Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 124 - Jason Ehrlich - CEO & Co-Founder of Ollin Biosciences

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Episode 124 - Jason Ehrlich - CEO & Co-Founder of Ollin Biosciences · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  So welcome back to the episode of the Bio Hub.
• 0:08
  Today we're delighted to be joined by Jason Ehrlich, A
• 0:11
  visionary visionary leader at the cutting edge of
• 0:14
  ophthalmology drug development and the Co founder and CEO of
• 0:18
  All in Biosciences. All In is a newly launched
• 0:21
  clinical stage biotech with a mission to develop therapies for
• 0:24
  serious vision threatening conditions and backed by 100
• 0:28
  million Series A round. Holland is building a robust
• 0:32
  pipeline by acquiring and developing advanced biological
• 0:35
  assets. So join us today as we'll
• 0:39
  discuss how Holland pulled off an incredible 100 million Series
• 0:42
  A round in the current market and insight into Holland's
• 0:45
  pipeline as well as Jason transition from ACMO to CEO.
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  So Jason, thanks so much for coming on.
• 0:52
  How are you? Hey, Tom, I'm great and thanks
• 0:55
  so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here
• 0:56
  today, happy to share our story and look forward to the
• 0:59
  conversation. Look, it's an absolute pleasure
• 1:01
  to have you on and good to catch up again.
• 1:03
  So look, let's just start off with a little bit about your
• 1:06
  journey through the field, how you get to where you are today.
• 1:08
  So can you talk us through your journey in biotech and in and in
• 1:12
  medicine and what experiences led to, to, to where you are
• 1:15
  today? Yeah, Thanks, Tom.
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  If we go back to the, I suppose the way back machine at this
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  point. So I, I did MDPHD combined
• 1:23
  program at Stanford and then clinical training in
• 1:27
  ophthalmology also there. So out, out in the Bay Area and
• 1:30
  you know, Silicon Valley of course, is a very
• 1:32
  entrepreneurial place. Stanford is a, you know, really
• 1:34
  interesting place to be a student and, you know, advanced
• 1:37
  degree trainee because there's so many entrepreneurial things
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  that were happening there at the time across the Medical Center,
• 1:44
  across the faculty, with pharmaceutical development, with
• 1:47
  biotech. And there have been a long
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  history of that. So that was an area I became
• 1:51
  really interested in and I was also really interested in
• 1:54
  clinical trials and clinical research.
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  And after my clinical training at Stanford, this was right
• 2:00
  around the time when Genentech's Lucentis product, you know, the
• 2:04
  first really highly potent anti VEGF was undergoing phase three
• 2:08
  development and an early commercialization.
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  Genentech had a research fellowship where you know, for
• 2:15
  clinicians where you know, after your clinical training you could
• 2:17
  come and learn about drug development.
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  I got introduced to the Genentech team through, you
• 2:23
  know, various Stanford faculty and had an opportunity to take
• 2:29
  take a year to do that fellowship.
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  And you know, I think that really set the stage for what,
• 2:34
  at least for me, has been a very interesting and personally and
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  professionally stimulating an exciting journey in my career.
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  So I spent the year at Genentech back around 2000 and eight,
• 2:44
  2009, learned as much as I could about how drug development
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  worked. You know, things that you know,
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  were maybe basic questions in the scheme of things, but you
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  know, really unknowns to me at the time as a somebody who had
• 3:00
  just finished clinical and scientific training.
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  How does a clinical trial work? What goes into an Ind, what's
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  how does statistics and statistical programming work?
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  How does safety monitoring work? All these like core things of
• 3:11
  drug development. And then, you know, I really
• 3:14
  fell in love with that and I ended up spending ten years at
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  Genentech and Roche. Ultimately I was the global head
• 3:20
  of late stage product development for ophthalmology.
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  There worked on a number of programs that, you know,
• 3:25
  ultimately led to approved products and the number of
• 3:27
  programs that didn't, as is the nature of our business.
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  Then I wanted to do something a bit more entrepreneurial, learn
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  more about biotech, smaller companies.
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  I joined Kodiak Sciences as their CMO and head of
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  development back in 2018. I spent five years there
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  building a team to do global development and ophthalmology at
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  Kodiak, which was a wonderful set of experiences.
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  And that sort of, you know, positioned me for taking this
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  next step on the journey of becoming ACEO and learning, you
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  know, launching Allen over the about 2 1/2 years ago.
