Try something new.
That’s Susanne Clay’s motto, and it’s what inspired the Minnesota entrepreneur to leave the world of finance and multi-million-dollar deals at the peak of her career to make a long-lasting impact in the world.
In 2000, while employed in Cargill’s research department, Clay had an epiphany: Some of the same ingredients being used in the food products Cargill was working with could also be used for medical treatments that would benefit people in another way.
“If I’m gonna work my tail off, I want to do something that’s really meaningful,” says Clay, who has an educational background in marketing and finance. While Cargill’s clients were using a specific type of sugar in some of their products, she knew the same type of sugar could also be put to use in the biosciences industry—and that knowledge was enough to shift her focus and her career, to try something new.
“I would much rather figure out a way to get [drugs] over to third-world countries so they can get the medication they need or be able to preserve skin for grafting on burn victims,” she says. “I knew I wanted to put my efforts in something that had a much more direct and meaningful impact.”
So Clay quit her job at Cargill with a desire to work at a small biosciences startup. Five months later, she was hired on at Neuromics, where she helped the fledgling neurosciences genomics company identify revenue-generating opportunities by providing research tools to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
By the time Neuromics closed its doors in 2002, Clay had found her calling. In 2003, she began a quest to raise $2 million to found her own company focused on research that would help treat pain.
Algos Therapeutics officially opened for business in November 2003, began generating revenue in early 2004, and has been profitable since 2005.
The St. Paul-based company has acquired contracts with more than 50 of the world’s leading pharmaceutical research organizations, done business with clients in six countries, and produced more than 250 studies that have generated more than $7 million in revenue since its inception.
The company’s 12 employees study all types of pain—everything from chronic pain like osteoarthritis to post-surgical pain and hypersensitivity.
Because the process of getting prescription drugs from the research stage to the final approval stage typically takes more than a decade, and Algos still is relatively young, it’s too early to tell how many proven pain treatments Algos has helped to create. But if the large and growing clientele is any indication, the company’s accomplishments to date are no small feat.
In 2003, Governor Tim Pawlenty added a feather to Clay’s cap when he appointed her to the Minnesota Biosciences Council—a group that advised the governor and state Legislature on biosciences policy.
“We have a good grassroots support group in the community,” she says. “I would like to see the state continue to be proactive in supporting the environment for small companies to be able to spawn successfully.”
