Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 192 - Sandeep Kulkarni - CEO Zura Bio

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Episode 192 - Sandeep Kulkarni - CEO Zura Bio · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  Welcome back to another episode of the Bio Hub and Avetix
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  podcast. Today I'm joined by Doctor
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  Sandeep Kulkani, Co founder and CEO of Zuora Bio Sandeep has a
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  fascinating journey across biotech from consulting at BCG
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  to investing to operate in roles at companies like Royvan and
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  Immunovan. And now most recently, he Co
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  founded Tourmaline Bio, which was acquired by Novartis in
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  2025. Now he's leading Zero Bio, a
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  clinical stage company focusing on developing new medicines for
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  autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
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  And in this conversation, we're going to talk about his
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  transition into that CEOC, the strategy behind Zero Bio,
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  lessons from building companies and what founders should know
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  when they're navigating today's biotech landscape.
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  Pleasure to have you Sandeep, how are you?
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  Max, good. Thank you.
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  Thanks for having me. Appreciate the kind words, kind
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  intro. No, it's awesome to have you
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  like just so the listeners know as well.
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  This has been a little bit in the works for for quite a while,
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  so really excited to get on with it.
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  Let's start with your journey. So you you've gone consulting,
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  investing, then operating roles and then becoming a founder and
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  ACEO. How did that path eventually
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  lead you to to Billings Euro? Yeah, thanks again.
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  Thanks Max for having me on the on the podcast.
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  Yeah. So I I've been fortunate to see
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  the biotech ecosystem from a few different perspectives again,
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  first as a, you know, as a position and then as a
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  consultant, as an investor and then having good fortune to be
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  able to be part of a few biotech start-ups in the early days,
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  including founding a couple. So yeah, I think, I mean, I
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  think the simple truth is like biotech is really hard.
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  It's a difficult business. You can make all the right
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  execution decisions and still, you know, have the drug, you
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  know, fail. You're it's just a tough, tough
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  business. And so I think it's important to
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  not ever get too confident here and sort of approach every
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  situation being careful, considerate, mindful of all the
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  things, you know, things you don't know, the things you could
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  get wrong, the reasons why this could all blow up in your face.
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  So, but it's been really exciting the last, you know,
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  handful of years being part of few startups.
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  So my, as you noted, my journey started with being in medical
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  school, like knowing pretty early within medical school, I
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  really enjoyed the science of medicine more than certain than
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  the actual like day-to-day practice of of medicine.
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  I love being in the classroom learning about a new disease,
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  learning about how to treat it and then kind of thinking, well,
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  how can we do better than that? Like 5-10 years in future, you
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  know, what would standard of care look like?
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  Or are there ways we can push the envelope here on how we're,
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  you know, treating patients for their for their benefit?
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  So post medical school, I end up getting jobs you noted with,
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  with BCG, which I thought was a great place to learn about
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  business and start to you see more of the business side of
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  innovation and medicine, though I really don't want to use my MD
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  on a more daily basis. And so I've joined the hedge
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  fund and spent about five years investing in companies with
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  drugs in phase one or phase two, all like really driven by just a
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  belief that there's a standard of care changing drug here.
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  We were long term investors fund that that was part of and that
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  was again, it was all the fun parts of medical school without
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  necessarily all the note writing and walking around the hospital
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  that they didn't enjoy as much. So I I love the speed, the pace.
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  Being a public market investor, you see a lot of things work, a
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  lot of things not work. And I think it always raises the
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  question, well, if only this company could have pursued this
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  other indication or maybe made a few tweaks to a development
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  plan. Now, it's hard to do that when
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  you're an investor. And so, and I recognize one of
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  my personal gaps was I didn't actually know how drugs are
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  developed. And so the folks at Royvant were
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  really gracious making an offer at come join the Royvant family
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  and be able to take one of the programs forward when it was
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  really still kind of a project within the Royvant family that
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  was immunevant where I was COO through some of the early days,
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  picking indications, getting the company off the ground, helping
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  build out the team and then getting it, getting it financed,
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  which it was fun and exciting and nerve wracking.
