Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 130 - Barry Quart - CEO Connect Biopharma

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Episode 130 - Barry Quart - CEO Connect Biopharma · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  Welcome back to another episode of the Bio Hub and Avetics
• 0:09
  podcast. Today I'm joined by Doctor Barry
• 0:12
  Quart, CEO of Connect Biopharma, a company developing novel
• 0:16
  therapies for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
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  Barry is 1 of biotech most seasoned leaders with more than
• 0:23
  30 years in the industry, 9 FDA approved drugs and two major
• 0:27
  exits to his name. He Co founded our day of
• 0:29
  Biosciences, LED Heron Therapeutics through 4 products
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  approvals, and now he's steering Connect through its next phase
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  of growth. In this conversation, we talk
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  about Barry's journey across Big Pharma and biotech, what drew
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  him to Connect, how he thinks about leadership in today's
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  market, and what keeps him passionate about building after
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  three decades in the game. How are you, Barry?
• 0:51
  I am excellent. Thank you.
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  How are you doing today? Really.
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  Well, it's a pleasure to have you on, honestly.
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  My pleasure. So let's start with your
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  journey, Barry. So I mentioned in the
• 1:01
  introduction 30 years in pharma and biotech, 9 FDA approved
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  drugs and well two exits to your name.
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  How did it all begin and what keeps you so passionate about
• 1:14
  the work after all these years? Yeah.
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  You know, I started of all places in Evansville, IN.
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  I was recruited after receiving a farm D from UCSF to go work
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  for what was Meade Johnson division of Bristol-Myers and
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  Cardiovascular Research and so drove across country from San
• 1:40
  Francisco and start to work there.
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  By the time I drove out, Bristol had kind of ripped out their
• 1:47
  clinic, the research group, and put it into what it was becoming
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  the centralized research group within Bristol-Myers.
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  And you know, worked in Evansville, now at Bristol-Myers
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  Research for 5 1/2 years. Ended up going to Wallingford,
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  CT, had moved into regulatory affairs by that point and
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  ultimately was responsible for all international regulatory for
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  Bristol before before leaving to go to what was a tiny little
• 2:25
  biotech in San Diego. So it brought me back to
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  California to work at Agoron Pharmaceuticals, which was at
• 2:34
  the time the leader in structure based drug design, X-ray
• 2:38
  crystallography. And in those days, publishing a
• 2:42
  crystal structure of a target molecule would increase your
• 2:49
  share price by 3040% because people had no appreciation for
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  how many more hurdles it was between that discovery and a
• 2:59
  real drug and ultimately getting it approved.
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  And I've seen that, you know, over the course of that 30 plus
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  years is the the end point that investors are looking for has
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  continually shifted from initially early discoveries or,
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  you know, understanding and genetics to getting, you know,
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  getting an Ind was a huge issue for biotech in those days.
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  You know, you file an Ind and your stock goes up.
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  Now it's a trivial event, really.
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  And people appreciate, you know, how long it takes from there to
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  ultimately having a, you know, a product to sell.
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  And so I ended up at, you know, working in antivirals and
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  oncology and fortunate to be involved in developing what
• 3:56
  become became the cornerstone of the AIDS cocktail.
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  In the the late 90s, we developed the HIV protease
• 4:03
  inhibitor, decided to do it on our own, to launch it on our own
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  and became the largest selling protease inhibitor at the time
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  and, and really was one of the leading products and HIV in the
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  late 90s, early 2000s. As with everything, you know,
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  the the first inventions aren't always the best and ultimately
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  newer, better, longer acting drugs came out.
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  But it was just really incredible to be involved in,
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  you know, turning a fatal disease into a disease that
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  people just, you know, dealt with chronically took their meds
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  and, you know, should never have died from from HIV.
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  And so it was really a, you know, phenomenal experience.
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  And ultimately we got taken out by a by Warner Lambert, who gave
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  us a lot of freedom to continue in antivirals and oncology.
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  Unfortunately, they were swallowed up by Pfizer, ended up
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  staying on as the site head for what became the La Jolla
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  Laboratories for Pfizer, you know, global R&D, the center of
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  excellence for oncology and antivirals.
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  But it's really hard to go from a small then pretty medium,
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  larger biotech to large pharma. And so and couldn't, couldn't
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  really tolerate it for very long.
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  The inability to make decisions in large pharma just becomes,
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  you know, too, too much to bear And ended up, you know, taking a
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  break from pharma and then ultimately got back in because I
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  just really love drug development.
