Latest / Money to Give / Ep. 57 Venture Philanthropy, Cancer Research, And The Fight Against Osteosarcoma with Paul Romnes

Transcript

Ep. 57 Venture Philanthropy, Cancer Research, And The Fight Against Osteosarcoma with Paul Romnes · Money to Give

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  Speaker 1: There are moments when science, compassion, and determination converge to
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  Speaker 1: challenge diseases that once seemed unstoppable and to offer hope
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  Speaker 1: where there has been so little. Welcome to money to
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  Speaker 1: give with me Rick Peck, the philanthropy guy, with over
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  Speaker 1: twenty years in the nonprofit sector, I have seen hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of millions of dollars transferred from donors to nonprofits. I
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  Speaker 1: have learned a lot along the way that I want
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  Speaker 1: to help convey to you, my loyal listeners. In this
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  Speaker 1: podcast series, we talk about one how nonprofits can most
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  Speaker 1: effectively showcase their mission and vision and raise as much
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  Speaker 1: money as possible. Two how donors and potential donors can
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  Speaker 1: make the greatest impact possible in the world, and three
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  Speaker 1: how professional advisors, including philanthropic advisors, can offer the most
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  Speaker 1: up to date information and services to their clients. So
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  Speaker 1: join us here each episode from more of that giving feeling.
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  Speaker 1: In this episode, I'm joined by Paul Romness, President and
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  Speaker 1: CEO of os Therapies, a clinical stage biotech company working
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  Speaker 1: to transform outcomes for osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer
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  Speaker 1: that affects both children and animals. Paul shares how his
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  Speaker 1: team is developing in immunotherapy that activates the body's own
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  Speaker 1: defenses to seek out and destroy lingering cancer cells, offering
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  Speaker 1: a potential breakthrough after decades without treatments. We also explore
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  Speaker 1: how ventureful anthropy nonprofits investing directly in research and commercialization
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  Speaker 1: has accelerated progress and brought urgently needed therapies closer to patients.
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  Speaker 1: This work speaks to both scientific ingenuity and human purpose,
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  Speaker 1: the drive to turn heartbreak into healing and innovation into impact.
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  Speaker 1: Let's begin, all.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Paul, thanks for joining me here at the Wall
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  Speaker 2: Street conference. We had a great conversation a little bit earlier,
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  Speaker 2: and so I thought maybe you could start by talking
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  Speaker 2: a little bit about your background and what here, and
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  Speaker 2: maybe just kind of like some of the things you're
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  Speaker 2: seeing out there as far as all kinds of things
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  Speaker 2: regarding nonprofits and therapies and everything else.
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  Speaker 3: So I'll just let you take it away. Sure, great, Richard,
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  Speaker 3: thank you very much for having me on. Yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 3: We're here for the conference because our company went public
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  Speaker 3: in August last year. We are a clinical stage biotech
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  Speaker 3: company focusing on rare and pediatric cancers. And then we'll
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  Speaker 3: pivot to solid other solid tumors. We started with osteosarcoma
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  Speaker 3: that quite literally translates to bone cancer. My daughter's best
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  Speaker 3: friend had it. I always tell the end of the story,
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  Speaker 3: she's doing great, she's going to UCLI Med school this fall. Great,
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  Speaker 3: she'll probably I wouldn't be surprised if she's a pediatric
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  Speaker 3: on cologist someday.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 3: But unfortunately, about half the kids pass away from this disease.
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  Speaker 3: And it's really brutal. It's only a thousand cases a
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  Speaker 3: year in the United States. Thirty to forty thousand dogs
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  Speaker 3: a year get it in the United States.
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  Speaker 4: Really, and it's the number.
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  Speaker 3: One disease killer of dogs. And there are no cures
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  Speaker 3: for dogs or treatments for dogs either. Wow. And it
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  Speaker 3: turns out our therapy has been conditionally approved by the USDA.
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  Speaker 3: We're gonna take it to market, hopefully by the end
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  Speaker 3: of this year. And we're here trying to get folks
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  Speaker 3: to invest in our stock.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, which is OSTX. It seems so noble and so pervasive.
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  Speaker 2: As you say, so many people and animals are suffering
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  Speaker 2: from this, and it seems like my understanding with cancer is.
