Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 71 - Punit Dhillon - CEO of Skye Bioscience

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Episode 71 - Punit Dhillon - CEO of Skye Bioscience · The BioHub - by Avetix

0:04
Welcome back to another episode of the Bio Hub.
0:07
Today's guest is someone who's seen biotech from both sides of
0:11
the table, first as an investor and now as a builder.
0:14
I'm joined by Panit Dhillon, CEO of Sky Biosciences, where he's
0:20
leading one of the most exciting stories in metabolic health.
0:23
And he started Sky's employee number one and has since built
0:26
into a clinical stage company with one first in class
0:30
programme and backing from major life science investors like 5:00
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AM. And for Sam, with a background
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in finance and business development and a career that
0:38
includes partnerships with Merck, Genentech, BMS and
0:41
Pfizer, he brings a unique and deeply strategic lens to biotech
0:46
leadership. In this episode, we'll dig into
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his mindset and what it takes to build from the ground up the
0:51
wave of innovation in obesity and how Sky is carving out its
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lane in one of the most competitive markets in biotech.
0:59
It's a pleasure to have you Panit.
1:01
Max, it's a fantastic introduction.
1:04
Thanks. Give me warm.
1:06
Give me warm fuzzies. Yeah, we were just talking
1:09
before. It's quite nice to look back as
1:11
well at the span of your career. I mean, maybe you start on that
1:15
front because you've you've had a pretty incredible journey from
1:19
investor to to operator. Can you can you just walk us
1:22
through that story and how your experiences now shape the way
1:25
you lead in biotech? Yeah, maybe send me that intro
1:29
so I can like read it myself every morning.
1:32
So it gives me motivation in there in this present market.
1:35
But yeah, no, it's been obviously.
1:37
Thank you. It's been.
1:38
It's really a pleasure to be on on your podcast and and I am
1:44
just continue to be super excited about what's happening
1:49
in in the overall biotech pharma space.
1:52
I've, yeah, I've had that unique opportunity to have started on
1:58
the investment side and, and kind of learn through what like
2:02
drives biotech, the the value associated with biotech in terms
2:07
of data being a major current currency, but not only data, the
2:12
people and the technology and timing.
2:15
There's just so much of this coordination that's, that's part
2:20
of it. Had the pleasure of kind of
2:23
working on several different technologies and building
2:25
companies. I've, I've focused more on the
2:29
Ind to clinical and clinical proof of concept stages.
2:33
It early on in my career, I was involved in a phase three
2:37
program as well as a phase four program that, that had a
2:41
marketing launch. But, but what I, what I realized
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kind of going from this investor lens to operator lens is that
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it's really realized like I, I really am motivated by building
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and, and not just backing the, you know, you, you back
2:58
different things, but when you're involved hands on,
3:00
you're, you're kind of having the opportunity to lead from the
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inside, which is really cool. You, you, you get that
3:09
opportunity as an investor, you know, depending on the type of
3:13
investor you are. I, I started off working for a
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venture fund. So there, there is definitely
3:18
more of an active component that comes along with that type of
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relationship. But it's either way, whatever
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way you look at it, you know, working in the industry, working
3:30
as an investor, like what both kind of share similar mindsets.
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They're focused on capital discipline in many different
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ways, execution tempo investor, you're expecting management
3:45
teams like hit it and make sure that you hit the objectives
3:48
internally. You're expecting, you know, your
3:50
team to hit it and hit that, hit that objective and inflection
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points, all of that. You know, it stems from just
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having really strong clarity around what, what we're trying
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to do as an investor, you're, you're looking for backing ideas
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with conviction just as much as from from a operating
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standpoint. So I, I appreciate, you know,
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the, the broad experience. That's the, that's what I I love
4:16
about this business is that is that it's very dynamic.
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And I, I think my take away from that is like, it just brings
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this opportunity to really have a focus on, on the tempo, what's
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required and adjusting to that tempo.
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So I, I'm, I'm lucky that I've, I've been able to get, you know,
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good people that I, we have around, around any one of those
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situations. And especially at sky, there's
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just a fantastic team and board of directors and it pushes that
4:51
tempo to, you know, hit those objectives.
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And that's, that's really cool. And yeah, it's funny, even
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coming to the word tempo is an interesting thing for me because
5:03
I was like, bring it back to like these, these running
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analogies, recycling analogies. But but yeah, it's like it's,
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it's all related. And I'm, I'm really glad that we
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know we're focused on something that's moving really with
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purpose and clarity with, with our objectives.
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I think it it, it's pretty special what you guys are doing
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and we'll come to that like later in the the talk.
5:22
I think, well, what's quite interesting at the moment is you
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come from the investment side and then you've also seen what
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makes a company investable, right?
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So how's that influence the way you've built and positioned Sky?
5:36
Or has it? Yeah.
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It's, I mean, it's, look, I, I think building, looking at sky
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like through a capital allocator lens.
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And, and you know, from my standpoint in terms of like
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building this organization from the ground up, we're focused on
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program programs that are real, you know, they're, they're,
5:58
they're demonstrating some target in terms of validating A
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clinical need or unmet need. We're operating in a way that,
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you know, has continued to show that remaining lean and agile,
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you know, has a is a business model that can, is a business
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model that can work. You know, you don't have to
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necessarily build it and then they will come type of mindset.
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You can be very disciplined about how that growth happens.
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And that's something that we we take seriously in terms of
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bringing very thoughtful about our, our capital deployment.
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We have a very kind of clear external communication as well.
