Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 117 - Raj Devraj - CEO Rectify Pharma

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Episode 117 - Raj Devraj - CEO Rectify Pharma · The BioHub - by Avetix

0:05
Welcome back to another episode of the Biohub and Avetic
0:09
podcast. Today I'm joined by Doctor Raj
0:12
Dhiraj, President and CEO of Rectify Pharma and Venture
0:15
Partner at Atlas, a company of a company developing a new class
0:20
of oral small molecules called positive functional modulators
0:24
that restore the function of damage or dysfunctional membrane
0:27
proteins. Over a 30 year career, Rogers
0:30
helped build and lead some of biotech's most successful
0:32
science start-ups from Padlock Padlock Therapeutics and Disarm
0:37
Therapeutics, both required by Big Pharma, to now leading
0:40
Rectify for its next phase of growth.
0:42
In this conversation, we'll talk about the art of drug hunting,
0:46
how to de risk breakthrough science, what it takes to hire
0:49
the right people at each stage of company building and Rogers
0:53
read on where biotech's heading next.
0:56
Pleasure to have you Raj, How are you?
0:58
Great, thanks. Thanks for the opportunity, Max.
1:02
It'll be great chatting with you.
1:03
Yeah, seriously, pleasure to have you.
1:06
And I just want to start with rectify what what was the vision
1:11
when you and the Atlas team first started building it and
1:15
how far has it come since those early days?
1:18
Yeah, I think it's good. Let's do so.
1:20
Let's sort of peel the onion layers a little bit and tell you
1:23
how the company was founded. So Jonathan Moore, who's the
1:27
founder and chief scientific officer for the company, came to
1:31
Atlas and was talking to us about his vision of expanding
1:39
some of the work that he was doing.
1:41
He had a 28 year career at Vertex developing the cystic
1:46
fibrosis correctors and potentiators.
1:51
What people don't know is we call it the cystic fibrosis
1:55
gene. The cystic fibrosis gene product
1:58
is a transporter, ABCC 7 and he worked on that.
2:04
He was a structural biologist that had a very good
2:07
understanding of how how these proteins work and are
2:11
transported from the time they're synthesized all the way
2:14
to the cell membrane. So he came to us saying he had
2:18
an idea, he had moved from Vertex and he was a research
2:21
professor at MIT, and he wanted to understand whether we would
2:25
be interested in exploring the idea of expanding the drug
2:30
ability of the broader class of ABC proteins.
2:36
What are ABC proteins? ATP binding cassette proteins
2:42
that are transporters. So these are called ABC
2:46
transporters. So we took a bottoms up and tops
2:50
down approach to really doing diligence.
2:54
And we'll come to this, right, you, you, we're going to talk a
2:56
little bit more perhaps about scientific diligence and picking
3:00
programs. So we did a very detailed
3:05
analysis of the ABC transporter proteome and then took us a
3:11
while about six months plus I started talking to John and the
3:16
interim Atlas people that started talking to John and
3:18
interim And we decided, OK, this is a company that we would like
3:23
to back and we need to now choose there are about 48 ABC
3:30
transport of proteins. How do we choose the ones that
3:34
are more most valid for us to work on and we'll talk about
3:38
those. So basically around December,
3:43
November, December of 2020, we started seeding the program.
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I had just sold this arm in October 2020 to Li Lily and I
3:54
was going to transition as a venture partner.
3:56
So I started on the board of the company.
3:59
So I was a board member for the company and then started to
4:03
build the company and in September 2021 was very
4:07
successful in raising $100 million Series A for the
4:10
company. And I became an operator, the
4:13
CEO for the company, The stop start up CEO for the company to
4:17
really sort of expand three things.
4:20
One, the scientific version to the platform that we needed to
4:27
build to be successful in finding these oral disease
4:31
modifying small molecules and #3 develop products.
4:36
And so those are the three sort of main things that we've
4:38
already do. And of course, in all this is
4:42
building the team, but that's sort of the sort of snapshot of
4:45
the river with Rectify. And if I may, if I might just
4:50
take about 2-3 minutes to explain what Rectify is all
4:54
about. As you said in your
4:56
introduction, we are developing these oral small molecules, we
5:01
call them positive functional modulators.