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  Speaker 4: It's I mean, this is why it's so hard to cure.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: It's so complicated, right, and I think that's something that
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  Speaker 2: most people don't necessarily appreciate. I mean, bone cancer, breast cancer,
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  Speaker 2: all these It's just like there's a lot of research
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  Speaker 2: that goes into these and institutions like yours are finding
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  Speaker 2: solutions and that's the attraction, right, Like maybe we can
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  Speaker 2: actually end this thing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and our therapy actually came out of the University
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  Speaker 3: of Pennsylvania. It's actually brilliantly simple. We're taking a listeria,
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  Speaker 3: which is a really nasty biologic infection, and we're weakening it,
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  Speaker 3: attenuating it, and then fuse a Hurtu vector to it,
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  Speaker 3: and the body reacts violently with an immune response. And
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  Speaker 3: the side effects are chills and slight fever when you
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  Speaker 3: get this, but much better than the chemotherapy of nine months.
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  Speaker 4: That these kids have gotten.
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  Speaker 3: But what's going on is your immune systems getting fired up,
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  Speaker 3: not two, three, four, immune responses, ten eleven, twelve responses
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  Speaker 3: like a five alarm fire that the body realizes listerias in.
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  Speaker 4: Their body, in your body.
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  Speaker 3: At our one, we get that immune response. At our four,
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  Speaker 3: we shut down the biologic infection with an antibiotic, but
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  Speaker 3: the immune response kicks in, keeps on trucking, and the
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  Speaker 3: body tells the lymph nodes to secrete T cells, lymphocytes
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  Speaker 3: killer white blood cells.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, they go out.
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  Speaker 3: And find these little micrometastic to sees that it survived
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  Speaker 3: the che nine months of chemo that these kids have gotten,
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  Speaker 3: and so it goes out and destroys these little micromatastism
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  Speaker 3: We call them cancer seeds because they're trying to land
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  Speaker 3: in your lungs, in your brain because they love oxygen
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  Speaker 3: and soft tissue in what better place. Yeah, right, So
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  Speaker 3: we're firing up the immune system in a very natural way,
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  Speaker 3: shutting down that biologic infection. And the immune response is
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  Speaker 3: these T cells that go out and find these micromantastics before.
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  Speaker 4: They can land in your lungs.
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  Speaker 2: It sounds like you're just doing a superactivation of the
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  Speaker 2: immune system in ways that maybe that's how they got
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  Speaker 2: the cancer in the first place.
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  Speaker 4: The immune response wasn't strong.
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  Speaker 2: Somebody had told me along the way that cancer is
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  Speaker 2: ultimately a failure of the immune system, and you're taking
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  Speaker 2: it to another level, yes, right, yeah, but then also
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  Speaker 2: keeping it from escalating and creating harm. Right, you know,
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  Speaker 2: when to sort of activate it and also when to
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  Speaker 2: put the brakes on. That sounds like what you're doing, perfect,
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  Speaker 2: perfect analogy. And I think something that your listeners would
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  Speaker 2: like is that, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know, since there haven't been any new invent therapies in
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  Speaker 3: over forty years, we followed the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation model.
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  Speaker 4: So CFF put I.
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  Speaker 3: Think one hundred and twenty one hundred and fifty million
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  Speaker 3: dollars into Vertex, which is a Boston based biotech company,
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  Speaker 3: because there were no treatments for cystic fibrosis. Vertex has
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  Speaker 3: since developed and commercialized products for cystic fibrosis, first new
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  Speaker 3: treatments ever, and the Cistic Fibrosis Foundation sold the royalty
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  Speaker 3: rights to that product for four point three billion dollars.
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  Speaker 3: It makes the ice Bucket Challenge seem like chump change,
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  Speaker 3: and now that they've got treatments, they can now turn
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  Speaker 3: towards cures and prevention. And just like that, we've had
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  Speaker 3: seven nonprofits invest in OS therapies and look, we just
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  Speaker 3: finished a clinical trial that helped these nonprofits help fund
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  Speaker 3: and it's.
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  Speaker 4: Looking pretty good.
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  Speaker 3: We're going to go to the FDA in the next
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  Speaker 3: couple of months. We'll probably hear back from the FDA.
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  Speaker 3: Somewhere time around the end of the year. But if
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  Speaker 3: the trial had failed, those nonprofits still would have been
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: following their mission of advancing research.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, just so happens that the trial seems to be working.
