Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy Dinakar Singh - A Father’s Call To Action - [Invest Like the Best, EP.428]
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Jun 15, 2025 
Dinakar Singh, founder and CEO of Axon, shares a heartfelt journey marked by his child's battle with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). He explores the emotional and financial motivations behind his commitment to developing life-saving drugs. Discussing the challenges of gene therapy and the pressing need for innovative treatments, he highlights grassroots efforts and collaboration in the biotech industry. Singh emphasizes the importance of community support and reforms to improve access to essential medications for families facing rare diseases.
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Origin of TPG Axon Mission
- Dinakar Singh shares how his daughter's SMA diagnosis motivated him to start TPG Axon, a firm named after the nerve connecting brain and muscle.
- He combined his investing career with a mission to accelerate drug development to save her life.
Wide Therapeutic Window Advantage
- The therapeutic window for SMA protein is unusually wide, meaning it's hard to overdose and cause toxicity.
- This makes developing treatments easier, as safety concerns are lower.
Free Models Expedite SMA Drug Discovery
- Dinakar's team set up free mouse and cell models to test drugs globally, incentivizing companies without IP claims.
- This led to discovering several SMA drugs, including the gene therapy bought by Novartis for $8B.