Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 59 – Gerardo Ubaghs Carrion – CFO Frontier Medicines

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Episode 59 – Gerardo Ubaghs Carrion – CFO Frontier Medicines · The BioHub - by Avetix

0:06
Welcome back to another episode of the Bio Hub.
0:08
Today, I'm joined by Gerardo Ubags, CFO of Frontier
0:12
Medicines, A clinical company using chemo, proteomics and
0:16
conveyor chemistry, initially focused on target oncology.
0:20
Before biotech, Gerardo spent over a decade in investment
0:23
banking, leading over $100 billion plus in M&A and $12
0:28
billion plus in capital raises. And before that, he was a
0:32
professional violinist performing all over the world, A
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physicist, musician, financier and now biotech exec.
0:41
Gerardo brings a seriously unique perspective to the table.
0:44
So let's get into it. Pleasure to have you, Gerardo.
0:48
Pleasure to talk to you again. Yeah, it has been a while, has
0:52
been a while. Let's just talk about that
0:56
unique journey that I just mentioned, violinist, investment
0:59
banker and now biotech CFO. Just what's the story behind
1:03
that path? Yeah, so, so thanks for the
1:06
intro, by the way, and I'm really happy to be here.
1:08
It's it's been long in the making and and you know, love
1:10
your podcast, happy to be here. So, so let's, let's have fun.
1:15
The story's actually relatively simple when when you think about
1:18
it in hindsight. So, so I was, I was a science
1:22
kid, right? Loved, loved science since since
1:24
the get go. But at the same time, in Spain,
1:27
when, where I was born and, and, and grew up for the most part,
1:31
Also started playing violin at A, at A, at a young age, at age
1:34
5, like most professional people do.
1:37
And, and at some point when, when graduating high school at
1:42
that time, you could also graduate violin at the same
1:44
time. So finished Conservatory at age
1:46
18. That started to go fairly well.
1:49
So I had to make a choice and, and decide whether to go the
1:52
science route or continue to give violin a fair shot.
1:55
So I took the ladder and, and developed a professional career
1:59
in that after, after having lived and performed around the
2:05
world, you know, the, the, the other side of my brain kept kept
2:10
poking had my other interests. And I decided to take another
2:14
degree in, in finance and econ and then pursue an MBA to jump
2:18
into investment banking. The reason I wanted to do
2:21
investment banking is because that was the perfect mix of
2:25
performing in terms of, you know, preparing materials,
2:30
talking to people, interacting with them and, and, and having
2:33
that aspect that I missed in performing in violin, but at the
2:36
same time be people involved in science.
2:37
So when I did investment banking, I knew I wanted to do
2:40
biopharma, which is what I spent 12 plus years doing thereafter
2:44
at, at Bank of America, New York.
2:46
And, and then, you know, Fast forward to now, I was lucky
2:51
enough to make managing director partner, they call it in
2:53
different places, but I found myself missing getting my hands
2:57
a bit dirtier and, and actually helping companies really build
3:00
the products and, and the, and the development candidates and
3:04
working with the full team and the companies as opposed to be
3:08
the advisor in, in these transactions.
3:11
And that's where, you know, it was a bit of a push and pull.
3:13
So I was feeling that need, but at the same time, investors and
3:17
board members that had known me for the past 12 plus years also
3:22
started to tell me, look, you're, you're, you know, you're
3:24
doing great in banking, but if you at some point want to want
3:27
to join us, right? We, we think we trust you with
3:29
running companies that we invested in as well.
3:32
So if you ever think about doing this, we'll, we'll help you out.
3:35
And, and that's how it came to be.
3:37
And that was about a year and a half or so now.
3:41
And I've been up frontier for the past eight months now and
3:43
it's been an incredibly exciting journey so far.
