Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 97 - Christina Coughlin - CEO Avacta Therapeutics

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Episode 97 - Christina Coughlin - CEO Avacta Therapeutics · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:05
  So welcome back to the episode of the Bio Hub.
• 0:07
  Today, we're delighted to welcome on Christina Coughlin,
• 0:10
  the CEO of the Batson Therapeutics and an
• 0:12
  extraordinary leader at the forefront of next generation
• 0:15
  cancer therapeutics. Christina's career spans
• 0:18
  academic medicine and industry leadership and trained as an
• 0:22
  oncologist and immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
• 0:26
  She held earlier roles in her career at Pfizer, Novartis and
• 0:29
  Wyeth, and she's LED clinical, translational and regular
• 0:33
  regulatory programs in biotech companies, including Immunocore,
• 0:37
  Rubiot Immunity and most recently served as Cyto Immune,
• 0:41
  Cyto Immune Therapeutic CEO. And now at the helm of Evacter,
• 0:45
  the company are expanding the reach of highly potent cancer
• 0:48
  therapies with their unique precision platform.
• 0:52
  So join us today as we'll discuss about Evacter's
• 0:55
  pipeline, what's next for a factor and her transition from
• 0:58
  ACMO to CEO. So Christina, thanks so much for
• 1:02
  coming on. How are you?
• 1:03
  Well. Thanks.
• 1:05
  Thanks for having me, Tom. Yeah, it's a pleasure.
• 1:08
  So look, let's just start off with a little bit about your
• 1:11
  journey through the field. So you trained as a a physician
• 1:14
  scientist and then built a career leading clinical
• 1:17
  development before stepping into the CEO role.
• 1:21
  What first drew you into oncology and the translational
• 1:24
  side of medicine? So I, you know, I always wanted
• 1:29
  to be a physician as long as I can remember.
• 1:32
  My parents will tell you that I first started making noise about
• 1:37
  that perhaps when I was even as young as six years old.
• 1:40
  But I had a short moment in life, late teens, early 20s,
• 1:46
  where 3 gentlemen in my life all died of cancer.
• 1:51
  So my grandfather, who was probably one of my biggest fans,
• 1:55
  my godfather, my uncle, and then my best friend's father, who
• 2:00
  everybody's got that best friend.
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  We're growing up, you know, you've got this other set of
• 2:04
  parents. And so big Ted was, was my other
• 2:07
  dad. And that impacted me as a as a
• 2:10
  really young person. And I still remember saying
• 2:13
  goodbye to my grandpa before he died and telling him I was going
• 2:16
  to do something against this disease.
• 2:17
  So I, I've been at war with cancer since late teens, early
• 2:22
  20s. And you know, it, it kind of
• 2:26
  feels like the last several years of my career are kind of,
• 2:29
  you know, coming to, you know, we're really, we're really
• 2:32
  starting to make strides in this disease.
• 2:35
  And I'm, I'm thrilled that Avacta is, is really taking a, a
• 2:38
  leadership role in the forefront.
• 2:40
  We'll talk about some of our new some of our new announcements.
• 2:44
  Nice. And if the people that might not
• 2:48
  be as familiar with Avapta, can you just give us a quick
• 2:51
  overview of what the company does and what makes its approach
• 2:54
  to cancer therapeutics unique? Sure.
• 2:58
  So there are many drugs out there that are very effective
• 3:03
  against cancer. Killing cells is easy, but
• 3:06
  killing tumor cells without killing the patient actually
• 3:10
  turns out to be somewhat tricky. So if you imagine my phone is
• 3:15
  just a molecule of a drug that is able to kill a rapidly
• 3:21
  dividing cell or cancer cell, and that's chemotherapy or
• 3:24
  targeted therapies, we can, we can use both, But this drug
• 3:28
  doesn't know the difference between the GI tract, the bone
• 3:33
  marrow, the hair follicles, some of the normal tissues that they
• 3:36
  impact, or the tumor. Avactis technology, I have
• 3:41
  fallen in love with it because it's so exquisitely simple.
• 3:45
  We take a small little piece of a protein.
• 3:47
  It's called a peptide. It has two amino acids, so it's
• 3:50
  still a small molecule, still a chemical.
• 3:52
  We're not making biologic drugs. We take this tiny little piece
• 3:56
  of a peptide and we stick it to the drug.