5:04
These are small molecules that are able to restore or enhance
5:12
the wire type or mutated proteins expression and
5:18
function. And these are membrane proteins.
5:21
So which is a pretty powerful idea.
5:24
I mean, it's not being done as a platform approach before.
5:29
So we needed to build that platform.
5:33
And then very quickly, I'm a translational guy, very
5:36
translational scientist. So platforms, long, long
5:41
platforms are great, the absolutely fantastic.
5:44
But I wanted to very quickly focus on what products and what
5:52
clinical indications we'll pursue amongst this class of ABC
5:56
proteins. So we started with five
5:59
different transporters and one of the biggest and most
6:02
important criteria are #1 unmet medical need and two, validated
6:10
human biology. Those two things we wanted to
6:14
start to really put upfront as criteria to understand what
6:20
transporters we'll work on first.
6:23
OK. So unmet medical need is
6:25
critical and #2 is human biology by human biology.
6:30
If we have genetic mutations that caused the phenotype of the
6:35
disease and we can study that and there's a lot of data around
6:39
it, we get more excited about it.
6:41
And that's what we started working on.
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And we started working on targets that have very strong
6:49
validated Human Genetics and human biology that led us to
6:52
believe. And there was a lot of data that
6:55
suggests that they would cause rare monogenic diseases.
6:59
There were also many targets that caused haplo insufficient
7:02
diseases. But our platform started
7:05
morphing after about a couple of years and we found out that our
7:09
oral small molecules are also able to enhance wild type
7:15
function, not just restore the the they restore or rectify the
7:21
function of mutated genes that 'cause these ABC transporter
7:26
proteins that are dysfunctional. It's super exciting what you
7:30
guys are doing and you're doing it in the right way.
7:32
I just want to go back to what we were talking about in those
7:35
early days where you, you know, you were spotting what is this
7:40
great science for Rectify and you personally talk about the
7:43
translational side, but you've spent a lot of your career in
7:46
drug discovery from big pharma to to these biotech exits.
7:51
What's your process when you're looking to spot great science
7:55
and deciding if it's worth building a company around?
7:58
Yeah, I wish there was an easy answer.
8:01
No one's correct. No one's correct in the
8:04
foresight. Everyone's correct in the
8:06
hindsight, Right. Well, yeah and yeah, right.
8:10
You know, in, in drug discovery, especially in, in, in drug
8:13
development. And there's, there's ups and
8:17
downs. And when we started the company,
8:19
I think looking back, unmet need was #1 strong foundational
8:29
target validation was #2 #3 was can we do it in a lifetime?
8:38
So number one, if I, if I have to distillate in four sort of
8:42
very pithy aphorisms, I would say when you start any company
8:48
or any program or any, and work on any project, there are 4
8:52
things you got to answer. And one of them is very biotech
8:56
centric. One, will it work?
8:59
2, will it sell? Three, can I do it in my
9:03
lifetime? And four, do I have the team
9:07
that can execute on this, right? Just very for sort of pity, of
9:13
course layered in, in each of those questions is, is 100
9:16
different complex sort of variables that you've got to go
9:19
through, right? What comes first is, is there
9:23
looking at that unmet need and seeing what the problem is and
9:27
then you go and write, OK, what, what way can we solve this?
9:30
Or do you look at a potential platform and then go what the
9:32
applications that we could use this for?
9:35
Which way around does it go? Yeah.
9:37
Well, well, it's a fantastic question, right?
9:42
It's an absolutely superb question.
9:45
So you could be idealistic or you could be more practical and
9:50
pragmatic about these things. And 3rd is what is your core
9:55
interests and what are your passions #1 is for me, it is not
10:01
about the platform, It is about a drug product.
10:04
Number one. For me, it's less about the
10:07
scientific platform. It's a lot more about the drug
10:09
product, OK? So I come in very, very quickly
10:14
about really understanding whether we have a drug product
10:17
quickly. Do we have a target product
10:20
profile that can really help in, you know, emulating or helping a
10:29
disease? And that is the number one.
