Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 85 - Neha Krishnamohan - CFO & EVP Corporate Development at Artiva Biotherapeutics

Transcript

Episode 85 - Neha Krishnamohan - CFO & EVP Corporate Development at Artiva Biotherapeutics · The BioHub - by Avetix

0:04
So welcome back to the episode of the Bio Hub.
0:07
Today, we're thrilled to welcome Neha Krishna Moen, a seasoned
0:10
leader at the intersection of biotech innovation, finance and
0:13
corporate strategy. Before joining our Teva, Neha
0:16
built an impressive career on Wall Street as Vice President in
0:19
Goldman Sachs Healthcare Investment Banking Group, where
0:22
she advised some of the world's leading biotechs on M&AS and IP
0:26
OS. She later brought that expertise
0:28
into Kinate Bio Pharma. She served as CFO and EVP of
0:32
corporate development and now Artiva, the company's advancing
0:35
scalable NK cell therapies that are safe and designed to reach a
0:39
broader patient population than traditional autogulars
0:43
immunotherapies can. So join us today as we'll talk
0:46
through Nia's journey, the cell therapy space and navigating
0:50
operating decisions in a difficult market.
0:53
So NIA, thanks so much for coming on.
0:55
How are you? I'm good, thanks for having me.
0:58
Yeah, it's a, it's a pleasure. So let's start off with a little
1:03
bit about your journey then. So you've built your career
1:05
across investment banking, biotech, finance and corporate
1:09
development. Can you walk us through your
1:11
journey and how you got to where you are today?
1:17
Yeah, I'd be happy to and I'm actually going to take you back
1:20
to to high school and in my interest in the sciences.
1:23
So I've always been interested in physics and chemistry and
1:27
building. I was that kid that, you know,
1:30
wanted to fix the sound system at home but didn't really do
1:33
well fixing it. But I've always been interested
1:35
in in solving problems and something that is more hands on.
1:40
And what was intriguing to me about the intersection of
1:45
healthcare and innovation was the fact that you can impact
1:50
patients lives in a way that you know, is unique in that space.
1:55
I come from a family of doctors and engineers.
1:58
I didn't want to go to Med school.
1:59
And so I thought, hey, former undergrad, you know what, what
2:03
is something that I could study that allowed me to harness that
2:05
interest? And I, I chose to study
2:08
biomedical engineering, which was an incredible experience,
2:12
right, of being able to apply different facets of engineering
2:15
to solve problems in healthcare was a unique educational set.
2:21
And I actually thought that I was going to study that and go
2:24
to Medtronic and build devices. And then I showed up at an
2:29
informational session for one of the Wall Street banks.
2:32
And that's when I really got exposure to investment banking.
2:36
And when I kind of sat there and listening in on some of the
2:41
different parts of the investment bank, what really
2:45
struck me was what I ended up doing at Goldman Sachs, which is
2:48
sort of the classic investment banking and applying that to an
2:50
industry. And that was healthcare.
2:53
And why that was, was, you know, I really saw the importance of
2:57
the intersection of business and healthcare in this instance in
3:03
driving decision making to drive in, in this case a therapy or
3:07
product to patients. And so I had the tremendous
3:11
opportunity to join Goldman, as you mentioned in the intro in
3:14
the investment banking division. I was there for over a decade
3:19
and it was really there that I got that exposure to a lot of
3:23
different companies, everything from managed care and that was
3:26
actually my first client was a managed care client to biotech.
3:31
And I think what's unique about biotech is that you are really
3:34
getting much closer to the patient and you can really see
3:37
that impact versus some of the other, you know, healthcare
3:40
verticals. And playing that small role in
3:44
helping a company fund their innovation to get a therapy to
3:46
patients or helping them partner their therapy with a larger
3:50
company to help get there faster really drove my excitement for
3:55
the space and advising companies.
3:56
But what was missing is that operational needing to build,
4:00
needing to really solve problems in a more hands on way.