3:47
Yeah, amazing. I think, yeah, it's probably one
3:51
of the more unique journeys that I've seen in biotech at least
3:54
just, and I've looked at a lot of different, Chris, as you can
3:57
imagine. Yeah, it sounds like you had a
4:00
bit of choice in terms of going from investment banking to a
4:04
biotech. What what attracted you to, to
4:06
Frontier? Yeah, made you decide that it
4:11
was the right next step. The the the main reason was one
4:18
that there was there was sort of warm introductions being made to
4:21
a handful of select companies right when when I was
4:22
considering this by by investors.
4:25
And that that kind of ensured a couple of things.
4:27
One being that that kind of warm intro essentially make sure that
4:32
that the team and you are somewhat alike and, and and like
4:35
minded. So so the team that is behind
4:37
Frontier is, is top notch. I'm not only talking about
4:40
extremely experienced folks or Chris Pharma, our our Co founder
4:43
and CEO Co founded Blueprint medicines Co founded Warp Dr.
4:48
bio, which eventually merged the revolution medicines and created
4:51
the signs that the revolution medicines is based on now.
4:54
So you know, extremely experienced CEO on the company
4:56
side, but also spends A decade plus on the metro capital side,
5:00
funds like the rock Ventures, MPM and and others.
5:04
And then before that doing pharma as well and APHD in
5:07
molecular bio as well. So people that, that are
5:11
extremely, extremely experienced at what they do, but at the same
5:14
time are also incredibly nice people, which I know it sounds
5:17
easy to say, but it's also relatively hard to find.
5:20
And, and so that the team was really important #2 the signs is
5:25
outstanding. You know, when, when I, when I
5:27
looked at what they are doing and how they are doing it, it's,
5:31
it was a no brainer that, that I wanted to be part of something
5:33
this exciting. And then third, the fact that
5:38
they're doing it with, with computationally enabled aspects
5:45
completely built in from the get go and, and completely
5:49
interwoven with biology from the beginning, as opposed to try to
5:52
slap on, you know, the AI or ML moniker after the fact really
5:56
attracted me to that. When I was at B of AI spent some
5:59
time developing a, a franchise in computationally enabled drug
6:02
discovery. So it took Schroedinger public
6:04
worked on recursion and Exsant and a couple of others.
6:07
And, and when I saw this, right, I said, OK, this, you know, this
6:11
is something I understand is something I like the physics
6:13
background is something that also attracted me to the way
6:15
they do things. And, you know, 4th and last,
6:19
the, the investor syndicate that was behind the company already.
6:21
If you look at the board and, and who was backing the company
6:24
for the past six years, we're also the who's who of, of
6:27
biotech, right? So I, I, I feel like I was very
6:29
lucky to be able to be part of the story and grateful that that
6:31
the team allowed me to to join. Didn't I don't suppose you know
6:36
the answers, but did did you know this was the path you were
6:39
going to lead and eventually you would end up in a in a row like
6:42
this? No, you never know.
6:44
No, I mean, you know, without digressing too much, but but my
6:49
life, my life has always been about not necessarily knowing
6:53
the path, but but having more of a feeling as to what I wanted to
6:57
do next. Right.
6:58
So I'll leave you with two thoughts.
7:00
One is I always look at things in terms of adding tools to your
7:04
kit, right? So every, every degree or
7:07
studies that I've that I've done have been not necessarily with
7:10
the aspiration to, to, to, you know, get a position or, or, or
7:14
join an industry. It's been more with the idea of
7:17
I'm genuinely intrigued in this area.
7:20
And I just want to add tools to the kits in, in that particular
7:23
area. And, and then, you know, as a
7:25
result of that, be very conscious that that, that, you
7:29
know, when new opportunities present themselves as a result
7:33
of adding those tools to your kits, you should be able to
7:35
recognize them and jump on them, right?
7:37
So, so that's the philosophy. And then, and then, you know,
7:40
the second point is, yes, there's always a bit of knowing
7:44
which direction you want to go into.
7:47
So for example, when I was when I was a violinist, the, you
7:51
know, some of the things start to go on autopilot, right?
7:53
You, you, you sort of had a path, you had some inertia in
7:56
the industry, but then at the back of your head keeps nagging
7:59
at you and keeps telling you, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm
8:02
intellectually curious. I want to pursue economics,
8:04
finance, science, something that mixes both.