10:32
So will it work is the most important question.
10:34
You can start with starting as a biotech company.
10:37
Now there are companies that will start with the question
10:41
will it sell, But they come in at a very different stage in the
10:45
evolution of the biology. For example, the the 8th
10:51
generation GLPG IP1 injectables. It's about really understanding
10:56
differentiation. There's tremendous amount of
10:58
innovation to be had if you can have lower dose, lower dosing
11:03
frequency pen injectables to give for weight reduction and
11:08
that's very different innovation.
11:09
What I'm talking about is novel biology, novel target, novel
11:14
diseases. How do you build those and will
11:16
it work? Is a very critical sort of
11:18
concept that you have to and it's not easy, right?
11:21
Not you have theoretical basis, you have published literature
11:24
and then you have to generate your own data.
11:28
So that's critical. So I would start with will it
11:30
work as the number one thesis? Yeah, that will it say point is
11:34
always quite, will it sell point is always quite interesting, you
11:37
know like are you thinking about that right from the point of
11:41
inception? Absolutely, absolutely.
11:44
When you're when you're a top tier venture capital company,
11:47
that's one of the most important things you have to start.
11:50
You cannot do that. That's always the end goal.
11:54
Basically, there's no other strategy in terms of which way
11:59
this could go. That's the end goal.
12:01
Exactly. Will it sound as a critical
12:02
point because you're building a company with venture capital
12:05
dollars? So there are two exits, not
12:08
three, maybe 1 is access to public markets, 2 making sure
12:15
that the larger crossover investors and and the larger
12:19
private investors can come in and do diligence in your company
12:24
and put in more money. And three is in every way,
12:26
right. So those are the three sort of
12:28
main sort of goals and exits for any venture backed company,
12:34
right? You have three things, right?
12:37
You're developing a drug, you got to figure out how to build a
12:41
team to develop the drug and #3 you got to make sure your
12:43
investors are getting a return back on their capital.
12:47
That's, that's the entire business model of the venture
12:49
capital company. So as long as you know to wear
12:52
that cap when you walk into a boardroom and you you start to
12:56
understand what sort of questions are being asked by
12:59
investor directors versus independent directors, you're
13:02
all good. And then there was .4, right?
13:04
Do you have the people that can execute on this And you've, you
13:08
said this the last time we spoke that the people are everything
13:11
at the start of the company. What?
13:13
What do you look? Like when you look for when
13:16
you're building those first teams and how does that change
13:18
the company grows? Yeah.
13:21
I think each company requires a different set of expertise and
13:28
it really depends on the founding executives, right.
13:32
What is the core strength of the finding founding executives?
13:36
If the core strength of a founding executive is medical
13:41
clinical development versus drug discovery or preclinical
13:47
translation or is the stop founding executive a chief
13:50
business officer, for example, or chief financial officer?
13:55
It's a very different set of experts you want to put around
14:00
the table who are able to a speak truth to data, speak truth
14:07
to the science and the scientific data.
14:09
And #2 make sure that you have a very, very strong bulletproof
14:16
operational plan, short term, 12 months and long range plan about
14:23
three to five years that you can actually build out the budget
14:27
and you can build out the requirement of capital.
14:29
And, and you're going to have push back right when you go and
14:33
present it, people are going to ask, oh, is that expensive?
14:36
Oh, it's that cheap? And you sort of have this
14:38
conversation back and forth. So building the executive team
14:42
or the founding team or the first startup team is very
14:45
critical. Do you need expertise in
14:47
translation medicine? Do you need expertise in drug
14:51
discovery? Do you need expertise in
14:54
building a certain modality for rectified small molecules?
14:57
So do you have someone who's an established drug hunter who can
15:01
help really build the company forward?
15:04
Do you have a a strong translational person,
15:09
translational sciences person who can really help this company
15:13
move forward? Do you have very strong cell
15:15
biologist, structure biologist who can help?
