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Martin Mackay: Co-Founder of Rallybio · BioBoss

• 0:00
  Martin Mackay: We want to hear everybody's voice.
• 0:07
  Martin Mackay: It's all well saying that you believe in diversity and t hen o nly listen to yourself.
• 0:12
  John Simboli: That's Martin Mackay, cofounder at Rallybio.
• 0:16
  John Simboli: Listen in now to hear my conversation with Martin.
• 0:19
  John Simboli: I'm John Simboli.
• 0:20
  John Simboli: You're listening to BioBoss Today.
• 0:24
  John Simboli: I'm speaking with Martin Mackay, cofounder and CEO at Rallybio.
• 0:28
  John Simboli: Martin.
• 0:28
  John Simboli: how d id you find yourself here at Rallybio?
• 0:32
  Martin Mackay: Well after a career, which quite unbelievably, goes back to the seventies when I joined the pharmaceutical industry 1979 and I've been in the pharmaceutical industry since.
• 0:44
  Martin Mackay: I did a little bit more studying in the 80s.
• 0:47
  Martin Mackay: And just really enjoy what I do.
• 0:50
  Martin Mackay: I love the industry.
• 0:51
  Martin Mackay: I love the notion of discovering and developing new medicines for patients with diseases.
• 0:59
  Martin Mackay: So in some ways it was a very natural thing to go into our own company and I say our carefully, three of us set it up after many years working in big Pharma and then working for Alexion for five years, a small biotech.
• 1:17
  Martin Mackay: And that really gave me a taste for, gosh, you know, could we do this ourselves and build a company, bring forward some medicines that were important and novel.
• 1:27
  Martin Mackay: So it was as simple as that, really, not a lot of deep thought, not a lot of, you know, decades of absolutely wanting to do this.
• 1:34
  Martin Mackay: Much more, you know, in the moment; this is the time to do it.
• 1:39
  John Simboli: What's it like to have the ultimate decision for these things?
• 1:42
  John Simboli: I know you're part of a team.
• 1:42
  Martin Mackay: It's quite different.
• 1:47
  Martin Mackay: It is one of the enjoyable pieces.
• 1:49
  Martin Mackay: I I think as I've mentioned before in my career, I left school in 1972, 16 year old, from a very working class upbringing in Scotland.
• 2:03
  Martin Mackay: And over the course of my career I've had 31 bosses.
• 2:07
  Martin Mackay: I can name them all.
• 2:09
  Martin Mackay: I have a list of them all named; actually just technically it's 29 human beings because two people had to suffer me twice in their career.
• 2:20
  Martin Mackay: So 29 human beings; 31 bosses.
• 2:22
  Martin Mackay: And I've learned a tremendous amount from them.
• 2:25
  Martin Mackay: And, actually, as I write my memoirs, which I've started, I don't rate them one to 31 because they all had different skills and some of them I'd rate high on leadership, some high on execution, some high on people and the likes.
• 2:44
  Martin Mackay: I have this wonderful grid of the 31 of them all mapped out.
• 2:49
  Martin Mackay: And now I don't have that, right?
• 2:52
  Martin Mackay: I don't have a boss to either work with or look up up to.
• 2:57
  Martin Mackay: And it's magnificent, actually.
• 2:59
  Martin Mackay: I really enjoy it and I've worked with great people and we can go on to name them as really good people.
• 3:04
  Martin Mackay: People I've learned a lot from; people that cared for me; were enormously influential in my development.
• 3:11
  Martin Mackay: But this world is different.
• 3:13
  Martin Mackay: And it's really, you know, a very small company.
• 3:16
  Martin Mackay: We sit around a table like this and make decisions.
• 3:19
  Martin Mackay: It's a little bit cliched, but you can do things really quickly.
• 3:21
  Martin Mackay: And that manifests itself in so many ways as we're thinking about the work that we're going to do, the diseases that we're going to work in, the types of things that are going to attack those diseases.
• 3:35
  Martin Mackay: But the simple answer to your question is,yes, 31 was good, but that's enough for me.
• 3:41
  John Simboli: When you made that choice to, to head up a biopharma company, you must've had a lot of ones you looked at; a lot of places, you kind of tried on in your own thinking.
• 3:52
  John Simboli: What was it about Rallybio, the idea that you're going to form Rallybio, that made you think I can achieve with this what I want not have been able to achieve to someplace else?
• 4:01
  Martin Mackay: Yeah, that's a really good question and.
• 4:02
  Martin Mackay: .