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  Because I think I've like learned over the last decade is
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  when you're an operator company, there's usually not a single
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  right answer, though somehow there's always like a clear
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  wrong answer. And so you're trying to navigate
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  uncertainty, trying to think, you know, through decisions that
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  you may not know whether you made the right call for years to
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  come. They have like really important
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  impacts on the company. I think that's certainly true.
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  Tourmaline I think we'll talk about later on.
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  So, but it, it was fun. There's so many degrees of
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  freedom and the end of the day, like you're developing a drug,
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  like if if the drug you work on makes to market, there's
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  something special about saying that, you know, you helped, you
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  helped this thing get through. You know, this may have not made
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  it to market, you know, but for the things that our team, you
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  know, team worked on. So I found that to be personally
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  and professionally quite quite wording post my time and immune
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  event. I was eager to do it again.
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  The kind of wanted to be in a situation where I could truly be
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  the guy who really took it forward and was sort of, you
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  know, at the helm for the company.
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  And so I helped found a couple companies terminally bio where I
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  stayed on as CEO through the exit to Novartis, but then then
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  at the same time, this founding terminal and I also helped Co
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  found Zura. It is as well.
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  And so it was all like really a natural kind of evolution where
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  my time at Turnarine was winding down, Zorro was kind of entering
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  this really important stretch for the company.
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  And I think I've picked up, you know, a handful of, you know,
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  good lessons learned from my time at Immunivan, my time at
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  Turnarine that I can bring to bear here.
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  And Zorro, I'd have a chance to kind of get it, get it right.
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  So so far. Like so far so good.
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  Yeah, it's awesome. Your journey has been really
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  cool so far. I mean, it's quite interesting
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  as well that you've been involved with Zora since day one
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  and that you've recently stepped into that CEO role.
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  What what's that transition been like for you?
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  And also how how is it different joining a more established
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  company opposed to building from scratch like you did it
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  terminally? Yeah.
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  So I don't, I don't think of myself as like a professional
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  CEO. Like I don't want to jump from
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  company to company just to be the CEO of something.
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  And the truth is like when I started trumbling and even with
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  Zura, like I never went to it saying I must be the CEO or else
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  I want to be the CEO because I, I think the science is truly
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  compelling and that there is a, you know, real chance here to do
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  something good for, you know, good for patients.
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  So I think I think if you kind of go into a pre bake situation,
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  you know, a company, especially if it's public already, yeah, I
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  think there's like certain maybe some challenges in the
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  transition period of kind of getting the lay of the land, the
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  indications, the assets, the people, the investors.
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  And that can be, you know, be a challenge.
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  I think for a lot of, you know, CE OS who kind of come in
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  totally new to a situation. You might, your default might
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  just be to try to run the same playbook again that you ran
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  before, which may work, but also may not actually work.
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  And it is so different when you're the CEO of a company that
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  you founded where like maternal and I was involved with every
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  decision that the company, you know, company made over the
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  course of, you know, 3 some odd years in terms of hiring, in
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  terms of what investors to go to, to meet with, you know, how
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  we chose bankers. So we kind of knew everything
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  about it. But I think so far with 0, it's
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  been, I would say like a balance where, sure, I've not been
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  day-to-day involved until I was appointed CEO earlier this year,
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  but have been on the board and pretty much been part of every
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  like major strategic decision, got to know the team, just got a
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  feel for how the company is regarded.
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  So I would say, yeah, it's been like a pretty, pretty natural
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  and seamless transition just given the fact that I kind of
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  have a feel for where we're trying to go and and hopefully I
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  can help us, help us get there, get there a little bit faster.
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  Nice. And you talked a little bit
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  about the science there as well, just for people who may not know
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  who's you are, walks through the company and what you guys are
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  building. Yeah.
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  So the company came together in 2022 in over the 1st 12 months
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  or so, the company's existence, we we brought in three separate
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  assets, the first from Pfizer and then two assets from Eli
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  Lilly did A and did a de SPAC transaction.