• 4:00
  What that does is a very simple change.
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  This drug can now not get into the GI tract.
• 4:06
  It can't get into the bone marrow, can't get into the
• 4:07
  follicles. It can't even get into the
• 4:09
  tumor, but the peptide is designed such that the peptide
• 4:14
  is only removed once it sees the tumor.
• 4:17
  It's removed by an enzyme that's only expressed in the tumor.
• 4:21
  And so that does two things. Number one, it protects all of
• 4:25
  these normal tissues here from the toxic effects of this drug,
• 4:29
  but it also takes this highly active drug and concentrates it.
• 4:34
  Imagine 50,000 cell phones here. It concentrates the drug right
• 4:38
  in the tumor where it is supposed to be.
• 4:41
  So it's exquisitely simple and we've got a couple of
• 4:45
  advantages. The first is because this is
• 4:48
  just, it's a small molecule, it's a chemical.
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  We have some brilliant medicinal chemists who have worked on on
• 4:54
  both sides of it, made some real improvements in the peptide.
• 4:59
  And so the whole idea of the platform is to protect normal
• 5:03
  tissues from the toxic effects of the drug, concentrate it
• 5:07
  right in the tumor microenvironment.
• 5:08
  That's exactly how we should be using these highly effective
• 5:13
  cancer therapies. Nice.
• 5:16
  Sounds exciting and it's evac to see you currently listed on the
• 5:22
  London Stock Exchange. It's been potential that you may
• 5:26
  consider like a NASDAQ listing at a later point as well.
• 5:30
  What was the thinking behind that and what do you think
• 5:33
  access to the USUS markets could mean for for growth at evacter?
• 5:38
  Yeah. So, so if you look at our
• 5:40
  pipeline and some of the new announcements that we've made,
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  we have a first drug that is finishing its expansion cohorts
• 5:49
  outside of the phase one. That one is called
• 5:52
  ferridoxorubicin. We just reported updated
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  clinical data from that one at ESMO last week in in Berlin.
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  We also have a second drug coming to the clinic.
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  And Tom, I'll be honest with you, I've nicknamed this one the
• 6:07
  Beast. It's based on a topoisomerase 1
• 6:10
  inhibitor Exitican, which is one of the most potent of the topo
• 6:13
  ones. It's a, it's a very broadly
• 6:16
  applicable anti cancer drug class, the topoisomerase ones.
• 6:21
  And so it was sort of a, a natural fit for a second
• 6:25
  precision medicine for us to make.
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  But the third one that we just announced a little over a week
• 6:30
  ago is a, is a dual payload technology.
• 6:34
  So we've now taken, if you imagine, here's the peptide, but
• 6:38
  we're now able to attach 2 drugs to the PEP quad.
• 6:43
  And so I mentioned our, our chemist led by Francis, our, our
• 6:48
  VP of chemistry, but they've, they've really come up with some
• 6:51
  really novel ways of, of doing this.
• 6:54
  And so that technology wasn't announced until you know, we had
• 6:59
  complete comfort that that both were releasing.
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  But if you think about it with a second drug going to the clinic
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  and that one should get started in the the first quarter of next
• 7:08
  year. But then that dual payload is on
• 7:11
  fast track to show up in the clinic soon.
• 7:13
  We're going to need access to some larger pots of, of capital
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  as we move forward. And so the idea here is, is to
• 7:24
  access some of those NASDAQ, you know, biotech investors little
• 7:29
  bit deeper pockets and and the company as you can tell from my
• 7:34
  accent and our CFO, the company is now on on both shores.
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  We have a number of members of the management team and the
• 7:42
  clinical and regulatory teams who are are here in the States
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  and our bricks and mortar, our labs and our scientists are all
• 7:51
  in London. We see each other, you know,
• 7:53
  somewhat frequently, but it's, it's really it's, it's access to
• 7:58
  capital and access to those, those biotech specialist
• 8:00
  investors as well. Nice.
• 8:03
  And just just on capital, like I saw that you guys alongside the
• 8:07
  clinical base had also done a successful, a successful
• 8:10
  fundraising round as well. So congratulations on that as
• 8:13
  well. Thank you.