• 4:02
  Martin Mackay: .
• 4:02
  Martin Mackay: a little bit o f the history of Rally is t hat one of my co-founders and I, Steve U den, another scientist who's very steeped in pharmaceutical R&D.
• 4:15
  Martin Mackay: We had been talking about this for a wee while.
• 4:17
  Martin Mackay: Once it was decided that we were leaving A lexion, the q uestion i s w hat, what next?
• 4:25
  Martin Mackay: I knew I wouldn't retire.
• 4:26
  Martin Mackay: That was not on the cards.
• 4:29
  Martin Mackay: My wife would never have allowed i t.
• 4:31
  Martin Mackay: And so we actually l ooked at a lot of stuff and what we decided to do was let's both go out and look and if there's a nything we'll keep each other in touch with things and if there's anything that we see that we want to do, then we'll tell the other one and that's what we'll do.
• 4:47
  Martin Mackay: But always in the back of our mind was to start together and start, y ou k now, a company.
• 4:52
  Martin Mackay: Didn't know it was going t o be Rallybio, but start company.
• 4:55
  Martin Mackay: And we looked at a lot of things.
• 4:57
  Martin Mackay: And in my own case I looked at, you know, I was approached, and I say this not immodestly, b ut I was approached for jobs i n big pharma, things that like I'd done in the past all the way down to twinkles in p eople's eyes to set up a new company with their idea or with their money.
• 5:14
  Martin Mackay: And each time Steve and I came back together, we'd say, it isn't better than starting our own company with our ideas and r aising our own money and doing it.
• 5:25
  Martin Mackay: And that's basically w hat happened over about, you know, six months to a year.
• 5:30
  Martin Mackay: And then we landed on, okay, we want to, you know, start o ur o wn company.
• 5:35
  Martin Mackay: What was very clear to us, were the areas that we wanted to work in.
• 5:39
  Martin Mackay: So it wasn't like we thought of a million things and chose one.
• 5:42
  Martin Mackay: At Alexion we really liked the commitment to devastating diseases.
• 5:49
  Martin Mackay: We really liked to commitment to ultra rare or rare disease, patients that are just poorly served just now.
• 5:57
  Martin Mackay: And we really liked the idea of bringing forward medicines from probably late research/early clinical and all the way to the market.
• 6:06
  Martin Mackay: And so what we wanted to work on was quite clear.
• 6:08
  Martin Mackay: How we would then go about it; where we'd set up and all of those things.
• 6:14
  Martin Mackay: And the name Rallybio is a good example of that.
• 6:16
  Martin Mackay: We had been thinking about names.
• 6:17
  Martin Mackay: We didn't hire any really smart people to help us with that.
• 6:23
  Martin Mackay: It was just then three of us cause Jeff Fryer on the business side had joined us then.
• 6:29
  Martin Mackay: And one day Steve was on one of his very typical rants and he was ranting about we are going to rally people round this company and you know, fight disease and conquer disease.
• 6:41
  Martin Mackay: And he was really on his platform and doing a great job.
• 6:46
  Martin Mackay: And when he said Rally and he looked at me and we looked at each other and thought, that's a good name.
• 6:53
  Martin Mackay: So it was all down to Steve.
• 6:54
  Martin Mackay: Steve came up with Rally, I added bio and it just made sense to us truly.
• 7:00
  Martin Mackay: That says a lot.
• 7:02
  Martin Mackay: We are trying to rally people around this mission of coming up with medicines for really bad diseases and for patients that don't have medicines today.
• 7:12
  John Simboli: When I think of rally I think of a team.
• 7:15
  John Simboli: It's kind of hard to rally by yourself, I guess.
• 7:18
  John Simboli: So that must be part of the fun of it, putting the team together.
• 7:21
  Martin Mackay: Definitely.
• 7:22
  Martin Mackay: And you know, through our careers we had worked with just such great people.
• 7:26
  Martin Mackay: Really lucky to work with such good people and such great companies.
• 7:31
  Martin Mackay: And you know, despite the kind of press that's often leveled against the pharmaceutical industry, by far and away, the vast majority of people I worked with wanted to come up with good medicines, mostly R&D, but not exclusively, people all over the company on this mission.
• 7:50
  Martin Mackay: And so, you know, we had worked with great people and you know, we're pleased to say that, though small, just now, we've attracted them and all of those people had the options.
• 7:59
  Martin Mackay: We could all choose where they wanted to work and so, small team just now, but we'll grow over the next period and keep that level of talent up.
