Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 161 - Haseeb Ahmad - CEO at Purespring Therapeutics

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Episode 161 - Haseeb Ahmad - CEO at Purespring Therapeutics · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  So welcome back to another episode of the Bio Hub and
• 0:09
  Avetics Proctor Cast. Today, I'm joined by Hasib
• 0:12
  Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of Pure Spring Therapeutics.
• 0:16
  Hasib brings over 25 years of experience in life sciences,
• 0:19
  having held senior leadership roles across Novartis and Merck,
• 0:23
  including serving as President of Novartis Europe and leading
• 0:26
  global gene therapy efforts. He's LED organisations across
• 0:30
  mature and growth markets, often through periods of real
• 0:33
  complexity and change. Pure Spring is Auk based biotech
• 0:37
  pioneer in gene therapies for kidney diseases, one of the most
• 0:40
  undeserved areas in medicine. In this conversation, we talk
• 0:44
  about Asib's journey of growing up in Liverpool, so leading
• 0:46
  global teams, the influence of his family, lessons from leading
• 0:51
  through crisis, why he joined Pure Spring and what makes this
• 0:54
  science so exciting. It's a pleasure to have you
• 0:57
  receive. How are you?
• 0:59
  Great to be here. Yeah, let's let's just start
• 1:02
  with you and you know, I'm just mentioning it.
• 1:04
  Then you, you grew up in Liverpool, UK and then you've
• 1:09
  got on to, to leading some of the some of the biggest teams
• 1:12
  in, in global pharma. So just take us back to the
• 1:15
  early days and what shaped your ambition and outlook growing up.
• 1:18
  It's interesting. I think like most people, you
• 1:20
  know, when you reflect back on kind of the person you are, a
• 1:23
  lot of it comes back from where you grew up, how you grew up.
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  And almost anyone that knows me, I think the vast majority, if
• 1:31
  not all will, they'll know that I'm from Liverpool.
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  I talk a lot about this. It was an amazing place to grow
• 1:37
  up. I feel like growing up in the
• 1:41
  city of Liverpool gave me some superpowers that I wouldn't have
• 1:44
  if I grew up somewhere else. So for those non British
• 1:50
  listeners or viewers, maybe just a bit of context on Liverpool.
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  Liverpool is a port town. In the late 1800s, early 1900s
• 2:01
  was this was the largest port in the world.
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  Actually, it's bigger than New York, bigger than Boston.
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  Most of the world's trade came through Liverpool.
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  One of the consequences of that was as well as bringing trade
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  and wealth, which built universities, created a City of
• 2:20
  Culture, there was a lot of migration.
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  So it's really melt. It really is a melting pot in
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  terms of people from all different walks of life.
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  So the one of the oldest in the Western world, African origin
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  communities came is in Liverpool, one of the oldest
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  Chinese origin communities in Liverpool.
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  And I grew up with that diversity, great culture, great
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  sport, football. I'm a huge Liverpool Football
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  Club fan. All that identity comes from
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  from the history of Liverpool. My own upbringing was really
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  quite interesting in that my parents sent me for primary
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  school from the age of 5 to 12 to a Jewish school.
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  I went to set for secondary school up to the age of 18.
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  I went to a Church of England Protestant Christian School,
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  obviously. And you can see by my name.
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  It's like, you know, most of all guests, I was brought up as a
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  Muslim. I am a Muslim and you know, but
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  sense of diversity that I grew up with taught me a few lessons
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  on the mantra where very much was that you should celebrate
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  people's differences and diversity is a good thing.
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  But also recognize that amongst differences, actually people
• 3:26
  have far more in common and they have similarities.
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  A lot of my upbringing was really trying to find out how
• 3:33
  can I build human connections with people from maybe different
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  walks of life, different backgrounds.
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  So that that wasn't, I think a really important lesson growing
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  up. Healthcare was a big part of
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  growing up and both of my parents happened to be
• 3:45
  physicians, so I don't think it's an accident I ended up in
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  this industry. My mom was AGP in inner city
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  Liverpool, so very much on the front line of kind of health
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  care delivery in a pretty gritty area.