4:03
And so in 2021, when the opportunity arose to join Kinate
4:09
as their CFO and EVP of corporate development, that felt
4:13
like the right time to leave Goldman to challenge myself more
4:18
in an operational role. And I will say now I have a lot
4:22
more appreciation for what it takes to bring a drug through
4:26
development. I always like to say it's easy
4:28
to advise, harder to actually do the work.
4:31
And you know, I think in biotech, it has gone through a
4:35
really volatile and challenging environment over the last couple
4:38
years. I'm sure we'll dig into it.
4:41
But I think what I've realized through the experience is that I
4:44
enjoy the hands on nature Android being part of those
4:48
operational decision makings, driving those decisions and then
4:52
the intensity that and and energy that comes from doing
4:55
that as a team. And I've also seen the impact of
5:00
the experience set that I gained from Goldman, right?
5:03
Not just the transactional experience, but seeing different
5:07
companies navigate challenges or how, what have they done well?
5:11
How do they land on the decisions that they did
5:14
strategically to drive a product or a therapy and advance it?
5:20
That's all been a unique tool set that's really helped me help
5:24
companies or help the team navigate through some of the
5:27
strategic decisions that you face on this side of the table.
5:32
And so after Kine Soltisoma, I joined Arteva, right, just when
5:37
they were gearing up to be public.
5:40
And, you know, and that sort of brings me to where I am today.
5:44
Very good. And just on our TiVo, I guess
5:47
what was it about the company specifically that attracted you
5:50
to join? You're obviously leading both
5:52
finance and corporate development.
5:54
What made you think that this was the right company for you in
5:57
in your career? Yeah.
6:00
You know, I think a lot of the decisions I've made, you know,
6:03
from a career wise or as I've looked at opportunities, you
6:06
know, stem from a couple of different things that I've
6:08
always looked at. First is what is the impact I
6:11
can have in terms of helping the team and partnering with the
6:15
team to drive decisions in the company.
6:19
The second is what can I learn and challenge myself, right?
6:22
In this case, it was a different modality.
6:26
It was a different therapeutic area.
6:28
It was a completely different team as well that I knew that I
6:33
could have exposure to and learn from and and the third is
6:37
conviction in the programs and the platform, right.
6:41
And as as we all know, biotech is hard.
6:43
You need that resilience. You need to work as a team to
6:46
solve and all these problems. And at the time when Artiva was
6:51
gearing up to go public and they needed someone to lead the team
6:55
to help them navigate through that, that milestone in the
6:59
company. And importantly someone would
7:03
had experience in the public company domain.
7:06
So I felt like that both my experience from Goldman and my
7:10
prior operational experience would be valuable to the company
7:13
and I could contribute, contribute a lot, but that also
7:16
that I learned a lot from this experience and challenge myself
7:20
in a completely different space. And that brings me to my last
7:23
point, which I, I know we're going to dig into more.
7:26
I hope we dig into more about Arteva and its differentiation
7:30
and sleep program. LONK.
7:32
What what really struck me was what what Arteva is attempting
7:36
to do with LONK is breaking a lot of the barriers that have
7:41
existed today. It with some of the cell therapy
7:45
modalities out there like auto CAR T and bringing a therapy
7:50
that is highly scalable to address a meaningful unmet need
7:54
in autoimmune disease. And the company at the time and
7:57
still does has data in aggressive NHL patients where
8:04
LONK is driving response rates and durability that's in line
8:07
with the approve autologous therapies.
8:11
And that data is really different from what has come
8:14
before from allogeneic cell therapies.
8:17
And that gave me conviction in terms of the ability for the
8:22
therapy to be able to deliver that potency of mechanism in
8:27
autoimmune disease because there are a lot of similarities as
8:30
both are B cell driven cancers. And so in totality, all those
8:34
three different factors is really what led me to joining
8:37
Arteva in April of last year. Very good.
8:41
And you mentioned pipeline then could you just, I guess just
8:44
give us a brief overview of the lead program, what it's designed
8:48
to do, like where it is in stage of development and why you think
8:51
it could have a meaningful impact for patients?
