Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 121 - Terry Rosen: CEO & Co-Founder of Arcus Biosciences
Transcript
- 0:06So welcome back to the episode of the Bio Hub.
- 0:08Today we're delighted to welcome on Terry Rosen, who's the Co
- 0:11founder and CEO of Arcus Biosciences.
- 0:14Arcus is a rapidly growing clinical stage global
- 0:17biopharmaceutical company developing differentiated
- 0:20molecules and combative medicines that may have the
- 0:22potential to help people with cancer live longer.
- 0:26So join us today as we'll discuss Terry's journey through
- 0:29the field. The next major milestones he's
- 0:32excited about were Arcus and the biggest challenges and
- 0:35opportunities for biotechs in today's public markets.
- 0:38So Terry, look, it's a pleasure to have you on.
- 0:40How are you? Great.
- 0:42And thanks, Tom. I appreciate the opportunity to
- 0:45do this. I think it'll be a lot of fun.
- 0:46Yeah, for sure. So let's just start with your
- 0:49story. So can you walk us through your
- 0:51journey through the field and with any particular mentors that
- 0:54help shape your your journey? Sure.
- 0:57So that journey I've been working over 40 years plus my
- 1:02academic experience. So I'm going to share that talk
- 1:05a little bit about mentors, as you suggest.
- 1:08And it's, it's been, you know, a long journey and I hope
- 1:11hopefully still more to come. So I, I'll mention even high
- 1:16school, I went to Chicago Public school.
- 1:19And the reason I mentioned that is because that was really a
- 1:23first and very important mentor. My high school teacher was a
- 1:27fellow named Preston Hayes, and my parents hadn't gone to
- 1:32college. This was really, you know, high
- 1:34school didn't even have a college counselor.
- 1:37So this was the first person that really got me interested in
- 1:41science and chemistry. And he really did unique things.
- 1:47First of all, he did something that you probably couldn't even
- 1:50do nowadays. She'd give us unfettered access
- 1:52to the lab so we could go in after school unsupervised, just
- 1:57so there's a lot of hands on, you know, call it fun chemistry
- 2:02in the laboratory. Second thing is he really
- 2:05emphasized rigor, observations and asking questions.
- 2:10Now I'll give you an example that sticks with me today.
- 2:13One of the first experiments he did with us before really even
- 2:16getting into to chemistry itself is he just was having us, you
- 2:21know, take water, heat it up, heat it to boiling and note all
- 2:26your observations along the way. And he told us, you know, first
- 2:30heated to 60°, then heated 70°, then he hit 100°C, then heated
- 2:35to 115°C. And so, you know, you got this
- 2:38whole class and at the time we're still using Bunsen burners
- 2:41to got beaker of water. And it's going, it's going now
- 2:44all of a sudden you get to 100° and everyone he's, you know, now
- 2:48you're supposed to heat it to 115°.
- 2:50And of course, as you know, you can't keep water above its
- 2:53boiling point. So everyone's Mr. Hayes, you
- 2:55know, I can't get it above 100°. But he's like, well, take two
- 2:59Bunsen burners then. So you got the whole class is
- 3:02doing this. And he was really just making
- 3:04the point. No fake.
- 3:06Don't just, you know, follow directions.
- 3:10Make sure you're thinking. And that really sort of launched
- 3:13me and it it, it became a way to think about things.
- 3:17I went from Chicago high school to University of Michigan
- 3:20undergraduate. That was important because I met
- 3:25who's now my Co founder, Juan Haiyan.
- 3:29He was starting Graduate School as I was finishing up my
- 3:33undergraduate work. We I was doing undergraduate
- 3:36research. We we shared a lab and you know,
- 3:38he's still this, this is 1979 or so.
- 3:43And you know, we're back together and we work at at at
- 3:46Argos and we kind of work together a long way, which I'll,
- 3:50I'll share. So I went from University of
- 3:53Michigan to Berkeley, and Berkeley was probably the most
- 3:57Seminole transformation. Again, I had a great, great
- 4:03professor as an advisor, Clayton Hathcock.
- 4:06I was working in synthetic or organic chemistry and what I'd
- 4:10say Clayton, first of all, he had incredible passion and he
- 4:14cared about the students, great teacher, great scientist.
- 4:18But what he instilled in us was more of like what I was talking
- 4:22about there, of really paying attention to details of focusing
- 4:27on quality versus quantity. So when synthetic organic
- 4:31chemistry was always sort of a race to make a complex molecule,
- 4:35but he cared more about making it well than making it fast.