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I mean, you know, obesity's gotten a lot of traction over
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the last few years and we, we made a bet going into this
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therapeutic space. I mean, it was already
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happening. There was, there was a lot of
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mainstream media in early 2023 that was capturing the, the
7:00
trend. And you know, I think I remember
7:01
seeing an Economist article that had a auto injector with goby or
7:07
Ozempic pen on it. And, and it was like, I think
7:12
the headline was like, you know, solving for everything or
7:15
something like that. And that, that those, those, you
7:20
know, those are, those are kind of important, important
7:24
opportunities to kind of reflect on what's, what's, what's going
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on and how is how fast is this, this, this space heading it?
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But a lot of people weren't necessarily there yet.
7:34
And that's the lens you have in the on the industry side.
7:37
You, you, you talking to many different investors, you're
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seeing what's, what's clicking what, what is the unmet need.
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We're spending a lot of time with physicians like this.
7:46
This last quarter we spent time was speaking with 60 different
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key opinion leaders in the obesity space and physicians on
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the front line prescribing physicians and endocrinologists.
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So you getting a lot of different data points.
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All that to say like like we're we're really trying to figure
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out like how to make that impact right.
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How how I want to I want to work with a team and I want to work
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on drug development so that you can help people, right.
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You've heard that there's like that's a common thing that a lot
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of people say, right And I think it's a very noble intention, you
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know, but that statement also oversimplifies like what's
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actually taking place in terms of how you're going to actually
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make an impact in healthcare. So just because you know, you
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have that vision of like trying to help a lot of people, there's
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just so much that goes into that.
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It's like getting the drug, sorry, getting the right drug,
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getting the right patients in a way that actually changes the
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outcomes is so important. That's that's the end goal.
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And, and to do that, you have to kind of zoom in well before even
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like, you know, you see kind of these trends that you, you have
9:08
to start asking like, what's the problem that we're actually
9:11
solving? Like precisely because that,
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that headline I was referring to, like on the Economist,
9:18
again, it's like just, it's, it's a, it's a way to captivate
9:21
an audience and stuff like that. But there's like a lot of detail
9:25
of like what, what are we actually trying to aim for?
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And for us, we're, we're not just asking like what are what
9:30
is the unmet need? We're asking clinically, we're
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asking like systematically, economically, socially, like
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what, what are the things that we're trying to solve?
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And here is a therapeutic area that has such a broad context
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like before, before we started members just saying like there's
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a kind of a broad ecosystem here.
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You have drug intervention that's supposed to help towards
9:52
weight loss, which is obviously doing its thing.
9:55
But we all know that that is A1 component of a much broader
10:00
problem. It's diet, exercise, you know,
10:05
socio economic factors. There's a lot that that goes
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into that. So to me, all of that kind of
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boils down to really crafting a really strong product profile
10:15
and that that is crystal clear that is technologically or
10:19
sorry, technically feasible and that it's truly strategically
10:24
necessary. And the foresight that we have
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to have with all the expertise around us is like, whatever
10:31
we're doing today is relevant by the time you get get approved,
10:35
right? So you have to kind of
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anticipate that, anticipate that access, access that you're going
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to try to provide, anticipate how that mechanism is going to
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be relevant. And then, you know, we study
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precedent, we study reimbursement, we study in a
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real world practice and what's actually happening.
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And then we try to bring that, you know, through, through
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through the regulatory environment.
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So coming back to your question, like that's freaking just a
11:02
phenomenal opportunity when you think about like, like what
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privilege we have to be able to do that as a capital allocator.
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And and and remember, we're operating in an industry that
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has the most strangest business model in the world where you
11:19
kind of go negative like you took quote UN quote negative in
11:21
terms of investing before you see the return on that
11:26
investment. It's not like, you know, the,
11:28
the iPhone or something like that where you, you know, the,
11:34
the cycle is. I mean these, they have their
11:36
own regulatory and QA cycles, but it's, it's a much more
11:39
compressed cycle in terms of seeing the, the fruits of their
11:43
efforts before, you know, versus drug development, which takes
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decades. Yeah, I think, I think it's
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interesting, right, Because that's actually not a viewpoint
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that I've necessarily thought of that, you know, what you're
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doing is it's still going to be relevant by the time you're
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approved into market. Also, I was having a
12:00
conversation not too long ago with someone and they were
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talking about how there's, there's too many companies that
12:06
are going to set out to, to maybe make a couple of
12:10
percentage difference in the population of that.
12:14
You know, that disease area. You know, when you're spending
12:18
millions of dollars of investors money, like the aim should be to
12:23
go out and, and aim big, right? Like to to make a difference to
12:27
to the people with that are suffering from from whatever
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you're you're trying to solve. Yeah.
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Like, like it's funny that if we talk about like kind of like
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what what, you know, I think we were talking about what, what
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makes the company kind of investable, like from that
12:45
standpoint or how, how you know, it's just, it's a, it's a very,
12:53
it's a, it's a very common question, right?
12:55
Like that, that we have to think.
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And I don't want to get too philosophical, but, but, but you
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know, coming from the different lenses, like from other speaking
13:03
to investors or, or being from the investment side, and then
13:06
about working on the industry side, it's like the you're
13:09
trying to calculate the probability, right?
13:11
Investor investors are constantly trying to figure that
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out, like what are the odds of the science, the team, the
13:18
strategy, all of that converging into a real product.
13:22
And when you look at like sky, we look at that equation through
13:26
two lenses. You're you're like looking at it
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from a capital allocation standpoint.
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And then also, you know, in terms of what we have to build.
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So you kind of need both right and the from the allocator side,
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like I have to always think about and the team, we have to
13:43
always think about does this asset justify the burn?
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And the builder kind of asks like, can this drug actually
13:52
reach the patients and physicians in a way that
13:56
actually matters? Is it going to, is it going to
13:58
move the needle? And that means we don't just
14:02
think about like kind of getting that the drug approved, but
14:04
we're actually working like backwards from that moment where
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the physician is sitting across the, across the, the table from
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the patient and, and the patient has choices.