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  So within 12 months of the company getting going with three
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  programs with public listing. So all I would say all all
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  pretty compressed in terms of getting, getting off the ground
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  Out of the three assets we have, our lead program is tibalisumab.
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  It is a BI specific we licensed from Eli Lilly going after a
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  couple different autoimmune diseases, but we're really
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  excited about the program and the broad potential that the
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  asset has. The second program is an IL 33
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  antibody from Eli Lilly and then the final one is an IO7 receptor
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  antibody that we license from from Pfizer.
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  So I said the broad heading of what we're trying to do with
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  Zura is use single molecules that can inhibit multiple
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  pathways at the same time. Now there's there's been a lot
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  of interest in in bispecifics. Bispecific antibodies is an
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  antibody that can bind to two targets and by virtue of that be
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  able to hit two different pathways.
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  And there's been a lot of interest here of whether this
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  might be an attractive and important way to breakthrough
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  some of the limitations, the efficacy ceilings we see with
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  single pathway modulators. And what I think is pretty
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  exciting is how the evidence is starting to mount that
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  bispecifics can actually deliver on that promise.
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  Now with Tibalism App, our lead program, we think we can do
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  something special here in that there's really no other program
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  that is like Tibalism App binding to two important immune
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  targets that are very different in their nature, ILL 17 on the
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  one side and then Bath on the on the other side.
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  And so these are sort of orthogonal pathways.
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  So we think we potentially could cover broader immune biology
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  with Tibalism Map and that could be especially relevant and
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  important in diseases where the path of biology may not be
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  limited to a single pathway, but may have multiple pathways
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  involved. They're complex and so we think
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  a bio specific really offers the best shot of addressing that
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  complexity. One thing is also unique is that
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  we're going after two targets that are highly validated.
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  Illinois 17 has a ton of data behind it across a number of
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  programs, including approvals in at least 5-5 separate disorders.
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  On the other side, bath has been approved, a bath inhibition has
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  been approved for lupus already. Their number of additional
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  trials are ongoing. So we kind of benefit from like
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  well characterized, well validated biology that we
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  potentially could bring together in a simple to use single
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  molecule. I love that.
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  And how do you think about building a portfolio versus
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  building a a single program? Because when you look at Zora,
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  right, it's a, it's a multi asset approach in, in
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  autoimmune. Yeah, So, so I think I, I think
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  it's a fairpoint though, I, I, I would say it's whether you have
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  a single asset or whether you have multiple assets.
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  The name of the game is disciplined capital allocation.
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  All right. So we've like, that's like I, I,
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  I realise like we're kind of now in a time like where, where
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  folks have kind of forgotten about how tough the last five
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  years have been with just, you know, cup markets being open and
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  the mood being good. But it's been like a pretty
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  rough stretch of late where, you know, I think every biotech
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  company, terminaling 0 included, really needed to be judicious
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  and careful in how we allocate dollars across our, our, our
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  program. So in the case of Zura, we have,
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  we have three programs, but Tibalismab is our primary focus.
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  It's where we are allocating our development dollars, our time,
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  our team's attention, you know, amid the number of, you know,
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  opportunities we could pursue with Tibalismab.
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  And so like it's not just about which assets we're going to
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  resource, but also which indications to pursue, which
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  kind of adds another dimension of complexity to your decision
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  matrix of you know what to what to what to invest further
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  behind. So we are again excited about
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  what we do with Tibulu. We have a couple indications
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  that we're pursuing right out of the gates, Hidradenitis
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  suppurativa where we'll have a readout from study Q4 this year
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  and then systemic sclerosis where we'll have a readout first
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  half 2027. There are other indications that
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  we're excited about pursuing behind it.
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  So I would say like we are trying to be really ruthless in
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  how we allocate our dollars, whether that's adding a new
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  indication for Tubu versus thinking about an indication for
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  one of our other assets or even bringing something, you know
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  something new in. So that gives you hopefully a
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  flavor for how I think about how to build out a pipeline.
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  Nice. Yeah.
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  I think what you guys are doing really interesting.
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  But what about the milestones coming up?
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  Like what? What exciting is the the column
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  that we should be looking out for?
