Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 111 - Kevin Pojasek - President and CEO of Enara Bio

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Episode 111 - Kevin Pojasek - President and CEO of Enara Bio · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:05
  So welcome back to the episode of the Bio Hub.
• 0:07
  Today, we have the pleasure of welcoming Kevin Pogisic,
• 0:10
  President and CEO of Anara Bio, a pioneering company uncovering
• 0:14
  a new universe of cancer targets called dark antigens.
• 0:18
  Under Kevin's leadership, Anara Bio is reimagining how we
• 0:21
  harness the immune system to fight solid tumours and bring
• 0:25
  transformative therapies to patients who need the most.
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  And Kevin's path to biotech leadership started in science
• 0:31
  with his PhD at MIT and evolved through venture creation and
• 0:35
  corporate strategy. He then Co founded Quartet
• 0:39
  Medicine while serving as an EIR at Atlas Venture, and then later
• 0:42
  became Chief Strategy and Business Officer at Munich
• 0:45
  Corps. Alongside Kevin's role Kevin's
• 0:49
  role at Anara, he also serves as a venture partner at SV Health
• 0:52
  Investors. So join us today as we'll
• 0:55
  discuss Anara's approach to dark antigens, the next major
• 0:59
  milestones for Anara, as well as the importance of culture and
• 1:03
  early stage biotech. So Kevin, thanks so much for
• 1:06
  coming on. How are you?
• 1:08
  I'm great. Thanks, Tom.
• 1:09
  It's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate it.
• 1:11
  Yeah. It's a it's a pleasure.
• 1:14
  So let's just start off with your journey through the field.
• 1:16
  So you've spent more than two decades in biotech, from founded
• 1:20
  and leading startups in the US to, to now steering companies in
• 1:24
  the UK. Can you talk us through your
• 1:27
  journey and some of the key moments that shaped your your
• 1:30
  path? Yeah, happy to.
• 1:34
  You know, I think for me, and you kind of hit it, hit on it at
• 1:36
  the intro, really the first defining step of my career was
• 1:41
  at MIT when I was there in the late 90s.
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  It was a, and still is an incredibly entrepreneurial
• 1:47
  environment where, you know, professors and, and students
• 1:51
  were thinking very much how can we start companies and, and
• 1:55
  really accelerate some of the findings in the lab and bring
• 1:58
  those to patients. And so I was fortunate to have a
• 2:01
  hand in starting Momenta Pharmaceuticals out of the lab I
• 2:03
  was in when I was there for my PhD that went on to be venture
• 2:07
  funded and IPO and eventually sold.
• 2:09
  And so it was really good Crucible, I think to learn how
• 2:13
  science can be translated into companies.
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  And it was a great opportunity to kind of meet some of the
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  people in the field who are leading that.
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  So that was right probably that what got me started, if you
• 2:22
  will. And then from there, I, I really
• 2:25
  spent about 12 years or so in five or six different roles
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  spanning company creation, investing and and then operating
• 2:35
  roles. And so the operating roles for
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  leading research programs. I had the chance to run a, a
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  global clinical study and then some corporate roles as well.
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  And I think what I took from that was really a broad based
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  set of experiences that have helped me sort of become a, you
• 2:55
  know, what I would call almost like an enterprise wide leader.
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  So you can really understand from the highest level strategy
• 3:00
  down to some of the, the fine details of the science or, or
• 3:04
  the clinical programs that we're working on.
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  How do they all fit together? Where are the key questions?
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  Where are the bottlenecks and, and how to basically, you know,
• 3:12
  effectively run and build a company.
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  And so those were really formative years for me.
• 3:17
  And, and you know, it sort of took a, a few different roles in
• 3:19
  the consolidated consolidation of those learnings to kind of
• 3:24
  set me up for where I am today. And then I'd say the, the, the
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  sort of the last big move was to the UK.
• 3:31
  So we decided in 2016 to move to 1st Oxford, then London, where I
• 3:37
  took initially the role of Immunocore and then and then my
• 3:42
  venture partner role at SV Health Investors.
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  I think that was just a great personal experience.
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  Our kids were little at the time and we wanted to have a
• 3:50
  international experience for them and his family and that was
• 3:53
  great. And I think there's also
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  something about just, you know, the act of picking up and moving
• 3:58
  your life that allows you to reflect and consolidate a lot of
• 4:01
  what's gone on before. And, and I think out of those
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  reflections, you know, kind of became a little bit more in tune
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  with my own leadership style and how I wanted to bring that to
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  bear in the roles that I have. And that's been a big part of of
• 4:15
  what I've tried to bring to Anara as we've built the company
• 4:19
  over the last five plus years. So, yeah, so look, I mean, I
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  think the drivers for me are, are are really patients and
• 4:25
  people obviously trying to have an impact for patients, but
• 4:28
  doing it with great people and supporting them along the way.
