Local and Global Impact

Incyte’s work changes the practice of medicine, and the Delaware community

BY ANDREW SHARP | PHOTOS BY NICK WALLACE PHOTOGRAPHY

WITH THE OLD SHOPPING DESTINATION on Augustine Cut Off long closed, passing drivers likely don’t give the building complex much thought as they navigate rush hour traffic and make their way on and off I-95. But in the former Wanamaker’s Department Store up the hill from Brandywine Park, overlooking downtown Wilmington, world-class scientists are busy in labs testing future treatments for cancer and other diseases.

These teams of chemists and biologists at biopharmaceutical company Incyte are dreaming up compounds the world has never seen that may someday change lives.

“They’re creating new chemical structures that did not previously exist in nature with the goal of improving the lives of patients,” says Incyte Chairman and CEO Hervé Hoppenot.

This transformative work is painstaking, requiring an enormous investment of money, and years. But it pays off.

“When we are successful in bringing that new, first-in-class product across the finish line, the practice of medicine is transformed everywhere in the world for the patients it treats,” Hoppenot says.

Since its founding in 2002, Incyte has grown from 23 research scientists to a company of more than 2,400 employees, most of them based right here in Delaware. In that couple of decades, this company’s focus on cancer and autoimmune treatments has successfully brought multiple drugs to market, including Jakafi (for certain types of blood cancer); Opzelura (for atopic dermatitis, the most common form of eczema, and vitiligo, an autoimmune disease that causes discoloration of the skin); Pemazyre (cholangiocarcinoma or bile duct cancer); Monjuvi (certain kinds of lymphatic cancer); Olumiant (rheumatoid arthritis and alopecia areata, a disease causing patchy hair loss); and more. Incyte isn’t finished, with 146 clinical trials currently underway in countries around the world.

The company’s success has brought rapid expansion, with a more than five-fold increase in revenue from $511 million in 2014 to $3.4 billion in 2022. While still headquartered here, it also has operations in Europe and Asia.

Step inside the company’s Wilmington labs, and you can still ride the escalators from the department store days. But nostalgic shoppers wouldn’t recognize much else. Labs stocked with chemistry glassware and machines for molecular analysis have replaced displays of houseware, clothing and jewelry. Scientists inside the rooms are dreaming up and testing compounds to specifically target diseases, carefully scrutinizing the results, and running them through various biological tests to gauge their potential impact.

The company’s success has brought rapid expansion, with a more than five-fold increase in revenue from $511 million in 2014 to $3.4 billion in 2022.

The process is enormously complex. It’s not as simple as finding a formula that will bind with a target in a cell, says David Burns, senior principal investigator, chemistry. “The other side of that coin is what is the body doing to the drug? So that’s absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, toxicity, all those types of things.”

A substance that the body quickly finds and filters out, for example, won’t be useful as a drug. It’s a dance between a medicine’s molecular structure and a body’s impact on that design.

That dance faces significant challenges and barriers.

One is finding the right workers. For these highly technical jobs, Incyte needs to recruit graduates with years of specialized education. More than 600 of its employees — over a quarter — have doctorate degrees. Even many of the patent attorneys who work to protect the discoveries have doctorates in chemistry, notes Scott Larsen, vice president of intellectual property. It’s the reverse of a brain drain, a sort of brain conglomerate in Delaware’s largest city.

These are not the kind of employees you can find with a casual ad on a jobs website. Once Incyte lands them, though, many stay long term. The majority of the founding scientists, for example, are still with the company, says Catalina Loveman, executive director of global communications for Incyte.

Beyond building a workforce, the equipment isn’t cheap. If you get the chance to take a tour, make sure you don’t trip and break something – equipment can cost tens of thousands of dollars all the way up to several million. Even the patent application process for a family of chemicals can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Larsen notes.

A third challenge, perhaps the most daunting, is that the process of taking a drug from concept to an FDA approved drug on pharmacy shelves can take years, as scientists work through tens of thousands of molecular dead ends then refine and test the product.

“People spend years of their life working on projects, some of which succeed and become an approved medicine, and some that don’t,” Hoppenot says.

It may take five years or more, and 10,000-plus compounds to finally identify a molecule promising enough to move into clinical testing, Burns estimates, and of course only some survive that stage. In total a drug might require more than 10 years and up to a couple billion dollars in investment, he says.

“You need to be resilient as a scientist working in this business,” Burns says.

“It’s a long game,” Hoppenot says.

Incyte also makes a point of not ruling out investing in drugs for rare diseases, even though the market may be limited.

In one case, only around 100 known patients in the U.S. were suffering from a certain disease. But, Hoppenot points out, that means 100 families can benefit from the drug. “I’ve always pushed for following the science regardless of the numbers.”

It’s also the right thing to do, he says. “We are very proud to bring innovations forward, even if it’s for a small number of patients.”

To grow its portfolio of drugs, Incyte pours a sizable proportion— almost half its revenue—into research and development, which is why it needs so many scientists.

“Innovation is the only thing that matters for our business model,” Hoppenot says. Incyte focuses on products completely different from others on the market. “It takes a sense of adventure, because the only way to be different from what everybody else is doing is to go into science that has not been fully understood yet.”

To make all this work, Hoppenot is focused on keeping Incyte nimble even as it grows beyond a small company. He’s well aware of the challenge in keeping an increasingly large company from becoming overly bureaucratic, and emphasizes a streamlined, horizontal structure, so “people don’t have to go to 15 committees before a decision can be made.”

Having most of the staff based in Wilmington helps. They can drop into each other’s workspace if they have a question, or brainstorm ideas when they meet in the halls.

“We’ve definitely built a culture of true teamwork,” Burns says, noting that scientists know they are a key part of the process and take pride in putting their fingerprints on a successful project.

That excitement of pioneering a new drug is part of the payoff that makes the many challenges and obstacles worthwhile.

“It’s about participating in an adventure that sometimes makes a gigantic impact on someone’s life,” Hoppenot says.

Beyond creating life-changing pharmaceuticals, Incyte also makes a point of giving back directly to the local community. Hoppenot feels strongly that the financial barriers to getting cancer treatment can be too high, and the company has a charitable foundation to help cancer patients in Delaware.

“We are trying to (help) fill the gap,” he says.

Innovation is the only thing that matters for our business model. It takes a sense of adventure, because the only way to be different from what everybody else is doing is to .go into science that has not been fully understood yet.

The financial burden can be extraordinary for patients, says Nicole Topkis Pickles, executive director of Cancer Support Community Delaware. The nonprofit supports cancer patients statewide, and Incyte funds their program for patients struggling with their finances.

“We are able to support the mortgages, the rent, the electricity, the co-pays that the cancer patients have a hard time paying during their treatment,” Topkis Pickles says, adding, “It’s an amazing program … they’ve changed a lot of people’s lives.”

Incyte employees also pitch in volunteer time. For example, in November a group of scientists gathered at a home where CSCD provides services and decorated it for the holidays.

“They’re wonderful to work with,” Topkis Pickles says of the company.

Incyte supports other organizations as well, with its charitable foundation donating more than $900,000 to a number of Delaware causes in 2022 alone.

For Burns, one of the most satisfying parts of working at Incyte is hearing the patient stories.

“Whether they have kids, and they have a husband or a wife, friends, co-workers, you’re affecting all of those lives, and so it’s kind of a domino effect.”