Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 48 - Michael Kauffman- CEO of Nereid Therapeutics

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Episode 48 - Michael Kauffman- CEO of Nereid Therapeutics · The BioHub - by Avetix

0:04
Back to another episode of the Bio Hub.
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Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Michael Kaufman, who
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is the President and CEO of Neriad Therapeutics.
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With over 25 years of experience spanning drug development,
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regulatory strategy and biotech leadership, Michael has left an
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incredible mark on the field of oncology and has held leadership
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roles at Kaya Farm, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Proteolics and
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Millennium Pharmaceuticals and has contributed to several
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several FDA approved drugs. Now as CEO of Nerio Therapeutics
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and a board member for multiple biotech companies, he continues
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to be at the forefront of driving innovation.
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So join us today as Michael runs us through his journey, the
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difference between good drug developers and good scientists,
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as well as how to get on a board.
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So Michael, thanks so much for coming on.
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How are you? Pleasure to be here and I'm
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doing well, thanks. Good.
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Awesome. Well, let's dive into it with a
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little bit about you. So can you tell us about your
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journey in the biotech field and what inspired you to join Myriad
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Therapeutics as as CEO? Sure.
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Well, I'll, I'll go through quickly.
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It's been, it's been a few years.
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I was an academic physician. I did my training MDPHD at
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Hopkins, Johns Hopkins and then over to Beth Israel and then
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Mass General for rheumatology. After internal medicine I would
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thought I was going to be an academic Dr. but I was recruited
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heavily to Biogen was my first job out of Mass General.
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I kept my clinic going for a few years until I just got too busy
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in the company and cut my teeth on 1st in human studies with a a
1:40
drug for Lupus which is actually finally just had its first phase
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three. This is a long time ago, so can
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take a long time, but I was long gone after that and went over to
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Millennium. They're a diagnostics company
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called Millennium Predictive Medicine.
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We were bought by the parent and I showed up at the parent
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company as a vice President of clinical with really not a lot
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to do and a drug fell into our lap.
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And I bring this up because it's very typical of our industry,
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the first proteasome inhibitor, namely what became Velcade,
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which we really didn't understand how good it could be.
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And I was a doctor without a drug and that was a drug without
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a physician. So they handed it to me and the
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rest is sort of history. We did the first accelerated
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approval of multiple myeloma and and that drug eventually hit
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about 2 1/2 billion in sales, I think in the in the mid 2000s.
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So really a wonderful drug that helped transform myeloma from
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really a death sentence within most people were dying within
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two years. And now we have patients with
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all the breakthrough therapies in myeloma.
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We have patients living 10 and sometimes 1520 years.
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Many of them are achieving a normal, so-called normal
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lifespan. So that was my first real hit.
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I then went on to become CEO of a company, brought several drugs
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into the clinic. The company was called Predix
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Pharmaceuticals, which was a super cool computational
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company. We designed nice small molecule
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drugs. Ultimately, the first one failed
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in a couple of depression and anxiety studies.
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In my opinion, small companies should really try to stay clear
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of these sorts of studies because they're super hard to do
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and even the best drugs we have only win 50 or 60% of the time.
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And that company eventually went, went to bankrupt and I had
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left. It was venture capitalist for a
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little while and then on to proteolics and Onyx and the
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approval of Kyprolis, the second proteasome inhibitor for
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myeloma, hit a billion dollars recently.
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Terrific drug actually beat my first child and went head to
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head against Velcade and won. So I had sort of a fight between
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the two kids and the younger one won and then I went on my wife
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started a company called called Carrier Farm Therapeutics, the
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first in class nuclear export inhibitor.
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This was started in our house. It was her idea and we put some
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of our own money into it, grew the company, got a big Series A
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20 million and then Series B crossover round.