8:08
I didn't necessarily know I wanted to do investment banking,
8:10
but I knew that a way to explore more avenues and add more tools
8:15
to your kit was, was, was getting a degree in business to,
8:19
to get a foundation of that, But then also doing Business School
8:22
and the Business School that I attended, Indiana University,
8:25
had a good program in finance, had a good program in
8:27
consulting, had a really good program in banking.
8:31
And, you know, I, I knew the environment as well because
8:33
that's where I went to music school before as well.
8:34
So I knew that directionally that would give me, you know,
8:37
windows that would open and, and a, and a base that the network
8:41
off of. And only then did I start
8:43
networking and figuring out that banking was that right.
8:45
And then the same thing in banking, you know, apply the
8:47
same philosophy. When I was in banking, I was
8:49
just adding tools to the kit and making sure that I knew how
8:53
companies operated to the best I could, trying to trying to build
8:56
good relationships to the best you can, try to be a decent
8:59
person to the best you can, the, the management team's investors.
9:02
And then at some point, these things tend to happen naturally,
9:05
right? You start to feel the pull it.
9:07
You also start to get intellectually curious about it.
9:10
And, and it took a little bit. I mean, I remember the the first
9:12
board member that suggested I should look at that as I was
9:15
thinking about it at the same time, it's almost like you could
9:17
smell it was was in the middle of 23 and I only, you know,
9:23
joined Frontier in, in, in, in June of 24, right.
9:28
So, and it was a completely different board member of a
9:30
completely different company that is now public as well.
9:33
But again, these things, you know, you have to sort of ride
9:37
the wave of surface A and and just be ready for for what
9:39
comes. Yeah, I think that's amazing.
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And then just to bring it back to Frontier as well, you
9:47
mentioned the science and the platform.
9:49
What, what, what do you think sets sets it apart from other
9:53
companies? Yeah.
9:54
The, the thing I would say is the company has been about 6-7
9:59
years in the making. So that's, it's been, it's been
10:02
incubating a lot of, a lot of good data and, and, and in
10:06
science. And I'll, I'll leave you with a
10:07
couple of tidbits, right? Because sort of numbers and
10:09
stats are somewhat sometimes easier to remember.
10:12
So, so one thing that sets Frontier apart is we've been
10:15
generating proprietary data in live cells and that essentially
10:20
has enabled the company to generate about one terabyte of
10:23
chemoproteomics data per week since inception.
10:27
What that enables us is essentially to have 90% plus of
10:30
the proteome covered. So what of that is we
10:35
essentially have at the ready identified about 150,000 binding
10:40
sites on about 19,000 proteins in the proteome, which enables
10:45
us to have lead chemical matter, meaning starting points to start
10:49
developing drugs in, you know, 75% plus of cancer and
10:55
immunology driver genes and about 50% plus of neurology and
10:58
growing. So the So what of that is that
11:01
basically enables us to do 2 things, right?
11:03
One is have again starting point starting chemical matter to
11:10
develop drugs that we know have certain properties already from
11:13
the get go #2 it enables us using computationally enabled
11:18
machine learning and other aspects that are proprietary to
11:22
essentially design from scratch better fine tune molecules to
11:27
target specific ligands that we want.
11:30
And then number. And then three is enables us to
11:33
to accelerate drug development, what usually takes five years or
11:37
so. The clinical candidate we're
11:39
able to accelerate and do that within 18 to 24 months.
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So from chemistry to clinical candidate and again that, that
11:45
has proven the platform that we have.
11:47
So we, we now are talking publicly about 3 assets.
11:50
One of them is in the clinic targeting KOS 12 CG 12 C We
11:56
expect interim clinical data on, on that trial in the second-half
11:59
of this year. We also just at JP Morgan in
12:02
January declare that we're going to produce an Ind for FMC 220,
12:10
which is our second most advanced asset.