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  Exciting. What inspired you to Co found
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  all in Biosciences? Why was it now that you thought
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  this is a good time to to go out and and bring a new company into
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  the market and what gap in ophthalmology were you really
• 4:13
  trying to address as well? I think for Allen, you know the,
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  the, the remit for our from our investors and the vision for the
• 4:20
  company is to you know, develop projects broadly within
• 4:24
  ophthalmology. So the remit for the company is,
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  you know, developing high impact therapies across the major
• 4:33
  market indications and ophthalmology, you know, as
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  opposed to a company that was started on a particular
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  technology platform or a particular scientific pathway or
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  idea licensed out of academia. The idea for Allen was to go a
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  little bit broader and survey the field of ophthalmology.
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  Where do we feel like the really important unmet needs are over
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  the next say 5 plus years, right.
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  Can we identify interesting biologies and interesting assets
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  and opportunities that would address those major market
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  opportunities and build a team of really experienced people in
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  each of the particular categories that you need to be
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  successful in Drug development, non clinical manufacturing,
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  regulatory clinical development, commercialization, market
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  access, all of those core to core areas.
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  You know, the Co founders of Allen had built like a really
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  wonderful network over 15 years of experience in the field.
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  Could we bring together, you know, the best of that network
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  on the people side and on the idea side relationships with
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  Kols thought leaders and under like a deep understanding of
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  where the unmet needs really work.
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  Can we put all of that together and build something that was,
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  you know, hopefully really special company that could
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  address some of these bigger challenges in the field over
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  like the next five year time horizon?
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  We're really fortunate to be able to partner with Arch
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  Mubatala and Monograph capital to seed and then from the
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  company they really shared and in that vision that have been
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  wonderful thought partners with us.
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  So it was really the the coming together was those ideas, the
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  interest from the investors and a view that there was a really
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  interesting and timely opportunity to build a company
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  like that in ophthalmology. Nice.
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  Just to delve into the pipeline a little bit further, you've
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  obviously got some pretty exciting programs ongoing,
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  including OLN 324 and then OLN 1102.
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  Can you explain what makes these by specifics therapies best in
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  class and how they differentiate from from existing treatments
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  that are out there currently? One of the important theses of
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  the company is can we build upon and further optimize upon
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  validated biologies in the fields of ophthalmology where
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  we're working and then, you know, use those, use those
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  validated biologies as a springboard for further
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  improvements in clinical outcomes for patients and
• 6:59
  physicians. So that that's like a core
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  concept, right? And so for for the first
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  program, OLM 324, that's a small format, higher potency, high
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  molar dose VEGF Ange 2 by specific for for the major
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  retinal vascular diseases, wet AMD diabetic macular edema and
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  you know, the other, the other diseases and indications that
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  anti VEGF backbone therapy is used for for today in retina.
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  And that's a very large market, you know, $15 billion market
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  worldwide. And there's, there's some really
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  interesting aspects about that market, including the fact that
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  it's quite dynamic and it has rapidly the retina market has
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  really rapidly adopted new therapies that offer improved
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  outcomes for patients. So for for OLM 324, you know,
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  relative to the current generation of anti VEGF backbone
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  based therapies, you know, either monospecific or, or
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  bispecific, such as Roche's Bismo that has taken a lot of
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  market share. It's optimized along maybe like
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  3 axes, right? The first is potency.
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  So it's 30 to 60 fold more potent of an inch two inhibitor
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  on the inch two side. The second is sort of size and
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  format of the of the protein. So it's a small format by
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  specific, it's roughly 401K Dalton.
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  So it's, you know, around 2530% the size of a typical full
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  length antibody. So to the extent that
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  penetration into the retinal tissues and choroid is important
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  in one or the other of these major indications that we're
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  treating, that's an interesting point of differentiation.
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  And then it can be concentrated to a quite high molar dose,
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  which means we can put a fair amount of drug in the eye, which
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  gives you the potential for a longer duration of effect than
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  the current medicines. So those are the sort of the
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  three points that we're exploring in a, in a head to
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  head study versus the Bismo that'll, you know, we expect to,
• 9:00
  to read out early in Q12026. So that's the first program.
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  And again, the concept there was, can we take what we've
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  learned in retina wet AMD and DME drug drug development over,
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  you know, like a 1520 year period and, you know, optimize
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  the, the, the, the design and potency of the protein on a
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  couple of different, you know, orthogonal axis.