8:56
Yeah, absolutely. So Arteva's lead program is
8:59
LONK&LONK is a off the shelf allogeneic non genetically
9:04
modified choir preserved NK cell therapy and we utilize that NK
9:08
cell therapy with monoclonal antibodies for targeting and
9:12
that's because there's no car engine car involved because it's
9:15
non genetically modified. So the underlying mechanism of
9:18
action for Alonk is ADCC enhancement or antibody
9:23
dependent cellular cytotoxicity. So what really happens is the
9:29
monoclonal binds to the antigen on the B cell.
9:32
And in our case, in our autoimmune trials, we're looking
9:34
at CD 20 as the antigen and then the FC portion of the monoclonal
9:39
binds to the CD16 receptor on the NK cell and then the NK cell
9:43
does the killing. And So what that really attempts
9:45
to do is drive a deeper depletion than what the
9:49
monoclonal can do on its own. We are currently exploring LONK
9:54
in phase one and phase two trials in autoimmune indications
9:58
across a broad range of indications including RA, which
10:03
is rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren's disease, systemic
10:05
sclerosis, myositis and then lupus as well.
10:09
And what really drove us to exploring this in autoimmune
10:14
disease really comes, comes from that unmet need that we we see
10:19
today in patients suffering from various autoimmune diseases.
10:24
A lot of these patients are on chronic therapies, right?
10:26
So they're constantly on some sort of drug, whether that's a
10:30
concomitant medication like steroid or a targeted therapy.
10:34
So there remains this need for a therapy that can drive a durable
10:37
response and in some cases remission.
10:41
And what was seen with the autologous CAR T data was that a
10:45
deep B cell depletion, which is the underlying mechanism can
10:49
drive durable responses in these patients.
10:51
And so seeing that emerging data and knowing the scalability,
10:56
which I'll touch on in a second that LO and K can bring to the
10:58
table and the outpatient friendly safety profile of our
11:04
treatment, we felt like to be able to address that unmet need.
11:09
The strengths of our therapy really played to moving the
11:11
therapy into autoimmune disease and that's what drove us to make
11:15
that pivot from oncology into autoimmune.
11:19
And I, I, I will want to touch on our manufacturing platform
11:22
that really I believe is, is broken a lot of the barriers out
11:26
there for cell therapy, you know, for LONK, just to give you
11:31
a sense of the scalability, we source our drug product from
11:35
umbilical cord units with a high affinity CD16.
11:38
And from one of those umbilical coordinates, we can produce over
11:42
4000 vials which look like this. Just this is the size of the
11:46
vial of a billion cells each and these acquire preserved cells.
11:52
And we can do that from a really modest facility in San Diego.
11:55
So not a huge facility like you typically can think of from
11:58
manufacturing perspective. And in terms of COGS, which has
12:03
always been a question for cell therapy, to give you a sense,
12:07
one of those vials we project is less than $1000 at scale and
12:14
we're testing 3 billion cells per dose, 3 billion cells and 12
12:19
billion cells from a dosing perspective in autoimmune.
12:22
So as you think about COGS, that could be 3000 to 12,000 from a
12:26
range that is a lot more like a biologic than what you
12:30
traditionally think of as cell therapy.
12:33
And we do think that is a incredible advantage for us as
12:37
we move into, we've moved into autoimmunity.
12:41
And the last thing I'd say is the patient friendly nature,
12:44
right, the outpatient administration and the safety
12:46
profile. We this, this drug can be
12:49
administered as an IV, it's dotted bedside, it's a 5 to 10
12:53
minute time frame. And we have shown in oncology
12:58
and through trials that we're running in autoimmunity that we
13:00
can do that in an outpatient setting without a
13:03
hospitalization involved, which again is unique to LONK versus
13:09
some of the other therapeutic modalities out there that are
13:11
going after this significant unmet need.
13:14
Nice. Yes, good to hear about the
13:16
progress you guys are making. From your perspective, where do
13:20
you see like the NK cell therapy space fitted into the broader
13:24
cell therapy landscape and what do you think makes the approach
13:28
different to what I guess some of the other key players are
13:30
doing in the field as well? Yeah.