14:15
And then obesity. Like that's the issue.
14:17
Like what I wrestle sometimes with is like, like you just made
14:21
the comment about it's a, it is a crowded space.
14:24
Everyone's kind of going for their piece of the pie.
14:26
So this is almost like a Coke versus Pepsi type of situation,
14:30
right? Where you go to a restaurant and
14:33
sometimes they don't have your favorite brand.
14:36
I'm a Coke preference person. So every time I go to a, you
14:41
know, a establishment that serves Pepsi and like has a
14:46
little voice in my head that says that I always thought Coke
14:51
is in as a, as a more superior product than Pepsi.
14:54
But anyways, but it's kind of like that's the, that's the
14:57
crazy thing that we're dealing with in, in, in the, in this
15:03
current environment. You have like a lot of
15:05
mechanisms that are going, sorry, a lot of products that
15:09
are the same mechanism and and that that area has been kind of
15:14
well established. The GLP one increment space is
15:18
working. It's making a difference.
15:22
Many patients are giving that a try and it's working.
15:25
They're looking for acute weight loss.
15:27
But there's also this aspect that that doesn't work for
15:30
everybody. And then when we are thinking
15:33
about it from drug development standpoint is like, so why, why
15:36
Namaste map if you already have this dilemma of GLP one, you
15:43
know, X versus GLPG LP1Y and patients are trying to make a,
15:49
make a choice. But I'm saying like I'm
15:51
referring to like if they have to choose between Manjaro or
15:53
Wigobi or set bound, why Mamasa map?
15:57
They already have the Coke versus Pepsi issue.
16:00
Well, the answer to that now is that we are selling the idea
16:05
that our product has enough value, you know, to look at that
16:10
long term like we're that we're looking at safety.
16:13
Safety is a huge factor in terms of a chronic therapy that has to
16:19
be trusted over the long term. You have to be looking at it
16:23
from a differentiated mechanism, which this is doing is trying to
16:26
drive science or the change in the biology or Physiology from a
16:33
different, different aspect. And those are the things that
16:36
we're talking about from a, from a target, target product profile
16:39
that make it very enticing in terms of what, what really makes
16:44
this company investable, you know, in terms of, and that's
16:50
what to me is really exciting in terms of when and what.
16:52
So when an investor like looks at sky, they're, they're not
16:56
just asking if the science works, they're asking if we're,
16:59
we've kind of built all that machinery, clinical, CMC,
17:03
commercial regulatory that can make this idea come all the way
17:07
to the market. So I, I'm, I'm really like
17:11
fascinated by that calculus that's always ongoing in terms
17:15
of that, that interaction that we have with, with getting the,
17:20
you know, getting a drug approved and pushing that
17:21
forward versus like the inputs that we're getting from the
17:25
external stakeholders. That's investors obviously, but
17:28
also just in terms of the data points that go into that, which
17:32
is? The side and.
17:34
Clinical side, yeah. It is interesting because like
17:38
investors do go with trends as well, right.
17:40
So you are talking about that Pepsi versus Coke, but normally
17:43
like they will all go down that that Ave. if it's popular.
17:47
So it's interesting. It is.
17:50
I'm interested about like when you when you were starting with
17:53
Sky as well, what was it like building the company from the
17:58
ground up so. I am, yeah.
18:03
Like I, it's been great. I mean, and it hasn't been a
18:05
straight like linear path for sure.
18:07
Like there's, there's been so many, you know, let's call it
18:12
real, like there's been a lot of ups and downs in that process.
18:15
And I'm really proud to be working with team that I've
18:21
experienced with or new, new, new people that I've met over
18:25
the last four years that I've really helped get this company
18:28
to where it is. So it's been like, like any, you
18:33
know, best analogy goes in terms of a building a house.
18:36
It's literally been brick by brick where it's always been
18:40
science 1st. And I, I think, you know, a lot
18:44
of people always make this claim about betting, betting on the
18:48
jockey. And then you kind of, you know,
18:52
everything else works. I don't think it's that simple.
18:55
I, I, I, I agree with the, that mindset of betting on betting on
18:59
a team, but you, you can't like have a jockey be successful if
19:04
they have a, you know, a horse that has an, an injury.
19:08
Like that's, so the science always has to be a critical
19:12
piece. So to me, sometimes like, look,
19:14
science has to be the first thing, then team is like really
19:19
close as a second. And you, you know, you need
19:22
those two to, to work And then this culture and, and, you know,
19:26
capital. That's, that's important.
19:28
And for Sky, it hasn't been a straight shot.
19:30
Like, I took a bet, I was an investor in this company and,
19:35
and a board member and, and then I ended up taking a very active
19:39
operating role during the pandemic.
19:41
And I, you know, was convinced of the science of of a certain
19:49
molecule and and looked at that market opportunity again from
19:52
the TPP lens and did the research and speaking to like
19:56
several ophthalmologists and other industry experts around.
20:01
That path and we were developing a drug in the in the in the
20:05
glaucoma space, but during that research because I'm I wasn't
20:10
experienced in ophthalmology and but like that's our job, right?