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  And then see if that medicine will result in incremental
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  improvements for patients that will be quite meaningful for
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  them relative to the current standard of care.
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  So that's that's 324 for one O 2.
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  That's a program for 1st and class by specific for thyroid
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  eye disease and potentially Graves' disease, the broader
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  autoimmune indication autoimmune thyroid disease that results in
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  thyroid eye disease and that's a bispecific antibody targeting
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  with IGF one receptor as well as TSH receptor.
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  And again the idea there was how do we build upon and further
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  improve on validated biologies. So the IGF 1R class has been for
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  thyroid eye disease has been quite well validated by the, you
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  know, the the clinical and commercial success of TEPEZZA,
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  which is a drug given intravenously for for thyroid
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  eye disease, which is an autoimmune disease that attacks
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  the tissues behind the eyeball in the orbit.
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  And it can be a really challenging and very impactful
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  disease for those patients. It's not just a cosmetic
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  problem, but it causes tremendous functional
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  difficulties for those patients with both our quality of vision
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  and their comfort. And it can even be, you know,
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  significantly vision threatening in severe cases.
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  So IGF 1R inhibitors have really transformed the care of those
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  patients from what was previously like a surgical field
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  into something that can be treated effectively medically.
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  How do we further improve on that?
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  And there's also been worked on in the clinic with TSH receptor
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  inhibition in patients with Graves' disease, you know,
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  autoimmune thyroid disease as well as thyroid eye diseases
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  complication with quite interesting and impressive
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  results. So the concept there was by
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  bringing those two biologies together, could we get something
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  that was synergistic or really interestingly improved on either
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  the efficacy and or safety sides.
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  And you know, those two pathways are very, I just want our
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  receptor and TSH receptor in a biochemical complex on the
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  surface of cells that express both receptors, which leads to
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  some really interesting biology around using a bispecific to to
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  more specifically target the IGF 1R inhibition onto cells that
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  express both receptors, which we think could be important from a
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  safety perspective as well as an efficacy perspective.
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  So you know, maybe that's like a high level overview of where we
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  think that product could be differentiated.
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  That's a program that's currently preclinical.
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  We're anticipating filing an Ind for that project the second-half
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  of 2026 would be very excited to see where where that goes in the
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  clinic. But maybe just to round it out
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  again, I think that the concept for all in is build upon and
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  leverage validated biologies in the field.
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  And as we continue to expand the pipeline, I think we'll you know
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  continue to see that approach play through.
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  So leverage those validated biologies, improve upon them on
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  the molecule side. And then also, you know, think
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  about how do we best optimize early and mid phase drug
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  development in those, you know, with these molecules so that we
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  can get as rigorous an answer as we can as to the potential as
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  soon as possible in early and mid phase development, right.
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  So we really view ourselves as an ophthalmology development
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  engine and accelerator where we can apply all of the best
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  learnings in the field, image analysis, study design and
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  execution and so on. And that's another important
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  point of differentiation for the company is the design and
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  execution of mid phase programs. And I, I never like to use the
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  word competitors because I think ultimately what you're doing is
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  for is for patients. But like who are the companies
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  that not compete against, but who are the companies that are
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  working in a similar sort space to you guys?
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  Yeah. I mean, I think ophthalmology
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  has really there's been a lot of investment in ophthalmology over
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  the last five to 10 years, which as an ophthalmologist is
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  wonderful to see. You know, there's a, I'd say a
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  handful of large pharma companies that are very active
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  in ophthalmology and that's sort of waxed and waned over time in
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  terms of the particular companies.
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  But we have generally seen, you know, large, a good number of
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  large farmers that have important products in the field.
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  And then in, in terms of small companies, you know, there's
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  just really been a tremendous amount of excitement and
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  investment in the field, both in retina, which is a very large
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  market opportunity. There's, you know, I'd say a
• 14:06
  sizable number of biotechs that are working for, to develop new
• 14:09
  therapies for wet macular degeneration, diabetic eye
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  disease and dry macular degeneration.
