The Long Run with Luke Timmerman Ep190: Neil Kumar on Building a Rare Disease Drug Company
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Nov 20, 2025 Neil Kumar, the visionary Founder and CEO of BridgeBio Pharma, dives into the complexities of developing drugs for rare diseases. He shares insights on the unique challenges of venture funding in this space and explains BridgeBio's innovative hub-and-spoke model that optimizes asset selection and team focus. Neil reflects on the lessons learned from his journey, including the significance of a patient-driven approach and adapting to setbacks. Above all, he emphasizes the importance of a diverse portfolio to balance risks while nurturing groundbreaking therapies.
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Diversified Hub Model Lowers Risk
- BridgeBio packaged non-platform rare-disease assets into a diversified portfolio to improve investor risk-reward.
- Centralizing operations and picking high-probability genetic targets made that model viable.
Centralize Ops, Decentralize Science
- Build a centralized infrastructure to variabilize fixed costs across programs and redeploy resources efficiently.
- Keep focused, disease-specific teams for biology while sharing generic R&D and operations centrally.
Mendelian Targets Reduce Correlated Risk
- Mendelian targets provide low biological correlation across programs, enabling effective diversification.
- That low correlation attracted nontraditional investors and debt financing into biotech.