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  I clearly have a passion for cutting edge science and have
• 4:35
  developed the patience and resilience that that passion
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  requires because it rarely works the first time.
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  And then I tried to develop is what I said sort of an
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  enterprise wide leadership approach where I can sort of,
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  you know sort of be at the forefront of the vision of the
• 4:48
  company, but also really get into and support and some of the
• 4:52
  details of of the programs that we're moving forward.
• 4:56
  Nice. You've obviously been leading
• 4:58
  Anara for the past few years. What what was that initial spark
• 5:02
  that led to the founding of Anara?
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  I can imagine at a Munich call, there was probably a little bit
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  of crossover in terms of what you were doing there and and
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  what you were doing now. But what was that initial spark
• 5:12
  that thought, yeah, we need to, we need to go, go after this?
• 5:16
  Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, part of the
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  driving belief I had it at Immunocore and we have at Anara
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  is that the field of T cell engagers is going to come of age
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  as a therapeutic class for solid tumors.
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  And and we're seeing that now there are multiple approved
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  products, you know, one from Immunocore and Chemtrac, another
• 5:39
  from Amgen and MD Ultra that are you know, literally transforming
• 5:43
  patient therapy. The MD Ultra data released last
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  week at ESMO in Berlin showed a doubling of overall survival for
• 5:52
  patients in first line when combined with checkpoint.
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  Like absolutely amazing stuff. So we're, we're, we're seeing
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  that now. And then the accompanying belief
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  was, if this happens, we're going to need a new set of
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  targets for T cell engagers, because very quickly you're
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  going to be running into targets who have liabilities that, you
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  know, maybe you can work around, maybe you can't.
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  And so Anara really began with a a simple, but you know, quite
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  provocative idea. And I was asking the question,
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  you know, look, there's this whole portion of the genome that
• 6:23
  that is considered dark or or non coding conventionally.
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  Can we go find cancer specific antigens that have best in class
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  attributes from this sort of unmind region of the genome?
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  And then if so, build programs around them?
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  And so I think you're right in coming from immunocore and
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  having a sense of T cell engagers, that was really
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  helpful. And Immunocore in many ways was
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  my crash course on in oncology. But then being able to apply
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  that to this whole new cutting edge area of science, which
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  which quite frankly, when we started was almost an idea.
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  There was very little data to kind of back this up.
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  And now what we've been able to show and thankfully others are
• 7:01
  showing as well is that you can discover, you can validate and
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  you can really find best in class targets around which to
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  build programs. And so that's what we've been
• 7:10
  focused on over the last five or six years and it's great to see
• 7:13
  that bearing fruit with our pipeline.
• 7:16
  Nice. You mentioned a couple of
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  companies there that that are already approved in that space
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  for, for what you guys are doing who are like the main
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  competitors in terms of those companies that are similar sort
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  of stage to you guys who who do you see as the competitors for
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  what you're doing? Yeah.
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  And it's, it's, it's an interesting way to frame the
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  question. I, I think the, the field in
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  terms of its maturity is being LED as I said by Immunocore and
• 7:40
  Amgen. And I think that's great because
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  they're providing, you know, for us, for investors, for other
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  pharma reason to believe that this approach can really
• 7:50
  transform cancer therapy for patients.
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  And then I actually look, there's a whole set of peer
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  companies that that I actually refer to the mass who are at a
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  similar stage to us looking at T cell engagers for novel targets.
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  And the reason I don't call them competitors 1, you know, they're
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  run by friends of mine. And we actually will often
• 8:11
  compare notes. In fact, you have Rob Ross on
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  the podcast The Clasp. He's another company in the
• 8:16
  space, Crossbow run by Big Briggs Morrison, Cdr Live run by
• 8:21
  Christian Leisner. And you know, I look at this as
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  we're pure companies. We're trying to be the next wave
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  of innovators here. And ultimately we're going to
• 8:30
  compete on our targets and we're going to compete on our
• 8:33
  molecules. And each of the companies has
• 8:35
  different targets and different molecules that we're going
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  after. So those are some of the other
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  companies that I look at in the space.