• 8:16
  Thank you. Yeah, it's a not a huge raise,
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  but one that that keeps us, you know, let's say funded until a
• 8:26
  deeper into the second-half of next year through some key data
• 8:29
  points through getting, you know, that that next drug into
• 8:32
  the clinic. So number of of key points that
• 8:35
  will come and you know, a lot, a lot of time to, to figure out.
• 8:40
  There's lots of levers that we can pull for funding, but it, it
• 8:45
  gave us a, a bit of a top up and, you know, runway into the
• 8:50
  second-half of next year. Nice.
• 8:52
  Yeah, because I know any fundraising round at the moment,
• 8:55
  no matter how little or large is super difficult to close.
• 8:58
  So yeah, congratulations. That's.
• 9:03
  Thank you. And you, so you mentioned that
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  the current breakdown of the team, so you're based in the US,
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  but the bulk of the team are based in the UK.
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  How would you balance being AUK based biotech with a growing US
• 9:16
  footprint and what do you think some of the advantages or
• 9:20
  challenges that that global split brings?
• 9:24
  It's, it's a great question. I get this question all the
• 9:27
  time. How do you possibly handle, you
• 9:29
  know, sort of being on on different shores?
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  So the the key advantage, especially in a company that has
• 9:38
  figured out how to work virtually, which I would say
• 9:42
  that that avacta it is is expert at it.
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  We use it a technique that we call team days, which is when,
• 9:51
  when everybody meets over in in White City, London and the teams
• 9:56
  get together to share sort of, you know, in person feedback
• 10:02
  deep, you know, team meetings, each individual team will have
• 10:06
  several hours of meetings over the course of of a couple days.
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  Outside of that then clinical regulatory, those functions,
• 10:14
  clinical operations, those functions are are pretty much
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  all virtual. I'm located in Philadelphia,
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  which is just in between New York and Washington.
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  Our CFO Brian is located right outside of Washington, DC Our
• 10:30
  CMO is actually in California. The, the advantages is it does
• 10:36
  create sort of a, a willingness of the team to, to make things
• 10:40
  work. So for example, Dave, our CMO,
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  he's an early riser. And so you know, there's many
• 10:45
  days that he's on by 45 AM. Same is true for Brian and
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  myself, you know, with working with, with teams in London, we
• 10:53
  start really early. We're both early risers.
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  If there's one good thing that came out of the pandemic, I
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  think it's this whole concept of, of being able, you know,
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  learning how to work virtually, learning how to hold a team
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  meeting virtually. The big advantage that we get.
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  If you think about it, I think before, before the pandemic,
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  when, when I would hire people, it was always about the person
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  relocating. If we found an ideal person in
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  a, in a different geography, I wouldn't have considered before
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  this hiring Acmo and keeping him in California.
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  And yet Dave, who was incredibly experienced, you know, very
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  similar to myself, he's had, he's had a long career.
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  He's he's done more INDS than I have, but he is in California.
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  And no, he's not going to move. He's willing to travel and he's
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  willing to get up super early and, and get the work done when
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  he needs to get done. And so the key advantage here is
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  that is in hiring, we can hire the best people for the job as
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  long as they're willing a few times a year to get on a plane
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  and, and come over to London and, and willing to sort of work
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  within those, those shared hours that we have.
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  And so it, it, it has created almost like a A-Team unity among
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  the various folks. And I'm, I'm really proud of, of
• 12:26
  our teams and, and what they've been able to accomplish.
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  If you look at, you know, I joined Avacta at the beginning
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  full time as an employee at the beginning of last year.
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  I love telling the story of the actual data slide of the, the
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  tumor concentration of, of really getting the drug to
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  concentrate over here in the tumor at the board.
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  So I was a director starting three years ago and it was that
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  slide and looking at it and thinking there's nothing else
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  that concentrates to that level in the tumor.
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  And it was that slide and those data that I started to say in
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  the back of my brain, like I got to figure out how to get a job
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  at this company because the technology is, is just so
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  unusual in, in that it's a small molecule.
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  It's not even a biologic drug and yet we're able to release
• 13:13
  two payloads. We're out in the front of
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  things. You know, we're a dual payload
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  technology where you've only seen that with ADC's that have
• 13:21
  that big antibody, you know, biologic component.
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  So we're pretty excited about what we've been able to do.
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  It's a tiny little team. There's only 24 full time
• 13:31
  employees out of ACTA. And yet, if you look at what
• 13:33
  we've accomplished over the last couple years, I am incredibly
• 13:38
  proud of this team, just incredibly proud of them.
