How Jan Skvar­ka and Tril­li­um went from down and out to buy­out with Pfiz­er

How do you pull off one of the most lu­cra­tive biotech turn­arounds in his­to­ry?

You be­gin, it seems, by call­ing up the chief busi­ness of­fi­cer of a Big Phar­ma sit­ting be­neath a $30 bil­lion-plus wind­fall and ask­ing if he might want to get in on a mod­est in­vest­ment in an up-and-com­ing com­pa­ny.

At least that’s what Tril­li­um CEO Jan Skvar­ka asked Pfiz­er glob­al busi­ness vice pres­i­dent John DeY­oung in ear­ly sum­mer 2021. Tril­li­um was val­ued at a cou­ple of shades un­der $1 bil­lion at the time, an as­tro­nom­i­cal val­u­a­tion from the pen­ny stock mire it sat at when Skvar­ka ar­rived in Oc­to­ber 2019.

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