15:17
So those were the three sort of fundamental things that I
15:22
indexed. And the last but not least #4 is
15:27
a very, very strong operational person.
15:32
You know that that's a chief operational officer or so those
15:35
are very critical, right? People who can own the execution
15:40
of the company through very, you know, stringent milestones and
15:45
making sure that we are capital efficient.
15:47
Now rectify you know with any CEO when you look back and
15:54
you're an honest CEO, you're going to say could we have done
15:56
things better? Absolutely.
15:58
Could things have gone more smoothly?
15:59
Absolutely. Could things be done cheaper?
16:02
Yes. Could things be done in a faster
16:04
time point? Yes.
16:05
All those are very critical and I think it is it is important to
16:10
recognize those so that you and each company has it's own sort
16:16
of challenges as they as they build a company and with
16:21
Rectify, I think one of the things that took us longer than
16:26
not one of the main things was building the platform, right.
16:32
Building the platform took us a little longer.
16:36
That is really understanding what biological assays we need
16:41
to build to really inform us that we have the mechanism of
16:47
action that we say we have today, right?
16:50
That's easy to say today. When we were building the
16:52
company over the first year and a half to two years, it took us
16:56
a while to build those assays to really understand if you have a
16:59
molecule that acts at the level of the protein.
17:03
That is our main goal at Rectifier.
17:06
We are not interested in finding broad spectrum transcriptional
17:10
activities, not that there's anything wrong with them, but we
17:13
prioritized our approach to find small molecules that bind to the
17:18
proteins as they're synthesized from the endoplasmic reticulum
17:23
and are able to correct the misfolding that occurs that that
17:27
then LED lends that protein to be trashed by the cellular
17:31
machinery before it gets to the cell membrane, right.
17:34
So that was a very and those are not easy to do, right.
17:38
We had to build all those. It took time and it took money
17:42
to build those #1 #2 When you work on small, rare monogenic
17:49
diseases, or you work on smaller rare diseases, small
17:54
opportunities by nature, rare monogenic diseases are quite
17:58
rare, right? There are a few that have pretty
18:01
large cystic fibrosis being one of them.
18:03
I would say autosomal dominant polycystic kidneys is another
18:07
one of them where it's pretty large patient population.
18:11
But in general, most Ryo diseases are very small.
18:15
So as you build this company and you have this therapeutic
18:17
thesis, what you're also trying to do is how the competition
18:22
evolves and the competition might be very different.
18:27
We have a disease modifying approach to our therapeutics,
18:33
but the competition is evolving too.
18:35
And if the competition starts generating clinical data and
18:38
that clinical data looks very good, you have to be able to
18:43
sustain that competitive assault on your therapeutic thesis,
18:51
right? You have a differentiated
18:52
product. You might have a small oral,
18:54
small molecule, they might have an injectable, or they might
18:57
have a completely different approach to treating the
19:00
disease. But you have to be able.
19:01
So those are all things that are very competitive.
19:04
Intelligence is very critical to develop very early on.
19:07
That's an interesting mindset. Now, I once got it put to me
19:10
that building a team in a biotech is like a puzzle, but
19:13
you need these different pieces at different times during your
19:16
growth. And like there's complexities
19:18
these like jagged pieces that need to fit together and mold as
19:21
well. So maybe I can actually, so
19:24
maybe let me stop there because since we are in the people part.
19:27
So one of the things that we needed as a company is a very
19:33
experienced Chief Medical officer.
19:35
Once we knew what our lead product is going to be, an elite
19:39
program is to treat a very devastating hepatobiliary
19:46
disease, which is called as primary sclerosingcholangitis.
19:50
PSC, OK, it's the black box of hepatology.
19:54
There's no approved drug. There are certain treatments
19:58
moving their way up in clinical development, but we are
20:03
extremely convinced we have one of the most attractive strong.
20:09
Disease modifying approaches to treat primary sclerosing
20:12
cholangitis, that's our lead indication, but the mechanism is
20:16
so core to restore back the normal Physiology of the liver
20:22
and ability tract that we think it as an approach and as a
20:25
pipeline and a pill approach to multiple hypatibiliary diseases,
20:28
we show PSC coming back to the foundational principles of the
20:32
company. Unmet medical need #1 and #2
20:37
will it sell? Of course, it'll sell if we, if
20:40
we get great data with this compound, there's nothing else
20:43
that's available. It's going to sell.