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  You know, it's just an experience of being able to
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  impact the lives of hundreds and thousands of patients.
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  And, you know, versus, you know, working in working in a hospital
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  where you're benefiting one or two, you know, patients, 1020
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  patients, this is an opportunity to, you know, have a significant
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  impact on, you know, as I said, hundreds of 1000, millions of
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  patients ultimately. And that's what that's what
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  drives me. What you know, why I get up in
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  the morning is you know to to do something important and, and
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  bring bring a very, you know, important useful medication to
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  to patients. Yeah, that's unbelievable.
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  And that's such a good point actually just to the amount of
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  people you can really reach with the work you're doing.
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  You touched on it then a little bit in terms of being in both
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  large and smaller companies. And in your case, it was quite
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  extreme from leading role in a big pharma to then little small
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  biotech. What's the biggest difference
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  between leading and big pharma versus small biotech?
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  I think it's the, the entrepreneurial spirit, the
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  willingness to move quickly, to take some risks.
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  I mean, for, you know, example, you know, when you're, when
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  you're leading a small company, you have a, you know, you have a
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  management team meeting and you, you know, you make a decision.
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  You know, you're, you're emailing your, your folks, you
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  know, while you're in that meeting and implementing a
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  decision, you know, at, at large pharma when, when I was working
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  at Pfizer, you know, that decision had to then go two or
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  three levels up in the, in the organization.
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  And it could take weeks to, to get an answer as to what we need
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  to, we need to shift resources. We've got a high priority
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  program. We need to make drugs so we can
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  start tox, you know, and get it into the clinic as soon as
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  possible. When you're at a small company,
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  you make that decision about, you know, the management team
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  makes a decision and you implement it.
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  Yeah. But the other, the other thing I
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  learned working at both, you know, both sides is that the
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  larger the company, the more the lawyers are involved in decision
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  making and implementing this kind of stops, you know,
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  checkpoints, I should say, in the, in the process so that they
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  don't, you know, you don't get into trouble.
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  And because, you know, historically they're worried
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  about, you know, making big mistakes that, that come back
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  and 'cause, you know, you know, billions of dollars of, of, you
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  know, legal fees and, and penalties.
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  And so they're always pushing back on entrepreneurial spirit.
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  We're at a small company. You know, you don't have a $500
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  billion company to worry about. You're, you're worried about how
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  do you get there, you know, not protecting it.
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  So once you're, once you're there, 90% of your effort is
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  protecting the business. We're at a small company.
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  All of it is how do you get to the next level?
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  Yeah, I love that mindset. And you, that's a different
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  question. Your personality obviously is
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  more suited to smaller. Do you think generally speaking,
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  personalities are suited to one or the other?
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  Or can people do both? Or how does it work you?
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  Know, I think that I think that once you've been in a, in a
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  entrepreneurial, you know, I guess to say it differently, I
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  completely agree. I think that there are different
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  personality types that that are going to resonate more with one
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  or the other. The there's going to be a
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  personality type that likes to to be entrepreneurial, likes to
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  take, you know, thoughtful and hopefully well thought out
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  risks, but none the less be a risk taker.
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  And I think there are personalities that don't find
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  that appealing, that like a more rigid, you know, orderly
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  process. And ultimately that, you know,
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  those hopefully, you know, migrate to the right location
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  because I think you end up with, you know, as I found it, you
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  know, very unsatisfying to have that entrepreneurial approach,
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  wanting to move quickly. How do we be creative here and
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  move something along and get it out to patients more quickly
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  where you just hit one roadblock after another?
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  That the entire process of drug development within the company
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  is, is designed to stop you from being creative, to stop you from
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  moving quickly. I mean that that's what I found
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  in large pharma was it was designed to to slow things down.
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  Straighten. Yeah.
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  And then, you know, bring it forward to today where you're
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  at. Connect what?
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  What inspired you to join To join Connect Bio Farmer?
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  But yeah, you know, it was it was not something I was out
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  searching for. I can, I can tell you how it was
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  kind of quasi retired sitting on a board thinking about a couple
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  other boards potentially when this opportunity came along.
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  And, and I spent about 3 months doing pretty in depth diligence
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  on the data that they had generated.
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  That's something that I've enjoyed all along my career is,
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  you know, diving into the data and trying to understand what it
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  might be telling us beyond the clinical study report.