• 8:10
  Martin Mackay: Everybody's very dedicated to this mission.
• 8:13
  Martin Mackay: That's why they really joined.
• 8:15
  Martin Mackay: I'd love it to think it was my charisma but truly it was new medicines.
• 8:22
  John Simboli: I'm thinking back to one of the very first press releases I saw that said something like, Martin says he's got at least one good medicine left in him.
• 8:35
  Martin Mackay: A number of people commented on that from kind of strange places who'd write and say, yeah, just,"A," it just sounded like you and you've got more than one left in you.
• 8:46
  Martin Mackay: Get going! What are you waiting on?
• 8:50
  Martin Mackay: And so just that one little phrase kind of summed us up as well.
• 8:55
  Martin Mackay: Steve is in exactly the same position and Steve Ryder, who joined us, who's another colleague that we worked together in past companies, you know, just has that same belief, there's medicine's left in us.
• 9:06
  Martin Mackay: It's almost like, I like to think of it as a time to harvest.
• 9:14
  Martin Mackay: You know, we've made lots of mistakes in our careers; there's been too many failures to mention.
• 9:20
  Martin Mackay: Fortunately, there's been some good things as well, but a lot of failure and kind of where our experiences now should help us.
• 9:28
  Martin Mackay: We won't be immune to failure, but we think if we really apply the knowledge and experience that we have, have a diverse group of people in the company, diversity is important to us.
• 9:43
  Martin Mackay: And then I do think there's some medicines in there.
• 9:46
  Martin Mackay: I read an article recently, as you know, I'm a big fan of the New England Patriots and I can truly say I supported them when they were bad.
• 9:55
  Martin Mackay: So I started watching them 1990, 2000 and Tom Brady, in an article recently when people were saying to him, Why aren't you retired?
• 10:05
  Martin Mackay: I mean your age and all you've done.
• 10:08
  Martin Mackay: And he said, why would, I retire at the time when I really, by now, think I know what I'm doing and actually can apply all of that to every game and be even better.
• 10:19
  Martin Mackay: And I thought, yeah, that kind of sums up Rally a little bit.
• 10:22
  Martin Mackay: Why would you stop doing this at a time where you think you're best placed to bring, great medicines forward.
• 10:31
  John Simboli: What's it like to actually be the guy?
• 10:35
  Martin Mackay: Interestingly, we don't kind of work that way in this company.
• 10:39
  Martin Mackay: We never use titles.
• 10:40
  Martin Mackay: The only time, the only reason I have the title CEO was for legal purposes.
• 10:45
  Martin Mackay: You need it, to do your jobs and you need to sign things, and that.
• 10:50
  Martin Mackay: But actually if you looked at my business card, there's nothing on it about titles.
• 10:55
  Martin Mackay: None of us have titles.
• 10:57
  Martin Mackay: We've tried to really diminish the hierarchy in the company.
• 11:01
  Martin Mackay: We want to hear everybody's voice.
• 11:02
  Martin Mackay: It's all well saying that you believe in diversity and then only listen to yourself.
• 11:07
  Martin Mackay: You know, and I've seen that in the past, you know, leaders and bosses that took up far too much of the air time.
• 11:14
  Martin Mackay: And so I don't want to be like that and we don't want to be like that.
• 11:19
  Martin Mackay: We really haven't.
• 11:20
  Martin Mackay: Now, we realize sometimes there's decisions to be made and we take those, and take them quickly.
• 11:25
  Martin Mackay: But by and large, the way that we work in the company is to get the ideas on the table, debate them, challenge them, and then make decisions and move on.
• 11:35
  Martin Mackay: We make decisions in different ways, but we're always up front about how we are going to make decisions.
• 11:41
  Martin Mackay: Whether it's this is a consensus decision.
• 11:42
  Martin Mackay: .
• 11:42
  Martin Mackay: .
• 11:42
  Martin Mackay: this actually is, yours, Steve, there was one this week where I said it's your decision, Steve,and so on and so forth.
• 11:53
  Martin Mackay: I don't know how scalable that is and it'll be really interested as we grow, how far we can take this, but certainly at the moment that's how we work.
• 12:04
  Martin Mackay: And how that manifests itself, day to day, then, we're actively scouting new assets and truly, globally.
• 12:12
  Martin Mackay: We had people in Korea the week before last; people in the Nordics this week; I was in Boston; going to Europe next week.
• 12:24
  Martin Mackay: So w e're really looking globally.