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  You know, these are the leading causes of vision loss in, in
• 14:16
  working age and, and older people in, in the developed
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  world. There's also been tremendous
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  innovation over the last like 5 to 10 years in front of the eye,
• 14:29
  sort of the combination of medical and surgical treatment,
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  right? So there's been a lot of
• 14:33
  technology improvements for improving surgical outcomes, say
• 14:38
  for glaucoma. And now they're starting to
• 14:40
  combine surgery with medicine like devices that can release
• 14:44
  glaucoma drugs over, over, you know, long periods of time
• 14:47
  inside the eye and, and so on. So without necessarily like
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  getting into any particular, you know, you know, other companies,
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  you know, it's been really gratifying to see the amount of
• 14:59
  interest from investors in our space because of the progress
• 15:03
  that's been made clinically and scientifically.
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  If you look at, you know, some of the ophthalmology small
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  company and investor conferences, you know, I
• 15:13
  remember back and say like 20-10, you know, those
• 15:16
  conferences would attract maybe, you know, 75 to 100 people and a
• 15:21
  small number of investors who are really passionate about the
• 15:23
  space. And you know, now those
• 15:25
  conferences have 1000 people. So just as a measure of the the
• 15:29
  new interests or the the growing interest in the field.
• 15:32
  And just to delve in, so you obviously pulled off an
• 15:34
  incredible 100 million Series A, which is amazing given how
• 15:38
  difficult the the capital markets have been for the past
• 15:42
  18 months, couple of years. What was the sort of strategy
• 15:45
  behind raising such a significant round, and what was
• 15:48
  some of the lessons that you learned during that process?
• 15:52
  So I think the most important thing for our investors and the
• 15:57
  management team was to make sure we had the right amount of
• 16:00
  capital in the company with the right cap table structure, you
• 16:05
  know, IE the right types of investors that would position us
• 16:09
  for long term success, right. For instance, in retina, like
• 16:13
  our where our first indication, you know, the first therapeutic
• 16:17
  area we're working in within ophthalmology.
• 16:20
  Of course the trials like late stage trials are expensive.
• 16:22
  But, but you know, even early, mid phase trials, you need to
• 16:25
  make sure you have the right amount of capital to, to ask
• 16:29
  the, the, the questions, you know, in, in as rigorous a
• 16:32
  fashion as you can in early development, because those
• 16:34
  trials are expensive and manufacturing is expensive as it
• 16:38
  is in, you know, many fields of, of, of drug development where
• 16:41
  you're working with biologics. So, you know, I think one of the
• 16:46
  things that, you know, we've seen over time in ophthalmology
• 16:50
  is it can be really challenging for small companies if they
• 16:55
  don't have the right investor base and the right cap table
• 16:58
  structure from the beginning. That just, you know, creates
• 17:02
  like a, a snowball effect of, of downstream complexities and
• 17:06
  problems. You know, if, if the medicines,
• 17:09
  you know, become successful over time and early development.
• 17:13
  You know, for instance, if you, if you're really, you know,
• 17:17
  particularly capital constrained and early development and you do
• 17:20
  a study that's too small or you don't study enough of the, you
• 17:23
  know, the different indications where the drug could work, you
• 17:26
  might end up making the wrong decisions and, and, you know,
• 17:30
  impair the value of the program or really miss the value of a
• 17:33
  project. So for us, you know, starting
• 17:36
  all in partnering with with really high quality investors
• 17:41
  with deep access to capital and a long term view was really
• 17:44
  important for us. And I think it was really
• 17:46
  important for those investors. You know, they are our investors
• 17:49
  were really interested in building a company that has, you
• 17:53
  know, the potential to to have an impact in the field and go
• 17:57
  the distance. So yeah, I think that that was
• 18:01
  sort of the combination of features that both management
• 18:04
  and, and the, you know, the investors in the board were
• 18:07
  looking for. And so, you know, for instance,
• 18:10
  when we proposed to the board the study designed for the Phase
• 18:15
  1B that we're running with OLM 324, you know, wet and Deidre
• 18:21
  anti VEGFE inch two drugs work in both wet AMD and diabetic
• 18:26
  macular edema, for instance, as well as retinal vein occlusion
• 18:28
  and some other indications. So one of the questions came up,
• 18:32
  well, what what's the right patient population for a proof
• 18:36
  of concept study versus an active comparator?
• 18:38
  Should it be in wet AMD or DME? And you know, we have these
• 18:43
  features of the molecule that give it the potential for
• 18:45
  differentiation rather than presupposing the answer to that
• 18:49
  question, it's going to be better in this disease or it's
• 18:51
  going to be better than that disease.