13:33
And I, I think, you know, as, as we know, there's a lot of
13:36
different modalities, right, that are going after the signal
13:39
of deep B cell depletion and companies have, are exploring
13:44
different indications as well as they've thought about their
13:47
programs and where they want to take them to it through
13:52
development. As we think about the two things
13:55
that usually think about when in drug development, you, you want
13:58
to be able to, to make sure that your therapy is positioned the
14:01
right way, both from a safety and A and a safety and
14:05
tolerability perspective, but also certainly delivering
14:08
efficacy and activity. And we think that LONK being an
14:12
NK cell therapy and with the scalability that we have, we
14:16
have the potential to drive that deep B cell depletion mechanism
14:21
in a community setting where a lot of the T cell based
14:25
therapies like auto car T, ALO car T or the more important T
14:29
cell TC ES might have challenges in terms of avoiding that
14:34
hospitalization requirement. That comes with some of the
14:38
safety tolerability on target mechanistic impacts such as
14:42
escalating CRS. And so again, as we think about
14:46
sort of that matrix of where we could fit in, we think that we
14:49
could be the therapy of choice in the community to drive that
14:53
deep B cell depletion because as an NK cell therapy, we don't
14:57
have that same tolerability challenges like escalating CRS.
15:02
And we've shown that from our safety data so far in oncology.
15:06
And I'll, you know, we plan to show that as well in
15:09
autoimmunity as we move the program forward.
15:12
And we've also currently are running a autoimmune trial in a
15:17
community rheumatology practice. And that is part of our strategy
15:20
where there's no oncology involved for treatment that does
15:24
include a conditioning regimen, but they're able to give it as
15:28
an outpatient and not have that same level of monitoring that is
15:33
required for a lot of the T cell based therapies out there.
15:38
And then, you know, the last piece of differentiation that I
15:42
think that we could bring to bear in terms of positioning is
15:44
what indications can we go after?
15:47
And we believe that we need to play to play to our strengths.
15:50
And what that the profile of the drug allows us to do is that we
15:55
can potentially go after indications where patients are
15:58
not willing to be hospitalized or are being treated
16:01
predominantly in that community setting.
16:04
And examples of those are rheumatoid arthritis and
16:07
Sjogren's, which as I mentioned are two indications we're
16:09
exploring in our basket trial. So there's basically two
16:13
different ways we think that we could differentiate,
16:15
differentiate ourselves and position ourselves amongst the
16:19
the other different therapies and modalities out there that
16:22
are chasing after the deep B cell depletion signal.
16:26
Nice. And who are the key players that
16:28
you guys are that are doing a similar sort of thing to you
16:31
guys who are like the key players in that field alongside
16:33
obviously you guys? Yeah.
16:36
So I would actually bucket them into modalities because I think
16:40
each of them offer a place in that grid as I think about
16:44
therapies to deliver, you know, that the, the impact on
16:49
patients. So they're, they're auto car T
16:52
players. So these are like Caboletta and
16:54
Kyvrna for example, that are ahead of us and they, they
16:57
started earlier than us in, in driving therapies and autoimmune
17:02
disease. And they have each chosen
17:05
indications that are different as leading indications as we've
17:08
seen them move forward in development.
17:12
But I would say we think of them less as what we would be
17:16
competing with in the community. We actually think about
17:19
ourselves more like therapies like monoclonals, right, or
17:23
biologics that might be delivered in that community
17:26
setting. And So what could that look
17:28
like? An example of that is T cell
17:30
engagers. So ones that maybe are less
17:32
potent are given chronically that could be given in a
17:35
community setting or monoclonal antibodies where again, we're
17:40
seeking to deliver something that's got a lot more efficacy
17:43
than a monoclonal antibody. But monoclonal antibodies like
17:47
rituximab, which is what we're using in our trials are used
17:51
today in an outpatient setting, right.
17:53
So as I think about the different players, there's auto
17:55
car T, there's T cell engagers, there's of course other NK cell
17:59
therapy players out there as well that we we will continue to
18:05
to show our differentiation with that are looking at the space in
18:09
totality. Nice.