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We had responses in the clinic, ultimately leading to a drug
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called Expovio, which is approved in diffuse arch B cell
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lymphoma and in myeloma. So a really nice set of drugs
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mostly for myeloma and lymphoma. And I was pretty much retired
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and joined a bunch of boards and I got antsy after about a year
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and a half. And I decided I needed to do
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something else. And I was, I was talking to this
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company called Niriyad Therapeutics and they had
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technology based on the newly discovered entities in cells
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called biomolecular condensates. And this, this is actually an
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old, it's like most things in biology, they were always there.
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For those of you that know some biology, the nucleolus is a
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condensate. We just didn't call it that.
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We called it an organelle without a membrane.
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Turns out there's multiple hundreds of these organelles
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without membranes and cells. And Muriad had a very focused
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and unique way of screening for these technology from Cliff,
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Cliff Brangman's lab out of Princeton.
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And I couldn't, I, I just thought we were working on some
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of the toughest targets in oncology Beta Katinin, CMIC, a
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very tough target in acute in ALS, amyotrophic lateral
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sclerosis, TDP 43. And and we decided, I decided
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that this is what I wanted to do.
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Small 15 person company, very focused are we're funded by
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Apple Tree Partners. So we have a lot of the
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corporate functions that are in the parent and this has allowed
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us to run a really streamlined operation and we're hopefully
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going to be in the clinic this year.
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So yeah. So you come from a medical
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background yourself. What do you think the big
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differences are between scientists and physicians in
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terms of how they think and the big difference between good
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scientists and good drug developers?
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Yeah, it's a it's a super interesting question and it's
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it's as philosophical as it is probably practical.
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And I think this is a really important distinction.
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When I was a young nerdy kid, I really wanted to be a doctor.
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I didn't, of course, I didn't really know what that mean.
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No means nobody does until they actually get in there and do it.
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But I love the idea that you could take people that were sick
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and give them something usually, or do some surgery and then they
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were better again. They can go on and live their
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life. And I think that's one of the,
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the great pillars of civilization.
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And I really did, I love this. But I also realized that the
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language of science was very different than the language of
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medicine. And that's why I went to, I
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applied for the combined MDPHD programs at a few different
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universities. I picked Hopkins overall because
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frankly, they recruited me the hardest and they have a great
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track record, especially in the medical training.
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Excellent research as well, of course, in Baltimore, MD.
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And I think that was a great choice.
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Turned out the medical training there was incredible as a as a
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young aspiring Dr. and it became very clear that these two
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languages were quite different. Medical doctors have to see a
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person come in and figure out what's relevant to the current
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problem. How do we deal with all of the
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problems together? And this is thankfully, this is
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increasing because people are living longer and with more
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stuff. And so you have to, you have to
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worry about everything now. And that's, that's a great,
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that's great progress in medicine physician, sorry,
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scientists generally try to reduce problems to a single
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variable and study those. It's a, it's a reductionist
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approach. So on one hand you have the
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holistic approach, the other one you have a reductionist
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approach. And the more I thought about it,
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I was, as I was going through my training, you know, I started to
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get even after only a couple of years in actually seeing
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patients and, and, and helping them was that I was start.
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I was having the same conversation about side effects
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and the same conversations about the limits of the activity of
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the current drugs. And this is kind of the string
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that Biogen pulled when they recruited me out of Mass General
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was to say, hey, listen, why would you want to keep doing
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that when you with, especially with your scientific training
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could help move medicine forward?
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And, and then I got into industry.
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And and to your second point, Tom, what's the difference
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between a scientist, a doctor and a drug developer?
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Well, the drug developer stands somewhere in the middle.
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Scientists are there to solve problems, they make hypotheses
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and they solve problems. Saying my problem is to make a
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drug to fix X is obviously simplistic and easy, but the,
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but really what you're trying to do is how do I create a new
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molecule, either a small molecule, which means something
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that weighs less than 500 to 1000 Daltons, or a large
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molecule like an antibody or a peptide or polypeptide or
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something like that. And, and the answer is, is it's
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somewhere in the middle because you got to worry about the
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specific problem you're trying to solve, but you got to do it
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in the context of a whole human being.
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And you also have to remember that there's only one relevant
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species. We're so wrapped up in our
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animal models and our animal toxicology studies.