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  Speaker 3: Is a home run, No, but it would be the
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  Speaker 3: first new treatment in forty years, and the side effects
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  Speaker 3: are very minimal, the chills and slight fever which goes
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  Speaker 3: away in.
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  Speaker 4: About an hour.
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  Speaker 3: And so I think you know your listeners, particularly the
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  Speaker 3: venture philanthropy opportunity with os therapies is great and we've
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  Speaker 3: really benefited from the nonprofit community.
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  Speaker 4: That's great.
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  Speaker 2: And I was we were talking before we started recording
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  Speaker 2: around the idea that having nonprofits actually give money towards
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  Speaker 2: something like yours. A lot of nonprofits are like, Hey,
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  Speaker 2: we're just trying to get enough money for our own
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  Speaker 2: to execute in the way why we do it. But
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  Speaker 2: as you're describing it, part of their mission is to
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  Speaker 2: invest in things that might be working venture fuilanthropy ideas
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  Speaker 2: that are stimulating and promising, and sometimes they work and
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  Speaker 2: sometimes they don't, but they're still following their mission by
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  Speaker 2: investing in something like you're offering, which is yeah, and
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  Speaker 2: I think.
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  Speaker 3: You know right now, there's a lot of pressure on
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  Speaker 3: bench research and bench you know, you know, the early
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  Speaker 3: stage research that a lot of these nonprofits are supporting.
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  Speaker 3: But that has to you have to get something, You
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  Speaker 3: have to commercialize a product for it to get to patients,
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  Speaker 3: and so that lasts you know, ten miles is the
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  Speaker 3: really tough part. Getting the clinical trial done, getting through
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  Speaker 3: the FDA, getting it.
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  Speaker 4: Onto the market.
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  Speaker 3: You know, that is really challenging, and I think these
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  Speaker 3: nonprofits are realized after forty years, all that basic research
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  Speaker 3: isn't getting much done. We need to finish it off
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  Speaker 3: and get something that seems to be working with mild
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  Speaker 3: side effects to the patient.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: When I was working for Darmouth College, they had a
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  Speaker 2: building they're called Translational Research Building. They called it bench
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  Speaker 2: to bedside, and it feels like that's exactly what you're doing.
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  Speaker 2: You're taking something and carrying it forward so it actually
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  Speaker 2: gets to the bedside and actually treats the patients versus
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  Speaker 2: being stuck in research and not being able to go
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  Speaker 2: to market.
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  Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, And that translational medicine you're talking about is
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  Speaker 3: the basis of this movie that you and I were
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: talking about that came out last week. On PBS called
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  Speaker 3: Shelter Me Cancer Pioneers. It's on PBS. We can share
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  Speaker 3: the link with Yes, Yes.
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  Speaker 4: If you'd like.
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  Speaker 3: But it's about an hour and twenty four minute movie
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  Speaker 3: about our researchers, doctor Nicola Mason from Penn and our patients.
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  Speaker 3: Two four legged patients that receive our therapy and one
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  Speaker 3: young lady, Sweno Subata, who received our therapy. And you know,
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  Speaker 3: in the clinical trial we had a really interesting result.
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  Speaker 4: And I was talking to her at the.
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  Speaker 3: Movie premiere because normally I don't we don't get to
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  Speaker 3: interact with patients for obvious reasons, right, And I said,
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  Speaker 3: you know there was one patient. No, I said, there
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  Speaker 3: are the patients that had more than one reception of
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  Speaker 3: metastasis and their lungs did better than patients that just
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  Speaker 3: had one reception. And if you think about cancer, as
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  Speaker 3: it starts building up more and more metastases, the worst
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  Speaker 3: your prognosis.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 3: A lot of a lot of people don't know that
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  Speaker 3: cancer patients end up oftentimes suffocating because there are so
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: many metastasis in their lungs.
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  Speaker 4: So it's not.
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  Speaker 3: Usually organs shutting out, it's really the lungs not be able.
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  Speaker 4: To carry off. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So, uh, you know, I was talking to her about
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: that and she said, oh, yeah, I had seven reception surgeries.
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  Speaker 4: Wow, and she's been cancer free now for almost three years. Wow.
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  Speaker 4: That's amazing.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, that gives us a lot of optimism
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  Speaker 3: around overall survival for these patients because you know, we
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  Speaker 3: can catch them now further into the disease maybe, and
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  Speaker 3: it seems to be working for them as well or
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: better than the initial resection.