20:44
It's about 65,000 patients in the world and growing.
20:47
I would, I would, I would imagine it's, it's going to grow
20:50
substantially as well. And it's devastating because
20:54
most people get transplant. So as soon as we knew that we
20:57
had this lead program, I needed to find a Chief medical officer
21:02
who can come in early, understand the signs, understand
21:08
the preclinical translation worlds and then build a team and
21:13
build a clinical strategy and a clinical development plan
21:16
that'll get us to the promised land in PSC.
21:20
So the needs changed. We didn't have ACMO for three
21:24
years in the company, 3 plus years.
21:27
And then very quickly, I said, that's one of the key things
21:29
that we need for the company. And we went and hired Doctor
21:33
Paul Baudet, who had developed Salad del Par for Simabe.
21:38
And Simabe was sold to Gilead, and he was instrumental in the
21:41
early parts of the clinical development program, really
21:44
thinking of how he would put together a clinical proof of
21:48
concept, right? One of the key endpoints of any
21:52
biotech company is the clinical proof of concept in human
21:54
patients, right? That's going to be the key.
21:56
So it was very important for me to hire him.
21:59
He loved the program and then he joined the company and it's
22:02
great. So I'm just saying how needs
22:05
will change. And next year we will be getting
22:07
clinical data, which means I have to build out a clinical
22:10
team and I'm already looking out to building the clinical team,
22:13
clinical operations people, clinical development person to
22:17
really help Paul spearhead development in PSC.
22:21
Yeah. And then there's the other side
22:23
of that, right? Like you're going, we're talking
22:25
being in the clinic potential phase to like you guys have
22:29
raised over $100 million so far. But these things are you know
22:32
that they're expensive, right? How do you approach fundraising
22:36
especially in in today's market which has been that that bit
22:40
more selective recently? Tough.
22:45
Fundraising is tough. So first let's start by saying
22:51
it takes longer and you need more data to raise financing.
22:57
And we have a very marquee set of investors.
23:00
So we will. And we have families and friends
23:03
and we talk to people all the time, right?
23:06
I am talking to analysts, I'm talking to investment bankers,
23:09
I'm talking to companies, I'm talking to investors on a weekly
23:14
basis. That's what I do, OK.
23:17
Even at the earliest sort of stages of company building, I'm
23:22
already starting to talk about the vision of the company, the
23:26
thesis of the company, what we plan to do with the product that
23:31
we have. So NUM.
23:32
So coming back to fundraising product theses of value.
23:36
So everyone wants to see that there's a product in the horizon
23:40
#1 which means they got a due diligence on the asset.
23:44
If it's normal biology, they won't D this data.
23:48
So if you. And the best thing to have is
23:50
clinical data. So you need enough capital to
23:53
take your lead program to the clinic and have some clinical
23:58
endpoints. Early clinical endpoints of
24:01
three things. Number one, you got good
24:02
exposure in human beings #2 there's, there's early, but good
24:07
safety. And #3 you have early biomarkers
24:12
of proof of biology or proof of mechanism.
24:15
Those three really help you raise capital and raise capital
24:20
at the right valuation for your company.
24:22
OK. So that's critical, but it takes
24:25
longer and teams have to generate more data and diligence
24:30
is take much longer. So you have to sort of bake in
24:33
that. As a result of that, most of the
24:35
biotech companies that we know of today will be thinking about
24:42
diluting one of their assets out of their pipeline, right.