• 12:25
  Martin Mackay: And day on day, it's head down to the gindstone looking at these assets Now that we've done our first deal, then a percentage of that we'll be executing against those assets, but we'll still be very actively scouting.
• 12:40
  Martin Mackay: What makes it really fun is it's all to do with science and drug discovery and drug development, just know.
• 12:50
  Martin Mackay: We clearly need to fiscally responsible and Jeff plays, that role just brilliantly for us.
• 12:58
  Martin Mackay: Clearly, with our board and our investors we're very responsible how we're using their money that they've generously provided to us to run the company.
• 13:11
  Martin Mackay: But the vast majority of the day has to do science and drug development.
• 13:16
  Martin Mackay: And for someone like me as that, golden.
• 13:20
  John Simboli: I asked John Houston a similar question, Martin, and I said something like, so it sounds like part of the fun of it is to be a scientist who is in collaboration.
• 13:31
  John Simboli: He said, yeah, it's funny you should mention, he says, because scientists, we're in our own world.
• 13:36
  John Simboli: Did you go through that as you had learned how to be a leader?
• 13:38
  Martin Mackay: Yes.
• 13:41
  Martin Mackay: Academia, and I think it's the same the United States.
• 13:44
  Martin Mackay: I did all my academic work in the United Kingdom.
• 13:47
  Martin Mackay: And I mean, you're really trained to go it alone and fight whilst, in those days you may have collaborated with laboratories outside, the person at the opposite side of the bench was often competing.
• 14:00
  Martin Mackay: And so, you know, this notion of teamwork, and that, didn't come into.
• 14:03
  Martin Mackay: .
• 14:03
  Martin Mackay: .
• 14:03
  Martin Mackay: That's the wonderful thing about industry, actually, you be a lone ranger in industry.
• 14:11
  Martin Mackay: You have to collaborate both within the company and outside of it and these skills are kind of honed over the years.
• 14:19
  Martin Mackay: Not everybody adapts them well.
• 14:22
  Martin Mackay: I have to say, and there's some, luckily there's some great scientists who even in industry maintain that level of uniqueness.
• 14:32
  Martin Mackay: You know, you just have to work with that and manage it accordingly.
• 14:37
  Martin Mackay: Usually it's worthwhile because they're great scientists and you know, every so often you need to have a discussion about working together.
• 14:44
  Martin Mackay: But as a leader, you don't have that luxury.
• 14:49
  Martin Mackay: You have to really collaborate across many groups.
• 14:53
  John Simboli: So in this time o being a leader, making a transition from being a scientist exclusively to being a leader and a scientist, what have you learned about what works for you as a manager?
• 15:04
  John Simboli: Do you feel like you have a style or an approach that you've learned works for you?
• 15:08
  Martin Mackay: Yeah, I was really lucky.
• 15:09
  Martin Mackay: I was talking about this earlier today, actually somebody that I'd worked with, called me in the room trying to make decisions about two positions that were taken.
• 15:18
  Martin Mackay: And I just, I thought back and another wonderful thing about our industry and working for big companies is how much they were willing to invest in you.
• 15:27
  Martin Mackay: So if I think about my days at Ciba-Geigy in Switzerland and you know, Pfizer in the UK and the U.S.,-- invested enormous amount in my training.
• 15:37
  Martin Mackay: And you know, as a scientist you have your scientific training, but then you go into a company in they say, now we're going to try and help you be a leader.
• 15:46
  Martin Mackay: And so I was offered so many courses and programs and really wonderful things to build your leadership skills andm simply put, the, the more that I try and understand leadership.
• 16:01
  Martin Mackay: .
• 16:01
  Martin Mackay: .
• 16:01
  Martin Mackay: I worked out one day, there's an algorithm that I'm working on in terms of my leadership trajectory.
• 16:08
  Martin Mackay: And by the time I'm 80, I'm going to be really good.
• 16:11
  Martin Mackay: And the challenge for me i s can I do in my own lifetime and be really good?
• 16:15
  Martin Mackay: So leadership is something I think about daily.
• 16:18
  Martin Mackay: In terms of working with people that, some real old adages, you know, just treat people well.
• 16:27
  Martin Mackay: Just think about them as human beings and what they're going through day and day.
• 16:34
  Martin Mackay: The obvious parts of leadership that you hear are set a vision, give people a direction to go to, but that's kind of textbook.
• 16:44
  Martin Mackay: Underneath all that is working with human beings and how you interact with them.