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  Yeah. So as as I noted, the company
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  outgoing in 2022 and so for most of the last call it four years,
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  we've really been in execution mode kind of building the
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  company, getting the assets, manufacturing the programs,
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  getting the trials designed, getting the trials enrolled.
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  And so, so after you know those four years of execution, we're
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  now transitioned to be a data delivering company.
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  And so again, what got me excited about joining the
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  company, you know, after a relatively short kind of
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  retirement after selling the previous one was just how
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  important we are, you know, how important the next 12 to 15
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  months are for for zero with a couple important readouts, both
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  which I think have you know, pretty decent shot of, you know,
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  looking looking good given the fact that we're going with well
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  characterized, well validated molecules on the on both sides
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  of the OR finding components on both sides of the N body.
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  So yeah, I would say all eyes right now are you know, Q4 for
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  our HS data readout, we internally at the company are
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  not taking anything for granted. So tracking the study progress
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  very carefully getting prepared for again like what what we hope
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  is an important transformative readout for patients with with
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  HS and then the SSC readout first half of 2027.
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  So very different indications. I think they share some overlap
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  in, in that they are complex by their very nature.
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  We think too it could be an important part for, for either,
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  either indications. So but they are uncorrelated
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  from risk point of view. So yeah, excited for what the
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  next 12 months, 12 plus months holds for us.
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  Yeah, we'll look out for it for sure.
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  I just want to move on to your expertise a little bit now as
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  well. So you you've now seen, like you
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  said earlier, actually you've now seen the industry from the
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  investor side and the operator side.
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  What what are some of the surprises founders after
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  encounter when they they start building companies?
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  Yeah. So let me let me take that a
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  few, Yeah, a few ways. Like, first of all, I've been,
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  I've been lucky to kind of have seen the biopharma ecosystem
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  from few perspectives, you know, here.
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  I think hopefully that makes, that's made me, you know, more
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  aware of what I know versus what I don't know, things I could get
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  wrong and things that could blow up in my face.
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  So I, I think every good founder needs to have like a healthy,
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  healthy dose of self doubt pretty much all the time.
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  Again, it it's biotech, you can make all the right execution
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  decisions, but the signs may not pan out.
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  And so, but the more you can do to really characterize that risk
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  on a plan, make a Plan B, Plan C may even plan D is important
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  because more often than not, you kind of have to pivot, you know,
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  to those. Now, I think having been a
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  public market investor maybe gives me a little bit of a
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  different lens versus a purely scientific founder for a company
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  where I'm constantly thinking about, again, capital allocation
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  and creating options for myself, knowing that most biotech
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  companies fail, most drugs like don't work, you know, And so,
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  you know, I think this is we're having like some kind of like
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  value framework, thinking about MPV of new indications, thinking
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  about risk rewards, tracking competitive landscape for
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  developments there. I think it's really important
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  for, you know, any founder to, you know, of course, know what's
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  happening internally and make sure the company is strong from
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  operations point of view, but always be looking outside, see
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  what others are doing, whether those are threats that they may
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  pose or opportunities that they could present.
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  So I think that's something that that having me an investor,
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  maybe it's a little bit more natural to me to sort of just be
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  tracking like what folks are saying, like what else is
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  happening out there. And then maybe the other piece I
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  think is important is like knowing when to when to let go.
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  You know, there, there were indications internally in that,
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  you know, we've been interested in pursuing that probably like
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  would work, but we couldn't get a lot of traction on it.
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  There was not a lot of investor enthusiasm for it.
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  And so there's a good balance here, like really wanting to be,
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  you know, stubborn, saying we have to pursue this, this is the
• 17:31
  right path versus sort of being willing to take the feedback
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  from, you know, from your board, from your team, from the market
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  and you know, of course, correct or pivot, depending on like what
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  what's needed, what's needed here.
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  And so I think that's probably something going to is an
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  investor. You, you, you, as I noted for
• 17:48
  you can get things a lot. You see a lot of things.
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  You you get things right, you get things wrong, but you sort
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  of need to, you know, shake it off and move on.
