Many of us grew up with the scent of Johnson's Baby Powder as one of our earliest memories. Trusted by moms since 1894, the product has built an extraordinary trusted brand (rooted in deep scent associations with motherly love) for one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, Johnson and Johnson.

But in 2018 Reuters published an investigation showing J&J had known for decades that its talc-based powder contained asbestos. Imagine a corporate culture so corrupted that it not only kept shipping a carcinogenic mother/baby product and even refused to adopt a safe alternative ingredient (corn starch).

All this - and much, much more - is covered in the powerful new The New York Times best seller "No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson". by my friend Gardiner Harris. Gardner is a former healthcare and political reporter for the NYT and WSJ, so it's no surprise I that Gardiner uncovered that the baby powder catastrophe wasn't an isolated incident - J&J has time and time again shipped products that have killed customers ranging from drugs for cancer patients that gave them more cancer, to opioids far more damaging than those shipped by the (far less PR savvy) Sackler family.

It was amazing to have the opportunity to talk NGS with Matt Sause, the CEO of Roche Diagnostics, the world's largest clinical diagnostics provider with $17B in sales. Matt's businesses range across the full spectrum of DX products and services from diabetes CGM to Foundation Medicine oncology testing.

It was also great to find Josh Lauer on the call! Josh heads up the $4B (ie about the same size as Illumina) Molecular Diagnostics division, home to Roche's new SBX NGS technology. Josh came to Roche from Ultima Genomics, so he's very plugged in to the NGS ecosystem.

Pierre Arsene, CEO of liquid biopsy company Mursla Bio

I talked with Molly He and Michael Previte, founders at Element Biosciences, the day after Illumina announced it was suing Element for patent infringement. Definitely was top of mind for them, but not of course something they could opine on directly. Nevertheless provided very interesting context for the conversation, and proof in my opinion of their disruptive impact on the life science industry. They certainly didn't seem to be the least bit intimidated 🤔

A great weekend listen!

Some key points:

- Their goal was not just to challenge incumbents (e.g., Illumina) but to fundamentally expand what sequencing and associated instruments can do. Mike characterized Aviti as akin to Monty Python's "Trojan Rabbit": a known entry point with NGS, then expanding usage into broader biological insights.

- Element's global revenue mix (over half from outside the US) and substantial industry client base insulate them from NIH budget cuts and US market shocks.

- Operations: Developed a resilient supply chain (mostly US-based suppliers; multiple vendors for critical parts) to shield company from tariff and supply chain risks.

- Emphasize that biology is highly context-dependent—just sequencing the genome is like reading a dictionary without understanding the story. Element focuses on enabling multi-omic analysis (DNA, RNA, spatial, etc.) from the same sample, aiming for richer, more actionable insights.

- Insist that successful future models (e.g., AI/ML for drug discovery) require diverse, unique, and integrated data—not just more of the same data.

- Express concern about declining NIH and public research funding, warning of long-term risks to innovation and US leadership. Affirm that cuts cause near-term paralysis (“deer in the headlights” effect for researchers) and pose incalculable long-term harm.

- Suggest that new computational and AI capabilities are finally enabling the shift from sequence-obsessed biology to holistic understanding. Reiterated need for “digital twins” of cells—capturing all relevant modalities, not just DNA sequence.

- Despite litigation, funding uncertainty, and market upheaval, Element leadership remains optimistic and driven by curiosity. They champion “smart science”: maximizing impact per resource, maintaining transparency and trust with users, and powering discovery through accessible, integrated tools.

DNA sequencing swept the world in two waves: first of all Sanger sequencing, developed in the '70s and the underpinning of the 2000's Human Genome Project, and then NGS which drove the cost of a human genome sequence from billions to thousand of dollars from 2006 onwards.Echoing that history, protein sequencing is now in its first innings, dominated by technologies that provide proteomic fingerprints but not the de novo sequencing that makes NGS the powerful tool it is.So it was a real privilege to sit this week with my two brilliant friends Michael Graige and Chris MacDonald and talk about the basics of proteomics, and how their stealthy company Abrus Bio is competing in the race to Next Generation Proteomics, NGP.There are so many things I like about this company!- Michael and Chris learned their craft way back at Illumina so they're all about building not bullshitting.- They use off-the-shelf NGS as their readout mechanism, making their product simply (🤣) an amino-acid-to-DNA reactor with a razor/razorblade business model- They treat DNA as bits, and so can tag both the amino acid sequences and post translational modifications with barcodes and read those post NGS in the bioinformatics.Anyway, this is a great conversation whether you're interested in learning the basics of proteomics (why it's hard, why it's 'uuuge) or the details of Abrus' approach. Take a listen!

Geonomics Podcast Newsbreak!

A 15 minute interview with Ultima Genomics CEO Gilad Almogy on why the hell he's giving away 3 Trillion free sequencing reads 🤯🤯🤯

The program is called "Count on Us" (get it? 🤣) and I we talk about:

- Motivation was initiated in response to the current uncertainties in NIH funding. Recognizing the stress and potential budget freezes faced by researchers, Ultima aims to support the scientific community.

- Strategically the initiative serves to increase exposure to Ultima’s sequencing technology. By offering free sequencing reads, the company hopes researchers will experience the platform’s benefits, potentially leading to sustained purchasing.

- While most of the sequencing will occur at Ultima’s Bay Area facility, some projects will be handled by partner service providers.