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  And being able to function in a virtual world.
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  It's not easy. It's not.
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  But we have we have great respect for each other and just
• 13:50
  have just incredible teams all united in this this war on
• 13:55
  cancer. Nice.
• 13:57
  I can imagine having people in the UK as well.
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  It's probably good for cash runway as well.
• 14:01
  You know, the salaries compared to the USA lot less than yeah in
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  the UK. So I'm I'm sure it's probably
• 14:08
  good from from a cash side of things as well.
• 14:12
  I think you know, and not not having, you know, you know this,
• 14:16
  but not having those big relocation costs, Zoom is, is,
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  is quite cost effective and it's, it's really learning to
• 14:24
  work within that, that virtual environment that makes this a, a
• 14:29
  true possibility for us. Nice.
• 14:31
  Are there any challenges of of operating in we've sort of team,
• 14:35
  part of the team sort of scattered around in different
• 14:37
  bits. Is there any problems or
• 14:38
  challenges that come with that? So I think probably a a couple
• 14:43
  of the big ones are, are the time zone, the different time
• 14:47
  zones. You know, we're everywhere from
• 14:48
  Pacific Time in the US over to Central European time because a
• 14:54
  couple of our really key consultants are are over in
• 14:58
  Europe. That that's number one.
• 15:02
  I think that being able to function at it as a team
• 15:06
  completely virtually is a skill set that is, is under
• 15:11
  appreciated. It's it's hard to have conflict
• 15:15
  over over a zoom meeting. It, it, it's a, it's a specific
• 15:21
  sort of commitment to a team and commitment to communication that
• 15:26
  I think makes it an, you know, a really special group of people.
• 15:31
  But it's also the leaders that we have in the company who have,
• 15:36
  you know, sort of taken the bull by the horns and, and really
• 15:39
  working with, you know, personalities over over Zoom.
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  It's, it's not easy. It's a, it's a, it's a shared
• 15:47
  experience. It's an interesting shared
• 15:48
  experience, But you know, we have across the board, you know,
• 15:53
  a a very small committed group that that wants to make this
• 15:58
  company a success. And you know, the Margaret Mead
• 16:01
  quote is, is one of my favorites.
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  You know, never doubt that a small committed group of
• 16:05
  citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that
• 16:09
  ever has and and there is a shared sense of purpose at
• 16:13
  Avacta. It's just it's one of my
• 16:14
  favorite teams that I've ever worked with.
• 16:17
  Nice. And just to delve into Avacta's
• 16:21
  pipeline a little bit more. So it's often described as best
• 16:23
  in class for targeted chemotherapy and peptide drug
• 16:27
  conjugates. What are you most excited about
• 16:31
  in the current development portfolio?
• 16:35
  So up until we announced the dual payload, I think everybody,
• 16:38
  a lot of people out there that knows Avacta knows me and the
• 16:41
  management team would would recognize that my favorite was
• 16:45
  going to be the beast. So our exit Tican peptide drug
• 16:49
  conjugate. So this is the most potent to
• 16:52
  apply summaries 1 inhibitor. Now we know that topo one from
• 16:56
  a, from an oncologist, you know, if I put my oncologist hat on,
• 17:00
  we know that topo 1 is a, is a very broadly active mechanism
• 17:05
  in, in cancer therapy. And this is the most potent topo
• 17:10
  one that's ever been in the clinic.
• 17:12
  It was developed by Dai Ichi back in the late 90s, early
• 17:16
  2000s, has been in probably close to 1000 patients to be
• 17:19
  honest with you, among all the various phase twos and what not,
• 17:23
  I think there's a couple of key messages that came out of that
• 17:26
  development with Exotekin is, is much more potent.
• 17:29
  And so it's active even when other topo ones have have failed
• 17:34
  or when the tumor has resisted other topo ones.
• 17:37
  That was published in a a Phase 2 breast cancer study.
• 17:40
  It it's also very highly membrane permeable.
• 17:44
  So if you think about our mechanism, the payload, my phone
• 17:48
  is released extracellularly. So FAP, when it removes it, this
• 17:52
  is outside of the cells. So we need those drugs to be
• 17:54
  able to move into a FAP negative tumor cell.
