Between the Biotech Waves: Recent Episodes
Nessan Bermingham PhD
Between the Biotech Waves—discussing recent developments and market dynamics impacting the biotech sector.
Welcome back to Between the Biotech Waves. I am sorry for the lack of episodes over the past few months, unfortunately life threw me a curve ball that I have been taking care of but now back and ready to go!
Today it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mike Curtis, President and CEO of eGenesis. You may recall seeing eGenesis on the front cover of the New York Times recently following the first successful xenotransplantation of a genetically modified porcine kidney. This followed years of work within eGenesis to develop porcine donors for human tissue transplant.
Mike has a 25 year plus history in biotech from Infinity to Cadent where he played a critical role in the merger of Ataxion Therapeutics with Luc to Catabasis where he led product development and regulatory affairs to his current role as CEO and President at eGenesis. Mike earned his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University.
His story is fascinating. Please join me in welcoming Mike Curtis.
Today we have an unusual (& long) podcast where we talk to key members of the Triplet Therapeutics management team. Triplet was founded to develop antisense oligonucleotides targeting the DNA damage response pathway that has been implicated in driving repeat disorders including Huntington's disease - the lead indication for Triplet. The team discusses the challenges in building the company and what ultimately led to it's demise.
Today we are talking to Barry Green, CEO of Sage Therapeutics. Barry has had an amazing career spanning over 30 years in the biotech industry. Prior to Sage Barry was President of Alnylam shepherding it with John through its evolution from basic science through commercial product launch. Prior to ALNY Barry was general manager of Oncology at Millennium where he was directly involved in the approval and launch of Velcade. He is currently a member of the board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Today we are talking to Rachel Meyers. Rachel was most recently the CSO of Faze Medicines a company she launched with TRV to focus on the regulation of biomolecular condensates to treat disease. Prior to Faze she was an EIR at TRV prior to which she spent nearly 2 decades at Alnylam. I have had the pleasure of working with Rachel getting an appreciation not only of her as a scientist, entrepreneur and operator but also her pure love of science, focus on company culture and her passion for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Today we are talking to Aofie Brennan, president and CEO of Synlogic. Aoife was trained as a doctor at Trinity College Dublin following which she moved to the US. After completing her postdoctoral research at Beth Israel Aofie joined TolerX focused on developing autoimmune therapies for type I diabetes. Following which Aoife spent 6 years at Biogen ultimately becoming head of Rare Disease Innovation, she was involved in the development of Spinraza, Alprolix and Eloctate. Aoife moved from Biogen to Synlogic where she initially took the CMO role ultimately being elected as CEO and President of the company. She has led Synlogic since 2018. Beyond Synlogic Aoife is on the BoD of Cerevance and Fibrogen having also served on the board of RA Pharma through its acquisition by UCB.
We discuss Aoife’s career trajectory, her experiences at Biogen and decision to join Synlogic. Navigating the failure of their lead program in 2020 as a public company and building a deep pipeline today. In addition we discuss diversity and inclusion in our biotech industry today and ways this could be more impactful.
Please join me in welcoming Aoife.
Today we are talking to Drew Weissman. Drew is the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at Perelman School of Medicine and Director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania. Drew has spent his career working on RNA biology and vaccine development. He, along with his colleague Katalin Kariko, have been pivotal in the development of mRNA vaccines most notably the COVID-19 vaccines developed by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna.
Drew received his MD/PhD from Boston University in 1987, following which he did a residency at Beth Israel and followship at the NIH under Anthony Fauci. He has received numerous awards including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award and Rosenstiel Award.
Today we discuss Drew’s career trajectory, mRNA biology and vaccine development.
Today we are talking to Rodolphe Barrangou. Rodolphe is the Todd R Klaenhammer Distinguished Professor at NC State University. He is a scientist entrepreneur who has co-founded a multitude of biotech companies around CRISPR based approaches including CRISPR Biotechnologies, Ancilia Biosciences, TreeCo and Intellia Therapeutics. He is one of the pioneers in CRISPR-Cas9 dating back to his time as R&D director of genomics at DuPont. In 2007 Rodolphe was the lead author on a Science paper demonstrating proof of the immune function of CRISPR in bacteria.