20:15
It's to learn the market, understand what's what's the
20:18
opportunity. And in that particular
20:20
situation, we quickly kind of came to the realization that
20:25
glaucoma is an interesting market And just generally
20:29
ophthalmology broadly in terms of drug development is an
20:32
interesting market because there's so many, it's a, it's a
20:35
very limited market. And glaucoma specifically, there
20:37
was this interesting situation where the first line treatment
20:42
was heavily reimbursed and it was dominated by these
20:45
prostaglandin analogues. So if you really wanted to be
20:49
successful as a, as a target addressable market, what's
20:54
referred to as a Tam that Tam has to kind of beat that
20:59
frontline therapy if you are thinking like a blockbuster
21:03
drug, right. If investors are usually
21:05
interested in betting on things that you know, have a high
21:08
multiple. And we quickly came to the
21:11
conclusion that that Tam is significantly compressed in the
21:15
second line setting because it's so dominated by the
21:18
prostaglandin analogs. And there's just so many credit
21:21
credits and the way that the reimbursement works in that, in
21:24
that particular market that that is a is a tough nut to crack.
21:28
And that's why there's so many prostaglandin analogs that are
21:32
also in the pipeline that are driving that.
21:35
And but we were still like, like we were still very focused on
21:41
executing against that. We ended up, you know, betting
21:45
on a mechanism that we thought was differentiated.
21:48
And when it didn't meet our target product profile, we had
21:52
to make a tough call was like, what do we try to science our
21:56
way through this to try to beat the first line or, or are we
22:03
basically setting ourselves up for failure?
22:05
Because even if you get this drug approved through the
22:07
process, you're not going to have much of A market to
22:10
actually address or, you know, even if patients are very
22:13
motivated to use it, is that going to be the risk reward
22:18
that, that, that, that is going to be necessary that investors
22:22
are willing to take to invest in something like that?
22:24
Because it costs money to develop.
22:27
And that's what the tough choice that we had.
22:31
And, and I, I went down that path.
22:34
And at the same time, the rec started recognizing where that
22:37
market was. And that spoke that the team
22:40
collectively spoke about like, well, we have a certain amount
22:42
of experience with that particular mechanism with we
22:47
were looking at CP1 agonism. So it's activating the receptor
22:50
that we're targeting now and, and weight loss, but in the eye.
22:54
And so we had a fair amount of experience around the science
22:57
around and the biology of the receptor.
22:59
And we're like, well, hold on a second, there's actually a much
23:03
larger therapeutic area and there's a possibility of a
23:05
franchise that we can think about beyond just trying to
23:10
solve for the biology around the eye.
23:12
What if we just think about this from the inhibition standpoint,
23:16
because inhibition actually has been validated and there's was
23:19
previously drugs approved. So we started looking in that
23:23
area and we came across a private company that was backed
23:28
by 5:00 AM and, and we basically approached 5:00 AM with that
23:35
idea. It's like, look, we're CB1
23:37
company, we're focused on developing an agonism or agonist
23:41
for for glaucoma. We're going forward on a proof
23:45
of concept study and we don't know if it's going to work and
23:47
it's going to hit our TPP but big.
23:49
But we we really like the biology around CB1.
23:53
We think that there's possibility here of taking the
23:57
CB one in a inhibitor that you guys have been developing in
24:02
this company called Bird Rock. And what about if we put this
24:07
all under one company and this way, you know, Sky has another
24:12
shot on goal in case the glaucoma product doesn't work
24:16
out. So, you know, that's us putting
24:20
on our entrepreneurial hat to pull those things together.
24:24
And like I said, science comes first, right?
24:26
And then it's the team and everything.
24:29
So we we unfortunately, you know, didn't get the answer that
24:33
we wanted in glaucoma. And thankfully we were betting
24:37
forward on, on moving forward with the numassimab asset and it
24:42
and it paid off. It was a week.
24:45
Sometimes things work for many other reasons like there's luck
24:48
involved. And the luck part of this came
24:50
about because Novo ended up acquiring another AB1 inhibitor
24:56
the same week that we were announcing our acquisition of
25:00
Bird Rock. And we bought ours for 20
25:03
million and they bought theirs for 1.1 billion.
25:07
And it turns out, you know, about a year later, our bet was
25:11
right that that like we had, we had visibility of that one too,
25:16
because we looked at across the whole landscape for CB1
25:19
inhibitors and we we felt that there is a safety concern around
25:23
small molecule still. And yeah, in September of 2024,
25:28
you know, proved out that, you know, that Noble still has to
25:31
deal with that safety concern. And we have a more perfectly
25:34
restricted one which we can get into the science of it.
25:36
But anyway, so, yeah, I mean, I, I know you only asked about like
25:40
what that experience was like or, or how is it like of
25:43
employee one? Yeah, employee 1 is like 1
25:45
aspect of it. I thankfully have an employee, I
25:50
think whatever employee 17. And we have a cool thing in the
25:54
company where we have these jerseys called Sky Athletics.
26:00
So every employee that joins the company has a number on their
26:04
back and that's, that's their employee number.
26:07
Like, well, you know, when, when they started in the organization
26:10
and it's just an, it's just an internal thing.
26:12
So I, I, I like the culture that the team has and it's, that's
26:18
been the biggest take away is that when you're doing something
26:25
as, you know, whatever crazy, you know, in terms of making
26:30
these big choices, you need a team that's also, you know,
26:37
capable of being resilient through that.
26:40
And this team has been awesome. Best woman I've ever worked
26:44
with. I think that's such a good idea.
26:47
It's like, sorry, the numbers, you know, I think that's really
26:51
good. It's like when you play football
26:54
or soccer for your national team, you get a number in terms
26:56
of you are the one thousandth and second player.
27:00
Typically for that national team.
27:01
It's the same kind of thing. I really like them.
27:04
Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, yeah.
27:06
And then we, we would retire numbers too.
27:09
So if somebody that just was exceptional and unfortunately
27:13
they moved on. So we, we, we end up just
27:15
retiring that number. So it's good.
27:17
It's kind of. Like it's so good.
27:18
Yeah, I love that. That's so good.