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  You know, move on to next and have every decision you make be,
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  you know, be thoughtful, but not be weighted to any decision too
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  long if it's clear that that's probably not the the right path
• 18:06
  to pursue. Yeah, it's interesting, right?
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  And then you've got the the culture piece, which is
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  obviously critical, especially in earlier stage companies.
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  How do you think about building teams and creating the right
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  environment as a company grows? I think it's, I think it's like
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  so, so critical. Like, I mean, I often joke that,
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  you know, we we we at Tourmaline in out Zura really have tried to
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  kind of build a cohesive culture and not sort of have the culture
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  for or, you know, just organically or hypazardly, but
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  really be thoughtful about what are the, you know, values,
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  What's the kind of company we want?
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  You know, we want to build a joke that like we, we talked
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  about, we we talked about cultural law.
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  We still do talk about culture here, Zura, but it's not like in
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  this like touchy feely sense of, you know, let's sit in a circle,
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  talk about feelings, but it's really more about like, what are
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  the what are the values we think are important?
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  What kind of company we want to work for?
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  Who are the types of people we we want to interact with them?
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  Like what's our what's our obligation, responsibility to to
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  them? So I try to think about culture
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  less than the conceptual sense and much more about like
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  practically like what does this, you know, what does this mean?
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  Every, every biotech company's, you know, needs evolve when
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  you're a company of like 4 people, like your needs are
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  going to be different than, you know, when you're 50 people and
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  you have ongoing trials. And as you get closer to pivotal
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  studies and commercialization, a change like changes like even
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  more. And so you know, there's going
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  to be some degree of like turnover that I think is
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  expected and natural and healthy.
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  But I think treating people well and really kind of building a
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  cohesive team where folks trust each other, they kind of know
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  how they work has been important for me.
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  I'm proud of terminally. I think we did a pretty good job
• 19:45
  of hiring really good people who worked well with each other.
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  And even as our needs evolved, you know, these were, I think by
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  and large folks whose skills were were adaptable, who had the
• 19:57
  aptitude to kind of evolve with the, you know, evolve company.
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  And so the turnover was relatively low with Terminally,
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  which was important to me. And that may be one of the
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  challenges, you know, in a in like a post pandemic kind of
• 20:10
  world of how to manage a. A virtual team or you know,
• 20:15
  place where there may not be an office where you're not getting
• 20:17
  80% of, you know, the company together every single day, but
• 20:20
  trying to build a cohesive team, you know, culture when it's
• 20:24
  Teams calls or zoom meetings that you're that you're doing.
• 20:28
  So not say that like we've gotten everything perfectly, but
• 20:32
  it's like something I've spent a lot of time, you know, thinking
• 20:34
  about, you know, how to hire the right people and incentivize
• 20:37
  them to really deliver their best work.
• 20:40
  Yeah, it's the culture piece is always interesting to me,
• 20:44
  especially when you talk about doing it over teams and that and
• 20:47
  you're right, it starts with hiring the right people.
• 20:49
  You know, those profiles that that fit and really do push the
• 20:53
  behaviours you want across the business, because that's what
• 20:56
  culture is at the end of the day, right?
• 20:57
  It's like it's behaviours. You know that how, how people if
• 21:03
  you talk about mantras or you know what, what you actually
• 21:07
  want to push in a business, you know, you could talk about.
• 21:10
  I remember one of the best. I was like honesty.
• 21:13
  And it's like, well, actually, it's all well and good writing,
• 21:16
  knows words on the wall, but it's like, are we pushing those
• 21:19
  behaviours across the team? Absolutely, yeah.
• 21:22
  And are. We talking about it regularly.
• 21:24
  Yeah, yeah. It's like started, Yeah, we
• 21:25
  started with values and really tried to build out a set of
• 21:28
  behaviours below it. We literally would share that
• 21:31
  slide with perspective, you know, employees, folks who are,
• 21:35
  you know, interviewing for jobs. And my hope is the most folksy
• 21:38
  at the sought and said, yeah, like, these make sense to me.