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  You know, low social economic groups of folk lived in my area,
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  but a real sense of community. And I'm just walking around that
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  area in Liverpool with my mom as AGP.
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  You could really see kind of the role that healthcare plays in
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  people's lives and how it really, really has, you know, a
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  power to bring joy and happiness to people's lives when you can
• 4:20
  actually provide good quality health care.
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  My father was, he passed away a few years back.
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  He was a pioneering nephrologist who happened to invent one of
• 4:33
  the world's first portable dialysis machines.
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  And he also pioneered home dialysis in the late 70s and
• 4:38
  80s, bringing dialysis care to people's homes so they didn't
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  have to go into hospital. So that was my upbringing.
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  And you know, within all of that there was also just the general
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  sense of, in a city of Liverpool camaraderie.
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  I've played a lot of sports. All of that I think made me want
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  to be a part of a team. Very much had a global mindset I
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  think because of the city I grew up in on the my parents journey
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  and was pretty competitive as well playing sports and stuff
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  like that. Yeah, I think that aspect where
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  you talk about, you know your parents both being doctors as
• 5:09
  well like and the influence of of Europe green bringing in
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  terms of values and work ethic. How does that then show up in
• 5:17
  the way you approach your career and and leadership style?
• 5:21
  Yeah. So to reflect back on my career,
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  yeah, I mean, firstly for yourself and the listeners.
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  If I kind of very high level kind of talk about my career, 25
• 5:34
  years, 26 years now in the industry.
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  I started with Merck and Co, MSD went to a small generics company
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  for a while called Ivax. It's gone to China Generics,
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  branded generics, then moved to Schering Plough, back to MSD,
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  Merck and Co when they acquired Schering Plough.
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  And then the last eight years or so at Novartis, I into the
• 5:57
  influence of my parents. You know, my father lived and
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  worked and studied in three countries.
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  So growing up with a father who's kind of worked in
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  different countries, lived in different countries and
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  collaborated as a nephrologist globally with organ to different
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  conferences. That really piqued my interest I
• 6:13
  think at a very early age. So I've ended up living and
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  working in five countries and I think really because of that
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  kind of lived experience and perspective I saw from my father
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  in my career I've done country managing, director roles,
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  regional roles, global roles. One of the things I think my
• 6:31
  parents always we really tried to instil in me is about getting
• 6:36
  being a breadth leader. If like Molly, let's say, be a
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  breadth leader, but they said breadth is more important in
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  depth. So all the way through my
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  career, it was always about getting new experiences and not
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  just thinking about my career in terms of which different steps
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  of the larger do you need in terms of career progression, but
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  really thinking if you think of your CV and kind of what
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  experiences you need, what roles are going to fit all those kind
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  of experiences. And that's been the approach of
• 7:00
  taking the, my career. I think on that journey, what
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  I've learned particularly through my father, who had a
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  great sense of humor and stuff, is that you should take your
• 7:09
  work seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously.
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  So I think most people recognize I'm pretty happy to like make
• 7:15
  fun of myself as well as making fun of other people, obviously.
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  And then probably the last thing I'd say is that certainly after
• 7:26
  my dad passing and I think about I mentioned this four times,
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  shows that, you know, it's kind of a milestone in my life, I
• 7:32
  start to understand the impact that he had in his field.
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  So, you know, why have I come into biotech?
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  To a large extent, it's because I'm at a stage where I just have
• 7:43
  a lot of curiosity. I want to learn and I'm learning
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  a lot of new things being in a different sphere where
• 7:48
  ostensibly I'm running a research, clinical development
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  and manufacturing organization after many years of commercial
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  leadership, there's a natural desire for entrepreneurship, but
• 7:57
  also one of the great things in biotech.
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  And this is going back to the impact and I'll see my dad had
• 8:01
  this for an opportunity to have impact and sending with Pure
• 8:05
  Spring. I really feel I've got that.
