Latest / BioBoss / Liang Schweizer: Co-Founder, President and CEO of HiFiBiO

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Liang Schweizer: Co-Founder, President and CEO of HiFiBiO · BioBoss

• 0:00
  Liang Schweizer: You just be yourself.
• 0:01
  Liang Schweizer: That's the most effective way to lead.
• 0:04
  Liang Schweizer: And on top of it, as a leader, you have to have vision.
• 0:08
  John Simboli: That's Liang Schweizer, co founder, President and CEO of HiFiBiO.
• 0:14
  John Simboli: Listen in now to hear the conversation I recently had with Liang at her office in Cambridge.
• 0:20
  John Simboli: I'm John Simboli.
• 0:22
  John Simboli: You're listening to BioBoss.
• 0:23
  John Simboli: This afternoon I'm in Cambridge with Liang Schweizer, President and CEO of HiFiBiO Therapeutics.
• 0:29
  John Simboli: Liang, how did you find yourself here at HiFiBiO?
• 0:35
  Liang Schweizer: Hi John., It's a pleasure talking to you.
• 0:37
  Liang Schweizer: Actually, when I encountered the HiFiBiO concept, I know myself being really a scientist interested in not only scientific questions but also understanding technology to address those scientific questions.
• 0:53
  Liang Schweizer: So when HifiBiO Therapeutics opportunity was presented to me, I found it the best of the two w orlds where we can, not only use the scientific knowledge I have accumulated over the years t rying to find out novel therapeutics for patients, but we could use the s tate o f art leading edge tool where we can identify therapeutics more effectively and find a diversity of better medicines for patients.
• 1:23
  Liang Schweizer: So that's what excites me.
• 1:25
  Liang Schweizer: I graduated from China, originally at a university called Science and Technology.
• 1:31
  Liang Schweizer: So there we got extensive training, not only from the science angle, we got a lot of technology education there as well.
• 1:40
  Liang Schweizer: And at that time, we were very proud of ourselves saying,,"getting to the biology of the next century," the meeting area for science and so where we can do the most exciting research.
• 1:56
  Liang Schweizer: Then I found myself after graduation coming to the U.S.
• 2:00
  Liang Schweizer: I got an engineering training at the University of Minnesota where I started microbial engineering and was minoring in chemical engineering.
• 2:08
  Liang Schweizer: Although, that was engineering training, but we asked a lot of biology questions.
• 2:15
  Liang Schweizer: So by the time I graduated with my thesis, it was a combining engineering mass modeling to understand a biology question.
• 2:24
  Liang Schweizer: We actually had a hard time finding people to review t hat paper.
• 2:28
  Liang Schweizer: So it made me feel this u niqueness to combine those two areas.
• 2:32
  Liang Schweizer: It's really challenging but exciting for me personally.
• 2:38
  Liang Schweizer: So, since then I went into the biology PhD, finding cancer research fascinating.
• 2:43
  Liang Schweizer: I spent many years at big pharma doing drug discovery and development.
• 2:50
  Liang Schweizer: There, once again, you know, I spent many years at BMS, we were building not only programs for oncology discovery.
• 2:59
  Liang Schweizer: .
• 2:59
  Liang Schweizer: .
• 2:59
  Liang Schweizer: later on I became the director of lead optimization where we were looking at s tate of the art te chnology t r ying t o pick out ways to optimize drugging st ate o f the art matters that we can bring to the patients.
• 3:15
  Liang Schweizer: So those past experiences sort of help me to understand and appreciate the marriage between technology and science together.
• 3:27
  Liang Schweizer: And when I saw I had the opportunity to do so at HiFiBiO, that's actually one of the most exciting moments for me.
• 3:35
  Liang Schweizer: I'm a true believer and I hope by th is w e can change how people ar e t hinking about discovery and development of drugs.
• 3:45
  Liang Schweizer: So when I tell you a bit more, later on, about HiFiBiO, I could illustrate how we do that in a very novel, innovative way and we hope we can change the paradigm of drug discovery and development.
• 3:59
  John Simboli: How did you decide you wanted to lead a bio therapeutics company?
• 4:03
  Liang Schweizer: Actually, for a long time, I never thought about leading any company.
• 4:09
  Liang Schweizer: My true passion is science.
• 4:11
  Liang Schweizer: I always thought to myself, even with my career progression, I want to be a CSO—maximum.
• 4:19
  Liang Schweizer: I wanted somebody else to worry about the company overall, in general.
• 4:23
  Liang Schweizer: All I have to do is focus on science.
• 4:25
  Liang Schweizer: Actually, and from my previous work experience, I was a co-founder and CSO of a start up and through that experience I realized, to build a company, having science is not enough.
• 4:40
  Liang Schweizer: You have to have a vision, you have to have value associated with the company.
• 4:45
  Liang Schweizer: You have to know how to make things work most effectively.
• 4:49
  Liang Schweizer: So through that experience I felt, you know, my true passion is not only how to apply my science into the broader healthcare community, but how to do it well.
• 5:02
  Liang Schweizer: As a CEO, I could put in my thoughts and my value, my vision, guiding principles, into daily practice.
• 5:11
  Liang Schweizer: I find that more rewarding than just thinking about science alone.
• 5:15
  Liang Schweizer: So here I am at HifiBiO.