• 16:48
  Martin Mackay: And over a career you can put hand on heart and see, wow.
• 16:54
  Martin Mackay: You know, as I think about, I'd like to think I helped more people than I ever hindered.
• 16:59
  Martin Mackay: People developed when we work together and that continues to this day.
• 17:05
  Martin Mackay: You know, people in a small company like Rally, I still think about them a lot in their development.
• 17:11
  Martin Mackay: We're at different stages.
• 17:11
  Martin Mackay: But it's kind of some really fundamental things but I wouldn't dismiss the training that I was offered and lapped up and I'm, to this day, continue to think about leadership and improving as a leader, being a better leader.
• 17:28
  John Simboli: So can you remember when you were eight or nine, can you remember what your image of yourself was?
• 17:31
  Martin Mackay: I can, actually, and it's pure luck if you think about it.
• 17:35
  Martin Mackay: Because how do you have these images that actually come to fruit?
• 17:38
  Martin Mackay: Of being a scientist?
• 17:40
  Martin Mackay: I mean I played soccer and still do, all my life.
• 17:44
  Martin Mackay: So you know, always this notion of playing for Juventis in Italy.
• 17:46
  Martin Mackay: And I haven't given up on that actually.
• 17:50
  Martin Mackay: I still think I'd be good enough.
• 17:51
  Martin Mackay: But unfortunately they don't.
• 17:53
  Martin Mackay: But truly on a kind of life thing.
• 17:57
  Martin Mackay: I always want it to be a scientist.
• 17:58
  Martin Mackay: This notion of white coats and glasses.
• 18:00
  Martin Mackay: I was intrigued by kind of nerdy professor.
• 18:04
  Martin Mackay: And again, luckily in the UK, the BBC invariably had programs about scientists and I was totally compelled by it.
• 18:12
  Martin Mackay: So literally, left school at 16 to become a scientist.
• 18:16
  Martin Mackay: And you might say, well that's a bit weird leaving school at 16, but everybody did.
• 18:20
  Martin Mackay: Nobody in my family went to college, university, none of my friends went to college or university just wasn't, you know, where I was brought up.
• 18:29
  Martin Mackay: It just didn't happen at all.
• 18:31
  Martin Mackay: And what did happen is you left school at 16 and you went, usually, to apprenticeships.
• 18:38
  Martin Mackay: So people would become carpenters or electricians.
• 18:42
  Martin Mackay: And very similarly in the laboratory work, there was an apprenticeship, you go in and you become a, what at the time was called a junior medical laboratory technologist or technician.
• 18:54
  Martin Mackay: And I did that.
• 18:55
  Martin Mackay: And you go to college to do day release, it's called.
• 18:59
  Martin Mackay: So part of your education about learning.
• 19:01
  Martin Mackay: And I ran into a bacteriology laboratory, so this was the best job I could ever have.
• 19:07
  Martin Mackay: Right?
• 19:07
  Martin Mackay: I've thought about it for years.
• 19:10
  Martin Mackay: I've studied at school, like all my subjects at school were science, so it was chemistry, biology, physics, math, statistics, you know, so a very scientific high school.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: And then I found myself in the job I want.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: That's a lab technician doing lab work, playing with my hands and fume covers.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Luckily I had qualifications from school.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Even though I was 16,, I was able to get enough qualifications that you could go to college.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: So by the time 18 comes in, I'm looking around and everybody in the good jobs had degrees.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Which I didn't really understand, truly, what a degree was, but what I did know is everybody in the big job had.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: And I thought, yeah, I'd like some of that.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: And so at 18 I went to university, had the qualifications, full time university and then did my four years and my microbiology degree in Edinburgh and then went into the industry, pharmaceutical industry, which I knew that's where I wanted to apply my science.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: This is 1979, now, and then really enjoyed working there as what was called a graduate.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: You know, you had your first degree, worked as a graduate working on penicillins, antibiotics and then exactly same thing happened.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: I looked around and all the people in the best positions had PhDs our were physicians.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: All the big jobs were there and I thought, okay.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Then I went, did my PhD, post-doctoral work to get these qualifications.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Then I went back into industry, this time with Ciba-Geigy, the Swiss company.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: And by that time you've got all the academic piece behind you.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Then it's a case of building a career in industry, but it does go back to being a wee boy in Scotland, loving this notion of science.
• 21:05
  John Simboli: That's an unbroken line.
• 21:07
  John Simboli: I don't think I met anybody quite like that.