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It's the only covalent a drug out there that that binds to to
12:18
P53Y220C at and achieves 100 times the potency at 10 times
12:23
less the dose than the competition.
12:25
And that should enter the clinic late this year, early next.
12:28
And then we have a third asset PI3K Alpha that's also marching
12:32
towards development candidates and and I'd be enabling studies
12:36
later this year as well. And that is a high value target
12:39
as you saw in the Lilly Scorpion acquisition.
12:41
So again, the proof is in the pudding and you know, it's it's
12:45
quite marvelling what these guys have been able to do for six
12:48
years. Yeah, yeah, that was a long
12:52
winded. No, no, it's super helpful.
12:56
And just in terms of putting context to to why Frontier and
12:59
then I suppose from more like a technical standpoint like you
13:03
went from investment banking to stepping into ACFO role in
13:08
biotech. We we used to move, a lot of
13:10
people have done, but but what surprised you most about that
13:14
move and potential responsibilities?
13:18
What surprised me the most is, is how much people matter and,
13:23
and, and when you're building a company.
13:26
So, so couple of good mentors, right?
13:31
Give me a heads up, right that that banking obviously is very
13:34
different than than operating a company for, for a number of
13:37
reasons. Part of the reason that I also
13:40
was looking to, to join a company was to truly spend a bit
13:44
more time building teams, which you know, in banking you can do
13:48
but it, but it's a bit more sort of transactional and, and short
13:51
term right in nature. But the part that's so I, I, I
13:54
knew that that was an area that I wanted to focus on and that I
13:56
had to pay attention to. But, but the fun part now and
14:00
the, the part that surprised me the most is, is how creative you
14:04
have to be right about, about psychology and, and motivating
14:07
people in the right way. And making sure that that you
14:10
also enable right teams to work together and, and find the right
14:15
incentives and find the right enthusiasm to, to do this 'cause
14:19
you can have the best scientists in the world.
14:21
But if they either don't get along well or they don't have a
14:23
clear objective that is set by leadership or whatever the case
14:27
may be, it's, it's really hard to build a company.
14:28
And in fact, it can really easily be destroyed as well.
14:32
So, so the, the, all, the, all the things that, that have
14:35
nothing to do with the signs that have nothing to do with
14:38
financing, that have nothing to do with, with BDM and a, all
14:41
these things are actually what tends to matter the most.
14:44
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's, it's
14:48
interesting that move because, yeah, you've got all the
14:50
building blocks, but it's almost moving to the other side and
14:52
then reverse engineering in it in a way, you know, just
14:56
understanding. You know.
14:58
You're an investment bank, right?
14:59
You understand what's investable and what, what, how your mind
15:04
would work in terms of working with that client and then it's
15:06
then working on the other side and.
15:09
I mean, look, I, I, I look at it as a learning opportunity.
15:11
I said earlier, right, The way I look at it is across the team,
15:16
across the leadership team of Frontier, we, we all have our
15:18
areas of expertise relative to one another, right?
15:21
All these things are relative, but, but we are, we are all open
15:26
enough and open minded enough to, to, to with each other and
15:29
open minded enough to, to, to learn from each other, right?
15:33
So the way I'm thinking about it is, OK, I bring this to the
15:35
table and I contribute it that way.
15:39
But I'm always thinking about it like a paid internship, right?
15:41
Where I get to learn about, about, you know, how how to run
15:45
a company, how to think like an investor, how to think like a
15:47
board member from Chris, how to think like a scientist from
15:50
Kevin, right. How to think like a
15:52
computational, you know, machine learning expert from Johannes,
15:57
how to think about operations from Sylvia and, and all these
16:00
things combined, right. How to think like a creative
16:03
chemist from, from Dan, how to think like a lawyer from Marc,
16:06
how to think like a people and culture person from Monique.
16:08
So it's, so it's, it's all like a paid internship again.
16:11
I'll say it again. And, and you contribute your
16:13
area of expertise to what you bring to the table.