• 5:18
  John Simboli: Because at BMS you had been prepared for leadership and you had a very important position there, what was it like to make the decision, finally,"I'm ready to follow this calling that I feel I have." Was that difficult?
• 5:34
  John Simboli: Was that easy?
• 5:36
  Liang Schweizer: By the time I left BMS, I had made the decision to come to the biotech world.
• 5:45
  Liang Schweizer: At that time, one of the things that excited me was to understand how the rest of the world develops innovative drugs.
• 5:56
  Liang Schweizer: So I took a position as head of Asia cancer research at Sanofi.
• 6:02
  Liang Schweizer: So it's where the exposure in Asia seeing a lot of biotech, starting from China to Japan to Korea, seeing a lot of activity in the biotech ward, plus the activity around venture capitalists in the Asia community there enables a lot of opportunities.
• 6:25
  Liang Schweizer: So since then I actually started thinking about it.
• 6:28
  Liang Schweizer: Maybe it might be interesting and exciting to be in the biotech world and, with the opportunity offered to me I left Sanofi and started as a co-founder.
• 6:40
  Liang Schweizer: And since then I actually find myself enjoying it much more than in big p harma, which fits my p ersonality better.
• 6:48
  Liang Schweizer: I love challenges and I l ove things changing and t he fast decision making.
• 6:54
  Liang Schweizer: I love to see the immediate impact.
• 6:57
  Liang Schweizer: So, I think, by now, it's almost a point of no return.
• 7:05
  Liang Schweizer: O nce I got to this biotech startup world, I t hink I found my true passion.
• 7:12
  Liang Schweizer: I really enjoyed my experience in pharma.
• 7:16
  Liang Schweizer: I did notice there are some people starting their career getting into the biotech world, because without getting through the whole process of proper training of how to make or develop a drug you tend to encounter problems you'll have not anticipated or you'll have to go through detours that you didn't know and, could have been avoided if you haven't done properly.
• 7:43
  Liang Schweizer: So, I felt in my long years in the pharma world, it was a real great solid foundation to prepare me for this biotech world.
• 7:52
  Liang Schweizer: So if I have to do it again, I wouldn't choose differently.
• 7:56
  Liang Schweizer: I would still start with the pharma and start at the bench doing drug discovery, to needing projects, to needing organization, contributing to many wonderful drugs.
• 8:10
  Liang Schweizer: And t hose a re r eally a great learning process,
• 8:15
  John Simboli: One of the CEO's I spoke with, Martin McKay, who's now at RallyBio, said something similar.
• 8:21
  John Simboli: I'm curious what you think, he said,"One should never forget the advantage of having worked for a big pharma company because the training is so good; the exposure to ideas is go good.
• 8:31
  John Simboli: .
• 8:31
  John Simboli: .
• 8:31
  John Simboli: the processes.
• 8:31
  John Simboli: It's sort of what you were just saying, right?
• 8:34
  Liang Schweizer: That's exactly right.
• 8:36
  Liang Schweizer: So I, I think it's like going to school, proper schooling, right?
• 8:41
  Liang Schweizer: You don't want to solve a more difficult problem without going through college or graduate school.
• 8:49
  Liang Schweizer: It's the same here.
• 8:50
  Liang Schweizer: You could try to dream big finding a drug, but without going through the proper training, right, that's the reason initially the Serono story come up, we were wondering how's the scientific rationale, evidence supporting that big idea?
• 9:07
  Liang Schweizer: You know, the big idea is good, but you need to have the proper foundation to get there.
• 9:13
  John Simboli: What were we hoping to achieve that could be done here but not in another company?
• 9:19
  Liang Schweizer: In my mind because I joined HiFiBiO as a co-ounder of HiFi therapeutics.
• 9:27
  Liang Schweizer: So, it is the company I want to build.
• 9:31
  Liang Schweizer: So no matter which company it is, it's the company.
• 9:34
  Liang Schweizer: So, from that perspective, what we try to build at HiFiBiO that is unique, cannot be replicated or done by another company is there are certain guiding principles we're going after.
• 9:52
  Liang Schweizer: So first rule, we go through top science, value the science most, although you could argue most of the companies are doing exactly the same, but on top of that we wanted to bring the state of art leading technology angle as I mentioned earlier—that is our unique single cell technology.
• 10:15
  Liang Schweizer: And currently,, there is more and more interest centered around single cell.
• 10:20
  Liang Schweizer: And I must say, our company's one of the leading ones.
• 10:24
  Liang Schweizer: And that developed the technology in a way that we can, look at anybody's therapeutics in a very in-depth, very rapid fashion.
• 10:35
  Liang Schweizer: And we are the ones who can connect genotype to phenotype, looking at complicated problems that other technology cannot do.
• 10:46
  Liang Schweizer: So by bringing good science and technology together, that builds a unique identity for this company.
• 10:54
  Liang Schweizer: And the other thing about this company being unique is we promote the open innovation angle.
• 11:00
  Liang Schweizer: So about two years ago when we just started the company, we wrote a paper on guiding principles for open innovation, which you need becuaes innovation is not just generated within the company itself.
• 11:14
  Liang Schweizer: So by building partnerships across top academic institutions, top pharmas, top biotechs, we synthesize uniqueness from each one of them.