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  But but really, you know, I think hope I view them and
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  hopefully they view us as as peers who are trying to support
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  each other and you know, really try to make an impact for
• 8:50
  patients and ultimately compete on our programs versus beat each
• 8:53
  other up all the time. And just in terms of the
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  concepts of dark antigens, I know it's quite a distinctive
• 9:01
  Ave. What drew you to that uncharted
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  space that's in immunotherapy at the moment?
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  Yeah, I think, you know, it was, it was really driven by that
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  belief that we need new targets. And, you know, people have been
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  mining the conventional genome really for decades, really
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  since, you know, it was first sequenced in the, and even
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  before that, you know, in the early 2000s and before.
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  And So what we were looking for is a new space to go after where
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  we can kind of take, you know, some of the emerging technology
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  and the Nexus of those technologies and apply it in a
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  way that would, you know, hopefully enable us to do this.
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  And what we were looking for is when you have a whole new area
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  to to explore, a sandbox to play in, you can be very deliberate
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  about the types of characteristics you're looking
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  for in the targets you're seeking.
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  And so that was what was really important for us, what we wanted
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  to find our targets that really have best in class attributes
• 10:00
  across the board. And so some of those in, in, in
• 10:04
  cancer are tumor specificity. You really want things that are
• 10:08
  exclusively found in cancer or or at least massively enriched
• 10:12
  in, in cancer over normal cells. So you can have, you know,
• 10:16
  really potent molecules without the risk of side effects, severe
• 10:22
  side effects. We also look for targets that
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  are highly prevalent and shared across patients, right?
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  So we don't, we really want a broad set of addressable
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  patients across major solid tumor types with unmet need, not
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  just a a small slice of patients.
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  And then you look for things that are biologically abundant,
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  right, that are, that are homogeneous in the tumor that
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  are retained across different lines of cancer and therapy that
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  are, you know, robustly presented at the cell surface.
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  And so that's basically what we've set out to find.
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  And, and, and in, in many ways, that's what we have found in, in
• 10:59
  the dark antigens that we've discovered.
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  And you know, we've, we've been fortunate to have a long
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  standing partnership with Barringer Ingleheim and where
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  they have licensed 8 dark antigens from us for a program
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  they're running. And then just recently we've
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  started to talk publicly about our, our lead target, which is
• 11:20
  called Dark Fox because it's an alternative open reading frame
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  of a, a known cancer gene that's, you know, has all the
• 11:27
  hallmarks of cancer. It's involved in cancer
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  initiation, it's involved in cancer stem cells, it's involved
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  in metastasis and people haven't been able to drug it because the
• 11:37
  actual parent gene is is found in normal cells, excuse me,
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  where the target that we found is actually cancer specific, an
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  alternative open reading frame of the gene.
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  So again, this has all the hallmarks of what we set out to
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  find, tumor specificity, high prevalence shared across major
• 11:54
  patient population. So anyway, we're really excited
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  about about this program and about taking the first dark
• 12:01
  antigen targeted T cell engager into the clinic.
• 12:04
  Nice, exciting. And for those that might not be
• 12:08
  as familiar with the science that you guys do, could you just
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  walk us through Anara's ADAPT platform and how it finds dark
• 12:15
  cancers and targets in in tumors?
• 12:18
  Yeah, absolutely. So I think you could think of
• 12:22
  our platform really as a a funnel where we can start with a
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  broad set of potential targets and then really whittle it down
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  to, you know, just a small number that that end up having
• 12:33
  these best in class attributes I was mentioning.
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  And So what we've built to do that is really an integrated set
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  of capabilities at Anara. So we have a computational
• 12:44
  biology team that's really steeped in data analysis and
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  mining and increasingly AIML approaches to do that.
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  We have a mass spectrometry team that's really focused on
• 12:56
  identifying targets from primary human tumors, which is is a high
• 13:02
  bar. And then we have a wonderful
• 13:04
  immunology team that can go through and drive a lot of our
• 13:07
  target validation. And so this is basically, you
• 13:11
  know, how how we put it together, we built this all
• 13:13
  internally. Our belief is that when we first
• 13:16
  started this, you know, there, there really wasn't a lot of
• 13:18
  other people doing it and, and the integrated capabilities were
• 13:23
  necessary. I also find and, and this is,
• 13:26
  you know, sort of a broader reflection, I guess is that a
• 13:28
  lot of the innovation and magic that happens in companies
• 13:31
  happens at the interface of these different disciplines.
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  And so having the scientists collaborating, working together,
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  being on project teams together really helps has helped us drive
• 13:42
  and innovate our pipeline over time.
• 13:46
  So those are the components. That's how it all sits together.