16:16
Yeah. Yeah, I remember this from when
16:19
we met at JP Morgan in January. You, you spoke about how the
16:23
leadership team at Frontiers as a bit of a different dynamic to
16:26
other biotechs in terms of you, you do each take on each other's
16:31
roles quite often. Yeah, that's right.
16:34
It's, it's, I think, I think we contribute to each other.
16:40
I don't know if more than most, I don't have a, you know, big
16:43
enough sample size, but but it certainly feels, feels that way
16:47
relative to what I'd seen in the past thirteen years.
16:50
And and that's also what attracted me to it, right?
16:52
The fact that that the leadership team meets at least
16:57
once a week, right? Every, every decision is
17:00
unnecessarily debated on nauseam.
17:02
But but you know, we all know what we're working on and and
17:05
opinions are welcome. And, and and we do the same with
17:08
the board, right, That it's the communication with the board is
17:10
extremely fluid. In return, they are extremely
17:13
supportive of us. So, so that's an environment
17:15
that it's, it's particularly welcome, especially in tough
17:20
environment like we're living now, right?
17:21
You, you want to have a team that sticks together.
17:23
You, you want to have a board that is supportive.
17:25
You want, you want to have a board and, and a team where,
17:28
where you can debate ideas, right, and, and debate creative
17:30
ideas because that's what you need in an environment that is
17:33
not particularly conducive to, you know, flowing capital and
17:36
flowing MNA and flowing ideas in in general.
17:40
Yeah. You, you mentioned the market
17:42
there as well. Like it is, it is tough.
17:45
Yeah. There's a lot of uncertainties
17:48
and some of the uncertainties that are becoming certain aren't
17:50
necessarily the outcome that we wanted.
17:54
But what do you think of the current market like I'll leave
17:57
that question quite broad purposely and let me just talk
18:01
it through. We live, we're living in
18:05
interesting times, right? We were speaking about this
18:07
earlier. One is the, the biotech market
18:11
had been correcting for a little bit already.
18:14
And I'm using the word correction on purpose because
18:18
having seen some of these cycles, you know, the, the, the
18:21
extreme that we saw of, you know, an incredible amount of IP
18:25
OS per year, 75 plus if I remember correctly, you know,
18:28
very early preclinical stage at, at extreme valuations, right,
18:32
relative to where we are today probably wasn't the healthiest
18:35
either. And I say this with caution
18:37
because some of my biotech peers may kill me for seeing this, but
18:40
but you know that that was arguably one side of the
18:42
pendulum, right? And and what happened is, you
18:45
know, the pendulum start to swing a little bit in the other
18:47
direction where you know, you have to start producing again
18:51
proof of concept data for, for people to feel comfortable
18:54
deploying capital into you, especially if you're gearing
18:56
towards the public markets. Valuations were coming in a
19:00
little bit right relative to, to, you know, close to the
19:04
billion dollar mark that we had seen some companies approach in
19:07
private markets with which makes an accident IPO relatively
19:10
difficult. Pharma at the same time is also
19:13
getting a bit more selective right.
19:15
They, they still have a need broadly speaking to renew
19:17
pipelines, but because of some acquisitions that they have to
19:23
write off, pharma is also getting a bit more cautious and
19:27
saying, well, I also want to see proof of concept data.
19:29
I want to, I'll pay off gladly, but I, I need to see more to
19:33
make sure that, that I, that I'm buying into something that I
19:35
trust and, and all that stuff was good and well.
19:39
And that's where we saw a couple of IP OS go, go this year,
19:42
handful of M&A early this year as well.
19:45
And then, you know, the whole swing and, and sort of
19:46
uncertainty that that is happening now around tariffs
19:49
and, and, and global, global commerce is adding volatility to
19:54
it. You know, the VIX, which is the
19:57
volatility index, you know, 20 or so is, is relatively, is, is
20:03
broadly viewed as, you know, if you're below 20, it's sort of
20:06
IPO conducive. If it's above 20, it's, you
20:10
know, you start to go into darker territory.
20:12
And now we're about 60 last time I checked.
