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This episode of the Business of Biotech begins with a personal story about my dad and the standard of care in bladder cancer, before shifting to the work that Dr. Bobby Reddy and his team at ImmunityBio are doing to change that standard of care. They're painfully close. Dr. Reddy, Chief Medical Officer at ImmunityBio, gives us a long look behind the curtain at the commercial preparations the company is making as its lead Phase 3 candidate, Anktiva, nears the goal line in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). From grassroots engagement with physicians and urologists to making a global press to share clinical results, Dr. Reddy offers plenty of insight into biopharma commercial readiness, and good reason to hope for nearly a million NMIBC patients in the U.S. alone. 

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Ampersand Biomedicines CEO Jason Gardner, D.Phil. first took the leap from a global pharmaceutical giant to a startup at the forefront of transplant medicine innovation. Since that time, he's seen most of the ups and the downs that come with biotech leadership, and in his latest venture with the Flagship Pioneering-backed Ampersand, he's putting all those hard-fought lessons to good use. On this episode of the Business of Biotech -- the final (finally!) of several recorded at the JPM Healthcare Conference in January -- Gardner shares how and why he's applying his experience to the buildout of a precision medicine platform company, his thoughts on how big data and AI are influencing the precision medicine space and putting the "tech" in "techbio," his company's acquisition strategy, most recently demonstrated by Ampersand's acquisition of AbCheck, why "paranoid optimism" is central to his company's culture, and much, much more. 

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We've really been looking forward to dropping this episode with Karen Harris, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Mission-Related Investing at the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation. While the markets have warmed a bit since we recorded this episode, Karen's thoughtful perspective on the sometimes tumultuous Alzheimer's therapeutics space is valuable to any drug developer working in the cognitive medicines arena. In this episode of the Business of Biotech podcast, we follow Karen's journey from institutional investment banking to the incredibly gratifying work she does now, helping to fund the novel biopharma companies that are working in earnest to solve an emotionally burdensome and expensive problem. Karen shares ADDF's strategy and offers plenty of insight into the value proposition that venture philathropy offers the biotech community. Tune in!

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Few drug discovery and development concepts are as hyped, and as such, draw as much polarity from drug developers, as machine learning and artifical intelligence. One company on the bullish end of the spectrum is Flagship Pioneering's Generate Biomedicines, which bills itself at the "intersection of machine learning, biological engineering, and medicine." To get a grip on the "generative biology" work it's doing and the AI/ML impact it anticipates in the discovery and development of therapeutics, as well as clinical trials, we sat down with veteran biotech builder Mike Nally, CEO at Generate and CEO-Partner at Flagship Pioneering. 

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Gavin Samuels, M.D. found his work as an intensive care physician boring. After earning his M.D., he did that for a few years before moving into intensive care management roles. It wasn't until he left the hospital and entered biopharma that he found his footing, cutting his teeth in business development at places like Merck, Pfizer, Quark Pharma, and Teva. He even headed growth strategy at Lonza for a while. Now, he's Chief Business Officer and General Partner at CinRx Pharma, where a deep pipeline of early- to late-stage candidates keeps him on his dealmaking toes. Within minutes of our conversation, Dr. Sameuls' introspective reflections on biotech dealmaking and negotiations planted this episode firmly on the Business of Biotech podcast highlight reel. 

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Rob Williamson's mind and hands have shaped more than 20 biotech startups, leading some to IPO and landing others firmly in Big Bio through acquisition by companies like Merck. Hanging around as many successful exits as Williamson has seen, one might become expert via osmosis. But Williamson isn't passive about honing his vision for progressive therapeutic dealmaking. He's an active leader, and for this episode of the Business of Biotech, he took a breather from a hectic agenda at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference to share some introspection on the work he's done, the work he's doing at Triumvira with T-cell therapeutics in oncology, the big opportunities in cancer therapeutics, and what's coming next.

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In biotech, when "one of these things doesn't look like the other one," it can be a blessing or a curse. On one hand, scientific novelty is praised and rewarded. On the other, unfamiliarity breeds skepticism from the investment community. Brian Finrow, J.D. embraces that reality and the challenges that come with it. Despite an approach to developing antibodies and other biologics that looks decidedly different--they're developed from spirulina cell lines and, in some cases, designed for oral administration (gasp!)--Lumen Biosciences has won hard-fought funding from some nontraditional sources to continue its mission to democratize biologics. Finrow is Co-Founder & CEO at Lumen, and now a two-time guest of the Business of Biotech. He's a Harvard J.D., but don't hold that against him. He's one of the most approachable and transparent founders we've enjoyed the pleasure of hosting, and he didn't disappoint when we sat down for this talk in San Francisco. 

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Multimodal approaches to the delivery of radiologically active compounds have created a fertile environment to for players in the space to put on a precision medicine clinic, so to speak. What’s more, Radiopharmaceuticals create a unique business opportunity given the closely-related and necessary companion diagnostic arena. On today’s episode of the Business of Biotech, recorded in San Francisco, we sit down with Dr. Mark Hoppin, CEO of Ratio Therapeutics, a company that’s well-positioned in the space with a fresh Series B and the foundation of a tunable radiotherapeutic that Dr. Hoppin says addresses the delivery, safety and efficacy challenges long associated with radiopharmaceuticals in the treatment of solid cancers. We also discuss how this mathemetician-turned biotech CEO has navigated the leadership of boards, employees, and investors on his journey.

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While you might be aware that Sail Biomedicines  was just formed up in Q4 of last year, the product of Flagship Pioneering’s decision to merge Senda Biosciences and Laronde, two of its programmable medicine platform companies. What you likely haven’t heard is the inside story on how the merger was executed, how the two companies are integrating their talent, IP, and resources, and what Sail Biomedicines CEO Dr. Guillaume  Pfefer and team are currently doing to take the fruits of the company’s platform into the clinic.  On this episode  of the Business of Biotech, Dr. Pfefer takes us under the hood of Sail Biomedicines and its mission to marry evolution and AI to develop programmable medicines based on eRNA.

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The concept of programmable biology is fueling a new breed of biotech, one that requires the marriage of computational and traditional science (and both computational and traditional scientists) on the entire journey from discovery to commercial.  Bit.bio is exemplary of this new breed. Its CEO, Dr. Mark Kotter doesn’t pull any punches when addressing the complexity involved in building out the company’s capabilities. At the discovery stage alone, bit.bio has hired – and integrated – stem cell biologists, synthetic biologists, genetic engineering experts, cellular biologists, sequencing experts, data scientists, bioinformatics pros, and machine learning experts. 
On this episode of the Business of Biotech, recorded in San Francisco during JPM Week, we catch up with Dr. Kotter on the work bit.bio is doing, how it’s doing it, and how he and his leadership team are recruiting and retaining a new breed of biotech talent to sustain the effort. Let’s give it a listen. 

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