27:22
Yeah. And I mean, we've, we've gone
27:24
through a lot there. And I think it's a pretty
27:26
interesting story, right? Like you, you mentioned the word
27:29
luck, which I always think is interesting in, in this
27:31
industry. And I suppose there's an element
27:34
of that. But also like you, you did, you
27:36
knew you just had to cover bases, right?
27:38
And you'd like, you wanted more shots and goals.
27:41
So in some ways it, it wasn't luck.
27:44
You you were just doing the right thing.
27:46
Yeah, like I, I, I personally like, I come, I come at this in
27:51
there from a unique angle where I'm not a scientist, but I've
27:54
been in the business for 20 years.
27:56
And I feel like, you know, sometimes like you become a
27:59
specialist. And so I was one point, you
28:01
know, working in vaccines and then you become a specialist in
28:04
tropical diseases and then then worked in oncology and then
28:09
become a specialist in solid tumors.
28:11
And then you work in ophthalmology and you become a
28:13
specialist in glaucoma and now or in obesity.
28:15
So like this, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not a, I'm
28:20
not a practicing physician, right?
28:21
But I have the responsibility and the team has a
28:24
responsibility to understand the science, understand the market,
28:29
kind of pull all of that together.
28:30
And, and, and then bring the expertise, additional expertise
28:34
we need to move that forward. And that's what we've done here
28:36
is that we, we are really personally, I've been really
28:41
fascinated with this therapeutic area for two reasons.
28:44
One, I've been a health nut like all my life.
28:47
I was a competitive athlete, continue to be pretty
28:51
competitive or whatever, you know, active in, in, as a, as an
28:56
adult and now in my 40s. I, I believe there is a constant
29:03
kind of need for us as we're getting older to, to continue to
29:05
focus on movement. And there's more to that to
29:09
mindfulness and movement and, and, you know, time that people
29:14
need to do that. But let's be real, like there's
29:17
a component that we're taking a lot of that for granted in, in
29:24
the Western society versus the rest of the world.
29:26
Like there's a lot of people that don't have that same
29:30
privilege to be able to access all of that time or resources or
29:35
whatever, whatever. That's what.
29:36
So, So what we, we, our job here is to kind of push as hard as we
29:42
can to bring that forward. And what fascinated me about the
29:46
obesity space and just the metabolic health side is that
29:49
there's this opportunity to go direct to patient, right?
29:53
There's, there's truly direct to patient innovation that that is
29:56
capable in this area. My prediction is in three years,
30:02
all of us are going to be able to, you know, go on tour, an app
30:08
you can choose from, you know, any one of 400 or 500 doctors to
30:14
be your personal health coach. You can choose the anti obesity
30:18
medication that you want. You can get prescribed and not
30:23
only the medicine you'll get prescribed exercise, you'll get
30:26
prescribed, you know, another technology like a CGM or
30:31
anything like that. And it'll be 1 ecosystem.
30:34
It, it's, it's like what the technology companies have
30:37
already done really well. Like the Apple, you, you wear an
30:40
Apple Watch, There you go. So we, how many times do we look
30:44
at our watch? They're like, OK, I got to close
30:45
my rings. It's just become part of the,
30:49
the, the behavioral component that, that they've done really
30:52
well. And I think that that the
30:56
biotechs and, and pharmas are finally starting to recognize
31:00
how that can come together. And that's the foresight that
31:03
our team's been thinking about is like, OK, well, obviously
31:06
we're focused on moving forward the Massimap and getting that
31:09
across the line and getting it approved.
31:12
But we've, we've already, you know, been thinking about how
31:15
does that ecosystem come together?
31:17
What does that look like in three years, five years, 10
31:20
years in terms of what is a patient's experience going to be
31:23
like? And weight loss and improving
31:27
metabolic health and improving your quality of life isn't just
31:32
one thing. It's not just losing weight,
31:35
it's lifestyle, it's diet, it's exercise, it's other factors.
31:40
It's, you know, mindfulness there, there.
31:44
There's a lot that goes into that.
31:46
So, so I think that that that's going to be the potential.
31:49
Now what, what, what's, what's the structural kind of tailwinds
31:53
that keep us really motivated and working towards this.
31:57
It's really simple. I, I always like to keep it
31:59
really simple. There's an unlimited demand here
32:02
in terms of what the structural unmet need is.
32:06
Obesity and overweight effects billions globally.
32:10
It's an epidemic. It's not a rare disease market.
32:13
It's literally a mass consumer awareness, self diagnosis,
32:19
motivation, whatever you want to call it, type of issue and
32:23
supply and access is like basically what you want to do.
32:25
So that's number one. Number 2 is that the patient
32:29
turnover in the current anti obesity landscape is a
32:33
significant opportunity. I mean we have first hand data
32:36
that's even higher than this, but I would say that somewhere
32:40
between 25 to 50% of patients on inkred in therapies alone will
32:46
stop treatment within a year. OK.
32:47
So due to cost, due to tolerability, due to supply
32:50
issues, due to diminishing returns, due to, you know,
32:54
wanting to go on maintenance, whatever, there's we have a ton
32:57
of reasons where we can explain why that turnovers creates a new
33:01
opportunity. And, and in in the end, the
33:04
third, the third most important thing, Remember, this is a
33:06
chronic therapy that you want to have.
33:08
So what do you need to have success in in a chronic therapy?
33:12
You need to obviously show efficacy.
33:15
So let's make sure that you know, we're not, we're not,
33:17
we're we're getting a drug approved based on efficacy, but
33:20
the long game is focused on safety, right?
33:22
You need to get patients to trust a drug and if they're
33:27
going to take, take it over a long period of time.
33:29
And the best proxy for this is you look at the hypertension
33:35
drugs, right? Most people just take these like
33:37
cholesterol improving drugs and they, they don't know if it's
33:39
working or not. They're just like betting and
33:42
hedging on the fact that they're not going to get a heart attack
33:44
in the future or it's going to affect their health.