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  It's it's actually how you know, we ultimately sold our data for
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  1.2 billion to Astra Zeneca was based on a serendipitous finding
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  that I made looking through data at which led to the development
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  of a a novel drug that we that that we invented and developed
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  for for treatment of gout. But in this case, going through
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  the data, it struck me that this was the, the, the main program
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  which is IL 4 receptor alpha monoclonal antibody called
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  ratamicobart had some very interesting unique attributes.
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  And the most interesting aspect was the speed of onset of of how
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  quickly we saw improvements in airway function in asthma
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  patients. And you know, as you know,
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  generally with biologics, you're looking at days to weeks to see
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  the anti-inflammatory, you know, benefits, you know, for, for the
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  product. And you may see, you know, some
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  markers change quickly, but generally you don't see symptoms
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  improve for, you know, quite some time here you saw a
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  dramatic improvement in airway function within hours.
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  And that led me to think about, well, you know, can we use this
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  product earlier in the in the acute asthma episode, the
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  exacerbations where no biologics is currently used?
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  And as I drilled into it, I realized this was a completely
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  forgotten space. You have multiple biologics
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  approved for maintenance of asthma or COPD, so patients take
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  it every month in order to try to reduce the incidence of
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  having an exacerbation. But none of them had ever been
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  systematically studied in treating an acute exacerbation.
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  And more interesting, they all explicitly say in their package
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  insert do not use to treat an acute exacerbation.
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  And so this is a, you know, a complete white space.
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  No, no biologics approved, none can be used and nobody's really
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  focused on it. And so in the INI area where you
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  have 20 companies going after virtually every indication there
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  is to find one where there was nothing and there hadn't been
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  any innovation in over 20 years. You know, patients today still
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  get steroids and bronchodilator, same thing they would have
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  gotten 20-30 years ago. And so there was just a huge
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  opportunity, millions of patients experiencing
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  exacerbations every year and a drug that seemed beautifully
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  suited for treatment of those patients.
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  And so it was just too tantalizing.
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  I couldn't help myself. I had, you know, jumped in with
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  both feet and, and I will tell you that, you know, my biggest
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  concern coming into the company was not, you know, whether the
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  drug was going to, you know, potentially be successful.
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  It already had demonstrated efficacy and safety and you
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  know, over 1000 people. So it was pretty easy to, you
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  know, to do the assessment of is this, you know, potentially an
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  approvable drug. My biggest concern was going
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  into the FDA with this crazy idea of, of treating acute
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  exacerbations with a biologic and them telling us, sorry, you
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  know, we can't tell you why, but you, you're not allowed to study
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  that it, you know, there would be, it would be detrimental to
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  patients because I, you know, as I look at all these other
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  biologics and they all say do not use to treat acute
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  exacerbation. So I, you know, in the back of
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  my mind, I was worried that somebody tried it once it went
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  badly. And now, you know, from then on
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  the agency is put that into the precautions for all biologics.
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  And you know, and you know, the underlying reason wasn't
• 16:57
  obvious, but that they were going to push back on, on our
• 17:01
  ability to develop the drug. You know, so there was something
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  that we didn't know that we would find out that, you know,
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  negatively when we met with the agency.
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  But fortunately it was quite the opposite.
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  They acknowledged, you know, very quickly that this was a
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  clear unmet need that these patients are excluded from every
• 17:23
  chronic study. So when you know, patients are
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  recruited to, to get that typical maintenance indication,
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  you know, the protocols always say you can't have had an
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  exacerbation in the last, you know, 4 weeks, 6 weeks.
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  And so the people having an acute exacerbation are excluded
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  from all of the studies. And so they were, they were
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  quite intrigued. And so it was, it was a very,
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  you know, positive experience where could have been the
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  opposite. Amazing.
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  And and your story is pretty fascinating in its own right in
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  terms of starting in China, expanding into the US and now
• 18:06
  building well a global operation.
• 18:10
  Hey, can you just talk us through that, that journey a
• 18:12
  little bit? Yeah.
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  So the, you know, Kinect was a Chinese based biotech started by
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  two Chinese scientists, you know, laboratories outside of
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  Shanghai. It's where Rademichabart was
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  invented and you know, initially developed.
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  They did, you know, quite a few studies in China as well.
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  So they had built up both discovery, you know, small
• 18:42
  manufacturing group as well as a clinical team and all of the
• 18:48
  support groups you'd have to do clinical trials in China, you
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  know, successfully, you know, generated information and
• 18:57
  ultimately licensed the drug to a large Chinese pharmaceutical
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  company. But that was that was kind of
• 19:06
  the end of doing studies in China.