• 13:49
  Basically the the process is we we are able to look at the dark
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  genome, which you know had previously thought to been non
• 13:57
  coded and was not annotated in the same way as the other as the
• 14:01
  rest of the genome was when it was sequenced.
• 14:03
  And it allows us to predict, we have a set of technologies that
• 14:07
  allow us to predict computationally which parts of
• 14:10
  the dark genome may actually make proteins in cancer.
• 14:14
  We then can use the mass spec traumatry approaches that we
• 14:18
  have to look in primary human tumor tissue and ask the
• 14:22
  question of these sequences that we think could be found in
• 14:27
  cancer and not normal cells. Have we found them?
• 14:30
  And only once we find them, the question then is, can you map
• 14:33
  that to a very specific region of the genome that was
• 14:38
  previously thought to be, you know, non coding and identify a
• 14:41
  very specific sequence. And once we've done that, then
• 14:44
  we have an incredibly robust and rigorous validation set of
• 14:50
  technology we used to, you know, look at intratumoral
• 14:54
  homogeneity, confirm prevalence, confirm normal cell or confirm
• 14:59
  cancer selectivity over normal cells.
• 15:02
  And so that's kind of the pipeline at a very high level
• 15:04
  and some of the components that we've built and, and again, we,
• 15:08
  you know, we've set a very high bar for, for what comes out the
• 15:10
  other end. But, you know, it's been great
• 15:13
  to to sort of watch this mature over the last five or six years
• 15:16
  and are thrilled with what we're able to find.
• 15:20
  Nice. And then I think just generally
• 15:22
  solid tumors have historically been difficult for
• 15:25
  immunotherapies to track. Where do you see the field of T
• 15:29
  cell therapy for treated solid tumors today?
• 15:33
  Yeah, you're, you're right. I think it, it has been a
• 15:35
  challenge over time. I think we all benefited from
• 15:38
  and it's all the benefits of for patients with checkpoint
• 15:42
  inhibitors and, and you know, in predict in particular the PD1
• 15:46
  PDL one access. But then I think when those
• 15:49
  started to come on the scene, we, we all just thought, well,
• 15:52
  there's going to be loads more of these and that really hasn't
• 15:54
  been the case. And so where I see the field
• 15:57
  today is really kind of moving back to a, you know, patient
• 16:02
  centric and targeted therapy based approach where we can
• 16:05
  really try to find who are the patients that have our targets,
• 16:09
  who are, you know, how are they and, and, and really those are
• 16:11
  the ones who are going to be most likely to benefit.
• 16:13
  And then that's really what we're, we're focused on with our
• 16:17
  dark antigens is being able to select the patients that are
• 16:19
  going to benefit. I think the other exciting
• 16:21
  advance and we touched on this earlier is the, you know, the
• 16:25
  dawn of T cell engagers and and being and and seeing those have
• 16:30
  a real impact for patients. I think, you know, there was an
• 16:33
  cell therapy and in solid tumors has been hard where it's been
• 16:36
  more successful in him. So to see T cell redirection
• 16:40
  working in solid tumors with with actually modest amounts of
• 16:44
  of cytokine release syndrome, which has been a challenging
• 16:49
  him. So I think we really are at the
• 16:51
  dawn of a new era here with immunotherapy in solid tumors
• 16:55
  and thinking about it on a more targeted approach, as I
• 16:58
  mentioned, I think that's where it's going to be.
• 17:00
  I, I'd say the other parallel innovation again that you could
• 17:05
  potentially view as competitive, but actually we think is, is
• 17:08
  quite exciting and and something we want to take advantage of of
• 17:12
  has been in ADC's where you basically see now antibodies.
• 17:16
  So again, a targeted approach to delivering chemotherapy to the
• 17:20
  tumor. And we've seen some incredible
• 17:22
  data across a range of solid tumors in the ADC space.
• 17:25
  And you've seen now several ADC's move upstream into earlier
• 17:30
  lines of therapy. And So what we're excited about
• 17:33
  and probably where we hope and expect to see the next frontier
• 17:38
  of success in solid tumor immunotherapy is in combination.
• 17:43
  So what Immunocore has taught, taught us what, what Amgen's now
• 17:46
  clearly shown with their M Deltra program is that T cell
• 17:50
  engagers work best in earlier lines of earlier lines of
• 17:55
  therapy where you have a more fit immune system.