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  Speaker 2: That's incredible. I want to go back to something you
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  Speaker 2: said earlier around prevention. It's not something I really think about.
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  Speaker 2: It's like, how do you prevent something like cystic fibrosis?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, is that something that's done with mothers or
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: I mean it's just an interesting concept because usually when
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: I think of something like that, I think, well, they
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: have cystic fibrosis, and the best that we can hope
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: for is that they can keep the disease at bay,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: monitor the symptoms, and you know, alleviate their symptoms.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: But to actually prevent it is an amazing idea. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not a cystic fibrosius.
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  Speaker 3: Expert, but I do know you know, with either with
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: any disease, it's either environmental or genetic. Interestingly, for osteosarcoma,
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  Speaker 3: we don't know if it's genetic or environmental, because the
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  Speaker 3: same proportion of kids get this. It's right after puberty,
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: right when they're long bones, their growth plates are coming
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  Speaker 3: together in their long bones, and it happens about the
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  Speaker 3: same amount no matter where you are in the world.
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  Speaker 4: It's point oh three per one hundred thousand people.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Okay, And so there are a thousand patients new patients
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  Speaker 3: a year in the United States, there are twenty five
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  Speaker 3: hundred new patients in Europe a year, and on on
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: and on through through the globe. And part of our
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: mission is to get to all those twenty thousand patients.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: And that's why we're not only looking to commercialize the
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  Speaker 3: canine with a partner, but we want a global partner
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  Speaker 3: to commercialize the human osteosarcoma therapy that we're taking through
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  Speaker 3: the FDA right now.
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  Speaker 4: Wow, you're doing really noble work.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm sure you wake up every day and think,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm doing important things. Things are coming together,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: you know, like you said, sometimes these clinical trials work
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: and they don't. When they are working, you feel like, Wow,
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  Speaker 2: we're writing a really important way here and saving lives.
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  Speaker 3: It's my life's work, yeah, Richard, but it's everybody on
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  Speaker 3: my team has that kind of passion.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what makes it happen, right, Just you
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  Speaker 2: come in and you're very clear on what your motives
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: are and how you're trying to make a difference in
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: the world.
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  Speaker 4: And thank you for that. Absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: So it's OS Therapies and we're talking again with Paul
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Ramnis and he's the president's CEO. How would people reach you,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Paul if they were trying to get in touch it
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: either through the Internet or phone or whatever.
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So either our stock symbol is OSTX on New York
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: Stock Exchange America. Our website is OS Therapies O is
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: an oscar s is and sam Therapies dot com. Originally
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: the OS was to San Florid osteosarcoma, but now that
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  Speaker 3: we're pivoting, we will be pivoting towards other solid tumors.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: That OS stands for overall survival, which we're really trying
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: to increase overall survival for these patients.
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: That's great.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And then the last thing you mentioned that movie that
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: just came out on PPS and what is the name of.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: That again, shelter me cancer pioneers.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, great, and people can look that up obviously and
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: watch that hour and a half movie or so.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, all right, we'll bring your cleanness. Oh I bet,
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: I bet.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: But you know it sounds like you have you have
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: highs and lows in that particular. U.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's great.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you for again helping so many people in
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: ways that you know could be immeasurable in the future.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: It's it's it's what the it's what the work's all about, right, yes, yeah,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: all right, Paul, will please come back and tell us
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: if you have more stories around successes. You're always invited
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: back again talking about how nonprofits are investing and making
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: a difference, fulfilling their mission.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: And saving lives. So appreciate that. Excellent, Thanks, Thanks Paul.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: That wraps up today's conversation with Paul Romness. His story
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: reminds us that progress in medicine is not only a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: scientific journey, it is a moral one, shaped by people
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: who refuse to accept the status quo. Here are three
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: key takeaways from our discussion. First, osteosarcoma remains devastating, but
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: new immunotherapies are offering the first meaningful progress in over
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: forty years. Second, venture philanthropy matters when nonprofits invest in
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: research and commercialization, they can accelerate thee bench to bedside
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: pipeline and save lives sooner. And Third, innovation is stronger
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: when guided by mission. Companies with purpose driven leadership can
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: align business outcomes with human outcomes, advancing both survival and hope.
• 15:29
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• 15:32
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