Diversity in the Biosciences – An Interview With Tia Lyles-Williams, MRSc

Narrator: This is the DarshanTalks Podcast. Regulatory guy, irregular Podcast, with host Darshan Kulkarni. You can find the show on Twitter @darshantalks or the show's website at darshantalks.com. Darshan: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of DarshanTalks. We have Tia Lyles-Williams, who is an entrepreneur extraordinaire. And, I'm really excited to have her, because we're going to have some really interesting conversations. We discussed a few different topics, and we started off with, what should we talk about... The rise of companies in the Philadelphia area, and the change in biotech. We think that's a really interesting topic to talk about. But then we started talking a little bit about queer communities, and we started talking about the importance of representation. We started talking about diversity. And Tia and I land up talking a little bit about what all of this means, and how do you get people to have the right conversations and to show what's possible. Tia was great, she was open to having these conversations. So Tia, before we launch in, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tia: All right. So Tia Lyles-Williams, Founder and CEO of LucasPye BIO, as well as our sister company called HelaPlex. And then, I have an overarching financial holding company called Goffman Bogart. I say that all in one. So when you see that stuff in my LinkedIn profile, you don't think I started a whole bunch of companies. They're all related. Born in Gary, Indiana raised in Houston, Texas for a majority of my life. By the time I did high school, we had moved to Atlanta, Georgia, specifically the suburb, Marietta. I graduated from Wheeler High School. And then, from there, it didn't take too long, I was on my way to Howard, right after I graduated, that following August. Did my four year degree in Biology at Howard University. At the same time, I had an internship with the Howard University Cancer Center. I was always doing something. I also did some type of a Spring break. I did something where it was like a med... What do you call it?... doing the rounds with the medical students, so I got to solve surgeries, whole lot of surgeries. And then also I had an internship at NIH and at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, out in Silver Spring in the naval base, so I've been around a little bit.And then I took my first corporate job outside of a lab setting of those at Human Genome Sciences in Rockville, Maryland. That is now called GSK. I got sick, took a year off. When I got better... When I took the year off, I moved to Atlanta to stay with my parents for a year. It was a year on the nose. I had been living out of my parents' house all those years. it was very difficult in my, what was it, at mid twenties, I think at like 24, 25 to be going to live with my parents. A year on the nose. Once the doctor gave me the green light, I followed my friends to the LA area and I was out there for around seven to eight years. And I ended up working for Amgen, Baxter. And Avid Bioservices. That was my first CDMO. And then from there, I took a job in New Hampshire for a year. We'll get to that topic, as we talk about diversity and laws of biotech and pharma. And then from there, I took my last job as an employee or contractor with Jazz Pharmaceuticals, prior to starting LucasPye BIO. That's where we at nearly, I think it's 20 years this year, I've been in this game from benchtop to also recruiting patients for clinical trials, developing drug processes for the big manufacturing facilities and actually performing them and leading the team. And then also being a gatekeeper on the other side, as a customer with Jazz Pharmaceuticals. To decide which CDMO we wanted to work with and why.