• 17:58
  And in those patients can really provide transformative benefit
• 18:02
  over standard of care, even if that standard of care is already
• 18:05
  immunotherapy, right. So M Deltra and small cell lung
• 18:08
  cancer combined with PDL 1 inhibition, you know as I said
• 18:14
  that has led to a doubling of overall survival for those
• 18:16
  patients. And so we see now T cell engager
• 18:21
  combinations with chemotherapy with ADC's as really, really
• 18:27
  exciting approaches. So our approach from a clinical
• 18:30
  development perspective is you will absolutely start in late
• 18:33
  line patients. We absolutely expect to see
• 18:35
  monotherapy efficacy, but the benefit of T cell engagers and
• 18:40
  and the real market opportunity as well for for pharma is
• 18:43
  upstream. And so our, our clinical
• 18:44
  development strategy is geared towards rapid signal seeking and
• 18:48
  then moving upstream in combination with standard of
• 18:51
  care and the indications we're going after.
• 18:53
  Yeah. For sure.
• 18:55
  And just on to the culture piece.
• 18:57
  I know this is a bit, Yeah, that you you really put as one of
• 19:00
  your top mantras. And I know it's an element that
• 19:04
  can sometimes get lost in, in biotech.
• 19:07
  How have you gone about building a company that that puts people
• 19:10
  first? I think just from having the
• 19:12
  pleasure of of working with Anara, this is something that's
• 19:14
  definitely echoed across the business.
• 19:18
  Yeah. How have you gone about building
• 19:19
  a company that that puts the people first?
• 19:22
  Yeah, Well, that's, that's really nice to hear.
• 19:24
  That's that's been your experience as well.
• 19:25
  Yeah, I'm a big culture guy. I think, you know, for me, I
• 19:29
  think it's really been driven by two things, right?
• 19:31
  I think we've all had the experience of working at
• 19:34
  companies where the culture wasn't something they were
• 19:37
  investing in and was suboptimal. And, and I think I've been able
• 19:41
  to kind of learn from that. And then, and then I think it's
• 19:43
  also, I mean, for me, I think a leadership is really a internal
• 19:47
  reflection and, and really a, you know, there's a lot of
• 19:50
  inspiration out there, but ultimately we all are leaders.
• 19:54
  And how I lead and how you lead and how others lead is, is going
• 19:57
  to be unique to us. And so really spending time to
• 20:00
  reflect on what's important to me, how do I want to bring that
• 20:05
  out in the work that I do and the people I work with, you
• 20:09
  know, that's been the primary driver.
• 20:10
  So it really is a, a sort of a lived belief that, you know, we
• 20:15
  can all through the work we do together, not only make an
• 20:18
  ultimate, you know, benefit to patients.
• 20:20
  But actually how we turn up everyday, how we treat each
• 20:23
  other, how we promote individual growth and development within
• 20:27
  the work we do, you know, that's incredible.
• 20:29
  That's all in our control. And and actually the force
• 20:33
  multiplier of that, if we are able to make work a engaging,
• 20:37
  fulfilling experience for our employees is huge, right?
• 20:40
  I mean, you're going to be a happier person, you're going to
• 20:41
  be a better partner, you're going to be a better parent,
• 20:45
  etcetera. So anyway, so that's where the
• 20:47
  belief comes from for me. And then what we've tried to do
• 20:50
  at Anara is, you know, create an atmosphere that brings that to
• 20:54
  life. And so our culture that we, the,
• 20:57
  the metaphor that we use at Anara is at the Anara
• 21:00
  expedition. It's obviously it's, it's, it's
• 21:03
  a metaphor around being on a journey, something we're on
• 21:06
  together where everybody plays a role.
• 21:08
  And ultimately there's no destination, right?
• 21:11
  This is constantly evolving. It's it may be easy to think
• 21:15
  that you know you, you set the culture and then you're done.
• 21:18
  That's definitely not the case. You need to be diligent and
• 21:21
  deliberate with it. And so within that, we've set up
• 21:25
  three main pillars that we use for purpose.
• 21:28
  Like my most biotechs were driven by turning our insights
• 21:31
  into medicines that can help people live free from the shadow
• 21:34
  of cancer. Our second signpost, your pillar
• 21:37
  is autonomy. This is driven by a belief that
• 21:40
  people are most strongly motivated and connected to their
• 21:44
  work when they feel like they're in control.
• 21:47
  And so we've built a role based operating system that enables
• 21:51
  this. It's moving away from job
• 21:53
  descriptions and allows people to explore different passions in
• 21:57
  the company and contribute in a way that they, you know, they're
• 22:00
  that we, we really don't like boxes and boundaries.