• 11:27
  Liang Schweizer: So those partnerships, whether it's working together on our unique target or whether it's looking at a specific antibody engineering platform that nobody else in the world is working on, or whether we're looking at patient samples using single cell technology, that people just start thinking about and has not been carried out.
• 11:48
  Liang Schweizer: So those are the things we are actively building that makes us unique.
• 11:56
  John Simboli: And when you present those ideas to potential partners, potential investors, potential employees, and you emphasize that mixture of single cell technology and the scientific approach, when they understand it, they understand it.
• 12:14
  John Simboli: When they don't understand it, what do people misunderstand?
• 12:16
  John Simboli: What do you have to help them to say,"Oh no, that's not it.
• 12:19
  John Simboli: It's actually.
• 12:19
  John Simboli: .
• 12:19
  John Simboli: .
• 12:20
  Liang Schweizer: That's an excellent question.
• 12:22
  Liang Schweizer: I think it's because it's getting so complicated.
• 12:25
  Liang Schweizer: Each time you explain this deep size or deep technology, there's certain views.
• 12:36
  Liang Schweizer: I think initially when we encounter the investors, one of the questions I often get is,"Are you a technology company or are you a therapeutic company?" Because people could identify a company better by putting them in certain categories.
• 12:52
  Liang Schweizer: And we are building this uniqueness.
• 12:55
  Liang Schweizer: Nobody can put us into a certain box.
• 12:58
  Liang Schweizer: So that poses a big challenge and I have to spend time to tell them those two are not in conflict with each other.
• 13:06
  Liang Schweizer: They're not taking resources.
• 13:08
  Liang Schweizer: One from the other.
• 13:10
  Liang Schweizer: It's actually building synergy.
• 13:11
  Liang Schweizer: For example, recently we established a collaboration with Kite.
• 13:19
  Liang Schweizer: And they're interested in looking at T-cells.
• 13:21
  Liang Schweizer: Initially when we started our company for single B-cell cloning screen antibodies, we had not expanded to the T-cell area.
• 13:30
  Liang Schweizer: .
• 13:30
  Liang Schweizer: .
• 13:30
  Liang Schweizer: where through this collaboration partnership we could start building our capability to understand T-cell biology better.
• 13:41
  Liang Schweizer: So since the company emphasis is immunomodulation, builing more expertise through that external partnership can help us build our internal pipeline.
• 13:53
  Liang Schweizer: So those are the stories I tell to, the investors, so they understand those efforts are not distracting each other, but rather helping each other.
• 14:02
  Liang Schweizer: So far, we have strong support from the investment community, from our partnerships.
• 14:10
  Liang Schweizer: I suppose they understood our story.
• 14:15
  John Simboli: That suggest that you're doing your unfiltering of the filters.
• 14:22
  Liang Schweizer: I think also it takes a certain mindset.
• 14:23
  Liang Schweizer: In the broader community people know we're looking for innovative drugs for patients.
• 14:32
  Liang Schweizer: That is very easy to explain.
• 14:34
  Liang Schweizer: Then in the more detailed discussions, when people want to understand the specifics more, you explain to them in a way that they finally see, and say,"Oh, you're making drugs in a different approach.
• 14:48
  Liang Schweizer: The way you're looking for drugs can bring more diversity, more effectiveness to the patients." If you get that key message through, sometimes they don't exactly understand how you get there.
• 15:01
  Liang Schweizer: It's OK.
• 15:03
  John Simboli: It sounds like you're helping, by that statement, to help them see it's not simply pursuing the technology because it fascinates you, which it does, but you do hope to connect it to somebody's life at some time.
• 15:16
  Liang Schweizer: Exactly.
• 15:16
  Liang Schweizer: It's at the end of the day, what you can deliver that counts.
• 15:21
  Liang Schweizer: That's where we try to emphasize and how you get there, you try to explain and in reality how you get there also changes constantly because the science is always exciting—a long journey.
• 15:37
  Liang Schweizer: When you go down, you find out certain paths you're thinking will work out.
• 15:41
  Liang Schweizer: You find that it doesn't work; you constantly try to come up with some notions or identifiy alternative routes for you to get to that end goal and we make sure that throughout whole company people have that understanding where we want to go and then constantly working hard to get there in a very dynamic way.
• 16:03
  John Simboli: The question,"What do you do?" can be answered on so many different levels, but at a simplified level, what do you do?
• 16:10
  Liang Schweizer: We're looking for medicines for patients.
• 16:12
  Liang Schweizer: I wanted to elaborate a bit more specifically, we're trying to come up with innovative therapies, modulate the human immune system to combat cancer or auto-immune diseases.
• 16:29
  Liang Schweizer: So by understanding deep immunology and the link with the disease, using tools that didn't exist before, so we can find answers better and more accurately, we try to find the best medicine for patients.
• 16:46
  John Simboli: Over the years, at BMS, at Sanofi, here, what have you learned about your own management style?
• 16:52
  John Simboli: The things that work best for you when you're interacting with people and trying to make things happen?
• 16:57
  Liang Schweizer: I spent many years to solve through this.
• 17:04
  Liang Schweizer: Early on at BMS I got opportunities for leadership training.
• 17:10
  Liang Schweizer: I always look at what are the types of leaders who are successful?