• 21:09
  John Simboli: That's interesting.
• 21:10
  Martin Mackay: It goes really way back, way back and just really lucky at 16 to work in a lab.
• 21:19
  Martin Mackay: Right?
• 21:21
  Martin Mackay: I mean, this was perfect for me and for all I knew this was going to be my life working in a lab for a whole career until other things came into play.
• 21:30
  Martin Mackay: Like, gosh, I really like that job there.
• 21:33
  Martin Mackay: This person's directing things, and I probably had something inside me to say that I wanted to lead things without really ever been able to articulate it.
• 21:45
  Martin Mackay: It was much more experiential.
• 21:48
  Martin Mackay: There's a person in a job that I like the look of and to get ther, you need qualifications, you need your PHD, to do your scientific apprenticeship.
• 21:58
  Martin Mackay: But yeah, very lucky to want to do something and see it all the way through.
• 22:01
  Martin Mackay: Here I am today, still doing it, right?
• 22:05
  Martin Mackay: Sitting in a lab, thinking about experiments and.
• 22:09
  Martin Mackay: .
• 22:09
  Martin Mackay: .
• 22:10
  John Simboli: You're lucky.
• 22:10
  Martin Mackay: Yeah, lucky or sad.
• 22:11
  Martin Mackay: Maybe a bit of both.
• 22:17
  John Simboli: What's new at Rallybio?
• 22:18
  Martin Mackay: You know, I think by the next few months.
• 22:22
  Martin Mackay: .
• 22:22
  Martin Mackay: .
• 22:22
  Martin Mackay: as I say, we've completed our first deal and although we haven't broadcast it, it's a highly competitive area and we want to keep it, the euphemism is, in stealth mode, just know, so we won't be broadcasting our first assets.
• 22:35
  Martin Mackay: As it happens, it's a number of them that we've brought in.
• 22:38
  Martin Mackay: I'd like to think we'd do another couple of deals.
• 22:43
  Martin Mackay: We always set out to say that our portfolio would be somewhere between 40 assets.
• 22:49
  Martin Mackay: We can manage that.
• 22:50
  Martin Mackay: So I'd like to think that we're at that number.
• 22:51
  Martin Mackay: That we would have hired a few more scientists to work alongside us to produce, those medicines.
• 23:00
  Martin Mackay: And then if you think about the balance between scouting for assets and executing against development plans, we'll be much more the latter.
• 23:10
  Martin Mackay: So I think there'll be a really big transition in the company.
• 23:13
  Martin Mackay: We like the scoping piece, we like going out, doing diligence on assets and thinking about how they could be used in clinics and the like.
• 23:19
  Martin Mackay: But very quickly, we're going to have to transition into actual execution.
• 23:27
  Martin Mackay: So actually doing something.
• 23:30
  Martin Mackay: That should be fun.
• 23:30
  Martin Mackay: We'll still always scout, because if we see things we want to bring them into the company, but I think the balance will then move to execution.
• 23:39
  John Simboli: When people now ask you who is Rallybio.
• 23:43
  John Simboli: .
• 23:44
  John Simboli: .
• 23:44
  Martin Mackay: Rallybio works on devastating diseases and come up with transformative treatments.
• 23:50
  Martin Mackay: I mean it's as simple as that.
• 23:51
  Martin Mackay: Easy to say.
• 23:52
  Martin Mackay: Of course, to execute is a bit more difficult.
• 23:53
  Martin Mackay: But, really bad diseases, really great treatments.
• 23:57
  Martin Mackay: We haven't moved from that.
• 23:59
  Martin Mackay: We've moved our thinking about how you do it, at what stage you do it, maybe who you need to work with yet to, you know, execute against plans.
• 24:10
  Martin Mackay: But fundamentally the notion is bad diseases, great treatments.
• 24:15
  John Simboli: When you make that explanation, you just gave to me, that simple, clear, here's what Rallybio is.
• 24:20
  John Simboli: Maybe you made a presentation for half an hour at a conference and someone comes back after coffee and says, oh thanks, Martin; now I understand.
• 24:28
  John Simboli: But that didn't.
• 24:29
  John Simboli: Maybe they didn't hear it right.
• 24:30
  John Simboli: Or they had filters on.
• 24:31
  John Simboli: What do they hear wrong?
• 24:33
  John Simboli: And then when you come back and say, oh no, it's actually this, what's that conversation like?
• 24:37
  Martin Mackay: It's really interesting.
• 24:38
  Martin Mackay: We had that conversation.