• 17:57
  That's the bystander effect. So that that aspect of the drug
• 18:01
  is, is critically important. But the third is it, it had APK,
• 18:06
  one of the reasons that it failed in the clinic was that it
• 18:09
  had a very short exposure, very short half life.
• 18:12
  And so we had to invent this concept of a sustained release
• 18:16
  mechanism. And Francis and the chemistry
• 18:19
  team literally went away and modified both ends of the
• 18:23
  peptide in order to create the sustained release.
• 18:26
  With our most recent one, which is the dual payload system, they
• 18:30
  took those inventions and took them even, even, you know, a
• 18:33
  step further to find 2 binding sites to get two different drugs
• 18:38
  to release. We're quite confident that we
• 18:40
  are the first peptide drug conjugate to actually invent a
• 18:44
  dual payload system. The advantages there are pretty
• 18:48
  much twofold #1 it has much better tumor penetration.
• 18:51
  There's no big antibody next to it that's going to have a hard
• 18:55
  time getting into the tumor. These are small molecules, such
• 18:58
  as small molecule drugs, but the second advantage is
• 19:00
  manufacturing. We don't need a biologic
• 19:03
  manufacturing platform. Ours are just pure small
• 19:07
  molecules. We buy the two payloads, the the
• 19:10
  pens we manufacture the peptide, this is 2 amino acids and, and
• 19:15
  pumpkin together. So it's a small molecule
• 19:17
  manufacturing. And that tumor penetration like
• 19:20
  some of the, the new data that we have with the with the
• 19:23
  sustained release mechanism, we get it right into the tumor
• 19:27
  release the payload immediately. And that's, that's evidence of
• 19:30
  of tumor penetration. So yeah, we're, we're super
• 19:34
  excited about, you know, that the next thing's coming for
• 19:37
  Evacta. I think that you know, what our,
• 19:40
  what our chemists, what our scientists have been able to do
• 19:42
  is, is just, it's, it's groundbreaking, to be honest
• 19:45
  with you. And I don't use that word
• 19:47
  lightly, but it's groundbreaking what they've been able to do
• 19:50
  with this platform. Yeah, nice.
• 19:52
  And it's obviously quite crowded.
• 19:53
  Feel targeted oncology. What?
• 19:55
  What makes it? What do you think makes evactive
• 19:59
  science different from some of the competitors out there?
• 20:03
  Yes. So it is you're, you're 100%
• 20:05
  correct. It is a, it is a very crowded
• 20:07
  field from targeted therapies all the way through to, to
• 20:10
  biologics and whatnot. I think there's a, there's a
• 20:13
  couple of things that make evactive very different.
• 20:16
  The 1st is we're repurposing drugs that we already know they
• 20:19
  work. So for example, Exitican Topo
• 20:23
  one, we know it works. It didn't make it to the market,
• 20:27
  but we've seen in phase two trials that it shrinks tumors
• 20:31
  and it even shrinks tumors that are topo 1 resistant, which is
• 20:34
  one of the reasons that so, so we're repurposing mechanisms
• 20:39
  that we know work we can turn off and dramatically reduce
• 20:44
  toxicity. And that's what what was really
• 20:46
  important in our our ESMO presentation.
• 20:49
  We presented the long term cardiac safety data and it shows
• 20:53
  that you know, even out to very large lifetime maximums, we
• 20:58
  aren't seeing any cardiac toxicity from that drug.
• 21:01
  So proof of concept for the platform, attaching this peptide
• 21:05
  to this drug really does protect all of those normal tissues.
• 21:10
  And it's putting those two ideas together that really widen the
• 21:14
  therapeutic index for existing drugs.
• 21:19
  It it, it's an important mechanism reducing the toxicity,
• 21:23
  but by concentrating, we're also going to increase the efficacy.
• 21:26
  And so it's, it's a very different approach.
• 21:29
  We're we're taking, you know, almost fallen angels, you know,
• 21:32
  drugs that we know have anti tumor activity and making them
• 21:36
  safer and concentrating them right where they should be.
• 21:39
  It's a, it's a really, it's, it's kind of a crazy idea if you
• 21:42
  think about it, but it's so simple, this platform that that
• 21:47
  we're we're thrilled to move into the next chapter.
• 21:49
  Nice. And just a little bit into your
• 21:53
  journey and how you got to where you are today.