20:14
And it wasn't 60 the, the, the VIX since, since the COVID days,
20:19
right? So we're almost back to to to a
20:21
pandemic type environment where the uncertainty just doesn't
20:24
allow. Things to be priced in a normal
20:27
way because you don't know which way the market is swinging at
20:29
any point in time. So what is all this driving One,
20:32
it's driving companies to have to generate more data and as a
20:35
result of that, investors in the private setting have having to
20:37
fund companies longer periods of time.
20:40
It's driving pharma to be more cautious and it's driving public
20:43
investors to have to reposition their their public investments
20:46
to deal with the uncertainty that they're facing the public
20:48
markets. So again, things are getting a
20:50
bit tighter, but, but I'm, I'm also of the mind and a positive
20:54
note that when things get tighter and they don't get as
20:58
conducive as, as, as historically some of the years
21:01
have been, that's also the time where companies can
21:04
differentiate and, and you know, where, where teams have to get
21:09
together to find creative ways to continue to fund programs for
21:12
the benefit of patients. And I think that's what Frontier
21:15
is doing and that's what, you know, our board and and our team
21:18
is enabling us to do. Yeah, I'm going to throw it on
21:22
you there a little bit as well. What do you think is going to
21:25
happen? I know there's so many
21:26
uncertainties from the selfies question around at the moment,
21:29
but oh. God, if, if I knew this, I'll be
21:33
talking to you from, from, you know, the Caribbean with a, with
21:37
a little drink, with a trolling umbrella.
21:39
But no, I, I think what's going to happen is, is an
21:44
acceleration. This is my guess.
21:46
It's, it's an acceleration of, of what we had to start, of what
21:50
we started seeing. Excuse me.
21:53
And over the past year, year and a half or two, right, which is
21:58
there's inevitably going to be sort of self selection within
22:02
biotechs, right? There's going to be mergers,
22:05
there's going to be investors that are essentially trying to
22:08
find synergies across portfolio companies, whether it's you know
22:12
failed assets, reverse merger candidates type of deals or
22:16
simply synergies, right? You have a clinical program in
22:19
targeted oncology Company B has an earlier pipeline, two
22:24
companies combined can provide sort of a more robust pipeline
22:27
that is able to sustain more catalyst over the public market.
22:31
And I think inevitably we're going to have to see a little
22:33
bit of comeback in valuation, right.
22:35
So, so all those things are going to happen.
22:37
And as a result of that, again, you're going to see consultation
22:40
arguably in in in private markets or and early public
22:44
market. You're probably going to see
22:46
some self selection right, of companies that that are
22:49
returning capital to, to investors.
22:52
And you're probably going to see pharma having, you know, to be
22:54
more mindful as to 1 and how they deploy capital as we have
22:57
seen in M&A deals in, in the first part of this year.
23:02
Do you think it's going to get worse before it gets better, IE
23:06
like more layoffs, people holding S ones back, you know,
23:11
those those kind of things? Yeah.
23:13
I mean, yeah, a different way of saying it is, is a lot of
23:18
companies that that at least I know of, right.
23:21
And when you talk to bankers, the same thing that that we're
23:24
thinking about going public in 26 and legitimately should have
23:27
been able to do so based on the science or probably postponing
23:32
things into the 26th at this point.
23:35
Because keep in mind like the the year is also not as long,
23:37
right? So, so summer is pretty much
23:40
dead when it comes to pricing IP, OS.
23:43
Then there's the pockets of Thanksgiving, there's the
23:45
pockets of Labor Day, there's the pockets of, you know,
23:49
Christmas that you basically cannot really price IP OS in.
23:52
So, so that really doesn't leave you with much room to operate.
23:56
And I don't see this uncertainty going away anytime soon.
23:59
It's interesting, isn't it? Because hearing you say, well, a
24:03
lot of people are now postponing looking at 2026.
24:06
I remember people saying the same thing last year exactly.
24:10
You know, like I remember there was this saying going around at
24:13
the end of 2023 that I heard so many times survive till 25 and.