• 21:40
  And if someone said, no, this is all like garbage, they probably
• 21:43
  weren't going to make it through the process anyways.
• 21:45
  That might be, you know, useful way to select that people kind
• 21:48
  of don't view being a good team player really doing the right
• 21:52
  thing for patients, pushing the envelope, doing things in a
• 21:53
  compliant manner. Yeah, I think hopefully that
• 21:56
  helps select for people who really kind of buy, you know,
• 21:59
  buy into the mission and believe, you know, believe what
• 22:00
  we're doing is important. Yeah, definitely.
• 22:04
  And then let's just talk about the the Tournelline acquisition
• 22:08
  by Novartis as well, because that's something that a lot of
• 22:13
  founders will look at and they'll that, you know, want to
• 22:15
  aspire to it. When should founders start
• 22:18
  thinking about strategic exit versus building independently?
• 22:23
  So yeah, I, I would say like I'm an n = 1.
• 22:27
  So I take everything I say with the grain of, you know, grain of
• 22:30
  salt. As I noted earlier, there's
• 22:32
  never like a single right, you know, right answer.
• 22:35
  My like my take is that again, our business is really tough.
• 22:40
  And so you kind of always want to have, you know, your thoughts
• 22:43
  on plan BC and D kind of in your mind like ready, you know, ready
• 22:48
  to go and really try to work up as many options as possible and
• 22:51
  pick the best, you know, pick the best one.
• 22:54
  In the case of like my, my chair at turn lane is was Clay Segal,
• 23:01
  who was the founder for C Gen. now CEO at at Immuno.
• 23:06
  And it was just like so fortunate to be able to work
• 23:08
  with someone who had as much experience as as Clay.
• 23:11
  And he kind of laid out, you know, 4 paths for any biotech
• 23:14
  company. 1 is that the thing just the company just fails,
• 23:18
  like the drug fails and it's all over.
• 23:20
  Everyone looks for new jobs and OK, end of story.
• 23:23
  On the other extremes that you sort of, you know, kind of get
• 23:26
  to a you you get big enough, you get drug approved and you and
• 23:30
  then you kind of get to escape velocity.
• 23:32
  And this is like the vertexes of the world that are going to be
• 23:35
  likely independent, you know, probably for forever.
• 23:38
  And but the number of kind of companies that get to that
• 23:41
  point, even when they're successful is like relatively
• 23:43
  like limited, you know, handful of companies that get to that
• 23:46
  point. So the two scenarios in between,
• 23:48
  as you know, Clay kind of laid out is you succeed for a short
• 23:51
  period of time than someone like acquires you or you succeed for
• 23:54
  a longer period of time than someone acquires you.
• 23:56
  So I mean, I think thinking about acquisition, thinking
• 23:58
  about exits is important. That doesn't mean, you know, one
• 24:03
  kind of goes out, you know, puts a shingle out on your company
• 24:05
  and says I'm trying to sell it as soon as possible.
• 24:07
  But you know, that is like certainly like a reasonable like
• 24:09
  option pursue. Now, in the case of terminal, I
• 24:11
  think we had maybe some like a unique set of circumstances
• 24:14
  where I thought we had a real drug that likely would work in a
• 24:19
  number of cardiovascular indications.
• 24:21
  But cardiovascular drug development is not for the faint
• 24:23
  of heart. These are like big indications.
• 24:25
  They're long studies are very expensive, they're complex in
• 24:30
  that you just need a lot of coordination.
• 24:31
  You're trying to roll A-8000 patient trial.
• 24:34
  And so, so we we can recognize those important, we recognize
• 24:38
  early on those important kind of engaged strategics and these
• 24:40
  have those discussions, you know, ongoing.
• 24:43
  And so, you know, as soon as we started our phase two trial in
• 24:48
  CV, the Tranquility study, yeah, we were trying to sort of get a
• 24:51
  feel for who might be interested, you know, there.
• 24:53
  And so I think it's worth it to kind of have those dialogues
• 24:55
  ongoing. Doesn't mean you have to pursue
• 24:57
  that, you know, pursue that path, but to least get a feel
• 25:00
  for, again, who's out there, what they think about it.