• 18:53
  Let's be a little bit more agnostic and truth seeking and
• 18:58
  you know, deploy the capital to study both of those major
• 19:01
  indications in parallel so that we can get the best question as
• 19:05
  to how to best proceed into the next stages of development if
• 19:09
  the molecule and the data, the safety and efficacy data
• 19:11
  suggests that that's the right thing to do.
• 19:14
  So, you know, I think that argument resonated really with
• 19:17
  our board and our investors and that's where we've deployed.
• 19:21
  You know, the substantial part of that capital is to to, you
• 19:24
  know, prosecute these early development questions as
• 19:26
  rigorously as we can. So I think that approach, that
• 19:29
  philosophy was also important to our investors.
• 19:32
  And you know, they, they like that idea and you know the
• 19:35
  funding is commensurate with that.
• 19:37
  And you, you've obviously spent your career in in ophthalmology.
• 19:41
  Can you give us your perspective on the ophthalmology market at
• 19:44
  the moment, the size, the unmet needs and why it's such an
• 19:48
  exciting area for for innovation at the moment as well?
• 19:51
  The field has really grown and changed tremendously over the
• 19:55
  last 20 years. You know, in retina in
• 19:58
  particular, since the introduction of the highly
• 20:00
  potent anti VEGFS like Lucentis and Eylea.
• 20:04
  You know, we've, we've taken a, a set of diseases that, you
• 20:08
  know, used to result in irreversible significant vision
• 20:11
  loss and, you know, change them to diseases where people's
• 20:15
  vision can improve with treatment and then be maintained
• 20:18
  at that improved level for many years with continued treatment.
• 20:21
  So that's really been, you know, what really unbelievable change
• 20:27
  in the, in the, you know, in the inpatient outcomes compared to,
• 20:32
  you know, even what they were 25 years ago, right.
• 20:36
  So at the same time, there's a lot of opportunities for for
• 20:41
  bringing that kind of concept to some of the areas that where we
• 20:44
  have either no treatment today in ophthalmology, where we where
• 20:47
  we have, you know, adequate treatments, but there's really
• 20:49
  room for further improvement. Dry macular degeneration, both
• 20:54
  at its intermediate stages and it's late stages, like
• 20:57
  geographic atrophy is an area where there's, you know, a lot
• 21:01
  of unmet need, you know, sort of at the end stages of disease,
• 21:06
  you'd really like to intervene earlier than that and prevent
• 21:09
  people from losing vision as they get older.
• 21:11
  Glaucoma is another major area where we have a lot of medicines
• 21:16
  for controlling eye pressure, but very few or you know, or, or
• 21:22
  no approaches yet for other than lowering eye pressure to try to
• 21:27
  prevent the neurodegeneration and, and neuronal cell loss of
• 21:30
  glaucoma, which is remains one of the top five leading causes
• 21:33
  of vision loss, just as a couple of examples.
• 21:37
  So you know, I think one of the challenges in the space is that
• 21:44
  some of the clinical trials for some of those chronic
• 21:46
  indications are long. You know, maybe the diseases are
• 21:49
  slowly progressive, but there's just been like an explosion of
• 21:53
  tools and technologies for imaging, you know, analyzing
• 21:56
  images, using images of the eye to to select the right patients
• 22:02
  for clinical trials or run those trials more quickly using
• 22:05
  imaging based biomarkers. One of the wonderful things
• 22:08
  about the eyes, of course we can take a lot of pictures of the
• 22:10
  eye very easily and non invasively.
• 22:14
  One of the challenges is that it's very difficult and you
• 22:16
  can't like biopsy the tissue like you could for a tumor.
• 22:20
  So we have this balance between novel pathways and targets and
• 22:24
  how you can scientifically and clinically validate them versus
• 22:27
  your ability to image. And you know, right now it seems
• 22:30
  like the balance is tipping in favor of like we can do so much
• 22:34
  with imaging that it's really a potent accelerator of of
• 22:41
  preclinical and clinical development.
• 22:43
  You can measure, you know, very fine level detail changes in the
• 22:48
  retina using non invasive atomic imaging in ways that were
• 22:53
  possible even like three to five years ago because of the
• 22:56
  advances in software development.
• 22:58
  So I think it's a really it's a tremendously exciting time.
• 23:03
  You know, vision loss is a really significant complication
• 23:07
  of aging, you know, as we as a field do a better job in, you
• 23:13
  know, managing other chronic diseases of aging,
• 23:15
  cardiovascular disease, dementia, oncology and, you
• 23:19
  know, oncology indications and so on.
