Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Why Biotech Keeps Reinventing the Wheel | Greg Crescenzi, Addgene

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Why Biotech Keeps Reinventing the Wheel | Greg Crescenzi, Addgene · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  Welcome back to another episode of the Biohop podcast.
• 0:09
  Today I'm joined by Greg Kozenzi, who is the VP of Global
• 0:13
  Commercial Strategy and Partnerships for ATG.
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  Greg, thank you so much for coming on today.
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  My pleasure George, looking forward to chatting with you.
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  Yeah, awesome. Greg, to kick us off, can you
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  just talk us through your career journey and yeah, ultimately
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  what led you to joining ATG? Yeah, happy to.
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  So I'm a chemical engineer by training.
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  And while I was at Tufts here outside of Boston and, you know,
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  a year or two in, people were saying, oh, you'd have to go,
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  you know, work in New Orleans on, you know, some oil refinery
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  or something. I'm like, well, that's, that's
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  not exciting. And there was this thing, you
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  know, this biotech industry that was just starting up in, in the
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  late 80s. So I went to a tools and tech
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  company. I'm a little poor back then,
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  which happened to be in my hometown.
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  And I spent the first eight years in R&D building new
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  things, things that were truly industry ferts.
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  And we're working with Genentech and Amgen to help them scale the
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  first biologics into large scale production was a lot of fun and,
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  and interesting. And, and then as time went on,
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  you know, things started to slow down.
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  You do more incremental stuff. So I went on and got my MBA and
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  then went to the commercial side.
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  And for the most part, I've spent the last, you know, 25
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  plus years working for both large and small organizations,
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  always on the tools and tech side, but helping them research,
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  translate and then manufacture biologics and over the last 1015
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  years, cell and gene therapies for the industry.
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  So, and I've been fortunate, you know, I got to work on cell
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  lines, cell culture media, cell engineering, fire reactors,
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  purification devices, all the way to final fill.
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  So I've seen quite a bit of what it takes to to make a biologic
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  drug and, and also worked in both hardware, software,
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  services, consumables as well. So it's been a nice journey, you
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  know, and then it's really what drew me to Agene, it, it was an
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  opportunity to really build on, on a foundation of sort of trust
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  and impact in the scientific community.
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  I'll be honest, I didn't know Agene.
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  I'm not a PhD and most of my peers were before Agene started,
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  you know, about 23 years ago. So they weren't familiar as
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  well. But you know, what I really
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  learned was this nonprofit out of Boston that is just been
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  making some really significant impact.
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  And it was an opportunity for me to come in and, and sort of help
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  us evolve over the over the coming years and, and really
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  broaden that impact more on a more global scale, connecting
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  more of the ecosystem than than they have done in the past.
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  And, and really make a, you know, an impact and, and having
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  a lot of fun. And it's been about seven months
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  now and it's sort of fulfilled my my thoughts so far.
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  Yeah, awesome. And then in terms of Gene, can
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  you just take us back to the early days and really explain
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  the problem the founders were trying to solve and I guess why
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  that model has resonated so strongly with the scientific
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  community? Yeah, happy to so, but one of
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  our founders, Melina Fan, she was a graduate student, had read
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  some articles and you know, wanted to get some of the the
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  plasmids and research materials to do her own research and
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  really struggled. I mean, it, it took months for
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  her to get, get people to send her something or even respond
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  and, and what have you. And so, you know, the true
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  insight, you know, that she, she realized was that the scientists
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  on the other end wanted to share their materials and sort of
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  their research, but but just couldn't because they didn't
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  have the time. The infrastructure was in place
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  and, and, and all of that. So, so basically her, her
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  brother and her now husband basically had the foresight to
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  create a central repository for the material and, and took the
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  burden off not only the scientists like herself trying
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  to get the material, but also the scientists and the
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  institutions are on the other end that were shipping it.
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  And, you know, she saves not just time and money, but, you
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  know, enabled an industry to really create more value in
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  their own work and, and sort of not having to repeat the science
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  that was done before and, and could start with something that
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  was already true and validated. And, and they basically have
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  built a business over 20 plus years around that whole process
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  of, of sharing and sharing for the advancement of science.
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  And so we hold the material, we manage the logistics, we handle
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  all the legal aspects of it between institutions, we provide
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  the quality control, the authentication, the curation,
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  and we even educate and really become a scientific partner to
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  the global science community. You know, today we host more
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  than just plasmids. We have viral vectors,
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  recombinant antibodies and we touch over 7000 labs in over 100
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  countries around the world. Yeah, fantastic.
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  In terms of kind of going globally, I know it's become
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  Yagi's become core to the infrastructure for you know,
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  academic research. What do you think the broader
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  impact will be by opening up this library for real industry
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  usage about? Yeah, so, you know, it really
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  starts with with how discovery works.