33:47
But they're kind of taking it like it's like just I, I have to
33:51
take it kind of thing. So here in in weight loss, this
33:55
is this is this is where patients will only stay on a
33:59
chronic therapy if they feel that it's safe.
34:01
And in obesity, where many or otherwise like unhealthy, this
34:07
bar is like even higher, right? So Namastimab promise really
34:11
lies on delivering A meaningful efficacy and without
34:14
compromising safety. And most importantly, this
34:16
class, because it's been a kind of a cloud that's followed the
34:20
classes, this neuropsychiatric tolerability and that's we, we
34:23
went into that full eyes wide open when we acquired this.
34:26
We're like, this is the problem that this whole class is going
34:29
to have. This is why we're picking a
34:32
large molecule antibody because it's going to stay out of the
34:34
brain. So it's, it's those three things
34:37
like that that really are motivating that, you know, that,
34:43
that this product is really situated to become a direct
34:47
patient opportunity. And that's what I'm so excited
34:51
about. And that's why I like, I like, I
34:54
feel like it was like 20 years in the making where I was like,
34:57
oh, everything's just come together.
34:59
Like, you know, then we go back to this line about, oh, you want
35:01
to help the most amount of patients.
35:04
And you know, This is why we're in biotech is because we want to
35:06
have like feel like we're in the therapeutic area where that's
35:11
actually going to be possible. I feel like that whole
35:15
explanation just put the whole of the our conversation together
35:18
as well. Like it just gave purpose,
35:20
spirit, like mission. Yeah, I love that.
35:23
And even went back to when you were talking about when you're
35:25
an investor and working backwards, like you see the
35:28
whole vision. It's and it's cool.
35:32
It's like, it's awesome and it's like we're having so much fun
35:34
doing it. Like we, you know, we were
35:36
talking this last week about like, you know, as a, as a
35:41
company, as a young company, like we also get the privilege
35:44
of like doing great things and we have so much good engagement
35:47
with so many different like stakeholders.
35:48
We have our like great cap table with investors like 5:00 AM and
35:53
Burscent. And so you know, those, those
35:55
people and, and those teams are, are, are such a good energy.
36:00
You know, you, you, when you have great energy around you,
36:03
you're like just always motivated to do a lot more.
36:06
So, so we have those kind of fun, engaging conversation.
36:08
Then we have the same with the KOLS and, and, and doctors that
36:12
we're working with. And there's clinical sites and
36:14
then there's the internal ecosystem.
36:16
So we're, we're like talking about like, well, like in the
36:19
fall, we're, you know, whatever, if we do a strategy session or
36:23
something like where we bring different people together, like
36:25
maybe we'll try something different.
36:27
Like we'll do like athletes week or athletes weekend or like, you
36:30
know, like bring, bring like the fitness element to it.
36:33
And and that's where, you know, we we have a team that's very
36:39
committed to their personal growth and personal health and,
36:42
and see like, OK, well, these changes, the things that we're
36:45
we're doing, you know, are part of like the energy we want to
36:48
bring externally as well. So there's like this really
36:51
important like feed forward loop that comes alongside of that
36:55
because you, you only, you only successful what you put into
37:00
things, right? Like you, if you really want to
37:03
be successful of getting something across, you know,
37:07
obviously it's like you got to, you got to, you know, have all
37:11
the things that we talked about, but you really one has to really
37:15
care deeply about putting that work into things and that hard
37:20
work then pays the dividend. So that hard work, I just feel
37:24
like it comes in many different shapes and sizes or, or efforts.
37:28
So that's, that's what it is like I, I just when, when you're
37:31
working with a team that's also super committed the same way or
37:34
like just shows up in that, in that way, like it do support
37:38
forces everything. And I, I know that sounds kind
37:41
of like a little too like nebulous, but you know, I, I
37:47
really mean it in terms of like, I, I, I get a lot of energy
37:51
from, from that hard work, I guess.
37:56
Yeah, you should, Yeah. I mean, it certainly seems like
38:00
you're building something really special, like culture wise,
38:03
environment wise, but also like you're you're looking to achieve
38:07
like great things. I mean, it's awesome.
38:10
Yeah. So thanks for walking through it
38:12
like 100%. Yeah, let's keep building.
38:16
Let's keep building the team. I mean, that's why I love
38:19
talking, speaking to you. And so, you know, we have a long
38:22
way to go. The company's still pretty
38:23
small. And yeah, I'm.
38:25
I'm really the best when I basically hire people that
38:30
challenge me. So I always like, you know, I
38:33
think you've heard this before. You know, people need to hire
38:35
people that are better than them.
38:37
That's the and you, you will always hear that from me.
38:40
It's like I always try to find people that know more than than
38:43
we do and like have the ability to really teach everybody else
38:48
and and they challenge you and they care deeply, they speak up.
38:51
So that's The thing is like what my job comes down to and the
38:56
other team leadership team's job is just to really have clarity,
39:01
you know, make sure that we give everybody the autonomy that they
39:04
need and make sure that they're aligned in terms of what our
39:07
goals are. And then let them do their job.
39:09
They, they, they, they're, they're the experts.
39:12
They can, they can do the job and focus on the mission.
39:16
And I think like what's what you're working on is really
39:20
fascinating because you're, you're on the other end of
39:23
trying to help these companies kind of bring that together.