• 22:04
  We really want to make sure people can broadly contribute
• 22:06
  based on their interests. And we do this all in a
• 22:08
  relatively flat structure that does require, though, a lot of
• 22:13
  accountability to the individual that goes along with the
• 22:16
  autonomy pillar. And then the last pillar is
• 22:18
  authenticity, which really just comes down to a belief that, you
• 22:21
  know, if we can all just be ourselves to, to to a greater or
• 22:24
  lesser degree and connect at that level, it's just a much
• 22:28
  richer work experience. And we're not spending time
• 22:30
  worrying about like, what do you think about me or, you know, am
• 22:33
  I being judged? We can just connect and, you
• 22:36
  know, build relationships and, and deliver on our science in a
• 22:40
  much more efficient way. So that's kind of the, the
• 22:44
  expedition. We also have 4 values that we,
• 22:46
  we live by and that we, you know, actually judge performance
• 22:50
  on. And those are courage really,
• 22:53
  and everything we do, empowerment and supporting each
• 22:55
  other, growth, which is really a personal growth and development.
• 22:59
  Everybody should be seeking to have a growth mindset and
• 23:03
  seeking to develop themselves through the work that we do
• 23:05
  together. And then the last is humility
• 23:08
  and recognizing that, you know, by no means are we the experts
• 23:12
  in everything that we do. And we, we need to seek advice
• 23:14
  and seek input and, and be humble in the face of the, you
• 23:18
  know, the, the massive amount of science and, and, and clinical
• 23:21
  work that we have ahead of us. And then we just try to bring
• 23:25
  this all together through off site meetings every year, clubs
• 23:28
  monthly, all Staffs, personal development workshops and other
• 23:32
  practices that we've woven into our culture to, to bring this to
• 23:38
  life. And, and I think one of the
• 23:39
  things I'm, I guess two things I'm really proud of about this
• 23:43
  is it's not just me, right? Everybody at Anara kind of is
• 23:46
  contributing to this and driving it all in their own ways.
• 23:51
  And then the second thing is, you know, I've, I've seen people
• 23:53
  I've worked with and have moved on to other roles, reflect back
• 23:57
  on their time at Anara really is a time of growth and, and, and
• 24:02
  impact and, and fulfillment that they've been able to take with
• 24:05
  them into their next roles. So, you know, really proud of,
• 24:09
  of what we've built here. And I do think it's our secret
• 24:11
  weapon in many ways, and it's allowed us to be nimble and
• 24:15
  pivot and, and really, you know, survive in a incredibly
• 24:20
  challenging time for for for biotech, especially, you know,
• 24:24
  when we've seen science curve balls and other things come our
• 24:27
  way. So yeah, anyway, that's a little
• 24:29
  bit about on our expedition, our culture.
• 24:31
  Nice. And I love that.
• 24:33
  It's certainly refreshing to hear just how important people
• 24:37
  and culture is to is to a business, and it sounds like
• 24:40
  you're doing an amazing job with that.
• 24:42
  No, thank you. Yeah.
• 24:44
  So you guys, you mentioned before, so Anara, based in
• 24:48
  Oxford yourself, you're based in the US as well as your CFO and
• 24:53
  CBO in the US as well. How do you make that sort of
• 24:57
  transatlantic model work in practice?
• 25:00
  Are there any challenges that come with that?
• 25:03
  And I guess what are the main advantages as well?
• 25:05
  And does that have any effects on culture at all, if any?
• 25:11
  Yeah, it's a, it's a great question.
• 25:13
  And, and I think it's also one that could be easily overlooked
• 25:16
  if you're not really deliberate with it.
• 25:18
  So, I mean, I have the benefit of building Anara during my time
• 25:22
  in the UK and, and, and I'm grateful for the strong
• 25:26
  relationships I have across the company.
• 25:28
  And, and when we moved back to the Boston area a couple years
• 25:31
  ago for family reasons, I, you know, all those relationships
• 25:34
  exist and you can take advantage of them.
• 25:36
  And, and, and still in in many ways, my best work days are the
• 25:39
  ones where during my regular visits to, to Oxford and, and at
• 25:44
  the team with Anara. So I, I guess more of
• 25:48
  philosophically with the transatlantic or maybe
• 25:50
  disaggregated team concept. I mean, even pre COVID I've been
• 25:54
  of the belief that, you know, fundamentally as a, as an early
• 25:57
  stage company, we need to attract the absolute best people
• 26:01
  we can to Anara and you know, within reason accommodate the
• 26:05
  geographical differences that that brings.
• 26:08
  Now when we were in the UK, you know, we have a CMO in London.
• 26:11
  We had our chief operating officer living north of London.