• 17:14
  Liang Schweizer: How can I be like them?
• 17:16
  Liang Schweizer: But over time I realized the best leadership is be your true self.
• 17:22
  Liang Schweizer: And at Sanofi I actually got a female leadership training course three days, we were trying to do a search on inner self, true self, and at the end of the day I come up with the sentence"I'm a passionate leader who drives my passion towards huge impact." And I think passion is something that often shines through during my interaction with people that I'm really excited about what I'm doing.
• 17:55
  Liang Schweizer: The other thing I was told often is,, I'm very direct, which I found is a good way.
• 18:02
  Liang Schweizer: You know, there are certain times when people are probably a bit shocked with the direct communication, but soon enough when they get to know me, they understand, you know, you are for the best intention, for the outcome and, it saves a lot of energy and effort and there's no second guessing, everything being transparent.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: So that worked really well.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And I think, as a result, I've had people follow me when I went through different stages of my career.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: People are willing to join me again at HifiGBiO, people I worked with before.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I suppose, you just be yourself.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: That's the most effective way to lead.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: And on top of it, as a leader, you have to have vision.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: You have to make sure people understand your vision.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: So communication is another importing aspect.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I know as scientists we tend not to communicate well or have an inclination to communicate.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: So through the years I forced myself to do more and more communication.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: In BMS when I was, organizing the Pacific Asian network group and I was asked whether I wanted to chair the organization,I said, no, I want to do the communication.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: So I was communicating all the activities, all the vision and objectives to the entire BMS community.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Soon enough, this specific affinity group, which was supported by HR at BMS at that time become one of the largest groups in the whole entire company, our numbers were larger than all the other affinity g roup combined.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: So that shows p rominently the power of communication.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: People know what we w ant to do and they get excited how we d o that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: To summarize, you have to know who you are to bring out your best quality.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: But in the meantime you know what areas you need to work on and what is important is t he leadership.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: That I have learned through my leadership.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: training.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: So I keep on working at those aspects, as well.
• 20:24
  John Simboli: Can you remember back when you were eight or nine years old?
• 20:26
  John Simboli: Can you remember what you wanted to be in life and does it have anything to do with being the CEO at HiFiBiO?
• 20:32
  Liang Schweizer: Absolutely.
• 20:33
  Liang Schweizer: I just remember when I grew up, I always wanted to be Marie Curie.
• 20:41
  Liang Schweizer: To this day, I'm still marveling about.
• 20:43
  Liang Schweizer: .
• 20:43
  Liang Schweizer: .
• 20:45
  Liang Schweizer: she has this strong passion, c onviction.
• 20:48
  Liang Schweizer: She really dedicated herself to the whole entire scientific community.
• 20:54
  Liang Schweizer: And only r ecently I read a book about her.
• 20:56
  Liang Schweizer: I r ealized she was also very r eactive in Poland in a social setting.
• 21:01
  Liang Schweizer: So from that point of view, you know, she's somebody I was truly admiring when I was young.
• 21:09
  Liang Schweizer: Even before eight or nine, I wanted to be a scientist and I think that guided me until this day.
• 21:17
  Liang Schweizer: Although, in between, when I first came to the U.S., when, there were so many other opportunities presented to me.
• 21:24
  Liang Schweizer: I started also exploring, do I want it to be a business person or do I want it to be a lawyer?
• 21:31
  Liang Schweizer: Because t hose careers seemed really more lucrative at that time as a young student coming to the United States.
• 21:38
  Liang Schweizer: But I explored and f ound out I still love science and now leading a company, I find myself actually also getting to do the business aspect and legal aspect.
• 21:51
  Liang Schweizer: I actually enjoyed it quite a bit as well.
• 21:54
  Liang Schweizer: So in that sense, you know, going through my childhood dream as well as growing up experiences and getting to where I am, I'm really very happy.
• 22:06
  Liang Schweizer: I really think I'm one of the luckiest because I f ound what I'd love to d o at an early age and I got the opportunity to choose because when you w ere in China, there's such a big environment promoting science and technology.
• 22:21
  Liang Schweizer: So when I went to my University of Science and Technology in t he 80s it was the top school.
• 22:27
  Liang Schweizer: The college entrance exam requirement was way higher than any other schools.
• 22:33
  Liang Schweizer: So it promotes the science and technology aspect.
• 22:35
  Liang Schweizer: Coming to the U.S., you find everybody goes to law school, business school and I was presented the opportunity to explore and I did explore.
• 22:47
  Liang Schweizer: Then I still find out I love science.
• 22:54
  John Simboli: Liang, what's new at HiFiBiO?
• 22:54
  Liang Schweizer: So right now, as our pipeline progresses towards the clinical trials stage, we are looking forward to seeing how we try to find the right patient population to have our drugs and showing the efficacy and effectiveness among the patient populations.
• 23:12
  Liang Schweizer: So one thing we are excited about and trying to launch is a initiative called drug intelligence science.
• 23:20
  Liang Schweizer: That means when you do clinical trials, you just don't have a knowledge population to see which patient population works.
• 23:28
  Liang Schweizer: We try to start translational research even before we bring the drug to the clinical trial at an early discovery stage where we obtain patient samples and use our single cell technology to obtain data at a single cell level.