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And one of my favorite comments to remind people is there's only
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one relevant species and it only has two legs, because people
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really do forget that. And it's very easy to forget
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that when you're, when you're wrapped in.
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So a drug developer is someone that has a picture of the final
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product, the drug that the patient's either going to take a
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pill or an injection or something, you know, into their
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veins or in under the skin or inhaled or whatever.
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And they're, and they're, that's going to help a whole human
9:50
being. And the other thing is, is that
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it's a little bit like the, the saying about, about military
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actions is that military plans survive until the 1st bullet is
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fired. And that's the same thing.
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You know, medicines are all great in theory and they go
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through our animal models and our animal testing.
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And they should, because I would never, ever want to put a new
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entity into a human being as the first living thing that I ever
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put the entity in. And then stuff happens and stuff
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happens because humans are heterogeneous.
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They have different genetics. They they obviously are on all
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different kinds of medicines. They have different comorbid
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conditions, meaning other medical problems.
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And frankly, they're taking a lot of stuff nowadays that they
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don't even tell you about. There's the old general Egyptian
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store or the old organics that they take or natural products
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and stuff. And they don't.
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Half of them don't think about it as a drug and the other half
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are embarrassed by it. So you don't really know what
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you're doing and you got it. You got to be nimble.
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And, and one of the things that I say a lot to our scientists
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and physicians when we're, we're developing new drugs is to, is
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to keep your eye on the ball. The ball is how do we get to
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that product that's going to go into a human or on topical on a
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human. And that's the key.
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It's easy to say, but you, you, you'd be amazed how many times
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scientists will want to go off and deviate to study a problem
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because in our pH DS, what happened was, you know, we would
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get a result. It would be a little bit
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unusual. We say, oh, I'm going to study
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that for a few weeks or a few months.
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And that's not the goal in drug development.
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The goal in drug development is how do I get to that new thing
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that I'm going to put into people?
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I think that's why it sits right between scientists and doctors.
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And the last thing I'll say is that physicians tend to want to
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get more and more data because humans are so heterogeneous.
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We don't have time for that at the beginning of drug
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development. You know, there's always the
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first patient and then there's always the first response or, or
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good effect. And then there's the second one
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and the third one. And a lot of times you'll,
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you'll hear a doctor say, well, I need more data.
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Well, the only way to get more data is to treat more patients.
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And it becomes a little bit of a chicken and egg problem.
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So you got to get doctors that are willing to be very risk
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tolerant. You got to have your eye on the
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ball. You of course you want to
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protect the patients, you know, from a side effect point of
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view. But but at least in oncology,
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remember many of our early patients that come into our
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study frankly have one other alternative and that's dying of
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their cancer. That's why people enter early
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stage cancer drugs. You got to remember risk reward
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is in the context of of what what disease is going on and
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what disease you're trying to treat.
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Good. Yeah.
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I think that's a really good breakdown that you you made
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there. And this is now your 4th CEO
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role. So obviously, Niriyad, you've
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also been CEO at KYA Pharm, Epics Pharmaceuticals, Predix
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Pharmaceuticals, what have you Or what would you typically look
12:56
for in C level leaders from a hiring standpoint?
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Yeah. So one of the things I say to C
13:03
level leaders and I'm, I tend to be a very, I mean, I do, I do
13:08
speak a reasonable amount, but that's usually to set the
13:11
strategy and try to keep people's eye on the goal line.
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What I want for my C level people, especially as the, as
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the companies get bigger, is that they don't need me to
13:19
manage them. I do have a saying that if you
13:22
need management when you're at the C level, you're not AC level
13:25
person. You, you can have a, you need a
13:27
leader. I mean, that's why we have a
13:28
chief executive officer. But in terms of day-to-day
13:32
management and style and so on, you, you better be able to
13:36
handle things. And the other thing you have to
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do as AC level person is you have got to manage up.
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It is not my job as the CEO to worry about every detail.