• 21:54
  So your background is your Chief Medical officer phenotype, which
• 21:57
  I guess is a less traditional route to CEO.
• 22:00
  You often see he business officers, chief commercial,
• 22:04
  commercial officers, so on and so forth.
• 22:06
  How did you find that transition initially and what advice would
• 22:10
  you give to others who are looking to to make a similar
• 22:13
  sort of step up when they're ready for it?
• 22:15
  Yeah. So I've always been intrigued by
• 22:17
  the business aspects, especially with, you know, a few different
• 22:20
  roles as chief medical officer. I was often, to be honest with
• 22:25
  you, left out of a lot of the business discussions because why
• 22:28
  bother? Why bother the CMO, they're
• 22:30
  supposed to be taking care of of the medicine.
• 22:33
  But I've always been intrigued by the business side of things
• 22:38
  and the, the transition. I think you, you don't know what
• 22:42
  you don't know. And to be honest with you, the
• 22:46
  learning curve has been, has been so steep on the business
• 22:49
  side of things. I think the, the best piece of
• 22:52
  advice that I got actually from our, our of active board of
• 22:58
  directors who are just a fantastic group, but the best
• 23:02
  piece of advice in, in taking this job was the the 1st and the
• 23:06
  most important hire was going to be the CFO.
• 23:10
  And you know, we do have aspirations ultimately to
• 23:15
  potentially move to, to the NASDAQ.
• 23:18
  And so finding that financial mind to to sit next to the R&D
• 23:24
  CEO is then they're right. It probably was one of the most
• 23:29
  important hires. And in Brian Hahn, we have, you
• 23:33
  know, a, a gentleman who has been with NASDAQ listed
• 23:36
  companies, you know, public experience and, and knows how to
• 23:42
  navigate the, the, the different exchanges.
• 23:47
  We've both had, you know, a tremendous learning curve
• 23:51
  understanding the London Stock Exchange, but also has been a
• 23:55
  lot of work moving towards, you know, ultimately where we can
• 24:00
  find the capital for the company, which will be as we
• 24:04
  move towards the NASDAQ. And we're, you know, we're,
• 24:07
  we're excited to sort of get this company to its next
• 24:11
  chapter. Nice.
• 24:13
  What was it difficult in the initial stages to sort of take
• 24:16
  your clinical hat off and focus on other areas of business,
• 24:20
  given that I guess you now have ACMO, but was that harder in the
• 24:23
  earlier days? So it's, it's a, it's a great
• 24:26
  question. And I'll, I'll often say at, you
• 24:29
  know, our, our, our leadership team meetings, I'll say to Dave,
• 24:33
  I'm like, you know, you, you have the hardest job because I
• 24:35
  know how to do your job. But, but Dave and I have, have
• 24:39
  a, a very good relationship, very good collaboration.
• 24:44
  We both have different, you know, experiences out there.
• 24:49
  I do attempt, I will say to stay, to stay out of the
• 24:54
  medicine and, and let Dave do his job.
• 24:57
  I think what you'll see though, in the most recent of our
• 25:01
  investor meet presentations where Dave and I presented the,
• 25:04
  the ESMO data together. Primarily though, Dave presented
• 25:09
  the data and that that's the way it should be.
• 25:10
  You know, there the the CMO is in charge of the medicine and I
• 25:15
  try not to step on his toes, but we do, we do have very good
• 25:20
  discussions. I'll say one of one of my
• 25:21
  favorite was, you know, as he came in and and took over the
• 25:25
  beast, I already had sort of my preconceived notions of of how
• 25:29
  it was going to be developed. And, you know, I'll be honest
• 25:32
  with you, Dave, Dave took some of it and he said, you know,
• 25:34
  we're not going to do this. We had a knock down drag out
• 25:37
  debate about the diseases, you know, the indications for this
• 25:41
  one going forward. And it's, it's just been, it's
• 25:43
  been a fantastic collaboration and for both of us, it's
• 25:46
  recognizing that, you know, where I can step in and where I
• 25:51
  should really just get out and, and let him crack on with
• 25:53
  things. Nice.
• 25:56
  And you mentioned before obviously the book of the team
• 26:00
  in the UK, some of the team in the US, How have you sort of
• 26:02
  managed to maintain a strong and unified across those different
• 26:07
  time zones? So that's actually really
• 26:10
  important to us, really important as we start to, you
• 26:16
  know, expand on both shores. I did this once before with
• 26:21
  Immunocore. I was the first US employee at
• 26:24
  Immunocore and sort of moving over to the states.