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  The the new company was responsible for all future
• 19:12
  studies. And so obviously our goal was
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  to, you know, successfully develop the product outside of
• 19:20
  China. And so the, the best way we felt
• 19:23
  to do that and you know, to bring in more U.S. healthcare
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  funds into the, the company was to make it more US centric to
• 19:36
  bring, you know, the activities that were, that made sense, you
• 19:41
  know, into the US. And the company had a small
• 19:44
  outpost in San Diego. We, we've basically turned that
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  into the new headquarters. So we've moved the, the
• 19:53
  headquarters to San Diego. We started moving resources out
• 19:57
  of China to, to San Diego. And really the only thing that
• 20:02
  significance that remains in China is the small manufacturing
• 20:07
  team. That's working on process
• 20:10
  improvements, you know, how do we, how do we make the drug
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  cheaper? And, and so, you know, and, and
• 20:17
  as that ultimately down the road in the next several years plays
• 20:22
  out, you know, there, you know, probably won't be many people
• 20:25
  left in the, in the China office.
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  And you know, we're obviously developing the necessary
• 20:33
  resources to move forward here in, in San Diego.
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  We've started filing the usual SEC, you know, required forms
• 20:46
  and, and documents that, you know, one would expect from a
• 20:50
  San Diego based biotech. When I first started looking at
• 20:56
  the, the filings of the company, they were in RMB.
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  So you had to get your calculator out to figure out,
• 21:04
  you know, how much cash the company had.
• 21:07
  So, you know, we converted to US gap financing.
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  We've now, you know, started putting out the usual 10 KS and,
• 21:15
  you know, 10 QS and you know, so investors, you know, have the
• 21:20
  kind of information on a quarterly basis that they're
• 21:24
  looking for to understand, you know, what the company is up to.
• 21:28
  Well, yeah, you don't think about those kind of logistics
• 21:31
  when you're making that switch. I mean even.
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  Just talking about the heavy lift.
• 21:36
  Yeah, I can imagine. And when you first joined the
• 21:40
  company, when you first joined the company was moving forward
• 21:43
  towards initiating Phase 3IN atopic dermatitis or or asthma?
• 21:49
  Correct. And that would have required
• 21:52
  raising a pretty significant amount of money in in what is a
• 21:57
  very tough fundraising environment.
• 22:00
  How do you approach stabilising things and and setting a new
• 22:03
  strategic direction? Yeah.
• 22:06
  Well, you know, one of the, one of the great benefits of going
• 22:12
  in the direction that we are of looking at treating acute
• 22:17
  exacerbations of asthma and COPD is that those studies are very
• 22:24
  short in, in comparison to the usual, you know, chronic 24 or
• 22:31
  you know, 52 week studies that you have to do for those
• 22:35
  diseases. And they as such they are much,
• 22:38
  much cheaper. So we're able to run 2 parallel
• 22:43
  studies, one in asthma patients, one in COPD patients looking to
• 22:48
  see a benefit in acute exacerbations for, you know, on
• 22:54
  around 13 million each where a phase three asthma study is
• 23:01
  close to 100 million bucks. And so, you know, obviously a
• 23:07
  much bigger hurdle for a small company and particularly during
• 23:13
  kind of the nuclear winter of, of biotech financing that we've
• 23:17
  had over the course of the last, you know, several years.
• 23:23
  Yeah. So we, you know, it was part of
• 23:26
  the calculus in terms of coming into the company that the
• 23:30
  company had enough funds to move forward with some very
• 23:36
  interesting, hopefully transformational, you know,
• 23:39
  phase two studies didn't have the funds necessary to move into
• 23:44
  phase three. And, and so it was, it was
• 23:49
  really part of the, the whole assessment of, you know, is
• 23:52
  this, is this the right decision to, to join the company was the
• 23:56
  fact that it had cash to allow us to generate this new,
• 24:02
  hopefully very exciting data. Yeah, I mean, yeah.
• 24:06
  And you've been on a really cool journey so far.