39:26
Like how are you going to bring that type of clarity and, and,
39:30
and, and retain the culture, retain the, the, the success
39:34
that companies trying to achieve with, you know, the other
39:37
dynamics that come and I, I'll tell you that's really
39:40
difficult. Like we, I, I've been through
39:44
different organizations, we've had, you know, I've been a part
39:46
of multiple executive teams and it's a tough thing where you
39:51
have different, you know, dynamics, ego sometimes and
39:55
other things that come in the way of, of trying to be in, in
39:58
alignment in order to drive towards that mission.
40:01
So, so, yeah, it's like, it's a constant thing.
40:04
I always feel like we need to like go through so many
40:07
different assessments. Like if there's like there's not
40:10
and there's not like a a single assessment that you can.
40:14
Yeah, it's hard. It's so hard.
40:16
I mean, we we even like with our own growth, we even go through
40:19
those like arguments like, how do we we know?
40:23
And like, yeah, you can go so much of track record and even
40:25
going back to your last point where you want to hire people
40:28
who are better than you and challenge you and make you
40:30
better. You know, Mark Zuckerberg says a
40:33
similar thing, doesn't he, where he says you should only hire
40:36
people that you would also want to work for?
40:39
And I think that's a great philosophy if you can distill
40:41
that. Yeah, in every manager's
40:44
mindset, in every single hire. And then every manager said they
40:47
would work for each of their employees.
40:49
And you're, you're answer a winning business, right?
40:51
So that something like that always stays in my mind.
40:54
Yeah, the and plus then the personal capacity increases
40:58
because then we, you know, you get to continue to think there's
41:01
just so many facets of any business.
41:03
So being able to have the energy to spend on other, other
41:06
elements to, to create that values is, is takes a lot of
41:10
effort. So yeah, definitely I, I, I
41:12
subscribe to that. And I, I think we should
41:14
continue to, to pressure test and get encourage, encourage
41:18
people to have the confidence to that because sometimes it, it
41:21
is, is a tough, tough one to crack because people have
41:26
different experiences getting to that point.
41:28
And you know, leadership positions, some often not
41:39
everybody's gone through that same experience and get to that.
41:41
So it's they're coming at it from a different lens or they
41:45
may not have been given the autonomy for those decisions.
41:48
And but increasing the capacity, hiring people that are better
41:52
than you only helps you overall improve and the overall team and
41:57
team improve. So I get it.
41:59
Yeah, I think we could talk about this all day.
42:02
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:03
I've got one more question for you.
42:06
It's a question we ask all our guests, and it's if you could
42:09
have dinner with any scientist or innovator, past or present,
42:13
who? Who would it be and why?
42:16
Oh, it's a tough one. Any scientist?
42:20
Any innovator, past or present? And why?
42:32
I have, that's a really tough question.
42:35
There's so many, there's so many people come to mind.
42:38
Well, there's like, there's like an entrepreneurial side.
42:40
Like I'm super fascinated by it because there's people that I,
42:45
I, I really respected and admire.
42:47
And then there's a science, the science side of it.
42:49
It's like, why did we give? Me two.
42:51
Give me one each side if you prefer.
42:54
I would say, I would say Steve Jobs on on the entrepreneurial
42:58
side because I think that it it's not for the obvious reasons
43:03
that just Steve Jobs comes to mind that it is one of the first
43:07
people that came to mind. But I think Steve Jobs did a
43:09
really good job of simplifying things and looking at things
43:12
from a different lens and from a product side.
43:15
And in terms of what I'm kind of contending with every day.
43:19
And in the in the direct to patient area, it's very similar
43:22
to the direct to consumer area. And here's not only a
43:28
entrepreneurial genius, but a marketing genius in terms of how
43:33
he was able to work with a team to try to bring some bring
43:37
fascinating new ideas to, to, to, to life, right.
43:42
And, and to ask these questions in a way or to market them in a
43:46
way that make them super engaging.
43:49
I remember seeing a graph one time about here's all the
43:55
current dominant, you know, quote UN quote phones.
44:00
And here's where the iPhone is completely like separate.
44:04
This is when the iPhone was introduced.
44:06
And, you know, it really epitomized this whole concept of
44:10
think differently without even saying it, right?
44:12
He didn't have to say it. He just said, here's where
44:14
everybody else is. This is what the iphone's going
44:16
to solve. And I was like, OK, you know,
44:20
and maybe there was a lot of skeptics because I was just
44:22
launched, but that was he was so good at positioning and framing
44:27
things. And I think that's the part of,
44:29
you know, the game, you know, in terms of trying to get like the
44:32
Coke, Coke versus Pepsi thing is, is actually a funny analogy,
44:36
which is probably true. And that we have to think that
44:38
I'll I'll have to work that one or workshop that one later.
44:42
So. So, yeah, entrepreneurial Steve
44:45
Jobs on the science side. Yeah, there's, there's no, I, I,
44:53
I have a tough time naming one scientist.
44:55
But I will say that one of the most fascinating concept
45:01
conversations I always have and I always try to strive for with
45:05
really strong scientists and clinical trial lists is what
45:12
they're thinking from how to solve a patient, you know, solve
45:16
a patient problem. And I believe some of the most
45:20
brilliant people that I've, I've spoken with him, unfortunately,
45:22
1111 example is a, is a, is a doctor that I worked with in the
45:30
past and who's unfortunately passed.
45:32
But he, he was so great at bringing together the, what the
45:37
clinical strategy would would look like in order to really
45:41
solve for that problem. So it's like just the, the, the
45:48
brain power and calculus that's involved to actually navigate a
45:57
product through like that, that really narrow edge to get it get
46:01
approved. Because you know, that's the
46:03
that's the crazy thing about this industry.
46:05
Like there's thousands of companies, right?
46:07
And there's many different pipelines and many different
46:10
drugs. Remember, there's only a few of
46:11
them actually get across the finish line.
