Kjesten Wiig: bringing life-changing treatments to life

The life of a scientist revolves around experiments. Societal norms such as the 9 to 5 working week fall away to accommodate the demands of cells, substances and equipment that need tending with meticulous precision and unrelenting dedication. One experiment must be repeated many, many times to ensure the reliability of results.

Once the lab work is finished, something that can take months or even years for each project, researchers try to make sense of the swathes of data they have collected. It’s like assembling a puzzle without a reference image, what bigger picture emerges when all the pieces of data come together?

“Few things bring joy and satisfaction to a scientist more than when experiments they have been toiling on for months, if not years, come together to give satisfying results that reveal something new about the world,” says Kjesten.

In that moment, that researcher is the sole person, possibly in the history of the world, who is privy to the slice of human knowledge they have just uncovered.

For Kjesten, this moment came when she was a postgraduate researcher at Brown University in Providence, United States, investigating the molecular mechanisms involved in memory consolidation.

“I knew we had found something big. I went to show my supervisor thinking perhaps he’d tell me we’d submit it to be published in a prestigious scientific journal like Nature, every researcher’s dream,” says Kjesten.

“To my astonishment his response was ‘let’s start a company’.”

“The idea that something we had discovered in the lab could be used to help people from crippling diseases like dementia was invigorating.”

Kjesten had come to Brown University after completing her PhD in neuroscience at the University of Otago. She had begun her academic journey in psychology but was quickly captivated by how molecules and cells come together to create something as complex as human experience.

“When I had the opportunity to pursue postdoctoral studies at Brown, I jumped at the chance. Suddenly, I found myself in a completely new culture, learning how to adapt and navigate life all over again. I was finally starting to settle in when we made our discovery, and things become even more chaotic than when I was new to the country.”

Kjesten hadn’t the slightest idea what starting a company would entail. Yet, she was eager and ready to embark on a new adventure.

“The idea that something we had discovered in the lab could be used to help people from crippling diseases like dementia was invigorating. I was ready to go,” says Kjesten.

She and the other founders of the company made their way to New York City to pitch their discovery, now patented, to capital investors.

“We needed funding, and a lot of it. Biotech is very expensive.”

This was in 2002, the business world had just discovered, and fallen in love with, biotechnology. The completion of the Human Genome Project had unlocked a new era of possibilities, and the field was buzzing with excitement. Investors, eager to capitalise on the breakthroughs ahead, were lining up to be part of the next big scientific revolution, this was the biotech bubble of the early 2000s.

The team ended up raising over $40 million USD through venture capital financing.

“It felt like so much money to me. I just couldn’t believe it. We just charged on ahead.”

She was the first, and for a while, only, employee of this new company, Sention. She found a building to set up a lab, procured the lab equipment to test and develop the technology and hired new staff.

“At one point I hired a truck and was driving around, picking up all the lab equipment I could scavenge from biotech companies that were going out of business. It was a hectic period; I had to build the plane while flying it.”

Kjesten was responsible for coming up with a strategy for what was going to be tested and how.

“We were competing against pharmaceutical giants who effectively had unlimited funding, resources, experience and manpower. We were going to have to find some innovative ways to get to a viable product.”

Over the next seven years, Kjesten and the team, growing to 55 people, set up chemistry, molecular biology and pharmacology labs. They identified a range of potential compounds that showed promise in memory enhancement, generating more than 25 patents. 

“We tested the most promising of these compounds all the way to phase 2 clinical trials.”

Two compounds demonstrated efficacy and safety in humans.

However, like many whirlwind romances, the relationship between business and biotechnology burned bright, then abruptly fizzled out. The biotech bubble had burst. Investors, eager for quick returns, grew impatient when breakthroughs didn’t happen overnight. Confidence waned and funding dried up, leaving many promising projects stranded before they could reach their full potential.

Kjesten and her team were no exception. With no financial backing, they found themselves unable to take their product any further.

The final blow came when a similar product, one that Kjesten and her team had already screened and ruled out, was pulled from the market in Canada. Investors, already uneasy, took it as a bad omen. Their cold feet turned into a full retreat, and they withdrew funding for Sention’s product before it could reach phase 3 clinical trials, despite the promising data.

“For me this was a huge learning experience. As a scientist, good data speaks for itself. We had data that pointed to an effective product with minimal side effects. But in the business world, so many other external factors come into play.

“Our company collapsed but we achieved a lot in those seven years. In the end, our projects got acquired by pharmaceutical giant Roche. Clearly the science wasn’t bad.”

“I found myself in a completely new field yet again.”

Through her years building her company from the ground up, Kjesten walked away with an invaluable skillset that few people have: the ability to take a promising discovery in the lab all to the way to the clinic.

Her skills were recognised by Nobel Prize-winning immunologist, Professor Susumu Tonegawa at MIT. Having transitioned to research in neuroscience, Prof Tonegawa was looking for a team to build on his lab findings and ultimately create novel treatments for schizophrenia. Kjesten was a vital part of this team.

Learning from Kjesten’s first experience, the team decided to avoid taking money from capital investors and instead made an international deal with Japanese company, Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. They had $90 million USD and seven years to identify, test and develop promising drug candidates for the treatment of schizophrenia.