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In fact, I should worry about as few details as possible because
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I have trust in my C level people to bring those the
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important details to me, especially the ones that are
13:54
going to derail the program. And let's address it and let's
13:58
get on top of it as soon as possible.
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So you really need C level people whose who've got their
14:04
eye down on their team on the ball and they've got their eye
14:07
up to the CEO on when do I need to bring them in and and help.
14:12
The other other thing you've got to have is you got to have
14:14
people, regardless of your CEO style, you've got to be
14:18
philosophically aligned. And there are lots of different
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kinds of philosophy in in a CEOI tend to be someone who's much
14:27
less concerned about employees who are not performing at A at a
14:34
high level. I mean, I even, I even say that
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if an employee's at AB level or AB minus level, I don't want
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them in the company. And I don't think investors,
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especially early stage companies, really want those
14:45
employees in the company. We want A and a minus.
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We all of course want a plus employees all the time, but
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there aren't enough. And, and at that level, a lot of
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it comes down to sort of really detailed stuff that's frankly
14:58
not important. What I want are employees and C
15:01
level people that are aligned philosophically, because at the
15:05
end of the day, if they're going to be complaining about you, you
15:07
know, they, they should leave. There's just no C level as well
15:12
as employees. If, if you're not
15:14
philosophically aligned, if you don't share the vision of the
15:17
company, especially in a small company, you don't belong there.
15:20
Go find somebody that you agree with.
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And I think that's increasingly important nowadays because this
15:26
notion that we all can sort of sit around and have a, a meshed
15:30
or, you know, a compromise on philosophy is absurd.
15:35
It really you can't run a company if you're not,
15:38
especially a small one if you're not aligned.
15:41
Yeah, good. And I think just like the
15:44
general biotech market at the moment is interesting.
15:46
Maybe companies a few years ago that could go out and raise
15:49
rounds are now struggling to to go out and raise funds.
15:53
You've also had experience on the venture capital side.
15:57
What do you think investors are really looking for in companies,
16:00
particularly at the moment when the market is the way it is?
16:04
Yeah. I think look, the first thing
16:06
you have to to recognize now is that when the market goes S, the
16:10
first thing investors have to do to protect their early
16:13
investments is to make sure that their early investments are
16:15
funded. So one of the problems with the
16:17
market and it is crashing. I mean it's, it's another
16:21
nuclear winter. We go through, we go through
16:23
sort of manic summers in in biotech and we go through
16:27
nuclear winters. And every time we have a nuclear
16:28
winter, it seems like worse than the last one and we're in a
16:33
tough one. And and the reason we're in a
16:35
tough one is because we we had too many companies four or five
16:38
years ago and too many C level teams put together and too many
16:43
good ideas that weren't great ideas.
16:46
And now we've got to try to figure out which ones or the
16:49
investors have to figure out which ones are going to go
16:51
bankrupt and which or or return money to their shareholders and
16:56
close and which ones that they are going to have to fund.
17:00
And the fundamental problem right now is that you've got
17:04
very difficult decisions going on by the investors saying how
17:07
we going to bridge this company to an eventual funding round or
17:10
to a value creating milestone. And so they don't have a lot of
17:14
mindspace nor cash, free cash frankly that they want to invest
17:18
in new companies. So that's that's the problem.
17:21
You had a number of venture funds that have closed, you got
17:24
a lot of turnover and so on. So it's the, it's a trickle.
17:28
You know, it really is trickle down in our industry until big
17:31
pharma starts buying more biotech or there are more drug
17:35
approvals leading to revenue generating companies and and
17:39
frankly, so sustainable, most of those would of course be public
17:42
companies. It's going to be a tough road
17:44
and and like all of these kind of downturns, it will come back
17:48
up. I mean, it's, it's standard
17:50
economics. It just seems more acute and
17:53
more vertical if you will down and then then it'll be a slower
17:56
climb up in in this round. So that is the major problem
18:00
with investors. I think investors are also
18:03
looking for products now that are north that that have the
18:06
potential at least to sell north of half a billion to a billion
18:10
dollars. And I've had a couple of my
18:13
companies that have had very good interactions with investors
18:17
that that eventually pulled out because they said this is
18:20
probably only, only a $600 million opportunity and I need a
18:24
billion. I've had other investors say,
18:27
hey, it's a $600 million opportunity we're in for sure.