- 4:40And one of the things that he emphasized was when something
- 4:45didn't work, there's so much empiricism and observation and
- 4:49iteration in science. His point was don't just throw
- 4:53that down the drain. The experiments that didn't work
- 4:57were generally the most telling and learn from why something
- 5:01didn't work to improve upon. And that again was something
- 5:04that always stuck with me and in in the rigor and the, the whole
- 5:09department at Berkeley at the time was just fun and very
- 5:13science focused and that was great.
- 5:15So I went from Berkeley to Abbott and this is, you know,
- 5:19about 1985 working on age when it first emerged.
- 5:24I could just give you a sense of the timing.
- 5:26I was at Abbott for a couple years and then went to Pfizer.
- 5:29So I went to Pfizer when it was a relatively small company.
- 5:32And to give you a sense when that was, I was one of the first
- 5:35three people at Pfizer that had e-mail.
- 5:38And I can remember like a computational chemist came
- 5:41walking down the hall. Hey, Terry, we're experimenting
- 5:43with this new technology. We don't really know where it's
- 5:46going to go. It's got security issue now.
- 5:48What's that? So, oh, e-mail.
- 5:51And I couldn't even comprehend what you're supposed to do with
- 5:53it. So just kind of that time frame,
- 5:56I, I worked in psychotherapeutics.
- 5:58I was surrounded by great scientist, the guy who
- 6:02discovered Zoloft, this had nothing to do with me.
- 6:04He reported me. The guy who discovered the
- 6:06presidone reported me. The guy who discovered Zithromax
- 6:09reported me. So you're just surrounded sort
- 6:12of in this glory days of the Pharmaceutical industry by, you
- 6:16know, these scientists, these chemists who basically retired
- 6:20at the bench, They're all focused on drug discovery.
- 6:23So it was a very exciting time in the industry.
- 6:26I went from Pfizer to then biotech.
- 6:29So I came back to the Bay Area to a startup called Talaric with
- 6:33really 3 phenomenal biology scientists as founders.
- 6:38And this was where you kind of had this transition from an
- 6:41industry driven by chemistry and industry driven biology.
- 6:45And I could see that coming. So the three founders of Talaric
- 6:49were Bob Teejan, who at one point was the head of Howard
- 6:52Hughes Medical Institute, Steve McKnight.
- 6:54And then probably in my mind, the most iconic figure in
- 6:59biotech history and probably always will be, was Dave
- 7:02Goodell, the first scientist at Genentech.
- 7:04And I think it's gone long enough where young people may
- 7:08not even recognize their name, but he was a household name.
- 7:12So many of the early products out of Genentech came out of his
- 7:15lab. He was the guy who cloned
- 7:17insulin. And it was awesome experience
- 7:20going to this startup called Teler.
- 7:22It was there for you know till 2004 we were acquired by Amgen.
- 7:28I stayed at Amgen for another decade or so and Amgen was
- 7:33running their large and small molecule drug discovery was
- 7:36group called therapeutic discovery.
- 7:38And then in 2013, January of 2013, I left the Amgen started
- 7:43company, got back together with Juan.
- 7:46He had also been I'd recruited him to Telerik.
- 7:49Along the way he we found this company called Flexis.
- 7:54Flexis was intended to be long term company and surprisingly
- 7:58you know, we were acquired in about 18 months by BMS for one
- 8:03and a quarter billion dollars. And literally this is now in mid
- 8:092015 we started Arcus weeks after they have Flexis
- 8:13acquisition and it's been 10 years at Arcus since.
- 8:17So, so that's a little bit along, but it's, it's, that's
- 8:22covering, you know, roughly 40 plus years and that gets us to
- 8:27where we are today at Arcus. Wow, sounds like some journey so
- 8:31far and and just to delve into Arcus a little bit more.
- 8:33So as you mentioned you Co founded the company in 2015.
- 8:37Can you walk us through what motivated you to take the leap
- 8:40and start a company focused within immune oncology
- 8:43therapies, and how did your previous experience influence
- 8:47the way that you structured Arcus from the start, both from
- 8:50a scientific and operational perspective?
- 8:53No, that's awesome because the experience we had had had a huge
- 9:00effect both strategically and operationally.
- 9:03And even why, you know why start a company.
- 9:07So keep in mind, I've been working some time before, it
- 9:12wasn't like it just come out of an undergraduate or graduate
- 9:15program in the Alka. We're going to found a company
- 9:17had had pretty substantial experience.
- 9:20And you remember how I mentioned the, you know, those glory days
- 9:24of the Pharmaceutical industry. I think there'd been a dramatic
- 9:28change there in a very continuous way culturally in
- 9:34companies over that, over that time period.
- 9:38And and what I mean by that back in those days, there was so much
- 9:42focus on the drug discovery itself, on content expertise, on
- 9:48sort of long term approaches to programs to much shorter cycle
- 9:54time. Felt a lot of what was going on
- 9:57in biotech at that time. There was no bio, there was no
- 10:01tech. It was really moving more
- 10:03towards an asset, taking that asset to inflection, trying to
- 10:08sell it. And there'd also been a shift
- 10:10away from an expertise in small molecule drug discovery.