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  I love that. And we'll move on to Pure Spring
• 8:10
  a little bit late in the conversation.
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  I just want to talk about, I suppose the leadership side of
• 8:18
  things a little bit more. But you you were leading very
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  large teams from a relatively young age.
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  What did that experience teach you early on about people,
• 8:29
  decision making and and ultimately the responsibility?
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  Yeah, maybe I'll start with it. A couple of little anecdotes.
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  And so my first leadership role, the first country managing
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  director role I got, I was 30 years of age, so many sort of,
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  you know, 7-8 years into the workplace and I got a job as a
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  managing director in Ireland running an organization of about
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  7080 people, which is still pretty big at that age.
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  Didn't really know what I was doing, but I kind of got my head
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  around things and I think through maybe just through
• 9:03
  humor, hopefully being a little bit likeable.
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  I think. I think I've got people who kind
• 9:06
  of, you know, to work with me. But I remember, I remember my
• 9:10
  leaving event and the organization had done
• 9:12
  phenomenally well. We had taken the company within
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  two years from I think like 27th in the industry rankings to 15th
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  in the industry rankings. So we've really grown really
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  strongly during that period and the market was growing strongly.
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  So it was really an amazing period of growth.
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  I remember one of my business unit directors, he was a little
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  bit older and wiser than me when I was pretty young at the time.
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  And he said something along the lines of, you know, see, if
• 9:39
  you'd have stayed one more year, either you would have killed us
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  or we would have killed you. And it was like, boom, it's
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  like, it's like a, it was like a dagger, you know, through my
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  heart. What message is he trying to
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  tell me here? And we everyone laughed and
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  stuff. And, and I spoke to him a couple
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  of days afterwards when I finally like picked myself up
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  and said, you know, you know, you said this.
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  What do you mean by that? And there were a couple of
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  things that came out. One is he actually thought it
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  was a compliment. He was saying to me, no, no,
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  it's a compliment. You know, you run this place
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  like a factory, everything, you know, quote, you know, monthly
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  run rates, quarterly run rates, exit market shares, everyone
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  knows everything. Everything's been performance
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  managed. He was saying it as a
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  compliment, but it did hurt me so and I as I unpacked that,
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  reflected on it and worked on it with coaches.
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  What I understood is that in the late 90s, early 2000s, you know,
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  whether it's at school or whether it's at work, the people
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  I learned management from or was learning management from were
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  20th century leaders. Actually all management kind of
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  theory was all about the faster or the, the more you cram the
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  wheel, yeah, the more outputs you'll get.
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  And, and there is a place for that.
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  But that was kind of one thing I learned very early.
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  And I think there is a place for it.
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  But what I learned, the reason it hurt me is because it didn't
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  fit in within with my values. So then there was a journey
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  around, well, what's my own authentic style of leadership
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  because I was trying to lead and be something that I thought I
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  was meant to be or that others expected me to be.
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  Really the next little and I'll share with you is when I went to
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  Greece, this was a country which was going through a huge
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  economic crisis, 60% youth unemployment, 27% unemployment
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  in the country, having to downsize the organization a few
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  times. Pretty much everyone on my
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  leadership team was carrying significant challenges within
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  their own family. I realized you can manage it
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  like a factory. And there it was really learning
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  the lesson of rather than putting fire under people's
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  feet, how can you unlock the fire in people's hearts?
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  And I learned kind of a different way of leadership,
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  which I think is what I call kind of 21st century leadership,
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  which is much more focused on human connection, aligning
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  people, giving people a sense of purpose, allowing them to
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  explore the curiosity they have. And not to be the smartest
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  person in the room, but to create a room in an environment
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  where the smartest people can really flourish.
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  And that's kind of what I've been down because probably not
• 12:05
  in the last 10-15 years. Yeah, I think they're probably
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  the main lessons I learned. And I think the other things
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  around kind of decision making and responsibility.
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  What I've also learned is that making decisions speeds more
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  important than perfection. If you take too much time, it
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  can create huge anxiety and uncertainty and drift within the
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  organization. And responsibility is an
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  interesting one in that it's it's quite responsibility
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  happens to be quite asymmetric. It's not evenly distributed.