18:12
And just moving on to I guess just the biotech market at the
18:15
moment, it's obviously super challenging in terms of the
18:18
capital markets, lack of IP, OS like a private funding, layoffs,
18:23
etcetera. How are you guys and the team
18:26
navigating the operating decisions like balancing
18:29
financial runway with advancing your programs?
18:31
How are you guys finding those decisions at the moment?
18:35
Yeah. I think what's great about
18:36
Artiva is it's been part of the DNA of the company even before I
18:40
arrived to really be thinking about, are we investing our
18:43
capital in programs or in areas where we're going to drive
18:48
maximum shareholder value. And so that idea of
18:53
prioritization has always been part of the company's thinking
18:55
in terms of where we're going. An example of that for example
18:58
is moving from NHL into autoimmune disease, right.
19:01
Even though we had really strong data in NHL, we chose to pivot
19:05
because we believe that the therapy had a better chance of
19:08
success in autoimmune disease having that time advantage of
19:12
being one of the first NK cell therapies to be explored in
19:16
autoimmune disease. And so that's, that's always
19:19
been part of the DNA. And we've also chosen to focus
19:23
on LONK and not work on a lot of different pipeline programs.
19:27
We believe LMK is a is a, you know, platform and a product,
19:31
right. We have the ability to take that
19:32
and this this product into multiple indications or combined
19:36
with different monoclonal antibodies.
19:39
And then the second thing I would mention is our our
19:44
manufacturing platform, right? And what I said to you earlier
19:47
was it was a highly scalable platform, small footprint that's
19:51
allowed us to keep our cash burn much lower than some of our
19:55
peers in cell therapy land and have fewer and lower CapEx
19:59
investments over time. So that has been an advantage as
20:02
we have been managing through our cash preservation or capital
20:07
efficiency. And then we had the, we we were
20:11
lucky enough to have an upsized IPO last year of 179 million and
20:18
we chose at the time to prioritize long term, you know
20:23
long term aspects of the company versus the price that we took
20:27
that capital in. And we are really grateful that
20:30
we did that because it's allowed us to have runway into Q2 of
20:34
2027, which is past sort of the milestones that we're planning
20:37
to deliver around LONK. So I'd say all of those combined
20:42
has allowed us to kind of be in the position we are in today,
20:44
which we're very grateful for. Nice.
20:47
How are you anticipating the market?
20:49
Do you think there's going to be much change over the next year
20:51
or two? Do you think we're in a similar
20:53
sort of for the next year or so? Yeah.
20:57
How do you see it from your side?
20:59
I can give you it from a recruiter side as well, but how
21:02
are things? How do you see it on your side?
21:15
Yeah, I would say, you know, I think if I just compare where we
21:19
are today versus June of this year, just to use a data point,
21:23
do feel like we are seeing a lot more stability now than we did
21:28
earlier this year in terms of the market.
21:31
So I remain optimistic that next year is going to be a lot better
21:36
of a year than this year. And you know my reason for
21:38
saying that isn't just a feeling, it's sort of seeing
21:41
also the more strategic activity with M&A happening, which as we
21:47
know is critically important for biotech in terms of cycling
21:50
capital back to companies that need funding.
21:54
And then you're starting to see some signs of companies being
21:57
able to reach that in IPO market.
22:00
All of that I would say is a little nascent.
22:03
And then the third is you're seeing companies that are
22:06
already public when they have data that they're delivering,
22:09
being able to raise capital around, which is something that
22:11
you weren't seeing earlier this year and that was still posing
22:14
challenging. And so based on all those three
22:16
factors, I, I feel like it, we're perhaps turning the corner
22:21
a little bit, but it remains to be seen.
22:24
As we know, biotech is volatility is part of the game.
22:27
And I think, you know, for us at our TIVA, we need to be focused
22:31
on execution and being resilient and delivering what we, we need
22:36
to over the next, you know, 12/18/24 months.
22:42
And you know, 2026 is going to be an important year for us as
22:46
we think about the milestones that we're looking to deliver
22:48
for our program. Nice.