• 26:28
  It's, it brings its own set of challenges and really keeping
• 26:33
  the team focused and united on sort of the goals is, is
• 26:38
  critically important finding and seeing those conflicts because
• 26:44
  every team is going to have conflicts.
• 26:46
  Every team is going to have, you know, those, those challenges as
• 26:49
  you go forward and managing those and, and jumping in
• 26:53
  advising and and whatnot. I will say we have a, we have a
• 26:57
  great team in the UK. We have a great new small team
• 27:01
  in the US and it's keeping that that shared mindset and, and
• 27:06
  really getting in there, seeing each other every few months is,
• 27:11
  is, is critical, but keeping everyone focused and unified.
• 27:15
  There's not there's, I always say this, there's nothing like
• 27:17
  an I and D to to align people. You know, it's US against the
• 27:20
  world getting that drug into the clinic.
• 27:22
  It's, it's probably, you know, one of the, one of the hardest
• 27:26
  things is to take this pile of science and, and move it into a,
• 27:30
  a clinical trial. But they're 100% united on that
• 27:34
  right now. And, and we're, we're really
• 27:36
  looking forward to moving the beast into the clinic.
• 27:41
  Nice, and this is a question we always finish with on the Bio
• 27:45
  Hub and I know I wanted to give you a bit of a heads up with it
• 27:48
  as well, but if you were to have dinner with any free people past
• 27:52
  or present, who would you go for and why?
• 27:57
  So let me let me start with Abraham Lincoln.
• 28:02
  So he was probably one of the people out there with a grit
• 28:07
  and, and an idea and he just would never give up on it, never
• 28:12
  give up on it. I think that learning from him,
• 28:17
  you know, some of that negotiating power would, would
• 28:21
  be absolutely fantastic. And, and learning from him in
• 28:26
  terms of egg, I just think of him, you know, grit.
• 28:29
  I think it's so important in this, in this field of biotech,
• 28:32
  really having that vision of, of what you see your life and your
• 28:36
  career being and, and sticking to it.
• 28:39
  And, and I think he was one of the ones out there.
• 28:44
  The other person that I would love to, to sit and have dinner
• 28:47
  with, I would be my grandfather. So we had, I was, I was, you
• 28:52
  know, his favorite grandchild. Some of my cousins will probably
• 28:56
  disagree with me there. But you know, he as he was dying
• 29:01
  of cancer and I think he knew that he was dying of cancer.
• 29:04
  And I, one of the last things that I was able to tell him was
• 29:08
  that I had gotten into Penn University of Pennsylvania for
• 29:12
  medical school and for my PhD. And I'd love to just be able.
• 29:16
  And he died, he died not too long after that, but I'd love to
• 29:19
  be able to go back and talk to him and tell him and say, you
• 29:21
  know what, look what? I look what I did here.
• 29:24
  And you know, the, the other person, to be honest with you, a
• 29:29
  lot of our, a lot of our investors know that I'm a huge,
• 29:33
  huge Philadelphia sports fan, but I would like to somehow get
• 29:37
  myself invited to one of the Phillies team dinners.
• 29:41
  They just, that team is so incredible.
• 29:43
  And I, I actually have watched some of their team dynamics and
• 29:46
  it's, it's them versus the world.
• 29:49
  And so I'd, I'd love to sort of, you know, it's, it's, it's been
• 29:52
  talked about as one of the great cultures out there of, of team
• 29:56
  dynamics. So those are my, those are my 3
• 29:59
  dinners. Abe Lincoln, my grandpa.
• 30:01
  And I'd love to have, I'd love to get just some insights into
• 30:05
  the team workings of of the Philadelphia Phillies.
• 30:09
  Nice. Yeah, but I love all of those
• 30:11
  answers and sounds like what you're building it evacter is is
• 30:14
  super exciting and and obviously you've made a lot really good
• 30:17
  recent progress as well. So yeah, I'm excited to to
• 30:20
  follow you guys going forward and thanks again for coming on
• 30:24
  and and and. For the time, yeah, great to
• 30:28
  great to talk to you. Great conversation and thanks
• 30:30
  for the time, Tom.