46:13
So this is very, it's a very, This is why biotech is a, is a,
46:18
is a really tough business. So it's, it's about that like,
46:21
you know, bringing, bringing that together to actually stall
46:23
for that and those scientists that can identify that early on,
46:30
You know, it's like, let's just say before things get into the
46:33
clinic and it's like, hey, this is the, this is the specific
46:36
path that we're going to follow. These are the scientific
46:37
questions we're going to answer. This is the regulatory questions
46:39
we're going to answer. This is how it's going to fit in
46:41
the industry and like bring a lot together.
46:43
That's the, those, some of the, some of the people that have
46:46
been able to help craft those strategies have been really
46:51
effective. And I, you know, again, we can
46:52
name several in our industry that actually have been really
46:56
good at that and, and got drugs for like, for instance, getting
46:58
car T approved, right like that. That's, that was, that was a
47:02
huge, huge accomplishment getting even, you know, the, the
47:07
checkpoint inhibitors approved and then opening up those
47:09
floodgates for, for cancer care, getting GLP one approved.
47:13
GLP one is, is also an example of, of a drug that was, you
47:21
know, different focus on different mechanism before they
47:25
discovered the, the peptide analogue.
47:27
So I, I think that there's, there's a lot of good examples.
47:31
I can't unfortunately name a specific scientist because I I
47:34
would have to like I I feel like I'm going.
47:37
To yeah, it's good I think, besides.
47:39
Others. I understand as well, like it's
47:41
a super interesting question. It takes a lot for but thanks
47:45
for I'm. Actually curious for who you
47:47
would choose though. Yeah, I've not been asked that
47:50
question back. There see if I putting putting
47:54
you on the spot I. Want to look past for me like I
47:57
think like is it as a visionary? He was an innovator more than
48:01
like Aceo, right? Like not all he wanted to
48:05
concentrate on as a company like how do we innovate?
48:07
How do we get ahead of the market?
48:09
Like you, you said it right, like iPhone was up here and you
48:12
know you had other phones like here.
48:13
I remember watching, I can't remember what it was called, but
48:15
the BlackBerry film. And as the iPhone came out, it
48:19
was almost like the cause of their downfall.
48:21
And they were like, just couldn't understand why you
48:24
would get rid of a keypad and have no keypad on the phone.
48:27
And then they would super late to the party, weren't we?
48:29
When they put out their phone with no keypad.
48:32
He, he just saw it like he did, like clear as day.
48:36
He got ahead on the iPod even before then.
48:40
Yeah, I, I think Steve Jobs is a really hard one to look past, to
48:44
be honest. Yeah, I mean, I even watched the
48:49
film the other day and, you know, all of that.
48:51
But then then again, I just admire so many entrepreneurs and
48:55
and innovators. Like you look at a guy like Elon
48:58
Musk, for example, and I'm not going to touch on his politics,
49:01
but like. Yeah, put those politics aside.
49:03
But yeah, like he, he just put all these eggs in like, like he
49:08
started SpaceX, right? And the idea actually became
49:11
came before what, you know, how do we turn this into a business?
49:15
And I thought that mindset was really interesting.
49:18
He, he just thought, I want to do space, so I'm going to do
49:20
space. And then we'll think about how
49:22
the business aspect comes after it.
49:23
And that's how he then did Tesla and then the Boring Company.
49:26
And I find that. Every single one of these things
49:29
I agree with. Like he's just, his capacity has
49:31
just been uncomparable. Like in terms of those things,
49:36
like, and and he doesn't accept failure, like, yeah, like even
49:41
how many times did did SpaceX fail on its launch before?
49:45
He's like, OK, we're gonna try it again and we're gonna try it
49:48
again. And like, and that's, that's
49:50
true, true resilience. And he really put everything on
49:53
the line to make that accomplish.
49:54
So I, I totally, I can agree with you.
49:56
Yeah. And then even like in terms of
49:59
the Tesla success story and then building all that ecosystem
50:02
around, it's been really great and that those are the types of
50:05
visionaries that continue to push the envelope for everybody
50:08
else, right, because there's. So many, right.
50:10
And if you go to the past, like you're talking people like
50:13
Churchill for me, like relentless mindset aspects, I'd
50:17
just love to get into his brain. And, you know, the the amount of
50:21
points in the wall where we were just, you know, it looked like
50:23
we were dead and buried. And everyone was advising him,
50:25
like with Dunkirk, basically to surrender.
50:28
Yeah, Yeah. And he and he just didn't.
50:31
And I just find that mindset fascinating.
50:33
So I'd love to pick his brain. And then there's people like
50:35
Einstein and yeah, you could go. Yeah, Einstein would be a
50:38
Einstein. It would be an interesting one.
50:39
OK, well, I. I've had the answer Einstein
50:41
before and the the. The reason I was really
50:46
interesting because. A lot of people answer this just
50:49
go, who would I want to pick the brain off?
50:52
But it was actually Julie Chow who said Einstein.
50:54
And she said I like Einstein because I could, we could have
50:57
some seriously interesting conversations.
50:59
But also we're having dinner and he looks like a super fun guy to
51:03
be around. So we'd have a great time as
51:05
well as that, really literally, which I thought was interesting.
51:09
Yeah, you're right. Yeah.
51:10
I would think that that would be pretty interesting.
51:12
Well, like I, I really appreciate the thought provoking
51:16
there. I, I, I'm going to reflect on
51:19
that one and. And maybe we'll let me know if
51:22
your answer changed, but it's a pleasure to have you on Panit.
51:25
Yeah, likewise it's it's really a great speaking with you Max
51:28
and love to do it anytime and let's try to get get together
51:31
during bio. 100% everyone please like and subscribe to the Bio
51:36
Hub and and thanks again Panit. Take care.
51:38
Thanks.