22:50
Yeah, I think from someone sees the market on the other side of
22:52
the fence in terms of number of companies hiring, number of
22:55
roles available. I think Q1 and Q2 was, was
22:58
obviously difficult. There's still a lot of layoffs,
23:01
unfortunately, still get a lot of message from people who've
23:03
been laid off, but I think there's definitely optimism
23:06
going into 2026. There's a lot of companies
23:09
hiring, There's a lot of plans already speaking about that.
23:13
There's a lot of companies that are hoping to get financed in
23:15
the next few months, although you never know with that.
23:18
But I think from someone that sees it on the other side it it
23:21
seems things are of slowly picking up, which I must
23:25
emphasize. But yeah, slowly but surely,
23:27
fingers. Crossed.
23:28
Yeah, fingers crossed. Yeah, good.
23:31
And what what you most looking forward to in terms of key
23:34
milestones and what's next for RT?
23:36
But what what have you guys got that that you guys are next
23:39
looking forward to? Yeah.
23:42
So we, we've said our public guidance has been that we'll
23:44
provide our safety and translational data in across
23:49
multiple autoimmune diseases by your end.
23:52
And then we'd also share by your end the lead indication for LONK
23:57
that we plan to prioritize to take into further development.
24:01
And in the first half of next year, we plan to share a
24:05
clinical response data in that lead indication that again will
24:09
will help drive the program forward in development.
24:12
So again, as I mentioned, it's an exciting, it's going to be an
24:14
exciting year in 2026 for us at Arteva.
24:17
And you know, in our last earnings release, we did share
24:20
an enrollment update that we've treated over a dozen patients in
24:24
autoimmune disease and that's been an exciting milestone for
24:26
the company with the team we have in place.
24:29
Nice. And this is a question we'd
24:31
always finish with on the buyer hub.
24:33
I know. I wanted to give you a bit of a
24:34
heads up. Thanks for.
24:36
Doing that, I've just hated it. But if you were to have dinner
24:40
with any free people, past or present, who would it be and
24:43
why? It doesn't necessarily need to
24:45
be innovators, although it can be if you like.
24:48
But yeah, free people you'd you'd like to have dinner with.
24:52
Yeah. So the first person I'd like to
24:54
have dinner with, by the way, I would love to have dinner with
24:56
all three at the same time at a table because you'll see why
24:59
it'll be a really interesting conversation.
25:02
So Simone Biles, I think we can all say she's so in resilience,
25:07
discipline and also vulnerability in a very public
25:09
setting. And I think those are all
25:11
qualities of a leader that sometimes are hard, hard to
25:15
master and navigate through. So importantly, I don't want to
25:18
understand how she navigated through those.
25:20
But second is, how does she vote that high?
25:22
I mean, everyone, I really want to know, like, what does she do
25:25
to train that can get her to do that?
25:28
It's really impressive. So she's definitely someone I'd
25:30
want to have dinner with. The second person is Indra
25:35
Nooyi. They're not too many South Asian
25:38
women that have risen to her level.
25:41
And I, you know, her, the book My Life in Full really resonated
25:47
with me. There's a lot of experiences
25:48
that she had growing up, both from a cultural perspective, but
25:52
also how she navigated her professional career that I think
25:56
I could learn a lot from. And having a dinner
25:58
conversation. And the third is Yvonne Chenard,
26:02
who's the founder of Patagonia. He, you know, he there is some
26:07
controversy around, you know, how he gave his company away.
26:12
But I think that's, you know, he's a trailblazer that had a
26:14
very different ethos and how he ran his company.
26:17
And I'd love, I'd love to pick his brain and kind of see how
26:21
one thinks about that. And that's why I said I think
26:24
all three of them at a dinner table would be really
26:26
interesting conversation. But that's what I've got.
26:31
Nice. Good.
26:32
We'll look 3 terrific answers there.
26:35
And yeah, thank you for coming on and helping us out with this.
26:38
I think you've given a really good overview of our team, a
26:41
company I'm certainly going to be following for sure.
26:43
It sounds exciting what you guys are doing.
26:45
And yeah, thanks again for helping us out.
26:48
It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on.
26:51
Thank you for having me.