We talked about the impact the NIH cuts may have on the eternal NGS dilemma of labs insourcing vs outsourcing their sequencing. We finished up with Gilad challenging other NGS vendors to give way their sequencing for free too. FREE NGS, FREE NGS, FREE NGS 😀😀😀

NGP - next generation proteomics - with Abrus founders Michael Graige and Chris Macdonald

Excited to announce a new episode of the Geonomics Podcast: part 2 of my interview with the fabulous Susan Tousi, CEO of DELFI Diagnostics.

In this episode we discuss her unique career path starting out as a Penn State engineering grad then leading Eastman Kodak Company's printer business to leading Illumina's R&D and then commercial units and now CEO of Delfi.

Susan deep-dives on her current role at Defi, a company focused on whole genome sequencing for cancer detection: Delfi's first test targets lung cancer, the deadliest cancer with low screening rates. Susan explains the importance of early detection in improving survival rates (Delfi has a 75% stage I sensitivity👏👏👏). She also tells us about Delfi's plans to expand the use of their technology into other cancers and monitoring applications.

We round out the interview with Susan sharing her personal experience as a woman in the male-dominated life science industry, encouraging women to have confidence in their abilities and to pursue leadership roles:

"I was worried about not having done a startup in a while or being a first-time CEO, but I realized I had the fundamentals to be successful. So, don't doubt yourself. If you feel you have the fundamentals, go for it."

"In the early days at Illumina, there weren't many women in leadership roles. One of my colleagues texted me, "Apparently, the future of sequencing takes 30 men and one woman." I hadn't noticed it until then, but it was true."

Early this week I got to sit with Element Biosciences founders Molly He (CEO) and Michael Previte (CTO) in their comically big board room and we had a great in-depth conversation about their careers and building Element.

All up a fantastic discussion and in my humble 😏 opinion an entire MBA packed into one hour of easy listening!

1. How the hell did you two get here?

- Molly’s personality: competitive sprinting, love of travel and risk-taking, proteomics obsession

- Mike’s early work in cancer research, multi-drug resistance, and developing a deep interest in the complexity of biology

2. The Elemental Elements of Element

- How Molly, Mike, and Matt  met (Illumina, PacBio, Foresight Capital)

- Fundamental motivation: do “smart science” 

- Early challenges in getting the chemistry to work in a moldy lab

3. Flashback: the PacBio and Illumina Years

- PacBio’s single-molecule real-time sequencing: the need to engineer polymerases for precise optical detection

- Illumina’s ecosystem building and how crucial sample prep, workflows, and system-level thinking are for success 

4. Oof: Competing with Illumina

- The need for brand-building and overcoming customer risk aversion (“no one gets fired for buying IBM”)

- Tactics like running customer samples internally to show quality and reliability

5. Differentiating Technology & Vision

- Element’s approach to “smart science” rather than purely high-throughput sequencing data generation

- Building a sequencing system with the ability to capture broader multiomic information (protein engineering, optical methods)

- Emphasis on simultaneous/spontaneous multiomics readouts (DNA, RNA, proteins) from the same samples on the same machine

6. Market Dynamics and Customer Adoption

- Compatibility with Illumina workflows (sample prep, data output) to reduce switching costs

- The impact of new entrants (e.g., Ultima Genomics, Roche and potential market fragmentation around different core competencies

7. Looking Ahead: Multiomics & Precision Medicine

- The need for deeper, integrated biological assays to tackle chronic diseases such as diabetes

- Limitations of only knowing gene sequences without functional data (RNA expression, protein profiles, morphology)

- Long-term goal to move beyond being “just” a sequencer company and enable more holistic, comprehensive biology insights

8. Reflections on Entrepreneurship & Innovation

- “Naivety” (or “delusion”) as both a necessity and a driver of ambition for founders

- The balance between taking big risks and being prepared with strong science/engineering fundamentals

- Continued commitment to building a powerful platform that can adapt to future breakthroughs in life science research

For this episode of the Geonomics Podcast I had the opportunity to interview Gilad Almogy, CEO of Ultima Genomics. Ultima has been making big waves in the NGS market by aggressively pushing down the cost curve, most recently announcing an $80 price point at AGBT. Here's what we talked about:

1. Ultima's Technology and Cost Advantages – Whether a competitor, customer, or analyst, suggest you listen to this - I doubt you'll find a deeper dive anywhere on Ultima COGS.

2. Market Impact and Elasticity – NGS prices have dropped massively in the last few years, but volume is only going up proportionally, leaving growth flat. The discussion highlights how price reductions in sequencing can drive market expansion, similar to Moore’s Law in semiconductors. 

3. AI and Large-Scale Genomic Data – The conversation explores how AI-driven drug discovery and diagnostics require massive genomic datasets. Ultima is involved in large-scale projects, such as sequencing a billion cells for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the UK Biobank proteome project, which could enable foundational AI models for biology. 

4. Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) and Whole Genome Sequencing – We discussed how Ultima’s high-accuracy sequencing (PPM-Seq) is ideally suited to MRD applications. Gilad proposed that a new model is emerging for developing the next generation of tests: companies (e.g. Natera) that are doing high volumes of reimbursed MRD are also generating large data sets that can be used to generate next-gen tests like MCED. 

5. Comparison with Roche’s Sequencing Technology – The discussion touches on Roche’s new sequencing platform, noting its advantages and limitations. Gilad highlights how Ultima benefits from advances in camera technology, allowing for continuous improvements in sequencing efficiency.

6. Conclusion - I promised to come visit Ultima on the way up the west coast to Alaska.