18:31
But but that is increasingly, it's interesting because I don't
18:36
think pharma in general is so wedded anymore to the so-called
18:40
blockbuster only drugs. I mean, the, the low hanging
18:44
fruit and this is great for patients, great for medicine.
18:47
The low hanging fruit in medicine is, is really gone.
18:51
I mean, if you think about the, some of the multi billion dollar
18:54
products that are, are mainstays now in therapy, the statins, the
18:59
add on drugs to statins, the anti hypertensive drugs, you
19:03
know, really good drugs like the ACE inhibitors and the receptor
19:06
blockers and so on. Angiotensin receptor blockers
19:09
and, and you know, on the other side of, of things now we have
19:13
the GLP 1 analogs and, and all this kind of stuff, really much
19:18
better drugs than we used to have.
19:21
So that the bar is higher. And there's a lot of these big
19:24
markets that are gone. I mean, I don't think any of us
19:27
believe we need a drug. We really need a drug to help
19:30
people with reflux disease anymore because frankly, the,
19:34
the proton pump inhibitors have revolutionized that to the point
19:38
where those drugs are over the counter and that that multi
19:42
billion dollar market is gone, which is great.
19:45
So there's an increasing number of medical conditions that are
19:48
well served that there's really no way to get to.
19:51
And I would say on the hematologic cancer side, it's a,
19:54
it's a similar problem in the sense that of course people are
19:57
still dying of various hematologic cancers,
20:00
particularly Amla little bit ALL but mostly acute myeloid
20:04
leukemia and and much less common in the US Perkins
20:07
lymphoma, but most of the other. Hematologic cancers are well
20:12
served, myeloma being a poster child for that, but chronic
20:16
lymphocytic leukemia and and follicular lymphoma and so on.
20:20
So those markets are gone essentially.
20:22
And if you want to be an add on, you're talking probably about a
20:25
several $100 million product. And and lastly, I would say that
20:29
in oncology at least, investors therefore would be looking
20:32
primarily at the big solid tumors, the big 5 or 6 solid
20:36
tumors, the colons, prostates, breast, lung, ovarian and and
20:41
pancreatic and so on to some extent bladder now because it's,
20:45
it's treated. So they're more patients.
20:47
So I think that's what's driving a lot of this, Tom.
20:51
OK, interesting. And in in terms of your
20:55
background again, so you currently sit on six boards.
20:59
What advice would you give to people that are wanting to to
21:02
start taking on board roles that maybe don't currently sit on
21:06
any? Sure.
21:07
It, I think that the main thing it's look, the first board is
21:12
always the most difficult. I, I like to say sometimes it's
21:15
like when you're dating and you have your first girlfriend or or
21:18
boyfriend or whatever, it's always the toughest 1.
21:22
And once you break into it, it's much easier because the way many
21:27
people look for board members is they look at other companies
21:29
that have board members and contact those board members.
21:33
So you have to get in the game and first thing you have to do
21:36
is not take it seriously is the wrong word.
21:39
But you can't take it personally.
21:41
You you got a plan and it's going to take one to two years
21:44
in general, I think to get onto a board.
21:48
My first board role was a long, long time ago.
21:51
I think it was 2000 and two or three.
21:55
I was on a board called Bio Envision and people heard that I
21:58
was a good drug developer. I had I had helped Usher Velcade
22:04
led the Velcade team ushering into the first accelerated
22:07
approval and I was, you know, good background and so on.
22:11
So this little company bio envision said, I we want this
22:15
guy to help us figure out if, if this drug is real, if there's
22:18
really a market here. And and if the team is really
22:21
focused as much as they, they can be on driving towards
22:24
approval as a port as opposed to some nice to haves.