24:46
We have multiple programs in our pipeline, but why do I have a
24:52
the capacity to the capital intensity 3, the people to
24:58
really develop so many different programs in different
25:01
therapeutic areas? Sure, I can if I have unlimited
25:06
cash at the end of a rainbow, fresh treasure chest at the end
25:10
of the rainbow, but I don't. So I have to make some judicious
25:12
choices. So a biotech company like ours
25:16
is will be looking to partner UFR second or third programs,
25:23
really important programs. But I think what we do then is
25:26
we take the capital that comes with partnering that and help
25:30
spearhead this first program deeper and deeper into the
25:33
clinic to help with the question number one, help us raise more
25:38
capital to advance and and help us sort of de risk this program
25:42
later and later in the clinic. So that's the idea.
25:44
So we, there's always dilution you take either you dilute your
25:48
equity or you dilute your assets, right.
25:51
So those two things you are constantly weighing as you build
25:55
a country. Yeah, that makes sense.
25:56
Yeah. You've got to be imaginative in
25:58
this market, right? Like in, in certain ways and and
26:03
you know, you, you spoke about mindset on DE risking early
26:07
biotech bets as well and knowing when it's double down.
26:11
You could you just talk us through that?
26:13
So come back to de risk, will it work?
26:18
So what are the proof points that you need to de risk either
26:25
the product or the platform, right.
26:28
If you think about platform and you think about a novel sort of
26:33
ASO modality that you're linking with some carrier that then
26:38
binds to a protein and can be internalized selectively into a
26:42
tissue, that's great, right? You think about RNA medicines
26:47
and the fantastic job that LLM has done and others pioneers,
26:52
but it took forever, right? It takes a long time.
26:55
I mean, it does take a long time, but it's a new class of
26:59
medicines that's completely going to change the world,
27:01
right? It's like antibodies.
27:02
Antibodies are an engineering problem.
27:04
Now. I will probably say RNA
27:08
medicines are also becoming becoming that way.
27:11
Small molecules are not yet right because the distribution
27:16
of small molecules is everywhere in the human body.
27:18
So to really start to de risk toxicology and toxicology
27:23
outcomes becomes more paramount. So in terms of de risking,
27:28
number one, will it work is critical and what is the proof
27:31
point that you need very early on to show that it worked?
27:36
If and and #2 how much does how much does it cost and #3 how
27:42
long does it take? So what is the capital intensity
27:45
and the capital needs for me to de risk the biology in vitro in
27:53
some sort of a primary human cellular system?
27:55
If I can have it right, if I have diseased cells, even
28:00
better, right? This patient that I have disease
28:03
cells and I can actually look at a mechanism and B function
28:07
great. If not, what models do I build
28:10
in vivo and what is the translatability of those models?
28:14
Not all models are translatable. Some of them are mechanistic
28:19
models, some of more phenotypic models.
28:22
Very few are genetic models that actually recapitulate the
28:25
disease. They got to be genetic diseases
28:28
and and then you can really say, oh, there is a direct
28:31
translation unless the Physiology of the rodent is very
28:34
different than the Physiology in the human in that organ system,
28:37
which we you will know. So that is going to be critical
28:41
in terms of platform. You got to de risk the platform.
28:44
Can I be, is this new class of modalities that I'm making?
28:50
What are the key data sets that I need?
28:53
Do I, for example, if I'm making a, a compound that is utilizing
28:59
a brain shuttle to get more into the brain, then is it
29:02
generalizable? Can I actually get CNS exposure
29:07
with that sort of approach? These are all things that are
29:10
very different for different companies.
29:11
So #1 Proof. Point is, will it work if it's a
29:16
product? What is the translational data
29:18
that tells you that you can, that you can invest more money
29:22
to take it to the clinic #2 do you have a modality that
29:27
actually does what you know? Does it get to the muscle?
29:31
Does it get to the kidney? Does it get to the liver?
29:33
Does it get to the brain, for example?
29:35
I'm just saying your modality. And 3rd, for a small molecule,
29:39
we really, I think historically biotech has not been very good
29:47
in modelling the capital requirements needed to
29:51
completely they risk a small molecule company.
29:56
What I mean by that is that I don't think a small molecule is
30:01
truly all there until you get safety data in preclinical
30:06
species and in two different preclinical species, rodents and
30:10
non rodents. And generally we are also stuck
30:14
by doing 2 species. We usually go to the rat and the
30:18
dog because that's regulatory environments.