• 23:47
  Liang Schweizer: So through that data acquisition and subsequent analysis, we use algorithms combining AI factors, efforts into that analysis where we can come up with hypotheses—which patient populations might be most suitable for the drugs we're developing.
• 24:06
  Liang Schweizer: So this DIS initiative gets, already, a lot of excitement.
• 24:13
  Liang Schweizer: And we started collaborating with the Curie Institute, looking at a triple negative breast tumor model in mice.
• 24:22
  Liang Schweizer: I'm looking at chemo drugs that modulate at the single level.
• 24:28
  Liang Schweizer: We come up with potential biomarkers to distinguish sensitive versus resistant patients.
• 24:35
  Liang Schweizer: So we published these results recently on Nature Genetics.
• 24:39
  Liang Schweizer: So the next stage is we want to go from this academic proof of concept study, getting to the clinical trial setting where we can show our single cell analytics looking at patient samples and come up with data a nalysis in a very novel, innovative approach and come up with answers to find the right patient populations for our drugs.
• 25:08
  John Simboli: What was it about the single cell approach or concept that drew you so strongly to that?
• 25:16
  Liang Schweizer: We've seen there are certain breakthroughs of our understanding of biology.
• 25:25
  Liang Schweizer: So the first wave, if you probably recall, is genomics.
• 25:30
  Liang Schweizer: When people start to be able to sequence the, human genome or later on cancer genome to look at diseased versus normal state, we gained a lot of insight over the biology.
• 25:40
  Liang Schweizer: But soon enough people realized, the genome does not represent the whole state of the biology entirely.
• 25:50
  Liang Schweizer: So people started looking at proteomics at the protein level, that protein that was made gene transcription, translation events.
• 25:59
  Liang Schweizer: So further, with understanding the protein, you understand certain mechanisms of action and you understand why certain things at the gene level that you see or will not see, did not directly translate because there are things that are not in the level that you can do one-to-one translation.
• 26:23
  Liang Schweizer: So single cell analytics is the next wave,we think, in the industry.
• 26:27
  Liang Schweizer: In the situation where, at the gene level,, you understand the protein level..
• 26:34
  Liang Schweizer: How do cells, from a dynamic way, to interpret all this information you're getting at the transcription level and translational level.
• 26:45
  Liang Schweizer: So single cell brings you the knowledge of the initial waves that we benefit from.
• 26:54
  Liang Schweizer: And in the meantime, it's not complex enough, to be looking at the animal model or the system model where things are too complicated to explain.
• 27:06
  Liang Schweizer: So, we're looking at single cells, trying to understand the biolog.
• 27:09
  Liang Schweizer: In the meantime, we also link this biology to the disease versus normal state.
• 27:18
  Liang Schweizer: So that is something we think is a third wave in industry where we can ga in m ore insight than we ever have done before.
• 27:27
  John Simboli: One of the ways you're doing that, in my understanding, is through your offices in China, your offices in Paris, your offices here in Cambridge.
• 27:36
  John Simboli: How does one go about connecting all of those different continents?
• 27:39
  Liang Schweizer: This is one of the question I'm asked a lot.
• 27:44
  Liang Schweizer: Because we're startup up, why are we starting multinational.
• 27:46
  Liang Schweizer: And how much do I travel?
• 27:52
  Liang Schweizer: So far, I find we benefit so much from our multi-national presence.
• 28:01
  Liang Schweizer: One of the things I mentioned earlier is we believe in open innovation.
• 28:06
  Liang Schweizer: So we're not working within the company to try and to push the drug from the concept all the way to patients.
• 28:13
  Liang Schweizer: We m anage our partnerships.
• 28:15
  Liang Schweizer: So, by being present on each of the continents, we have a diversity of partnerships.
• 28:22
  Liang Schweizer: And through that we actually can leverage each region's s trengths and we also attract local talent.
• 28:30
  Liang Schweizer: For example,, at the French site where we have many e xcellent engineers, t hey started building the single cell platform and e nabled u s, having collaborations, such as I mentioned, Kite, earlier.
• 28:47
  Liang Schweizer: And so there we're really building the strengths of t he engineering aspect and the technology aspect.
• 28:55
  Liang Schweizer: We also, in the meantime, at the French site, we have very good clinical access with multiple hospitals.
• 29:02
  Liang Schweizer: So in that sense we really benefit a lot at the French region.
• 29:08
  Liang Schweizer: And in the U.S., we have established local pharma biotech as well as academic institutions.
• 29:17
  Liang Schweizer: So we established, for example, a partnership with Takeda,, which has just down the road.
• 29:23
  Liang Schweizer: That also highlights the vicinity, the convenience, and also the better relationship building because of the local presence here.
• 29:34
  Liang Schweizer: And we're also working, quite a bit, with professors from Harvard, MIT, Broad Institute.
• 29:39
  Liang Schweizer: .
• 29:39
  Liang Schweizer: .
• 29:39
  Liang Schweizer: that's our scientific co-founders, initially, so we can benefit a lot from local presence and network.
• 29:49
  Liang Schweizer: Then in the China site, that's where we have a lot more activity in terms of looking at the future growing market, and you want to have your presence there.
• 30:03
  Liang Schweizer: And also the activity of a lot of venture c apitalists there.