• 26:16
  I was living in London and so while that's not transatlantic,
• 26:20
  you know, it still meant that we weren't going to be together
• 26:22
  every day. And so we were able to think
• 26:24
  about how do we spend our time, who's in the office, when, when
• 26:26
  are we going to be together and how collectively can we leave
• 26:29
  the company. And so when we looked to hire
• 26:32
  our CBOCFO who joined in April, I said, look, let's look, we've
• 26:38
  got to look broadly. We should look in the UK, we
• 26:40
  should look in Europe, but let's look on the East Coast as well.
• 26:43
  I, I think getting outside of, of the East Coast is, is, can
• 26:48
  create challenges, just time zones and, and, and ways of
• 26:51
  working. And we're fortunate to find
• 26:53
  Stacy, who joined us in April, who's also based on the East
• 26:56
  Coast, just an incredible set of experience that, you know, has
• 27:00
  helped transform where we are and where we're going.
• 27:03
  And so for me, it's, it's about hiring people with the right
• 27:06
  mindset, the right experience, and then being just very
• 27:10
  intentional and deliberate about how we spend time together,
• 27:14
  knowing that we're not going to all be, you know, in the office
• 27:17
  together with the rest of the team.
• 27:19
  And, and I think that for me, I think that the fundamental
• 27:23
  thing, and this is true with any higher but, but definitely with
• 27:26
  this transatlantic footprint piece is trying to create a
• 27:30
  sense of belonging for that individual within the company.
• 27:34
  And I think if you get that right and they really feel like
• 27:37
  they're part of Anara and, and they're able to contribute and
• 27:41
  they're able to have an impact and you can do that really early
• 27:44
  on, then I think that everything is so much easier.
• 27:47
  I think what I've made plenty of mistakes where I've gotten that
• 27:50
  wrong and that very almost inevitably leads to people
• 27:55
  leaving. And so I think just being very,
• 27:57
  you know, again, within reason to geography, being very
• 28:01
  deliberate about how you spend time together, how you build
• 28:03
  relationships, how you create that sense of belonging as part
• 28:07
  of the senior team, as part of the company.
• 28:10
  I think if you can do that and you hire people with the right
• 28:12
  mindset and experience, then you know, you can make it work And,
• 28:17
  and there are benefits. I, I think you've hit, hit, hit
• 28:19
  on that nicely. We have, you know, our lead
• 28:22
  investor is based in Boston, our chairman is based in Boston.
• 28:26
  Instead of doing half hour zoom calls with them, I can now go to
• 28:29
  their house. We can meet for lunch or, or
• 28:32
  dinner. And so I, I do really think
• 28:34
  there are benefits to come with it as well.
• 28:38
  But ultimately it's, it's, you know, it's driven out of
• 28:40
  necessity and, and you just, you know, if you're, I think just
• 28:43
  like most things, if you're really thoughtful and
• 28:45
  deliberate, you can, you can make it work to your benefit.
• 28:48
  Yeah, for sure. And just back to Anara, So
• 28:52
  you've recently raised the Series B round to accelerate the
• 28:56
  pipeline. There was some obviously some
• 28:58
  really top investors as part of that as well.
• 29:01
  What are the next sort of major milestones that you're you're
• 29:04
  looking forward to with with Anara?
• 29:07
  Yeah. No, you're right.
• 29:08
  We, we were fortunate to bring in Pfizer and M ventures into
• 29:12
  our Series B. We've now had five different
• 29:16
  pharmaceutical companies underwrite our science either
• 29:19
  through partnership or through investment.
• 29:21
  I'm really proud of that fact that in our.
• 29:25
  So what's next where we've just declared a candidate for our
• 29:29
  lead Dark Fox program that's going to be heading to into it
• 29:33
  is in Ind enabling studies and heading to clinical proof of
• 29:36
  concept over the next couple of years.
• 29:38
  So we just incredibly excited about that progress and seeing
• 29:41
  what this molecule and and target can do in the clinic.
• 29:46
  We have a maturing pipeline behind that, a second candidate
• 29:49
  for candidate selection early next year.
• 29:52
  And then we continue to explore science and we think that the
• 29:55
  dark genome real estate is vast and, and we've pulled out some
• 29:59
  interesting things, but we're also starting to look now at
• 30:02
  other classes of, of dark antigens including cell surface
• 30:04
  targets that we think could be really, really interesting
• 30:08
  either for T cell engagers or ADCS or other approaches down
• 30:11
  down the road. So that's kind of a new
• 30:13
  scientific frontier. And then we continue to partner
• 30:16
  with Wenger Engelheim and are very excited about seeing them
• 30:19
  progress a cancer vaccine with with eight dark antigens in it
• 30:25
  into the clinic. So very excited about what we've
• 30:27
  achieved, even more excited about what's to come, especially
• 30:31
  as we can test and hopefully demonstrate the power of the
• 30:36
  dark antigens in the clinic. Yeah, for sure.