• 23:23
  You know, some of these other really important diseases of
• 23:25
  aging, you don't need new therapies as well.
• 23:28
  So people have good quality of life as they get older.
• 23:31
  And, you know, that's where I think there's tremendous
• 23:34
  opportunity in ophthalmology based on where we are today and
• 23:36
  moving into these, you know, intermediate stages of disease
• 23:40
  where you want to prevent significant vision loss from
• 23:43
  happening. I think that's really like the
• 23:44
  future for the next like 10 to 20 years about the drug
• 23:46
  development. I think one of the.
• 23:49
  Things that you've mentioned before is being capital
• 23:52
  efficient whilst pursuing ambitious programs, what like
• 23:56
  sort of strategies or principles guide all in in managing
• 23:59
  resources effectively? I know it's obviously a super
• 24:02
  tough market at the moment, but yeah, how are you going around
• 24:05
  keeping things tight, keeping things lean and managing what
• 24:08
  you, you know, I. You know, we've tried to be as
• 24:11
  capital efficient as as possible, by which I mean we try
• 24:16
  to dedicate as much of our resources to directly into the
• 24:19
  clinical or preclinical programs as we can and minimizing, you
• 24:25
  know, to the extent possible are, you know, sort of core
• 24:29
  overhead, you know, the GNA sort of costs that aren't related to
• 24:33
  the the the projects specifically.
• 24:36
  So that I think is really important for small biotechs,
• 24:39
  right. I mean, we're, our team is quite
• 24:41
  small. We're about 13 people at the
• 24:44
  moment here in December 2025. And so we've been able to do a
• 24:48
  lot because we have, you know, a very highly experienced full
• 24:52
  Time Team and then a wonderful network of consultants, vendors
• 24:56
  and partners who are real enablers.
• 24:59
  You know, we, we made a decision not to have a physical office
• 25:03
  location so far. And so that allows us to, you
• 25:06
  know, grow our team by tapping into, you know, our network all
• 25:10
  around, say the United States, which is where our, our, most of
• 25:12
  our people are based. And so that, you know, there's a
• 25:17
  substantial, you know, cost savings associated with not
• 25:20
  necessarily having like a large physical location.
• 25:23
  Now, if you need to do, you know, a lot of preclinical wet
• 25:26
  lab experiments, of course, you have to have an appropriate spot
• 25:28
  to do that. But even then, you know, I think
• 25:31
  there's, you know, there's ways of deploying capital in a more
• 25:35
  efficient manner or a less efficient manner if you're doing
• 25:38
  free clinical bench work too, right.
• 25:42
  In that regard, I'd say I'm really quite inspired by how
• 25:45
  some of our partners, you know, work.
• 25:49
  For instance, our second program we're, we're partnered with a
• 25:53
  company called Bella Vigo out of Shanghai.
• 25:57
  And you know, they put, you know, the vast majority of their
• 26:02
  capital to work on R&D as opposed to GNA and you know, as
• 26:06
  a, as a biotech company trying to, you know, create new
• 26:09
  medicines for patients. That is I think the approach
• 26:12
  that builds the most value and is the most satisfying for the
• 26:15
  team. So I think that's really the
• 26:19
  most important aspect is just really being thoughtful.
• 26:23
  You know, the, the work that we do is expensive and you know,
• 26:25
  it's important to spend the money in the right place.
• 26:27
  And you know, you don't want to skimp on the clinical trial,
• 26:31
  that would be really bad. So you want to make sure you're
• 26:33
  you're deploying the capital into that and being really
• 26:38
  mindful of your spend elsewhere. That's been our approach.
• 26:41
  How's it been? You mentioned that you guys are
• 26:43
  a completely remote company. How's that been from the sort of
• 26:46
  cultural perspective? Is that been something that's
• 26:48
  been fine given how small you are or like how how do you
• 26:52
  manage that side of things you need to be really.
• 26:55
  Intentional about the culture in any company.