22:28
And it was a very good board. We eventually sold the company
22:32
to Genzyme did nicely and, and that was my first role and that
22:36
helped me get other roles to break in.
22:41
What you really should try to do is to meet as many headhunters
22:45
like like like Tom on the phone and and other folks that that
22:49
look for board, high level board headhunters, the sea level and
22:54
board. They tend to go together and you
22:56
got to talk to three or four of them and get on their radar and
23:00
you've got to be proactive about it and you figure out a way to
23:03
get introduced to them through friends, through LinkedIn,
23:07
through whatever. But don't, don't stop and don't
23:10
get discouraged because everything takes time,
23:13
especially these days. And they also come in in globs.
23:17
I mean, it's, it's funny, when I look back, I would have two or
23:20
three years where nobody would contact me and then I would get
23:23
3 board offers in a row or three companies that came to me and
23:26
said, do you have room for another board?
23:29
When I retired from Carrier Farm several years ago and my plan
23:33
was to add a couple of boards and I, you know, I would have
23:35
liked to snap my fingers and have that happen.
23:37
But you know, I had to go reach out to the people that knew me
23:42
and let them know I was available for two or three more
23:45
boards. And it took 9 or 10 months
23:47
before that process went. And I was a guy that was already
23:50
on three boards. So, so people knew me and had a
23:53
good track record. So that's what I would say to
23:55
people that the best way to do this is LinkedIn to meet the
23:58
headhunters, get your name out there, explain why you could
24:03
bring something unique to a board.
24:05
And, and by the way, don't be shy about being your first time
24:08
board member, right? I'm chairman of several of the
24:11
boards that I'm that I'm on and I smile a lot when the new board
24:16
members come on and say, hey, do you mind having a quick
24:18
discussion with me about what you expect from me on the board?
24:22
And frankly, what I expect from people on the board is know your
24:25
stuff and speak up when you have something important to say.
24:29
Your job is not to run the company.
24:31
And this is the toughest part. Your job is not to run the
24:33
company. Your job is to give advice and
24:36
to make sure that when the company is going off the rails,
24:39
that you bring it up at the board and let us discuss it so
24:42
we can help put the company back on the goal.
24:45
But don't don't worry about all the pomp and circumstance.
24:48
Some of them are particularly worried about the legal issues
24:50
around being a board member. I said, we've got a lawyer in
24:52
the room all the time. Nonetheless, they're going to
24:55
let you go off the rails. You're not being, you're not
24:58
being brought in to know the legal aspects of being a board
25:01
member. You're being brought in for your
25:02
subject matter expertise and your gestalt, your gut feel to
25:07
drive value creation in the company.
25:10
Yeah, also, and this is a question that we always finish
25:14
with on the Bio Hub, if you were to have dinner with three
25:18
people, past or present, who would they be and why?
25:21
They don't necessarily need to be innovators, unless you'd like
25:25
them to be. But yeah, three people for
25:28
dinner. Who would they be and why?
25:30
Well, I strongly believe that philosophy understand,
25:34
underscores everything we do, even if you don't know what your
25:38
philosophy is, when we're especially in our industry, but
25:42
increasingly in modern life where we encounter novel
25:45
circumstances all the time. And it's impossible to go and
25:50
and look and look at your past experience in that situation
25:54
because that situation didn't exist before and figured out.
25:58
So you need some kind of fundamental philosophy.
26:00
From a young age, I was wedded to Objectivism by Ayn Rand, a
26:06
bit of a iconoclastic Russian woman who emigrated to Hollywood
26:11
of all places and immigrated to Hollywood and wrote script
26:15
screenplays and then became one of the pre eminent 20th century
26:19
and and now relevant especially to the 21st century philosopher
26:23
that really supported America as an ideal that the the notions of
26:28
Western thought, life, liberty, property rights and the pursuit
26:32
of happiness And Objectivism, as the name would indicate, is
26:36
really relevant to science and medicine.
26:38
Because if we're not objective, we're going to lose meaning.