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  And it's it's, it's cumulative, right?
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  The science builds off of each other and, and each piece of
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  material is, is already a solved piece of work where somebody has
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  spent, you know, months building and, and validating it.
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  And so why should sort of that have to be repeated?
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  And so, you know, it really helps to minimize the
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  inefficiencies and leads to faster discoveries.
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  You know, what we're trying to do is, is, is sort of open up
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  the sort of two way process, you know, back and forth more free
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  flowing between academics and industry.
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  And so, you know, today most of our catalog is for researchers
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  only, but provided mainly to academic institutions.
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  And that's part of a bit of sort of the history of how the
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  company was built, how the contracts were originally put in
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  place. But the science has sort of
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  evolved over those 20 years. And now a lot of what is
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  deposited is used for translational and therapeutic
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  use and, and actually leading into therapeutic advancements
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  and, and therapies themselves. And so, you know, we believe
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  that it's sort of time to evolve that and and work with the
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  institutions to be able to provide those materials to
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  industry, help them do the science that they want to do in
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  a much more efficient and effective way.
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  Yeah. Do you think that's the biggest
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  thing of that was helping speed and efficiency with the
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  industry? It's a bit, you know, I, I'll
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  say they're, you know, just give you some real world examples,
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  right? So when COVID happened, 90% of
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  the deposits and, and our resources for COVID were made
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  available to industry. And, you know, you could see
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  what happened with how quickly sort of together to solve that
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  problem, right? And so now we're sort of trying
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  to do that with as much of the, you know, the the other material
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  that we have. You know, another example is
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  with with CRISPR. So, you know, we have over
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  15,000 CRISPR plasmids that have been deposited over the years,
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  including, you know, in the foundational materials that were
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  deposited here. And those have led to over
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  300,000 shipments, over 5000 organizations.
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  So again, you could see that if that was left to sort of a
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  scientist by scientist trying to make that happen, right, you
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  could imagine the time speed. So I think, you know, beyond
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  just that, we have sort of, you know, we have a history, a 20
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  plus years history, you know, archive and records of sort of
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  how the industry has evolved, right?
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  We've enabled the the sciences not to have to repeat somebody's
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  work, but actually build off of their work and, and advance it
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  and, and you know, in a much more efficient way.
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  So. Yeah, That leads quite nicely
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  into kind of the next line of questioning around like these
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  emerging technologies. I know you mentioned CRISPR, but
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  with like the rapid progress in areas like gene editing,
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  synthetic biology, and cell engineering, how is that gene
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  adapting to support the next generation of research tools?
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  Yeah. So we, you know, we everything
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  we do is driven by sort of, you know, what the community needs,
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  you know what the community tells us.
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  You know, that's how we moved into viral vectors and
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  antibodies in the first place. We have a small team here
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  focused on innovation. In fact, just last week we
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  launched a new DNA format, Transfection Ready DNA, which is
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  a high purity DNA prep for molecular biology applications.
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  That saves you sort of again, prep time and, and, and cost and
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  actually simplifies things for you.
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  You know, we're also very active in collaborations and grants.
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  Some of those are leveraging AI and ML to discover new
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  antibodies where part of the Nah is brain initiative to sort of
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  map the brain. And we're working on ways to
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  improve AV productivity to bring the cost down and the complexity
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  of AVN. And so we do that with with, you
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  know, significant partners in this industry as well as other
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  nonprofits like ourselves. So another recent example is
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  what we do with Plasmidsaurus. So all of our sequencing of our
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  plasmids has shifted to them over the last year or so and
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  moved it to sort of long read sequencing.
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  And and that's helping to advance the industry, but also
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  providing our users with a lot more information to to help them
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  better do what they do. Yeah.
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  And obviously expanding partnerships, I know you just
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  touched on plasma source there is going to be like really
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  important for AG moving forward. What makes a partnership truly
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  valuable for you and AG? Yeah.
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  So, you know, ones that really, you know, help us accelerate
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  scientific sharing and and move the science along.
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  You know, we recently announced A partnership with Solid Bio.
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  You know, so they're a therapeutic company, but they
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  came to us and, and, and we made a deal to help them bring their
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  technology to academic institutions as well as
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  industry. But you know, those are those
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  are novel tools that might be hidden or undiscovered by a
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  large number of labs. And so, and we believe that, you
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  know, we can help, you know, bring industry products to the
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  academics as sort of smooth, smoothly and as efficiently as
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  we brought academic products to the industry.
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  You know, we also, I think want to as I've said, sort of, you
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  know, bring down those those barriers as much as possible as
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  well too. And I think that once more
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  industry sees industry sharing, right, I think that will help
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  and and ease up and opening those things.