Kjesten, now part of a small team of visionaries, set out again to build a company from the ground up, this time named Galenea. Now a seasoned entrepreneur and commercial scientist, Kjesten custom-designed new, fit-for-purpose lab spaces and formed a strategy to build the bridge to take Prof Tonegawa’s discovery from the lab to the clinic. 

Prof Tonegawa’s lab at MIT had identified a genetic mutation associated with schizophrenia. Kjesten established a rigorous drug discovery pipeline to identify promising drug targets related to this mutation, ones that could be tested, advanced through clinical trials and ultimately approved by the FDA.

By the end of the seven years, Kjesten and her team had screened more than 500 thousand compounds, narrowing down, step-by-step, to the most promising candidates.

“By the end we had four star candidates that we transferred to Otsuka to market and deliver in the clinic.”

Part of the agreement with Otsuka allowed Galenea’s staff to dedicate 10% of their time to other research. Kjesten and the team chose to focus that time on investigating working memory, a crucial aspect of cognition that is often impaired in neuropsychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia.

“We started looking at proteins associated with memory impairment. We invented a new screening technology which got acquired by another company called Q-State Pharmaceuticals. It is still there to this day and my old colleagues still work there.”

Kjesten says one of the biggest challenges she faced during this time was balancing her career with raising children. “I always wanted to have kids, and I also value my career deeply,” says Kjesten.

“Finding a way to juggle both was incredibly tough, and I had to work harder than ever to ensure neither suffered, especially to avoid being blamed for any setbacks because of having children. I faced a lot of bias, but I persevered through it.”

With a yearning to return to New Zealand, and now a mum of two, Kjesten was looking or an opportunity to come back home.

That opportunity presented itself when she was asked to work for New Zealand’s Ministry of Innovation, Business and Employment (MBIE) because of her background in “starting and building things”. 

In 2012, she returned home and started a role managing a commercialisation investment portfolio before becoming MBIE’s director of innovative partnerships. Her work contributed to the creation of the New Zealand Space Agency which encouraged the growth of domestic companies like Rocket Lab and positioned New Zealand as the location of choice for the emerging unmanned aviation and aerospace sector.

“I found myself in a completely new field yet again. I’d never worked in government or policy, but I transferred many of the skills I had gained over the years from building companies, partnerships and effective strategies.”

“At the Malaghan, groundbreaking discoveries won’t gather dust in a forgotten storage cupboard, lost to lack of vision.”

Kjesten and her family had just settled into New Zealand when, on 29 November 2019, they received some unexpected and unwelcome news.

Her 17-year-old son, Karl, had found a lump in his hip which turned out to be cancer.

“We looked for any specialised therapies that could help but it was a rare cancer and all we had was intensive chemotherapy,” says Kjesten.

“Karl persevered and remained brave through it all. In the end, the cancer broke through the treatment and Karl passed away in March 2021.”

Kjesten, who had previously been happy in her job at MBIE, now felt a strong pull back to science. She wanted to do something about the disease that had taken the life of her young son and the lives of so many before their time.

“Not days later, Graham Le Gros called to check in on me. It led to a job offer at the Malaghan Institute. It was uncanny timing,” says Kjesten.

“I’d never been one to believe anything outside of what we can prove with experiments and data but receiving that call from Graham felt like there was a higher power at work.”

Looking back on her life, Kjesten never could have predicted where life would take her.

Her childhood was one of constant movement, both literally and figuratively. With a father who was a Presbyterian minister, she grew up moving from town to town across New Zealand and Australia, never staying in one place for long.

“As a child, I dreamed of becoming a ballerina,” she says. “I’d been doing ballet since I was five. But in the end, I chose university instead.”

However, the discipline and perseverance she cultivated through ballet have remained a guiding force in her life to this day.

Over the last three years, Kjesten has worked to build a strategy and vision for the Malaghan Institute. One that encourages global collaboration and paves the way for discoveries in the lab to reach the clinic to improve lives.

“I have had and continue to have mentorship from Graham. With his guidance, the Malaghan Institute has become a world-class biomedical research organisation. I want to continue his great work by cultivating excellence in research and contribute my own expertise in translating research to the clinic.”

Kjesten has already put her expertise into practice as co-director of New Zealand’s RNA Development Platform, where she is leading efforts to build a strong pipeline for identifying and evaluating promising therapeutic candidates. This work is advancing New Zealand’s ability to manufacture RNA vaccines and therapeutics, strengthening the country's capacity in this critical area of biotechnology and enhancing its preparedness for future pandemics.

From cancer to infectious diseases and allergies, the research at the Malaghan Institute shares one mission: to bring better, safer treatments for all.

“This mission starts with fundamental research, the curiosity-driven science that is essential for understanding disease and how to prevent it.”

“I am adamant that at the Malaghan, groundbreaking discoveries won’t gather dust in a forgotten storage cupboard, lost to lack of vision. I want to drive every promising breakthrough forward with purpose, pushing the boundaries of science to turn potential into real treatments that improve the lives of Kiwis.”

“I want our scientists to dream big and strive to maximise the impact of their work. I want every promising discovery to spark a reaction similar to ‘Let’s start a company!’”