• 30:39
  And this is a question that we always finish with on the
• 30:42
  Biohub. And I know I wanted to give you
• 30:45
  a bit of a heads up with it as it probably takes a little bit
• 30:47
  of thought. But if if you were to have
• 30:49
  dinner with any free people past or present, who would you have
• 30:53
  and why? Doesn't necessarily need to be
• 30:55
  biotech innovators, although it can be if you like.
• 30:59
  But yeah, free people you'd have dinner with.
• 31:02
  Yeah, it's an absolutely great question.
• 31:03
  And, and obviously required a bit of reflection and, and part
• 31:06
  of the reflection was I, I actually haven't chosen any
• 31:08
  scientists or biotech innovators.
• 31:10
  So I needed to just double check that.
• 31:12
  But, but actually I think in, in many ways that's not deliberate.
• 31:16
  I have, like many of us, lots of interests outside of, of work
• 31:20
  and, and art and history and, and ideas and leadership.
• 31:25
  So I think this is probably more reflective of that.
• 31:26
  So, so I'm a big fan, as I said, of history and history of ideas.
• 31:30
  There's just so much wisdom out there that we can learn from and
• 31:33
  pay attention to. And, and I'm also a huge fan of
• 31:36
  conversation. So the person my first dinner
• 31:40
  guest I selected would be Melvin Bragg, who's the BBC host of, of
• 31:47
  In Our Time, which is just a absolute gift to humanity.
• 31:52
  And, and some ways maybe he was the, you know, sort of godfather
• 31:56
  of podcasting, having been doing that for the last 25 plus years.
• 32:00
  But just, you know, sort of a wealth of, of information
• 32:03
  conversations on pretty much any topic you can imagine over those
• 32:05
  years. And such a huge source of
• 32:07
  wisdom, something I love listening to.
• 32:09
  And he just retired actually. So maybe he is actually free to
• 32:12
  have dinner. The 2nd guest I chose was
• 32:17
  somebody who really has inspired me since childhood.
• 32:21
  When I first saw his, there was a sort of transformational
• 32:25
  program in the late 80s on on PBS, which is sort of public
• 32:31
  broadcasting in the US, where a guy named Bill Moyers
• 32:35
  interviewed Joseph Campbell. So Joseph Campbell is my second
• 32:37
  dinner guest, who in many ways is sort of a classic scholar, a
• 32:41
  teacher in the classical sense, But his study was really
• 32:44
  mythology and a lot of what common human experience that
• 32:50
  binds us, that shared experience that makes us human, what that's
• 32:54
  look like over time. And he's been able to draw some
• 32:57
  really just fundamental lessons on what it means to be a good
• 33:00
  person, what it means to lead a worthy life and have impact.
• 33:05
  And that's really meant a lot to me over the years.
• 33:07
  It's something I return to a lot and and has helped shape, you
• 33:11
  know, my own philosophy on leadership and and and how I
• 33:15
  turn up. So would love to have dinner
• 33:16
  with him. He sadly has passed away.
• 33:18
  And then finally, I'm a huge fan of street art.
• 33:21
  A lot of my photo stream and screen savers are are, you know,
• 33:25
  different street art I've seen over over the years.
• 33:27
  And so my last dinner guest would actually be Banksy.
• 33:32
  So huge admirer of his work. You know that I love the
• 33:36
  edginess and the anti established messages as well.
• 33:40
  And then I'd actually get the benefit of figuring out who he
• 33:42
  is. So that would be that would be
• 33:44
  cool. So anyway, those are my 3 dinner
• 33:47
  guests. Nice.
• 33:49
  But look, I'm sure that'd be an interesting dinner.
• 33:55
  Yeah, you're. Welcome to join, Tom.
• 33:56
  Yeah. But look, thanks so much for
• 33:58
  coming on and helping us out with this.
• 34:00
  It sounds like what you're building at an hour, both
• 34:02
  culturally and scientifically is is amazing.
• 34:05
  And yeah, I continue to to follow you guys from Yeah, it
• 34:09
  sounds like what you're doing is amazing.
• 34:11
  So thanks again for for helping us out with this and it was an
• 34:14
  absolute pleasure to to catch up again.
• 34:17
  No, likewise. Thanks for the invitation and
• 34:19
  and yeah, appreciate the conversation.