made from living organisms to block disease pathways, radiopharmaceuticals contain radioactive particles called radionuclides that kill sick cells with radiation. These drugs are used to treat cancer, heart disease and brain disorders.
RadioSyn’s goal is to automate peptide generation, or the production of short chains of amino acids for specific therapeutic purposes. One example is the creation of anticancer peptides to trigger immune defenses or block cellular receptors in tumors. Doing so allows the peptides to induce cell death, block growth signals or deliver toxic payloads directly to the cancer site.
The critical process of generating these peptides as drugs is typically performed by humans, Mallari said, making it time-consuming and susceptible to error.
But as the startup moved from an idea to a formal manufacturing and pharmaceutical setting, Mallari said it needed support setting up foundational company structures, workflows, records and digitization. The company’s needs aligned with several facets of Mallari’s career and interests, and it quickly became a natural match.
“She seemed like a go-getter right from the start,” said Jean D’Souza, who helped Mallari secure the co-op placement from Northeastern’s Toronto campus. “That was one thing I really admired about her. She was ready to take on the challenge.”
That’s because Mallari entered the role with eight years of experience in high-pressure environments in the pharmaceutical industry, having worked in regulatory affairs roles from her home in the Philippines.
There, she helped several major pharmaceutical corporations register products across Asia and Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic, serving as a conduit between the drugmakers and nations’ respective health authorities, she said, each with their own laws and restrictions governing the products.
“The way registrations are done in each country depends on the local rules,” Mallari said. “For example, here in Canada, we have cannabis legalized. But if you want to register cannabis products to other countries where it’s not legalized, this changes the whole rule.”
Understanding the specific legal landscapes of countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Romania and Bulgaria was Mallari’s professional strength, she said, and attracted pharmaceutical companies looking to sell medications, medical devices and other household materials in new markets with legal compliance.
“And interestingly, I was also a pharmacist,” Mallari said. “I’m working with chemistry a whole lot [at RadioSyn] because there’s a lot of research involved, and we’re constantly in the lab assessing whether all these peptides work or not.”
Upon completion of her Toronto master’s program, Patricia Mallari said she hopes to continue working in pharmaceuticals in Canada. Courtesy Photo
Mallari tapped her regulatory affairs history to educate herself on the Canadian healthcare system and plot a course of action for RadioSyn and its platform. She also leveraged her time to manage different teams including business development, supply chain and commercial, each of which can have an impact on a company’s regulatory approval based on their needs.
“That’s why I hired her,” said Paul Chipperton, a consultant at RadioSyn who oversees business development. “She fit her expectations and guidance to the startup, attuned herself to fit the environment and constraints and needs … She has a voice of experience that carries through.”
Northeastern Global News, in your inbox.
Sign up for NGN’s daily newsletter for news, discovery and analysis from around the world.
D’Souza said that a Northeastern student displaying such leadership and wide-ranging expertise on their co-op assignment, while working at a startup company no less, is a rare sight.
“Because I have intensive professional experience already, I’m just happy to actually be able to impart all the information that I have,” Mallari added. “I genuinely enjoy it.”
Upon completion of her Toronto master’s program, Mallari said she hopes to continue working in pharmaceuticals in Canada, getting more heavily involved in medications, cosmetics and medical devices.
“I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of opportunity for me,” she said. “I love what I do.”