Business Of Biotech

Jonathan Behr, MIT Ph.D. in biological engineering turned venture capitalist, discusses dementia funding, biotech corporate finance, & entrepreneurship. Highlights include strategic investments in dementia research, diversification in funding modalities, challenges in developing disease-modifying drugs, and the importance of a translational mindset in the biotech industry.

Ken Keller, Senior Executive at Daiichi Sankyo, shares the story of Daiichi Sankyo's leap into oncology with ADCs. He discusses the evolution of the ADC market, challenges faced in the transition, scaling a global oncology team, navigating internal challenges, embracing innovation, addressing employee resistance to change, and revolutionizing cancer treatment with ADCs.

Dr. Brian Fiske of Mythic Therapeutics shares his journey transitioning from academia to biotech industry. They discuss developing ADCs for lung cancer, challenges in funding, and strategic planning. The podcast explores Mythic's unique approach in the ADC space and navigating the competitive biotech industry.

Dr. Jason Bock, CEO of CTMC, challenges the CDMO classification for his company. He shares CTMC's mission to aid early clinical-stage firms like KSQ Therapeutics enter their clinical stage successfully. The podcast explores the collaboration between CTMC and KSQ, discussing the challenges and innovations in cell therapy development, experienced groups in the Tills industry uniting, cultural alignment and technical collaborations in biotech partnerships, the power of aligned incentives in collaborations, and excitement in advancing clinical data sets and cell therapies.

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. Back by popular demand, biopharma industry opinionator extraordinaire Allan Shaw rejoins the Business of Biotech to expose the murky role Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) play in the last, costly mile of the drug distribution supply chain. Allan pulls no punches in his criticism of the current rebate structure and shares why the model leaves patients and manufacturers stuck with the spiraling tab. He also explains why an election year, all-time lows in public perception of the pharmaceutical industry, and inflation might create the perfect storm for real change. More than a gripe session, Allan offers up advice for biotech leaders entering the fray, shares his own ideas for systemic reform that would reward patients, not PBMs, and waxes on what, and who, it might take to change the broken paradigm.  Access this and hundreds of episodes of the Business of Biotech videocast under the Business of Biotech tab at lifescienceleader.com. Subscribe to our monthly Business of Biotech newsletter. Get in touch with guest and topic suggestions: ben.comer@lifescienceleader.comFind Ben Comer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencomer/

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. From San Francisco’s Silicon Valley to Tel Aviv’s Silicon Wadi, software business entrepreneur Yochi Slonim made a name for himself in global tech hubs around the globe. Notably, he was co-founder of billion-dollar Mercury Interactive, which HP acquired for $4.5 billion, and previous to that a leader at Tecnomatix, which sold to UGS and was acquired by Siemens. Those big deals that came on the heels of several other Yochi Slonim software startups.  But Slonim's not in software development anymore. Not for the software industry, anyway. He's now leveraging his tech chops to develop something with far more potential impact: drugs. On this epsiode of the Business of Biotech, we'll learn about his foray into biopharmaceuticals with Anima Biotech, a company he’s been building for the past ten years and which boasts pipeline partnerships with heavyweights Abbvie, Takeda, and Lilly. Access this and hundreds of episodes of the Business of Biotech videocast under the Business of Biotech tab at lifescienceleader.com. Subscribe to our monthly Business of Biotech newsletter. Get in touch with guest and topic suggestions: ben.comer@lifescienceleader.comFind Ben Comer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencomer/

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. As if Orna Therapeutics' CEO Thomas Barnes, CEO isn't a enough to draw you in to the Business of Biotech, we teamed up with Advancing RNA Editorial & Community Director Anna Rose Welch to co-host this week's episode. Together, Anna Rose and I press Dr. Barnes on his transition from academia to biotech, the therapeutic proposition of circular, or "O" RNA and why it holds great potential to best linear RNA constructs, the novel, platform- and partnership-based approaches Orna is taking to address B-cell lymphomas and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, viral vector and lipid nanoparticle complexity, and a whole lot more.Access this and hundreds of episodes of the Business of Biotech videocast under the Business of Biotech tab at lifescienceleader.com. Subscribe to our monthly Business of Biotech newsletter. Get in touch with guest and topic suggestions: ben.comer@lifescienceleader.comFind Ben Comer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencomer/

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. Novel technologies aren’t interesting to Rahul Kakkar, M.D. unless they help patients. Sounds rational, but it’s actually a unique perspective in a platform-crazed biotech industry. Dr. Kakkar’s worldview is shaped by his work as a physician—work he continues at Brigham and Women’s Hospital even as he builds Tome Biosciences, where he serves as President & CEO. Tome, which is developing programmable genomic integration technology, is the latest of Dr. Kakkar’s entrepreneurial efforts—he previously led Pandion Therapeutics to a $1.85B acquisition by Merck and Cordivia to a $2.1B acquisition by Novo Nordisk. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Dr. Kakkar shares why he took on the brainchild of two MIT scientists under his wing, the nascent inflection point for gene editing therapy, how his work as a physician informs his biotech leadership, biopharma’s bad rap, and a whole lot more. Access this and hundreds of episodes of the Business of Biotech videocast under the Business of Biotech tab at lifescienceleader.com. Subscribe to our monthly Business of Biotech newsletter. Get in touch with guest and topic suggestions: ben.comer@lifescienceleader.comFind Ben Comer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencomer/

Dr. Bobby Reddy, CMO at ImmunityBio, discusses the company's innovations in changing bladder cancer treatment standards, commercial readiness for Anktiva, physician engagement strategies, and global press outreach. The episode covers advancements in cancer therapy, regulatory team building, strategic drug production, and breakthroughs in cell-based therapies. It also explores challenges in biotech organization, collaborative efforts, and advice for aspiring CMOs.

Jason Gardner, CEO of Ampersand Biomedicines, discusses applying his biotech leadership experience to precision medicine, big data, AI, and company culture. He shares insights on the acquisition strategy, revolutionary drug delivery technology, navigating capital markets, and balancing paranoia with optimism as a CEO.