• 25:03
  Always good to keep your options open.
• 25:05
  That's my, that's my personal take, yeah.
• 25:07
  I think that's really good advice.
• 25:09
  Yeah. And look, it's been great to
• 25:12
  have you, Sandeep. And this brings us to thank you
• 25:14
  for having me. No, it's been awesome.
• 25:16
  And look, it brings me to final question, which is a question
• 25:19
  asked every one of the guests and it's what I give in advance.
• 25:23
  So I hope we had a chance to think about it.
• 25:26
  So if if you could have dinner with any scientist or innovator,
• 25:29
  past or present, who, who would it be and why?
• 25:33
  So I'll. Admit of the questions you you
• 25:35
  sent over I spent the most time trying to like think through
• 25:37
  think through this one so we'll see with us you know where this
• 25:40
  goes I, I, I think we just live in such like an amazing period
• 25:44
  of drug discovery and new therapeutics.
• 25:46
  Think about, I mean, like, think about my time medical school, I
• 25:50
  graduated in 2009 and I can think of, you know, 10 different
• 25:53
  diseases where the standard of Care now is so different than
• 25:55
  anything I would have learned back back then.
• 25:58
  And that's over the course of, you know, 17 years.
• 26:00
  So things have changed really quickly, which I think is
• 26:02
  pretty, you know, pretty exciting.
• 26:05
  Some of the, some of the work that I'd done before medical
• 26:08
  school involved looking at life expectancies in different
• 26:11
  populations, even in the US across different counties, like
• 26:14
  over time. And I mean, I think what's
• 26:16
  pretty like, so the, the scientist that I would flag
• 26:20
  someone that I would love to, you know, have dinner with me is
• 26:23
  Edward Jenner, right? The, the person who's credited
• 26:27
  for developing the first smallpox vaccine, like in the
• 26:30
  late 1700s. All right.
• 26:32
  And so like when I think about life expectancy, having again,
• 26:35
  like worked on life expectancy and population health metrics
• 26:38
  before life expectancy, like for most of you in history, it's
• 26:42
  been pretty consistent, like 25 to 30 years.
• 26:44
  The most people, you know, died early of all sorts of things,
• 26:48
  including infectious disease, including like heart disease.
• 26:50
  But life expectancy was really short.
• 26:52
  And when I think about the kind of advances in patients that
• 26:55
  really bent that curve, vaccines are just a critical, critical
• 26:59
  component, you know, here. And think about our three kids
• 27:03
  that, you know, we have like they're all beneficiaries of,
• 27:05
  you know, vaccines. The fact that we know with
• 27:07
  almost 100% certainty that they will make it into adulthood is
• 27:10
  because of like, you know, because of vaccines.
• 27:13
  And, you know, like, like we live down here in Miami, there's
• 27:16
  a lot of talk about longevity and folks want to live forever
• 27:19
  and so on. Honestly, like getting
• 27:22
  vaccinated, getting your kids vaccinated is probably the
• 27:24
  single best thing you can do to, you know, help, you know, give
• 27:27
  yourself a shot of living for as long as possible.
• 27:29
  And so, I mean, I, I it's sad that this is like like
• 27:33
  controversial take, like the importance of vaccines like in
• 27:35
  our society. But I think it's important to
• 27:38
  really highlight, you know, these are great innovations that
• 27:41
  many, if not most of us would not be be here, you know, but
• 27:44
  for the fact that we have really great innovations that help
• 27:48
  prolong life and treat preventable diseases.
• 27:52
  Yeah, I love that. Answer such a good answer.
• 27:56
  And you know that different way of thinking as well, like going
• 27:58
  back to the 1700s and thinking like that is crazy.
• 28:03
  But yeah, look, thank you so much for coming on Sandeep.
• 28:07
  It's been nice. Thanks, Mike.
• 28:08
  Absolutely. Thank you for having me and
• 28:10
  please. Everyone like and subscribe to
• 28:12
  the bio Hub and thanks so much again Sandeep.
• 28:16
  My pleasure. Thank you.