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  So responsibility in itself, responsibility with capital R
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  should be shared across organizations.
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  But what people need to recognize is accountability
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  shouldn't be shared. So accountability should sit
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  with the leader or with lead does.
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  And that was a great important lesson.
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  Unless you have really clear, accountable people in the
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  organization who has, Well, he's both take the praise, but also
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  the neck is on the line. If that starts getting divided
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  across people, then things don't happen.
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  So a few different things. I've probably gone in a few
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  different directions, but there's some of the lessons I've
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  learned along the way. Yeah.
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  That's interesting, especially the first anecdote I really
• 13:23
  resonate with. Like I, I didn't manage 7080
• 13:28
  people, but I had a similar scenario where I managed a
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  smaller team, like 10 people. And you know, when we first
• 13:35
  started ethics, like, you know, people were hesitant to move
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  over just because of the way I ran the team.
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  And like, I was just, I was a younger person driven like one
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  or two cheap things. Like you drive them as well to
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  do the same thing. Like, oh, in in the end, a bunch
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  of people have followed me and, and my leadership style has, has
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  changed quite a lot just because you have to be conscious of
• 13:53
  those. There's Brian points and how
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  people see you as a younger person.
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  I think you could be a little bit naive to them 100%.
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  But I think you know, what you said there's really important is
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  I'm paraphrasing, I think you said people have followed me and
• 14:09
  that's exactly what it's about. People follow individuals it and
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  you've got to bring your whole, your whole self to work and
• 14:15
  people want to know what makes you tick, why you react in
• 14:19
  certain ways and just being open, authentic, vulnerable.
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  They're the most important thing, which of the all the
• 14:25
  things that probably an early management theory.
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  People were never told to be vulnerable and open and to, you
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  know, bare their souls in front of their teams.
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  I mean, I think you need, I mean, we have certain
• 14:36
  boundaries. My view is that with my teams,
• 14:41
  direct teams at least, because you know, when you're marrying
• 14:43
  me to 10,000 people, you can't do this.
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  But I want people to feel like I can be their friend, but also be
• 14:49
  clear that I'll never be their best friend.
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  And that's the boundary. And that kind of it's a very
• 14:55
  fine that's. A great way of putting it.
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  Yeah, I like that. It's a very nice to me.
• 15:00
  And then after those senior roles at Devise and like what?
• 15:05
  What then drew you to pure spring?
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  A combination of a few things converged.
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  So I did many roles. Novartis, a couple of you
• 15:16
  mentioned the a role I did about six years ago now.
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  I was globally responsible for all of the new product planning
• 15:24
  teams as well as market access and a few other functions.
• 15:27
  But the new product teams were responsible for the franchise
• 15:30
  strategy, developing the franchise strategy long term,
• 15:34
  let's say 5-10 years out. And in that process, Novartis as
• 15:41
  a company now the senior leader I've sponsored this, made a
• 15:46
  decision about about six years ago that we really need to get
• 15:50
  into renal disease, the company need to get to renal disease.
• 15:53
  There's huge untapped clinical potential and need there.
• 15:57
  But there's also clearly then commercial opportunities in any
• 16:00
  area, in any industry. If there's unmet needs, there's
• 16:04
  an opportunity to serve needs and obviously address the
• 16:08
  commercial interests of shareholders and investors,
• 16:10
  etcetera. So renal is a really exciting
• 16:12
  area. I believe that professionally.
• 16:15
  Secondly, when I led the gene therapies business and I'm a
• 16:17
  commercial person, you know, I was involved with this team that
• 16:20
  commercialized the first blockbuster gene therapy.
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  And about this and commercializing 21st century
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  medicines in healthcare systems that were designed for the 20th
• 16:34
  century is a huge intellectual challenge.