I am delighted to welcome back Jim Birchenough to Between the Biotech Waves. Jim is Vice Chair Wells Fargo Biopharmaceutical Investment Banking. In 2022 Jim joined the podcast to discuss the market dynamics and learnings from prior market corrections. I am welcoming him back to take stock of where we are, what the bright spots in 2022 were and crystal ball gaze into ’23. What should be watching for as the start of the year unfolds.
I am delighted to welcome back John Hoffman to Between the Biotech Waves. John is managing director & head of healthcare equity capital markets at Credit Suisse. In mid 2022 John joined the podcast to discuss the market outlook for ’22 and many of his predictions were spot on. It was also one of the most downloaded podcasts of the year. I am welcoming him back to review ’22, lessons learned and crystal ball gaze into ’23. What are we seeing overall in the capital markets, is M&A now on the horizon and what should pre-IPO companies be thinking about.
Today we are talking to Jeremy Levin. Jeremy is chairman and CEO of Ovid Therapeutics, focused on rare and orphan disease of the CNS. He is the immediate past chair of BIO.
Jeremy has a storied career in biotech having served as president and CEO of Teva Pharmaceutica’s, a member of the exec committee of BMS where he had global responsibilities for strategy, alliances and transactions. There he devised the “String of Pearls” BD strategy which led to the acquisition of Medarex and opened the path to the successful development of the first i-onc drugs. Prior to BMS Jeremy was head of global BD and strategic alliances at Novartis. In his spare time, amazing he has any, he runs a successful Black Angus farm from which, as I understand it, many biotech CEOs get their steaks!
Today we are talking to Laksh Aithani, Co-founder and CEO of Charm Therapeutics. Laksh is a scientist turned entrepreneur. He received his degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge. While at University he co-founded Genei, an AI company that automatically summarizes background reading producing blogs, articles and reports (I would note but not podcasts!). He joined Exscientia where he was a core contributor to their AI platform following which he co-founded Charm with David Baker.
Today we are talking to Tom Barnes. Tom is CEO of Orna Therapeutics, a circular RNA focused biotech developing in situ CAR therapeutics. Orna recently announced a series B with a multi billion $ mega-deal with Merck. Prior to Orna Tom and I worked together at Intellia and also Ascelagen. Tom has also had leading positions at Eleven Bio and Millennium. Tom has deep biological pathway domain expertise and has worked across a broad range of therapeutic modalities, from genome editing, to RNA therapeutics, small molecules and proteins. Tom is a true scientist and drug hunter.
Today we are talking to JeanFrancois Formela. I have known JF for over 2 decades having worked with him at Atlas in building multiple biotech companies. JF is a partner at Atlas Venture which he joined in 1993 to build the US LS presence which has ultimately become the Atlas we all know today. He co-founded, invested in and played pivotal roles in a multitude of companies including Intellia Therapeutics, IFM Therapeutics, Korro Bio, Triplet and others. Other key investments he has made include Exelixis, Adnexus (acqd byBMS), Arteaus (acqd by Eli Lilly), CoStim Pharmaceuticals (acqd byNovartis) and Translate Bio (acqd by Sanofi).
JF got his MD from Paris University School of Medicine and an MBA from Columbia. He is a wine connoisseur and lives close to the edge racing on the track.
Please join me in welcoming JF.
Today we are talking to Ram Aiyer. Ram is CEO of Korro Bio, an RNA base editing company focused on co-opting ADAR, a naturally present editing system in all our cells to base edit A to I (which is translated as a G) in RNA. Prior to Korro, Ram was CBO and CFO of Corvidia, a company he successfully helped build and sell to Novo Nordisk for 2.1Bn$. Prior to Corvidia he was an EIR at BioHealth Innovation. He started his scientific career at Janssen Pharmaceuticals and held leadership roles at FlowMetric, Sofinnova Partners, and JP Morgan Chase.
Today we discuss his path to becoming the CEO of a biotech company, the transition for a first time CEO, his success at Corvidia, running a leading biotech company in today’s markets and the science/technology & culture underpinning Korro.
In this episode we discuss the formation and evolution of galaxies, our expanding universe, the big bang, the source of fast radio bursts, the James Webb Space Telescope and of course.....Aliens!
Today we talk to Abe Heifets, CEO of Atomwise, a biotech company focusing on the utilization of AI for drug discovery. Atomwise recently (post this recording) announced a $1.2B discovery deal with Sanofi. We discuss AI, its use in drug discovery and development, recent advances and the potential sentient nature of AI. Enjoy.