26:41
Patients are going to die or they're going to suffer.
26:43
And that's not acceptable. So that when I, when I first
26:48
picked up The Fountainhead, I was, I was pretty much wedded to
26:52
it. And that was multiple decades
26:55
ago. So I would definitely want to
26:56
have dinner with Miss Rand. She smoked a lot.
27:00
So I'd have to probably be outside for that because I don't
27:03
think I could tell her not to smoke.
27:04
She probably slapped me. Tough woman.
27:07
If you've ever seen her interviews, if she didn't hold
27:10
back any punches. I mean, she's she's a a tough
27:13
but very brilliant. I think frankly one of the
27:16
geniuses of philosophy. So she would be #1 and the next
27:20
two are pretty obvious. The the second one and and is a
27:26
guy that struggled and struggled and I was an early Macintosh
27:29
adopter way before, you know, it overtook Microsoft and everybody
27:34
understood that your goal was not to learn how to use a
27:37
computer. Your goal should be to just use
27:39
the computer. And Steve Jobs had that vision
27:43
from the get go, which was I want to make something that
27:46
people love to use, not people that have to learn how to go C
27:49
dot back slash for those of you who remember all that, all that
27:54
kind of programming language, semi programming language stuff.
27:57
So Steve Jobs definitely also remember Steve had a a brutal
28:02
time. You know, he was he grew Apple,
28:05
it almost went bankrupt. He had, you know, he got fired
28:08
from it. He had to take a loan from
28:09
Microsoft. He got brought back.
28:12
It went through terrible times. He did Pixar, you know, the man
28:17
was absolutely relentless and it's it's such a great thing to
28:22
read his Walter Isaacson has a wonderful biography of him and
28:26
and young people should all read that because the notion that he
28:29
suddenly thought of Apple and it just went from A-Z, you know,
28:34
amazingly wow. I mean, he got knocked down so
28:37
many times and he got up and and and did better and always rose
28:41
to the challenge now with the pre eminent platform, I think
28:44
for personal computing and to a larger and larger extent, even
28:47
in business. And then the last person is an
28:50
obvious, another obvious person because I love innovators.
28:54
The, the way you move humanity forward is you, you innovate.
29:01
Well, I sort of have two. So the, the obvious one is Elon
29:04
Musk. And I won't go into that because
29:05
I think Elon has created some of the most important companies and
29:09
he's going to continue, he's continuing to and so on.
29:12
And the rescue of the two astronauts with this remarkable
29:15
rocket ship that came back to Earth and landed on its own.
29:18
By the way, if you if you saw that without any kind of
29:21
catchment either, it just got itself vertical and landed on
29:25
its base on its own was terrific.
29:28
But I think I think I would probably pick a MDPHD, the the
29:32
pioneer of immunology and cancer.
29:35
That is the first guy to really realize in a big, big, big way
29:39
that the only way we were going to cure people with metastatic
29:42
cancer, we only had a shot was to get the immune system
29:45
involved. And the guy from from Brooklyn,
29:49
I think Brooklyn, NY, but definitely New York City, Steven
29:53
Rosenberg, who's who's still at the in his 80s, I believe,
29:57
running his lab at the NIH, seeing patients and, and this
30:01
guy is a powerhouse. And he was so far ahead of his
30:03
time. We've only begun to scratch the
30:06
surface. Now we are curing a small
30:08
percentage, but we're curing people with metastatic cancer
30:12
and that is something I would love to see more of in my
30:15
lifetime. With the fact that we're seeing
30:16
any of it is I think was the was started by Steve Rosenberg who
30:21
just who just really did an amazing pioneering job there.
30:24
So definitely talking to him. Good.
30:28
Well, look, I think there's three terrific answers there.
30:31
And I think your contribution experience in the oncology field
30:36
has just been remarkable and inspiring to to listen to.
30:39
So it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on,
30:41
Michael. And yeah, I look forward to
30:43
keeping. In touch so much.
30:45
Enjoyed it, thanks so much. Cheers.