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  Is it? I mean, I could talk about it
• 16:38
  for ages, but it's a really interesting kind of area of kind
• 16:41
  of commercial execution. So I'm really passionate about
• 16:44
  that. So there's kind of there's a
• 16:46
  renal interest, there's a gene therapy interest, and then
• 16:50
  there's a personal interest. And as you get older, you can
• 16:52
  kind of probably age me. But as you get into your 40s and
• 16:56
  into your late 40s, purpose, impact and you go through
• 17:01
  milestones like I mentioned, like, you know, parents passing
• 17:03
  and oldest, if you really start and you have kids getting older,
• 17:07
  my kids, my eldest will still be going to university.
• 17:10
  You do start thinking more about impact, the impact you can make
• 17:15
  for yourself, the example you can have for your kids, all that
• 17:17
  stuff all came together. And when the opportunity came
• 17:20
  along, it was almost like, I mean, you're listening to me and
• 17:23
  maybe I'm spinning in a certain way, but as things go, it's
• 17:26
  about as tailor made a rock could be for me.
• 17:29
  So. And it's based in the UK,
• 17:32
  brought me back to the UK, which is home.
• 17:35
  So yeah, that's why it came. That's.
• 17:36
  Amazing. That's awesome.
• 17:38
  And you, you guys are your gene therapy for kidney disease.
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  What? What makes the science and the
• 17:44
  opportunity here so exciting? The technology is really
• 17:48
  impressive. I'm very focused.
• 17:49
  So Pure Spring is a precision nephrology company.
• 17:54
  So that in itself is very unique.
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  We're the only company that delivers generic therapeutics
• 17:59
  directly to the kidney. We're very focused on 1st in
• 18:02
  class, best in class therapeutics that will help
• 18:06
  patients live healthier and for the lives.
• 18:08
  So that's what we're focused on. The scientific thesis is really
• 18:13
  interesting, so I'll try and keep this as kind of simple as I
• 18:19
  can. So it's focused on podocyte
• 18:21
  biology. There are specific cells in the
• 18:24
  in the kidney and glomerulus, it's called podocytes.
• 18:28
  Podocytes are specialist kidney cells that have a few functions,
• 18:32
  but the main functions are firstly for maintaining good
• 18:37
  kidney filtration and secondly overall glomerular health.
• 18:40
  So if you get polycyte dysfunction, you then get poor
• 18:44
  kidney health and or poor filtration.
• 18:47
  So the thesis is very much if you can keep polycytes healthy,
• 18:50
  you can maintain glomerular health and kidney disease.
• 18:54
  They are the perfect cells for gene therapies.
• 18:56
  These are terminally differentiated cells, which
• 18:59
  means they don't turn over. They don't.
• 19:01
  So if you can deliver a therapeutic and establish
• 19:05
  protein production within the glomerulus, it gives you the
• 19:09
  kind of the premise for durable efficacy.
• 19:11
  So that's the premise. That's what we want to do,
• 19:13
  deliver therapeutics directly to the polysite and produce protein
• 19:18
  which you'll obviously cut all glomerular disease.
• 19:20
  We've got a proprietary platform called the Glomthera platform.
• 19:24
  And what that does is delivers therapeutics directly to the
• 19:28
  kidney through local administration.
• 19:30
  It's low dose, so we're dosing it less than 10% of a systemic
• 19:35
  gene therapy, which has obvious benefits.
• 19:39
  It's almost a completely new modality, highly unique.
• 19:42
  We're the first company that does this and the only company
• 19:44
  we're aware that has taken this approach.
• 19:48
  We're a really exciting time. Our lead program PS-003, which
• 19:53
  is for IGN, a property, a chronic kidney disease that
• 19:57
  affects mainly young adults is just going into clinical studies
• 20:00
  right now. So that's a little bit about the
• 20:03
  kind of what we're trying to do and and how we're how we're
• 20:06
  talking it from a scientific and technological perspective.
• 20:10
  Yeah, it's super exciting. And as someone who is also in
• 20:14
  the UK as well, I think it's super exciting that this is
• 20:17
  coming from the UK, which is seeing more and more attraction.