• 24:39
  Martin Mackay: So I mean there are some within that grand, really bad diseases, really good treatments, we put some filters in.
• 24:47
  Martin Mackay: So one would bea therapeutic areas that we work in.
• 24:51
  Martin Mackay: Whilst we're largely agnostic to therapeutic areas, and if you think about ultra rare diseases, they go from metabolic, neurological, bone, you know, you name it; it goes across a lot of therapeutic areas.
• 25:05
  Martin Mackay: We decided early on that we wouln't work in oncology.
• 25:09
  Martin Mackay: It's a couple of reasons.
• 25:12
  Martin Mackay: I don't think the world needs another oncology company.
• 25:14
  Martin Mackay: I don't think we'd be best placed to bring forward oncology agents.
• 25:20
  Martin Mackay: I think our people a lot better than us to do that.
• 25:25
  Martin Mackay: And from a scientific perspective, it's difficult to conceive of too many things that are truly transformative as happening but doesn't tick that big box.
• 25:38
  Martin Mackay: But interestingly, as we go through this with all sorts of people, you know, from scientists, lay scientists, physicians, venture capitalists, you name it, they'll invariably after I was going through this pitch, say, oh, I've got this oncology program that I think you'd be interested in.
• 25:57
  Martin Mackay: So we've really had to work on clarity a lot more.
• 26:04
  Martin Mackay: And, we joke about when Steve goes through it now, he'll say, but not oncology.
• 26:10
  Martin Mackay: I want to make sure, not oncology.
• 26:13
  Martin Mackay: So sometimes, folks, you know, because oncology is such a big area to work in but it really it comes down to our communication and how well we do that.
• 26:22
  Martin Mackay: And it's not something that we've given enough thought to yet, but we have to get better.
• 26:32
  John Simboli: When you decided to build this, whatever was going to be called, I'm sure you've thought about it could be in Silicon Valley, it could be in London.
• 26:40
  John Simboli: It could be wherever.
• 26:42
  John Simboli: How did you go about choosing where to locate?
• 26:44
  Martin Mackay: I've been in Connecticut for 20 years now.
• 26:50
  Martin Mackay: I worked for three companies during that time, over the 20 years.
• 26:54
  Martin Mackay: And I just think it's a really great place to discover medicines.
• 26:59
  Martin Mackay: Lots of medicines have been discovered in Connecticut, so that's good.
• 27:02
  Martin Mackay: You know, and great companies, Pfizer, Bristol, Myers, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bayer, Alexion.
• 27:09
  Martin Mackay: So inherently this is a good place to discover medicines.
• 27:13
  Martin Mackay: The talent is outstanding.
• 27:15
  Martin Mackay: And when Steve and I were conceiving the company, we did think about, you know, some investors wanted us to be in Cambridge, Massachusetts, without doubt, some wanted us to be in New York, probably mostly in Cambridge, Boston and environs.
• 27:29
  Martin Mackay: But we thought, you go to New London rail station on a Monday and see all these people training it up to stay the week in Boston.
• 27:39
  Martin Mackay: There's something wrong there.
• 27:41
  Martin Mackay: They should be staying here.
• 27:43
  Martin Mackay: And so, we thought, great place to discover medicines, great talent here.
• 27:50
  Martin Mackay: We live here, although, as you can tell, not from C onnecticut originally.
• 27:54
  Martin Mackay: You know, made homes here.
• 27:58
  Martin Mackay: W hy not?
• 27:58
  Martin Mackay: And that's kind of what's born out.
• 28:00
  Martin Mackay: I think out of the eight of us, something like seven of us would be in Boston by now h ad Rally not started, including myself.
• 28:08
  Martin Mackay: I think the state could do a lot more to really encourage the life sciences, a lot more.
• 28:16
  Martin Mackay: Now we are sitting in the TIP incubator, here, which is terrific.
• 28:20
  Martin Mackay: I mean, the people here couldn't have been better., Paul could not be more welcoming to us here as a small start up, but already we're outgrowing here.
• 28:34
  Martin Mackay: I mean, if you're successful, you're going to outgrow quickly.
• 28:37
  Martin Mackay: And you know, hence our move.
• 28:39
  Martin Mackay: We'd like to absolutely keep a presence here in the incubator but, we're going to outgrow now and we're going to be looking for new premises, new laboratories, more people.
• 28:52
  Martin Mackay: And there's essentially nothing welcoming about the state to be able to do that.