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  And we have a lot of conversations ongoing to do that
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  again. And and I think, you know, we
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  have some industry partners today like any B pro mega and,
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  and there are portfolio of products that we sell around the
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  world. They're very successful and we
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  expect solid and, and the many more to come in the coming
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  months and years to do so as well.
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  So again, it it, it's really places where we can be a thought
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  partner, a scientific thought partner, you know, with these
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  partners. And and that could be Co
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  development, that could be more traditional distribution or it
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  could be sort of actively engaging in solving some of the
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  scientific challenging problems that the world's facing today.
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  Yeah. Also and then in terms of moving
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  forwards and the the future vision for AG Gene, I guess like
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  looking ahead sort of three to five years, what does success
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  really look like in terms of the impact on the scientific
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  ecosystem? Yeah, I, I, you know, I, it's
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  for me it's that there's more open sharing of not just the
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  materials and, and sort of, but the methods and maybe even some
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  of the results, right. I think if, if that academic and
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  industry line stops being sort of a meaningful line in our, in
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  our catalog and what we provide. So that, you know, the choice is
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  a conscious choice to not open something up right, openly for,
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  you know, some, some good reasons.
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  But that the default is, is that the majority of things in both
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  cases are freely flowing. I think to, you know, to make
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  that sort of happen seamlessly. And so that also when you find
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  something and you get a hold of it or sort of 1 motion, if you
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  will, right. So that the searching and
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  acquiring the material and getting you science is sort of
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  there almost, you know, not instantaneously, but but as
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  quickly and then smoothly as possible.
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  I mean, that's, that's what I like to see.
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  You know, we really, we only know when our stuff is used
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  really when it gets published. And, and I'm really hoping that
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  the industry opens up more in terms of all the times that they
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  run experiments, but maybe something's not working.
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  But again, that's really valuable information.
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  Someone else is trying to do the same things.
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  Yeah. And I guess so leading on to
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  that, are there any types of collaborations that you're
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  actively looking to build upon over the course of the next few
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  years? Yeah.
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  I mean, you know, a few areas, it's, it's, it's materials is 1,
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  but also sort of services where can can you know, the, the
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  production, the lab capabilities that we have can add value to a
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  particular partner. It's on data and information,
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  you know, how AI is going to play in the space.
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  You know, it's changed over the last six months in, in the time
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  that I've been here and, and I'm excited to sort of, you know,
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  play play a part in that. Here at Agene, we have some
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  ongoing conversations with a lot of, you know, software AI types
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  of companies and things because we have quite a bit of, as I
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  said, historical value curated information that no one else in
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  the world has. And so I, I think it sort of
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  cuts across sort of all three of those those lines, if you will,
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  so. Yeah, Awesome. 1 And look, I
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  appreciate it, Craig. Thank you for the oversight as
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  well. In terms of our last question
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  here, like I think you mentioned before, we always end on a very
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  similar question I guess is if you could have dinner with any
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  scientists, innovator past or presents, who would it be and
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  your kind of explanation as to why it's?
• 16:28
  Yeah, so, so I would go with Leonardo da Vinci, maybe a
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  classical answer, but I, I was fortunate enough to to be in
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  France last year and, and went to his last home that he lived
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  in and as a museum. And, and it really blew me away
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  the, the things that he created, the sketches, the actual, you
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  know, you can walk around the grounds and actually fire a
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  cannon and, and see gears and things move.
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  And, and he was able to do that, you know, so many years ago,
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  right, without the tools and the stuff that we had today.
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  And a lot of his stuff came true in, in some format, you know, a
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  couple, 100 years later. It was just it was fascinating
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  and just unbelievable to see all the different things he touched,
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  right? Not just the art, but the
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  mechanics, the physics, the, you know, everything.
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  It was just blew my mind away. And so, you know, to sort of be
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  that creative and yet be that sort of forward thinking is just
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  I think what a lot of what we do in industry is all about, right?
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  It's it's actually solving problems that everyone thinks
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  are hard and thinking ahead, you know, years away, right, to say
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  that this is going to be at that time and ideally somebody builds
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  on it, right. And I think again, and that's
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  what Agene is, right? A lot of his designs, you know,
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  sort of made its way through or whatever, but people build off
• 17:48
  of it and make something better. And that's what Agene tries to
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  do here. We're trying to give you stuff
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  to so you can build off of it and make it even better, so.
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  Yeah, now a fantastic answer and great explanation as well.
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  Thank you for coming on and doing this, Greg.
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  It was really, yeah, just to understand, you know, the work
• 18:06
  that Ajita doing, how important it is.
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  And yeah, hopefully what that sort of transpires to be in the
• 18:10
  next few years as well. So yeah, thank you so much for
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  coming up. You're welcome.
• 18:13
  Cheers. Thank you.