• 30:09
  Liang Schweizer: So from the C hina's side also, we benefit quite a bit from n ow the Chinese government encouraging local innovation with talented people and they're attracting a l ot o f people to work at biotech areas.
• 30:26
  Liang Schweizer: So there's a lot of benefit of government policies a ssociated with that as well.
• 30:32
  John Simboli: Do you sleep?
• 30:35
  Liang Schweizer: I actually am one of the ones who sleeps quite little, if you will.
• 30:40
  Liang Schweizer: I normally have about five hours and one thing I want to make sure I do is have about half an hour to an hour of exercise time every day.
• 30:50
  Liang Schweizer: So I feel very energetic.
• 30:53
  Liang Schweizer: And I t hink the thing is when you do something y ou love, you don't need the sleep.
• 31:01
  Liang Schweizer: And I also t ravel quite a bit, s o my sleeping can be very much ad hoc.
• 31:06
  Liang Schweizer: When my body needs it I sleep a nd when I'm awake I'm working.
• 31:11
  John Simboli: What kinds of partners are a good fit to HiFiBiO Therapeutics?
• 31:15
  Liang Schweizer: This is a great question because we give that a lot of thought.
• 31:18
  Liang Schweizer: We try to map out how many types of partners are there.
• 31:23
  Liang Schweizer: But I think the foundation is they have to share the same passion with us.
• 31:27
  Liang Schweizer: Try to drive innovative medicine to patients.
• 31:30
  Liang Schweizer: I think that's a foundation.
• 31:34
  Liang Schweizer: What we're also looking for is somebody who can complement us.
• 31:37
  Liang Schweizer: We start with thinking about a deep understanding of biology where we have partners who can help us find novel targets—in the top academic institutions.
• 31:53
  Liang Schweizer: And for example, recently we formed a joint venture with Victa Therapeutics.
• 31:58
  Liang Schweizer: That was with the top, leading professor who identified novel targets.
• 32:04
  Liang Schweizer: So, from that angle, we really benefit from open innovation, trying not to reinvent the wheel and leverage what has been done well, and among the top academic institutions.
• 32:21
  Liang Schweizer: The other thing we are partnered with, for example, are industry partners where we see our single cell discovery technology can benefit other areas of other diseases as we are focused in on immune modulating within HiFi Therapeutics and where we have the state of art discovery engine where we can find better antibodies,, there are other companies interested in neuroscience, diabetes,, cardiovascular and all those differentl diseases.
• 33:02
  Liang Schweizer: They're welcome to partner with us because we can help them.
• 33:08
  Liang Schweizer: That's the end goal.
• 33:10
  Liang Schweizer: We try to help people to find better biologics and antibody therapies around that.
• 33:17
  Liang Schweizer: And the other type of, partner, we are also looking very much for is, later on, when we bring the drug to the patients—and we're a small biotech, we have limited resources.
• 33:30
  Liang Schweizer: So we're also looking for pharma partners who have already built the infrastructure, who can bring the drug to patients very quickly in a very state of the art approach while we can bring our single cell or our innovative pipeline through their already existing infrastructure, quickly moving to the patients.
• 33:57
  Liang Schweizer: So this is something we are also looking for very actively.
• 34:01
  John Simboli: What kinds of people would thrive here?
• 34:04
  Liang Schweizer: We really pay attention to recruiting top talent.
• 34:08
  Liang Schweizer: And so one of the things I feel most proud is being able to bring onboard a very passionate and very experienced leadership ship team at HiFiBiO Therapeutics.
• 34:23
  Liang Schweizer: Among that also top scientists who have already demonstrated their capability of developing drugs and bringing them to the patients.
• 34:32
  Liang Schweizer: So we pay so much attention to bring top talent; each of the interviews we do seriously and we actually go through people where if they're not the right fit, we will not give the offer.
• 34:51
  Liang Schweizer: And we're not just for the sake of growing the company.
• 34:55
  Liang Schweizer: We really pay attention to bring the best talent and we believe, whatever can be delivered relies on the top talent.
• 35:07
  Liang Schweizer: One of the things that even during the interview I ask people is what their passion is.
• 35:13
  Liang Schweizer: They have to feel passionate about this company, passionate about our vision, passionate about the state of art technology combined with the science.
• 35:23
  Liang Schweizer: So having that deep understanding is important; share the same passion.
• 35:28
  Liang Schweizer: The other thing I also tell people often is you are your own CEO.
• 35:34
  Liang Schweizer: You have to be driven.
• 35:34
  Liang Schweizer: If you're doing the work just because you were told to do so, not because you wanted to do so, you would probably have a problem at the company because we give people responsibility, freedom.
• 35:49
  Liang Schweizer: We try to let them be creative, but they have to be a self-motivator and driver to drive things forward.
• 35:55
  Liang Schweizer: Then the other thing we emphasize a lot is communication because we do have three different sites.
• 36:04
  Liang Schweizer: If people don't communicate well, they're going to have trouble as the project progresses because we often say drug discovery and development is a team sport.
• 36:15
  Liang Schweizer: It's not an individual sport.
• 36:16
  Liang Schweizer: You have to learn how to work within the whole organization, with each other, sometimes across different sites to move the project forward.