• 26:58
  I think it's even more important in, you know, a company where
• 27:03
  everyone is working remotely. You know, a remote forward
• 27:07
  company has, you know, maybe a different culture terms of how
• 27:10
  people communicate the times of day in which they communicate
• 27:13
  the methods of getting people together than a company where
• 27:16
  everyone is in the office. And at the same time, you know,
• 27:21
  in order to build the trust, transparency and collegiality
• 27:26
  that you need to work to to get work done really effectively,
• 27:29
  you need to make sure that people are able to get together
• 27:31
  in person at the right cadence. And so we're really intentional
• 27:35
  about that. Of course, you know, there's a
• 27:38
  large number of scientific and clinical meetings that various
• 27:40
  members of our team will go to. And so we have an opportunity to
• 27:44
  see each other in person fairly frequently from that more
• 27:48
  investor conferences and so on. But we also make sure that we
• 27:52
  take time at an appropriate cadence throughout the year to
• 27:57
  get the whole team together internally, outside of, you
• 28:02
  know, external facing activities where we can really focus on our
• 28:05
  team, the culture of the team, project related work and so on.
• 28:11
  And, you know, I've, I've really taken inspiration from some of
• 28:17
  the, you know, so the Silicon Valley or if you will, tech
• 28:21
  companies, software companies that have, you know, developed a
• 28:25
  wonderful tools and approaches for, you know, building and
• 28:30
  leading and managing remote based teams.
• 28:34
  And also from several other biotech companies that have done
• 28:36
  the same. You know, I think companies can
• 28:39
  mature overtime to different sizes.
• 28:41
  And then, you know, they may need to have a physical location
• 28:44
  in one or another location. But this works really well for
• 28:47
  what we're doing right now. And then we just need to be
• 28:49
  really intentional about the culture as the company continues
• 28:52
  to grow. That I think is, you know, in
• 28:54
  many ways one of the biggest challenges for, you know, small
• 28:57
  companies is maintaining and building the culture as the
• 29:01
  company grows from, say, 10 people to 25 or 25 to 100.
• 29:06
  So that's just something you really have to spend a lot of
• 29:07
  time and care on for sure. So.
• 29:10
  Your background, you're obviously a chief medical
• 29:12
  officer by background, have then obviously gone into ACEO
• 29:15
  position. How did you find that transition
• 29:18
  in in the earliest stages and what challenges do you think
• 29:22
  came with that move? And similarly, what advice would
• 29:26
  you have to to others that I wanted to make a a similar sort
• 29:29
  of path? I think typically you'd see
• 29:31
  maybe like a chief business officer or a chief commercial
• 29:34
  officer or chief operating operating officer that might get
• 29:37
  to CEO, probably less traditional for a chief medical
• 29:40
  officer. But what advice would you have
• 29:42
  for others that want to get there?
• 29:44
  I think, you know, for clinicians, scientists who, you
• 29:49
  know, are looking for that kind of leadership role, the CEO
• 29:53
  leadership role in a biotech course, the stage of the company
• 29:58
  is really important. And you know, where you're
• 30:01
  contributing your scientific expertise as well as your people
• 30:04
  leadership and business expertise.
• 30:05
  You know, what stage of company, I think you know, there's,
• 30:11
  there's horses for courses, as they say, right.
• 30:13
  So you know, if your whole background is in early phase
• 30:16
  development, you know, you, you, you know, are you the right type
• 30:21
  of person for running a commercial stage company for
• 30:23
  instance, right. I mean those may be very
• 30:24
  different sets of considerations.
• 30:26
  But for early biotech, where so much of the success of the
• 30:31
  company depends on safety, on clinical design, on
• 30:35
  manufacturing and quality, you know, those are areas where if
• 30:39
  you've marinated for a long time in biotech and pharma, there's a
• 30:45
  lot of transferable skills that you that you develop over time,
• 30:49
  whether your background is an MDPHD or MBA, right?
• 30:52
  Being a, you know, you're moving from say ACMO into ACO role,
• 30:56
  early mid phase companies is an area where that maybe makes the
• 30:59
  most sense to do. I think the other thing that's
• 31:01
  important is, you know, in the CMO role, let's assume you're in
• 31:06
  ACMO of a smaller, you know, a small to mid sized biotech, You
• 31:12
  know, getting as much experience as you can on kind of the
• 31:15
  corporate underpinnings and corporate side of the business
• 31:19
  is really important, right? Learning to work with investors,
• 31:24
  with the board, with bankers, with finance, with counsel, be
• 31:29
  it IP, general corporate counsel, you know, while
• 31:33
  recognizing that your day job is the CMO is, is leading the
• 31:39
  development side of the business.
• 31:41
  Getting experience and exposure to those other things is really
• 31:44
  important. Otherwise, I think it's a really
• 31:46
  hard leap to go from CMO to CEO. So, you know, in, in my time as
• 31:51
  CMO, I was at a publicly traded company.