24:19
Now survive 26. Yeah, the government is thinking
24:22
we get to 2025, we've done it, you know, we're out with that.
24:25
But then obviously new administration uncertainties
24:29
just on how unpredictable that is.
24:31
And it's it's, it's then changed again.
24:35
So based on like predictions from well two years ago, one
24:39
years ago, we we should have been really on the straight and
24:41
narrow now, but I guess, I guess not.
24:45
Yeah, and, and, and look, that that's a lesson learned, right?
24:47
For for all of us, for the ones that that were more
24:50
conservative, for the ones that were a bit more more exuberant.
24:54
It's, you know, be, be mindful about capital deployment, you
24:59
know, be mindful that good times, this too shall pass as
25:02
they say, right, Both good times and bad times.
25:05
And, and focus on the science, right?
25:07
That that's what we're trying to do at the frontier.
25:08
We're lucky enough that let's, let's put it this way, We, we
25:12
are, things are painful enough because we do live in the
25:15
current environment that, that's not lost on anybody.
25:19
But we're also fortunate enough that that, look, we, we, we put
25:22
our heads down for the past number of years and we generated
25:25
good science where we can probably say that, that we have
25:29
a good number of catalysts coming up later this year.
25:32
Are, are diversified cause each one of those are sort of
25:35
independent from each other. Each one of them addresses a
25:38
very specific market and a specific need for patients.
25:41
Each one of them virtually has a public comparator out there when
25:45
it comes to trading companies. And each one of them has very
25:48
recent and tangible examples in M&A that prove that this, you
25:52
know, should have interest not only for patients, but for, for
25:55
pharma and investors. So, you know, that's, that's the
25:57
best we can do. And then, you know, on the heels
26:00
of that, we'll, we'll explore financing options as as, as
26:06
every biotech does and, and we'll take it from there.
26:09
Yeah. And then I also think that this
26:12
is super relevant just given how the market's been these last few
26:15
years, like mindset, it must be just so crucial for for people
26:21
wanting to be successful in biotech, but also just just
26:24
generally for for leaders and people wanting to look up.
26:27
Like how do you see mindset in in biotech?
26:33
Is it so when you concentrate a lot?
26:36
Or is it a side for or? How do you how do you see?
26:40
How do you how do you, how do I view my mindset in biotech or or
26:44
or just. Yeah, I think an overall what's
26:47
needed from someone's mindset industry.
26:50
Yeah, I, I think, I think it's a conviction of of sort of realism
27:00
and or, or a mix, sorry, a mix of realism and conviction,
27:03
right. So, So what I mean by realism is
27:09
you have to read the room, right.
27:10
You have to, you have to be extremely in tune and aware of,
27:12
of what's happening around you when it comes to capital
27:15
markets, the needs for the needs of patients.
27:20
You know, whether the signs that you're pursuing is interesting
27:22
from a scientific perspective, but may have not necessarily
27:25
clinical legs, right? And but at the same time, you
27:30
also have almost blind conviction, right?
27:33
That, that, that, that once you see a path, once you think that
27:39
you know you've covered every angle that you could possibly
27:41
cover. Being aware that that's usually
27:44
80% of what you can't see 'cause there's always some element that
27:47
you just don't know that you don't know.
27:49
But once you have that, you have to, you have to instill
27:54
conviction right in, in, in your team from a scientific
27:57
perspective, from a people perspective, because because
28:02
these are, these are relatively long term bets that we're
28:04
making, right? And and you and you need to have
28:07
that conviction and that inertia to to drive that forward.
28:13
Yeah, I think it's fascinating. Just a general resilience needed
28:16
to to be successful in in biotech's pretty crazy.
28:22
Yeah, most, most, most of the things don't work out.
28:26
So, so people doing. Their whole career without
28:28
seeing an an an. Approval yeah so so so that's
28:31
that's you know that you know some of these things you can
28:35
mitigate meaning you can you can try to join a team that that is
28:43
working on validated science that has done it before right.