• 20:21
  How have you found it? Just generally like building a
• 20:25
  company in the UK. Yeah, it's an interesting
• 20:28
  question and there's different levels to that because, you
• 20:30
  know, there's an aspect of me coming from big pharma to
• 20:33
  biotech with the aspect of it, you know, being in the UK.
• 20:36
  So let me just kind of unpack that.
• 20:39
  Firstly, the big pharma to biotech thing, I think it's a
• 20:43
  little bit overstated. I've actually OK to it quite
• 20:46
  naturally, whether I was previously when I was running
• 20:48
  Europe had a team of 10,000 people.
• 20:50
  Now I've got a team of 50 people.
• 20:52
  You mentioned you had a team of like 10 people at one point.
• 20:54
  The principles are exactly the same.
• 20:57
  It's just about aligning people, understanding the process people
• 21:00
  are working to and making sure that people execute and have fun
• 21:03
  along the way. That said, I think if you look
• 21:07
  at my my phenotype, you look, you know, you look at my CBII
• 21:10
  went through it quite quickly. You talk about the roles at the
• 21:11
  end, but actually look, early in my career, I did every job along
• 21:15
  the way. So probably I'm someone from big
• 21:17
  pharma. I came from big pharma, but I
• 21:19
  did lots of individual contributor roles, rolled my
• 21:22
  sleeves up. So, so to that extent it's just
• 21:26
  rolling back the years a little bit.
• 21:27
  I'm going back now 15 years to just doing stuff, the types of
• 21:31
  things that perhaps haven't done for the last period of time.
• 21:34
  That bits been quite easy. The bit about the UK, yeah, of
• 21:39
  the 26 years I've been in industry, 61516 years I've been
• 21:42
  in the UK. So it's good to be back.
• 21:45
  The science we have in there in the UK is amazing.
• 21:48
  So this, I mean, pure spring, it's, it came out of academic
• 21:52
  science that came from Bristol University.
• 21:56
  There's a lot of cool things happening in the Uki mean,
• 21:59
  certainly the government here are supporting the life sciences
• 22:02
  industry with a sector plan, which was previously ordered
• 22:05
  industrial strategy. I think there's still things
• 22:07
  that they could do to support the industry better.
• 22:09
  But after, if you look in the Western world, after the US, the
• 22:13
  UK is the best place to be for biotech in terms of access to
• 22:17
  science, access to capital. I think there's things we can
• 22:20
  do. Close the gap between.
• 22:22
  US and the US, but it's a good place to be.
• 22:25
  I like that, yeah. I, I've definitely seen traction
• 22:28
  like companies. I'm working with more companies
• 22:30
  in the UK than I ever have. And I think that's just a sign
• 22:34
  of the, the times and the build out.
• 22:38
  And, and it's mainly people who have kind of gone achieve things
• 22:42
  either in the US or somewhere else and then wanted to come
• 22:45
  back similar to what you've done.
• 22:46
  I've I've seen a fair few scenarios like that, let's say I
• 22:50
  think. There's a lot.
• 22:51
  More that can be done if you look at what's happening up
• 22:55
  ahead, perhaps on the other side of the pond.
• 22:57
  I mean, there's a real opportunity for the UK to really
• 23:00
  put its foot to the floor and really start to accelerate
• 23:03
  rather than just waiting to see what's going to happen.
• 23:05
  Yeah, 100. Percent and obviously a lot of
• 23:09
  stuff happening at Pearl Spring. Where's the company going next?
• 23:13
  What what big milestones are coming up?
• 23:15
  What excites you about the next phase of growth, All of that?
• 23:19
  Super excited. You know last year was the first
• 23:21
  year we kind of really stepped into our identity as a company.