• 36:25
  Liang Schweizer: So communication is another important aspect.
• 36:30
  John Simboli: You've just taken on so much.
• 36:32
  John Simboli: I just marvel at the idea of different continents, different time zones.
• 36:38
  John Simboli: .
• 36:38
  John Simboli: .
• 36:38
  Liang Schweizer: It's more fun, right?
• 36:40
  Liang Schweizer: I have the benefit to have lived in all three continents myself.
• 36:44
  Liang Schweizer: So that's the reason I see the strengths and weakness at each of the local regions.
• 36:50
  Liang Schweizer: And you know, growing up in China, after college come to U.S., now close to 30 years.
• 36:55
  Liang Schweizer: .
• 36:56
  Liang Schweizer: .That reveals my age.
• 37:02
  Liang Schweizer: And I also lived in Switzerland for my PhD, getting a European, education, that really helped me a lot to see how different regions can bring together a certain common narrative.
• 37:19
  Liang Schweizer: That's a framework we build within the company.
• 37:22
  Liang Schweizer: You have to a have shared value, shared vision; so shared, drive, shared objectives to get to the end.
• 37:30
  Liang Schweizer: But in the meantime you are allowed local diversity—allow people's different way of thinking because only then you can bring the best together.
• 37:41
  John Simboli: I know you must be focused intently on every week's work, but at this stage, do you ever say, Hmm, if this works out the way I hope it will someday my company will help to do this for society?
• 37:57
  Liang Schweizer: It's acutally the big dream of ours.
• 38:00
  Liang Schweizer: You know, of course it's a very noble intention to develop, drugs for patients.
• 38:05
  Liang Schweizer: But I think the bigger ambition or vision we have is trying to make a difference in how we make drugs.
• 38:12
  Liang Schweizer: So as everybody knows, drug discovery and development is a very messy process.
• 38:18
  Liang Schweizer: It costs a lot of money.
• 38:20
  Liang Schweizer: So that's one of the reasons I was passionate about how to do drug discovery and development differently; leverage the state of art technology that this world has been developing.
• 38:32
  Liang Schweizer: And it's developing at a faster and faster pace.
• 38:36
  Liang Schweizer: So if we can know how to use those tools well, we can change the paradigm.
• 38:41
  Liang Schweizer: How are we going to discover and develop drugs?
• 38:45
  Liang Schweizer: So at HiFiBiO Therapeutics, we believe if we do our drug discovery well by leveraging, single cell B cell cloning technology, finding much more diverse and innovative drugs in a very speedy manner we can can find out how do we position our drugs into the right patient population our clinical trials would be a much shorter time.
• 39:12
  Liang Schweizer: The cost would be significantly reduced so we can get the drug from the concept all the way to patients in a much shorter and cost effective way.
• 39:23
  Liang Schweizer: If I could get this done in my life, I'd be very, very happy.
• 39:28
  John Simboli: And what effect would that have on the lives of those people that would receive those targeted drugs?
• 39:37
  Liang Schweizer: I think in situations where people have terminal diseases such as cancer where they say"Let's try everything.
• 39:47
  Liang Schweizer: I don't know.
• 39:47
  Liang Schweizer: I'm one of the lucky ones." Even with, good drugs.
• 39:50
  Liang Schweizer: as effective as PD-1 antibodies where you have to try and figure out whether they work for you or not for you as an individual, you have a certainty, you say, once I'm facing this disease, I have the best care.
• 40:10
  Liang Schweizer: And I know from a scientific point of view, it will work on me.
• 40:14
  Liang Schweizer: And of course, it cannot be for every patient.
• 40:18
  Liang Schweizer: So we still have a long way to go for each patient, it shows the diversity of their disease that we have to come up with the solution.
• 40:27
  Liang Schweizer: But at least the patient looking at all the existing possible solutions,, they can have confidence, I think in most likelihood this is the best path forward instead of guess and then pray.
• 40:41
  Liang Schweizer: That would make a huge difference in people's lives.
• 40:46
  John Simboli: How did Hi-FiBiO Therapeutics choose to locate in Cambridge and Paris and Shanghai?
• 40:52
  John Simboli: But let's, let's focus on Cambridge to start with.
• 40:54
  Liang Schweizer: Actually, it started initially for historical reasons because the scientific co-founders—three from Cambridge, two from Paris.
• 41:05
  Liang Schweizer: So that was the natural reason why those started.
• 41:09
  Liang Schweizer: And soon enough, by working at two sites, we identified opportunities at different levels and different natures of collaborations.
• 41:22
  Liang Schweizer: And I think the company realized this is the best way to tap into local strengths.
• 41:29
  Liang Schweizer: And building the local network.
• 41:32
  Liang Schweizer: And because at that time, when we go to talk to a French partner, they view us as a French company.
• 41:40
  Liang Schweizer: And when we come to a U.S.
• 41:41
  Liang Schweizer: partner, they view us as a U.S.
• 41:44
  Liang Schweizer: company.
• 41:44
  Liang Schweizer: I think in today's world having multiple identities is something people are familiar with and comfortable with, more and more comfortable with.
• 41:55
  Liang Schweizer: And when we started expanding the therapeutics efforts, we found out Asia is another huge market and we also have a lot of local talent as well as resources associated with that.