30:19
But I think we should start to use a third species as well.
30:23
That requires more capital, that requires conversation with the
30:26
venture capitalists, that requires conversation with the
30:28
investors. But I think these are very
30:30
critical as you build out a very strong operation plan.
30:34
And usually by our tax, we usually have timelines to
30:40
milestones, development candidate Ind.
30:43
There are much faster, but that's what we need to do.
30:48
Time, decision making, speed and efficiency are critical.
30:52
But most often than not, things will come back to bite your
30:56
back. So you need to be ready for
30:58
that, right? And have constant conversations
31:00
with people. That's going to be true.
31:02
Yeah, you got to be thick skin, resilient, almost, almost a
31:07
little bit pessimistic with certain things.
31:10
Yeah, You hit on the most important point that I look for
31:13
when I hire senior executors, right?
31:16
And you don't all get it right all the time, right?
31:21
Smarts are great. You can you can get smarts
31:24
resume. You can get smarts for
31:26
diligency. What's most important is are
31:28
they a resilient B have they worked in a startup environment?
31:36
It's a very different set of, I would say strengths that
31:42
executives need to have because a private board is a very
31:46
different board. It has an outsize expectation by
31:50
the investors, right? Investor directors have put a
31:53
lot of money, you know, and you got to build a company you're,
31:57
you know, and and make sure that you have enough capital leftover
32:02
when you drag your milestone so that you can you can get to will
32:05
it sell those questions, you know, and it's a very different
32:09
set of rules. It's it's not a public board.
32:12
These are not independent board members.
32:14
These are board members that have tremendous skin in the
32:18
game, right? So it's a harder environment,
32:22
and you need to be resilient. You need to be street smart.
32:25
You need to be on your feet always thinking.
32:30
Those are critical things, I think.
32:32
And you don't get it right all the time.
32:34
You just learn and you hone your skills over a period of time.
32:38
You got Spidey sense and you still make mistakes, but you got
32:42
to develop your Spidey sense and fight attracting people.
32:45
Yeah. 100%, I can't agree with that more.
32:49
And this is the last question, right, which is the question we
32:52
ask every one of our guests at the end of the podcast.
32:56
So it's if you can have dinner with any scientist or innovator,
32:59
past or present, who would it be and why?
33:03
Oh, Francis Crick. Easy.
33:06
I always say this. Incredible.
33:10
So far, Francis Crick is someone that has absolutely been.
33:16
A. A doyen and the fear, right?
33:19
Number one started as a structural biologist in
33:22
Cambridge, figured out how to work with Watson and and
33:26
discover the double Helix and structure of the double Helix,
33:31
but then didn't stop there, right?
33:32
He went on. And he was one of the key sort
33:35
of minds that help pull together the next version, the mRNA, and
33:40
then the next version. How does the mRNA go on and code
33:44
protein. He was involved in all that and
33:46
he didn't stop. Once he moved to the Salk
33:48
Institute, he started working on analyzing dreams and
33:52
understanding how what is sort of the diagnostic and imaging
33:58
methods to diagnose dreams and really understand the most
34:02
important part of what makes us all humans, consciousness.
34:06
What is conscience? What are dreams?
34:10
What do they mean? How do they form your neuro
34:14
circuits? I think it's fantastic.
34:16
I and odd with just Francis Craig being a structural
34:21
biologist, physicist, moving on to really be one of the founding
34:24
fathers of molecular biology and then move fields so seamlessly
34:30
and be an expert in everything. So absolutely, yeah.
34:34
Amazing answer. What a guy.
34:36
It's been a pleasure to have you on March, so thank you so much.
34:42
No thanks, Max. Thanks for providing opportunity
34:44
to really discuss a lot about rectify, a little bit about
34:47
start up de risking. I know there's we touched on a
34:52
number of different topics and look forward to continuing to
34:54
have discussions with you in the future as we continue to advance
34:58
our program and get clinical data next year.
35:01
So really about that. It's inspiring honestly.
35:06
Please everyone like and subscribe to the bio hub and and
35:09
thank you so much again Raj.