28:45
So you try to eliminate uncertainty and that, in my
28:48
opinion, highly improve your improves your odds of being able
28:52
to bring something successfully to patients.
28:55
You can also take a mindful approach.
28:58
So for example, we do a frontier is our, our internal pipeline is
29:04
focused on, on novel ways of targeting certain, certain
29:10
therapeutic areas and, and, and certain targets in oncology.
29:14
But, but the science itself, right, the target itself is
29:17
validated. So we, we know that the target
29:19
does what it's supposed to do. The, the only thing we focus on
29:22
is, is, is how to improve that, that targeting, right?
29:26
That, that, that tackling of that particular protein or
29:29
molecule or pathway. Then we take a different
29:34
approach, right? ABV, our partnership with them
29:36
is if if you read the headline, this is public, it's focused on
29:39
hard to drug novel targets, right?
29:42
So, so we also take that approach, which is OK.
29:44
You know, we, we with a partner that, that we intellectually
29:48
spar with, we will also choose to go after just, you know,
29:53
completely new things that if they shake out, it could be
29:55
huge, right? And then that's proving really
29:57
well so far. So, so again, there's, there's
30:00
ways to, to sort of mitigate that uncertainty and, and try to
30:03
do things well. And even then, you know, some
30:05
things can work against you. So again, that, that's where
30:08
that self-awareness and, and trying to always be thinking
30:11
about what you're missing comes into play.
30:14
But then once you've made that decision, you know until the
30:17
next check in point, if you will, that then that conviction
30:20
is needed because you need to build a team around this.
30:23
You need to have conviction in the team.
30:24
You have to instill conviction in your team as well.
30:28
So, so that's what I think. Those are the 2, the two sides
30:31
of the coin. Yeah, yeah, I think it's
30:34
genuinely interesting. It's something that's always
30:36
fascinating me mindset and how the best the best get to to
30:41
where they want to be from what they they think up here.
30:45
But yeah, I think let's wrap it up.
30:48
And this is a question that we ask every guest.
30:52
And I don't know if you've had had a bit of a think about it,
30:56
right. But you didn't warn me.
30:58
Yeah. Yeah.
31:00
If you could have dinner with any scientist or innovator, past
31:03
or present, who, who would it be and why?
31:06
I'd say Fineman, Richard Fineman, it's, I mean, he's a
31:10
staple of amongst all physicists.
31:11
But the reason I, I, I say him is, is he had this really
31:16
irreverent way to, to, to study things, right?
31:19
He, he and and he, he always instilled this.
31:22
He, he had a humor about everything he did.
31:25
If you read his book, you know, surely you must be joking.
31:29
Mr. Feynman. It, it's, it's a hilarious story
31:32
of how he approaches life in general.
31:35
And, and what I like about him is he didn't necessarily
31:39
approach physics like a physicist or approach life like
31:42
a physicist, right? He, he always thought about,
31:46
about passionately digging into things and understanding them as
31:50
opposed to sort of memorizing or, or, or sort of following the
31:54
dogma. So it's somebody who who worked
31:56
hard but did, did so playfully and, and I think that's
31:59
beautiful. And I think that's, that's the
32:00
way I would like to think about life, right?
32:02
Work hard, but do so playfully and enjoy it along the way.
32:06
Yeah, enjoy the journey. I think some people always
32:08
forget that, right? You know, they've so focused on
32:10
this end goal, they forget to stop and be great for what
32:14
they've done so far and have a good.
32:15
Time, if you know what the end goal is, let me know.
32:18
It's like Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy, right?
32:21
Like 42. If if you know that number, just
32:23
tell me because I don't. The best I can do is just, you
32:26
know, keep learning and and and enjoy.
32:28
Yeah. Well, that's it.
32:30
Yeah, yeah. And look, I think that's a great
32:32
note to finish it on. So thank you so much for coming
32:34
on. Thank you.
32:36
And everyone please like and subscribe to the Bio Hub and and
32:39
thank you again, Gerardo. Thank you.