• 42:09
  Liang Schweizer: So Shanghai is one of the hubs where biotech grew really very rapidly over the last 10 years.
• 42:17
  Liang Schweizer: So if you go to the Shanghai/Xuancheng area, you see hundreds of biotechs springing up, and there's quite a few people centered around innovative therapies.
• 42:28
  Liang Schweizer: So the landscape is changing rapidly.
• 42:32
  Liang Schweizer: So I can see being present at all three sites can enable us to tap into the best of the world and ensure we're in the leading edge for doing innovative therapies.
• 42:46
  John Simboli: What is it about Cambridge that is similar to or different from other places where you've been, where you've worked in and why is one of your offices here?
• 42:57
  Liang Schweizer: Cambridge really is one of the best places I think I have worked in, in regarding biotech.
• 43:02
  Liang Schweizer: It's an area where there's a not of new ideas, a lot of innovation.
• 43:09
  Liang Schweizer: People are willing to take the risks to bring ideas into reall world solutions.
• 43:13
  Liang Schweizer: Not only around biotech, you see ideas coming from MIT, Harvard and people working on all different fronts.
• 43:24
  Liang Schweizer: I've lived in many different locations, including three different continents, Cambridge is the place where I think it's the most suitable environment for biotech so far.
• 43:37
  Liang Schweizer: And I see HiFiBiO growing really rapidly there.
• 43:42
  Liang Schweizer: One immediate impact is we can recruit top talent.
• 43:47
  Liang Schweizer: We have people from big pharma, small biotech, top academic institutions, and then they come bring in different ideas, diversity, and also Cambridge is a place where also you have lot of international immigrants.
• 44:03
  Liang Schweizer: They bring different cultures into the company as well.
• 44:06
  Liang Schweizer: So it's a place where you really could see things are happening in a very dynamic way.
• 44:13
  Liang Schweizer: So it's very exciting.
• 44:16
  John Simboli: Does Cambridge and do Massachusetts provide opportunities for access to capital that are any different from other places?
• 44:25
  Liang Schweizer: It's hard for me to compare because only doing startup within the last three years.
• 44:32
  Liang Schweizer: So far, I must say the environment is very friendly.
• 44:36
  Liang Schweizer: So just because we're in Cambridge, investors come to us.
• 44:44
  Liang Schweizer: So instead of you're going out and trying to meet, I actually have people reach out to me saying, we're in town, can we meet your company?
• 44:55
  Liang Schweizer: So whether they're coming from New York or California or even China, people come to Cambridge and that makes things easier.
• 45:07
  Liang Schweizer: And also in the meantime, in Cambridge, there are so many pharmas around it and you actually can access certain fundings through big pharma's effort and they're also building their own capital funds.
• 45:21
  Liang Schweizer: So that's another angle to get access.
• 45:25
  John Simboli: What organizations do you find are helpful in Cambridge and Boston, other places to be a part of, to be able to transmit your ideas and receive ideas?
• 45:34
  MassBio is one of the top organizations I've ever come across around biotech.
• 45:41
  It's a nonprofit organization.
• 45:44
  Our companies are members, so I can easily look at their activities at any given week.
• 45:52
  There's always a lot going on and I actually participate actively there and sometimes I've also a speaker or panelist there and try to give back to the community.
• 46:03
  So through that interaction you're building your network quite rapidly and you hear what's new.
• 46:08
  And the Cambridge activities can often be represented around the world because there's brilliant people here.
• 46:19
  But then there are people all around the world who come here to participate in events like that.
• 46:26
  And so I benefit a lot.
• 46:29
  The other thing I also wanted to say, one of the organizations which is not Cambridge specific, but is also very active is my college and alumni organization, USTC, University of Science and Technology, China, has an active Cambridge chapter and I am going to be on a career advice panel to give advice to young students from China training at the same university as I, now studying at Harvard, MIT or other top institutions here.
• 47:06
  It also can be networked for recruiting.
• 47:10
  So, in my current company there are quite a few of my alums working here.
• 47:18
  So through that organization you also get talent access which not only through a recruiting point of view but also a partner point of view.
• 47:30
  There are people who are doing extremely well at other biotech pharma as well as top VC funds and so we benefit from that organization as well.
• 47:44
  John Simboli: Liang, thanks for speaking with me today.
• 47:48
  Liang Schweizer: It's a pleasure to have this conversation.
• 47:50
  Liang Schweizer: Very stimulating.
• 47:53
  John Simboli: Before co-founding HiFiBiO, Liang Schweizer led several large organizations within Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi and was co-inventor of multiple clinical candidates.
• 48:03
  John Simboli: When offered the prestigious position of Chair, Pacific Asian Network Group at BMS, Liang, instead chose the bold step of taking on leadership of communication for all the activities, vision, and objectives of the group to the entire BMS community.
• 48:20
  John Simboli: As the Liang went on to tell me about the things she and HiFiBiO are achieving, I was struck by other examples of Liang exploring new territory and integrating these new areas within her experience in both biology and technology, her interest in communication, her success in managing high performing teams—all linked to her vision for how she wants to build HiFiBiO on three continents and explore new ways to develop new medicines for patients in need.
• 48:48
  John Simboli: I'm John Simboli.
• 48:49
  John Simboli: You're listening to BioBoss.