• 24:09
  I want to take it back a bit and just get like your overall
• 24:12
  mindset because you you've been ACEO through multiple biotech
• 24:16
  cycles. How how is the role changed over
• 24:21
  time? And what does great biotech
• 24:23
  leadership look like today in comparison to what it used to
• 24:27
  be? You know, it's, I think I
• 24:31
  mentioned it earlier that over the course of, of my career, as
• 24:37
  I've seen biotech, you know, evolve the, the hallmark of, you
• 24:43
  know, that evolution has been, you know, how far down the path
• 24:49
  you have to get to before you can create significant value for
• 24:56
  shareholders. And, you know, in the, in the
• 25:00
  early days of biotech, it was, you know, as I noted, an
• 25:04
  invention, you know, solving a crystal structure, you know,
• 25:08
  coming up with a new target protein for, you know, HIV,
• 25:13
  identifying, you know, the, the life cycle of the virus and
• 25:18
  figuring out what to target. All of those things created, you
• 25:23
  know, significant value in the early years because there wasn't
• 25:27
  an appreciation for the, the struggle it was going to be to
• 25:31
  get to ultimately a drug. And so over the, over that 30
• 25:36
  years, it has consistently moved further and further along the
• 25:41
  path. And now, you know, it's to the
• 25:45
  point of you pretty much have to launch the drug successfully to,
• 25:51
  you know, to actually have the, the commercial, you know,
• 25:55
  success and ultimately financial success that, you know, people
• 25:59
  are looking for. So it's the, the thing that I I
• 26:03
  see is that's really evolved is the endpoint that people are
• 26:08
  looking for. It's no longer the discovery is
• 26:12
  no longer we filed an Ind, it's no longer we filed an NDA or
• 26:19
  we've got an NDA approved. Now it's you know the mantra in
• 26:23
  Wall Street is short the launch. And so rather than getting your
• 26:28
  NDA approved and seeing, you know, a significant run up in
• 26:32
  share price and it's not unusual to see the share price decline,
• 26:37
  you know, after that, because people are looking at, OK, now
• 26:40
  they're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to to
• 26:45
  launch the drug. And you know, and unfortunately
• 26:49
  that you don't always, you know, end up being as successful and
• 26:53
  commercial as you might have been in, you know, in the R&D
• 26:57
  side. So I think the the evolution has
• 27:00
  is really, you know, moved so far down the line that you have
• 27:06
  to, you definitely have to be, you know, well versed in, in all
• 27:11
  aspects of, of the process. It, you know, it's, it's unusual
• 27:17
  to see, you know, strict, you know, just scientists making it
• 27:23
  all the way through the process with a, with a biotech, you have
• 27:27
  to have, you know, you have to have kind of a broader
• 27:30
  understanding of the development process of commercialization.
• 27:36
  And so it requires definitely someone with, you know, with
• 27:40
  broader understanding of the process.
• 27:42
  Yeah, definitely. I've definitely seen that and
• 27:46
  I've had to play CE OS in in roles.
• 27:48
  And you know, you're almost asking them their experience
• 27:51
  across every single function in a biotech.
• 27:56
  Yeah. Because they just have to get
• 27:58
  it. And yeah, that makes so much
• 28:00
  sense for my last question, which is the same last question
• 28:05
  I have for every guest. Barry, if you could have dinner
• 28:09
  with any scientist or innovator, past or present, who would it be
• 28:13
  and why? Well, I'd have to, I'd have to
• 28:16
  learn Italian first, but it would unquestionably be Da
• 28:19
  Vinci. I, I am just fascinated by
• 28:25
  someone who, you know, we're just talking about having a
• 28:27
  broad, you know, understanding of the process.
• 28:31
  Here's somebody who, you know, was hundreds of years, you know,
• 28:36
  beyond his time in terms of, of science, you know, art,
• 28:42
  architecture, you know, designing tanks and, you know,
• 28:46
  armored vehicles, you know, just a myriad of, of discoveries, you
• 28:53
  know, the, the inventions that, that he, you know, design.
• 28:57
  I, I'm just blown away by his ability to, to look into the
• 29:02
  future and, and, you know, come up with creative ideas.
• 29:09
  And I just think it would be fascinating to, to really
• 29:11
  understand how, you know, how does this person in the
• 29:14
  Renaissance period, you know, come up with some of these, some
• 29:19
  of these ideas and anatomy, etcetera.
• 29:22
  I would just be fascinated to to spend spend a dinner with with
• 29:27
  someone like that. I mean, that's one of the best
• 29:30
  answers, 100%. Thank you so much for coming on,
• 29:33
  Barry. It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 29:36
  My pleasure. Thank you.
• 29:38
  And please everyone like and subscribe to the Bio Hub and
• 29:42
  thank you so much again, Barry.