• 31:54
  Obviously I didn't have decision making responsibility for, for
• 31:57
  those other areas that were run by the CEO and the CFO and so
• 32:00
  on. But I tried to spend as much
• 32:02
  time as I could learning about what they were doing and how I
• 32:05
  could participate in that as I could.
• 32:09
  And I think that's that's the most important thing is learning
• 32:12
  as much as you can about the the business side of the business
• 32:17
  would put you in contention to to take that type of role in the
• 32:20
  future and just just to. Finish off I know this is a This
• 32:23
  is a question that we always finish with on the bio hub.
• 32:26
  If you were going to have dinner with any free people, past or
• 32:29
  present, who would you go from? Why doesn't necessarily needs to
• 32:33
  be people in the industry, although it can be if you like.
• 32:37
  But yeah, three people you've got for dinner.
• 32:39
  Yeah, it's a really. Thought provoking question.
• 32:42
  It's fun to think about. So I thought of three folks.
• 32:48
  One was Louis Thomas, who's a clinician, you know, clinician,
• 32:52
  philosopher, scientist, philosopher, maybe from, you
• 32:56
  know, really the, you know, World War 2 era through the, you
• 33:02
  know, 70s, so really the dawn of molecular biology.
• 33:05
  And, and, you know, he wrote a number of really interesting
• 33:08
  books, notes from a medicine watcher, Lives of a Cell, that
• 33:11
  even I remember when reading as an undergraduate, you know,
• 33:15
  really struck me about the role of medicine in the lives of
• 33:20
  people, the role of science in the lives of people.
• 33:22
  And so I think he would be like a really wonderful person to
• 33:25
  have a conversation with, you know, to look at like what the
• 33:28
  progress in science and medicine has been, you know, from, say,
• 33:31
  1975 to now and how he would view that.
• 33:35
  I think that would be a really fun conversation.
• 33:37
  Another person I think would be wonderful to meet would be
• 33:39
  Claude Monet, the painter. You know, of course, Monet
• 33:43
  developed a lot of challenges with his vision towards the
• 33:45
  latter part of his life and know what's been written about that
• 33:48
  and how it impacted his art. But, you know, we live in a very
• 33:53
  fast-paced time in our, you know, now, right?
• 33:57
  Everything seems to happen quickly, such rapid
• 33:59
  communication. You know, when you stop and look
• 34:02
  at paintings by Monet, you think about like how did he spend the
• 34:07
  time thinking about and you know, each of the works that he
• 34:12
  did and how can we use that philosophy to do a better job in
• 34:16
  our very fast-paced environment today.
• 34:19
  So I, in addition to his paintings being, at least to me,
• 34:22
  very beautiful and striking, I think that would be fun.
• 34:24
  And then maybe not a specific person because I'm not sure that
• 34:28
  we know at this point in history who the specific person was, but
• 34:32
  the engineer who figured out how to perfect the Roman aqueducts.
• 34:35
  I find that really profound. You know, like 2000 years ago,
• 34:39
  you could build and and and figure out how to engineer a
• 34:42
  structure with the obviously different types of mechanical
• 34:45
  tools and what we have and power tools that we have today, where
• 34:48
  you can, you know, using the flow, using gravity, have, you
• 34:51
  know, engineer something so precise that you could have like
• 34:55
  a declination of 1 foot in 1000 run to move water around as an
• 34:59
  essential part of building civilization.
• 35:02
  Understanding how that happened to me is just really
• 35:04
  intellectually very fascinating and I'd love to learn more about
• 35:08
  it and how they actually managed to do it.
• 35:10
  But look, I'm sure that'd. Be a very interesting dinner.
• 35:12
  Look, thanks so much for coming on and helping us out with this.
• 35:15
  It sounds super, super impressive what you're building
• 35:17
  so far and looking forward to seeing the the upcoming progress
• 35:21
  that you'll make next year, which I'm I'm sure will be a
• 35:23
  success. So yeah, Jason, it was a
• 35:25
  pleasure to have you on and, and thanks for telling your story
• 35:28
  and an all in story as well. Thanks for having me.
• 35:31
  Really appreciate the chance to be here today and, you know,
• 35:35
  look forward to sharing our story, you know, with the
• 35:39
  audience and as we continue to grow and and be on the journey
• 35:42
  at all and.