• 23:26
  So the first big thing this year on the back of last year getting
• 23:30
  FDA approval. So we've got our Ind for our
• 23:33
  lead program, the FDA, we've got MHRA approval to go into
• 23:36
  clinical trials, we've got EMA orphaned drug deaths
• 23:39
  designation. We've all those approvals last
• 23:41
  year. This is the year we're actually
• 23:43
  going into clinic with our lead program and IGA nephropathy
• 23:47
  towards the back end of this year and early next year we
• 23:51
  should start getting first in the first in human data with
• 23:54
  this platform. So it's demonstrated we can
• 23:56
  replicate what we've seen in large animals and small animals
• 23:59
  in humans. That's a really important
• 24:01
  milestone improve point for the company and really provides a
• 24:04
  platform unlock for the other programs.
• 24:06
  So that's kind of the first big milestone this year.
• 24:09
  The second is I'm just pausing here because I have to just.
• 24:15
  Phrase. This in the right way.
• 24:16
  Our second program if you look on our website called.
• 24:20
  PS00. 3 is undisclosed in the next couple of months.
• 24:25
  So by the end of March, we will take the covers off that
• 24:29
  program. So we'll mention what the
• 24:30
  indication is. It's a really exciting
• 24:32
  indication. It's an indication where there's
• 24:35
  currently no license treatments for quite a severely debilitated
• 24:39
  condition. It's a monogenic condition,
• 24:40
  which means that if you identify and treat patients early enough
• 24:43
  in a monogenic condition and deliver a working copy of the
• 24:46
  gene, potentially it could be curative and halt the disease in
• 24:50
  the tracks. So really amazing therapeutic
• 24:53
  interest and that will create a lot of interest in the company
• 24:56
  because it's an indication, I'm not mentioning the indication.
• 24:59
  It's an indication with significant technical challenges
• 25:03
  that we've overcome. And that's the reason why up
• 25:05
  until now there haven't been drugs that have been licensed in
• 25:08
  that area. So huge opportunity for patients
• 25:13
  and I think we'll create a lot of interest in the company.
• 25:16
  Nice. That's super.
• 25:17
  Exciting. Yeah.
• 25:18
  Look forward to seeing that. Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:22
  And look, this brings us to our final question, which is a
• 25:26
  question I ask every guest who comes on the podcast.
• 25:29
  So I hope you had a bit of a think about it SE, but if you
• 25:32
  could have dinner with any scientist or innovator, past or
• 25:35
  present, who would it be and why?
• 25:38
  So he was. More of an innovator than a
• 25:40
  scientist, but it would be my dad, because I think he would
• 25:45
  be. Firstly, really proud.
• 25:50
  Of how far the renal disease field has come even in the three
• 25:54
  or four years since he passed, renal disease has really moved
• 25:57
  on a significant it's. Taken a really step.
• 26:00
  Change in terms of the amount of research and the products which
• 26:03
  are now getting licensed in renal disease.
• 26:05
  Secondly, I think he'd be really curious about what we're doing
• 26:08
  in pure spring, the colleagues in Pure Spring, the sciences
• 26:10
  they're working on. I think he'd be really proud of
• 26:13
  that. And thirdly, I think he'd be
• 26:17
  pretty proud both of him and myself, because I guess, you
• 26:20
  know, like most parents look at their children as like an emblem
• 26:23
  of themselves or a product of themselves.
• 26:25
  I think he'd be pretty. He'd take some reflective pride,
• 26:27
  I think in himself as a child. You want your you want your
• 26:30
  parents to feel that kind of sense of that pride.
• 26:34
  He made huge sacrifices for me. So I think it'd be great to just
• 26:36
  have that conversation with him. And yeah, so probably choose my
• 26:40
  dad. I'm sure there's there are far
• 26:43
  more esteemed scientists have had a bigger impact in the
• 26:45
  world. But in terms of the impact he
• 26:47
  had on me and in term, perhaps I'm, if I'm going to have an
• 26:50
  impact on anyone else, a lot of it comes back to him.
• 26:54
  I think that's an. Amazing answer.
• 26:57
  Look, thanks so much for coming on and see it's been a, it's
• 26:59
  been a pleasure. Thank.
• 27:01
  You cheers Max and look everyone.
• 27:04
  Please like and subscribe to the bio hub and and thank you again.
• 27:07
  I see.