Discussing the formation of CRISPR Tx, the positives, negatives and everything in between. This is the first time all three of us reconnected since our respective departures from our founding roles and features some candid moments from our respective journeys. Enjoy.
Today we talk to Vic Myer, xChief Technology Officer at Editas, currently President and CSO at Chroma Medicine. We discuss the state of genome editing and the potential for chromatin modification.
Today we are talking to Yaron Werber. Yaron is Managing Director of Healthcare Biotechnology at Cowen, he has over 20 years of experience as a research analyst and was a founding team member, chief business and financial officer of Ovid Therapeutics. Prior to Ovid Yaron was managing director and head of US healthcare and biotech equity research at Citi.
Please note - Between vacation, other work commitments and COVID this conversation was recorded over 2 weeks ago. During that time the tea leave reading of the biotech market has marched forward with people highlighting the double bottom and climb in the XBI. While some have hailed this as the end of the bears and seeing the dust of the raging bulls in the distance I am inclined to ask what hallucinogenic they took the night before. Down rounds and negotiated valuation resets in the private market are starting to become more of a central theme with continued uncertainty about timing to recovery, 2023 is now being discussed. The landslide of public SMID cap companies that need to finance has yet to be realized while the macro economic challenges remain in place with inflation out of control in a backdrop of global destabilization. On the micro side the Seagen life raft is starting to look like a potential mirage with M&A being limited and company consolidation a whisper.
In this episode Yaron and I discuss the current market metrics, what companies may want to consider and the challenges to the oft flagged oasis of consolidation, M&A and now the going private plan. We discuss his experience as an operating in a biotech company between his roles in equity research. This experience provides a unique insight into the vagaries of a biotech company and the market.
In this episode we are talking to Prof Eric Topol. Eric is a cardiologist by training, a basic scientist in the areas of personalized genomic medicine at the interface between genetics and digital health and is the author of the leading textbook in interventional cardiology in addition to authoring books on AI in medicine. He is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, a professor of molecular medicine at the scripps research institute and a snr consultant at the division of cardiovascular diseases at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla CA. Finally, he is editor in chief of Medscape and theheart.org
Since the COVID pandemic hit Eric has been an outspoken advocate of basic research and optimized paths for COVID drug discovery and development. He has written numerous pieces on COVID and our response to the pandemic in addition to calling out and correcting mis and dis information. His most recent piece, an editorial in the LA Times, continues to draw attention to the low vaccination and booster rates here in the US.
Today we discuss the evolution of COVID virus and the most recent BA5 variant. The data continues to be sobering with the increased emergence and dominance of new variants. Eric highlights the importance of the vaccine, boosters and the need to develop a universal vaccine to tackle this pandemic. We also discuss Paxlovid and the rebound that is being observed in around 20% of patients. Finally we touch on the issue regarding disinformation around scientific discoveries in todays world and the need to build systems to actively call this out and quickly correct before it becomes “fact”.
To lighten the mood, or so I thought, at the end we turn to AI and its role in our health system. Touching on some key considerations around AI consciousness that has been in the news of late.
A Between the Biotech Waves conversation with John Hofffman, managing director & head of healthcare equity capital markets at Credit Suisse. John has nearly two decades of experience in supporting healthcare companies in the public markets. In this episode we discuss the current market dynamics from a equity capital market perspective.
A Between the Biotech Waves conversation with John Leonard, CEO of Intellia Therapeutics. John has over 30 years of experience in drug research & development. Prior to joining Intellia John was CSO at Abbvie. In this episode we discuss the formation of Intellia, some of the challenges and the recent data announced in ATTR.
A discussion of the current market volatility and options for public biotech companies with Jim Birchenough Vice Chair Wells Fargo Biopharmaceutical Investment Banking
A discussion of the current market volatility and options for public biotech companies with Sumit Khedekar, Head of Healthcare Investment Banking at Citi
Today I talk to William Hicks, co-chair of securities and capital markets at Mintz Levin. We discuss the state of the capital markets, financing options for companies and the challenges companies face in this market.
A conversation with Julia Vitarello, founder of Mila's Miracle Foundation and co-founder of the N=1 Collaborative. Julia, in partnership with Dr Tim Yu, developed the first N of 1 genetic medicine to treat her daughter Mila