• 28:59
  Martin Mackay: Whether it's politics, I don't understand, but if I think about the interactions I have with MassBio, for example, and what they've done in there.
• 29:11
  Martin Mackay: And it wasn't always like that.
• 29:12
  Martin Mackay: I mean, I first moved a lab to Cambridge in 1997-98, and we were only one of two big companies, I think at the time there.
• 29:21
  Martin Mackay: If I think of how that's grown, I think, right?
• 29:23
  Martin Mackay: Why shouldn't that be Connecticut?
• 29:26
  Martin Mackay: But there's too little in place to really incentivize people.
• 29:30
  Martin Mackay: I'd hate to think down the line that we're going to move to Massachusetts or even San Francisco.
• 29:36
  Martin Mackay: That's possible; it's possible.
• 29:39
  Martin Mackay: And the politics of it, you know, the finances, the incentives, all of that will dictate.
• 29:45
  Martin Mackay: So I think the local government could do a lot more.
• 29:50
  Martin Mackay: Connecticut innovations; they've been terrific.
• 29:53
  Martin Mackay: They've actually invested in us and they've invested in many companies here and I couldn't say better things about them, but there's more to it than this level o f investment.
• 30:05
  Martin Mackay: It's needing much more vision about the state and life sciences.
• 30:08
  Martin Mackay: Being really political, it's all too self-congratulatory that we're a great place.
• 30:14
  Martin Mackay: Without incentives, really, to grow here and build here and actually grow back the base that we had here.
• 30:22
  Martin Mackay: You know, thousands of jobs are flooded out and that's just shameful I think.
• 30:31
  Martin Mackay: I would actually be happy to help in that, although I suspect I'm far too outspoken to ever get invited to do so.
• 30:39
  John Simboli: When I first started working with you, one of the things that really stood out was how willing you were to ask for an honest conversation and you uses the term"courageous conversation." What's that mean?
• 30:51
  Martin Mackay: Probably the first time you heard it was in a town hall at Alexion, which was the one ask that somebody said, if you had one ask, what would it be?
• 30:59
  Martin Mackay: That'd be for people to go back to their labs and offices and have the courageous conversation with their colleagues.
• 31:05
  Martin Mackay: You know, it's really simple.
• 31:09
  Martin Mackay: As human beings to both get feedback, receive feedback and give it is a really hard thing to do.
• 31:16
  Martin Mackay: And it's way harder than I think it should be.
• 31:19
  Martin Mackay: And the more you do it, the easier it gets.
• 31:21
  Martin Mackay: And in our environment at Rally with only eight of us, we built that from the start.
• 31:26
  Martin Mackay: So Steve Uden was giving me feedback this morning and I'm thinking, I don't really want this now.
• 31:31
  Martin Mackay: Friday morning, but, I welcomed it with open arms and he started it by saying, in the spirit of openness, I'd like to have a courageous conversation with you.
• 31:40
  Martin Mackay: And it just makes it really easy and allows people to develop and grow.
• 31:44
  Martin Mackay: There's an adage that came from Jack Welsh who's not my favorite guru, but he said many good things as everyone knows.
• 31:55
  Martin Mackay: And one thing he said was tell the people the truth because they know it anyway.
• 31:58
  Martin Mackay: And, yet we've been often in leadership resistant to give that truth and that feedback.
• 32:07
  Martin Mackay: There's a lot of courage associated with being able to do that.
• 32:10
  Martin Mackay: I guarantee that if anybody's listening to this, it gets easier to do it each time you do it and people will thank you so much for it.
• 32:20
  Martin Mackay: Maybe not immediately cause it can be hard, but will definitely thank you in terms of thinking about their careers.
• 32:28
  John Simboli: Martin, thanks for spending time with me today.
• 32:30
  Martin Mackay: Thank you.
• 32:32
  John Simboli: One of the really satisfying things about working with Martin is his plainspoken approach.
• 32:37
  John Simboli: In our conversation, he mentions the advice,"Tell the people the truth because they already know it." In the same way, when Martin says at the beginning of the podcast,"We want to hear everybody's voice.
• 32:49
  John Simboli: It's all well saying that you believe in diversity and then only listen to yourself"— he's getting at something real—the power of what he calls a courageous conversation.
• 32:57
  John Simboli: For Martin, that means not only giving feedback, but being willing and able to receive it—all in the spirit of making things work better.
• 33:09
  John Simboli: I'm John Simboli.
• 33:10
  John Simboli: You're listening to BioBoss.