- 10:16People move to large molecules and it really reflected an
- 10:20opportunity now in thinking about immuno oncology.
- 10:26There'd been dramatic advances in the biology there.
- 10:30So the understanding of immunology had really gotten to
- 10:35a point where this biology could now be translated into drug
- 10:40discovery. So with all of these other
- 10:42changes, we felt there was a great opportunity with lot of
- 10:46target validation, a lot of understanding of biology for
- 10:51small molecule expertise to build a a company around that.
- 10:55And that was really the idea as originally with Flexus, but then
- 11:02with Arcus and we we built the company from day one, starting
- 11:06with a blank piece of paper to, to do long term drug discovery.
- 11:12And at this point now we're, you know, we're pretty far along
- 11:15have multiple compounds in the clinic, compounds in phase
- 11:19three. And maybe that's something we'll
- 11:21talk a little bit more about. Exciting.
- 11:23And just to delve in to the pipeline a little bit further.
- 11:26So you guys have a unique focus on combination immunotherapies
- 11:30targeting pathways like HIF 2A and adenosine.
- 11:35Can you explain and just a bit in a bit more detail how these
- 11:38approaches work and what makes Arcus's pipelines down stand out
- 11:41from I guess, some of the other companies that are in that
- 11:44subspace as well? Sure.
- 11:45So the first thing that I'll start high level and I'll get a
- 11:48little bit more granular. In a high level we built a
- 11:53discovery organization. So what you know one of the
- 11:57biggest changes that I talked about it the when I was talking
- 12:01about forming the company is that if you go back to those
- 12:05early days, so many companies were R&D centric.
- 12:08If you look at Merck when Vagelos was the COR and D
- 12:13centric and that focus it shifted much more to commercial
- 12:17late stage financial perhaps being strong development
- 12:21organization, but less on discovery.
- 12:23So we were all about building a discovery organization that
- 12:28could build a sustainable pipeline.
- 12:31So also as I was discussing a lot of companies sort of focused
- 12:35on single assets, I was reading something recently about a
- 12:40company and I saw, you know, this crazy term where they were
- 12:44talking about their expertise and they had, you know, great
- 12:47asset hunt hunters. And to me, that almost seems
- 12:50like a junk hunter, someone who goes around on, you know,
- 12:53garbage day and fines and couch and once in a while maybe
- 12:55there's something really good and valuable there, but there's
- 12:59not sort of an ability to create something from scratch.
- 13:02So at Arcus, we built that small molecule expertise to, you know,
- 13:07be able to have a pipeline. And I think that's one of the
- 13:10things that if you look in 2026 at early stage companies that's
- 13:16very differentiating that we have, you know, our most
- 13:21probably valuable program is a, it's, it's around a molecule
- 13:24called Castatifen. You mentioned HIF 2 is that it's
- 13:28HIF 2 that's an important target in cancer therapy.
- 13:35I'll tell you a couple reasons why that's so valuable for
- 13:38Arcus. So first of all, it's highly
- 13:40validated. There's another drug that
- 13:43targets that and it's a, it's a drug that that Merck has, we
- 13:49have a molecule that's been in, you know, maybe 200 patients.
- 13:54It's clearly better than the Merc molecule.
- 13:58Now what's unique in this situation is that because I was
- 14:03talking about that small molecule expertise, we tend to
- 14:06play in targets where there's strong validation, but they're
- 14:11very difficult to approach with small molecule.
- 14:13And so really the only two players in this field are US and
- 14:19Merck. So we have a molecule they
- 14:23validated with a, a molecule that's now selling, but it's
- 14:27only selling in certain stages. And it it's the tip of the
- 14:31iceberg in terms of where that's going to end up being used both
- 14:35in terms of patients and from a commercial standpoint.
- 14:38So now we're at a point where that molecule is in phase three.
- 14:43It's in registrational studies, it's enrolling well.
- 14:47So it's great opportunity. But at the same time, we have
- 14:51multiple other programs. So we're in a position where we
- 14:56have this advanced program. But because so much of our
- 15:00biology was also focused on immunology, immuno oncology is
- 15:05driven by immunology. Even though the therapeutic
- 15:08endpoint is oncology, we have a pipeline of early stage programs
- 15:13that maybe I'll say a little bit more about them, but where we
- 15:17have programs that they've been highly validated by a biological
- 15:22molecule. These are these are things like
- 15:25the anti TNFS where you're talking about 10s of billion
- 15:29dollar market where they work, but they might have limitations
- 15:33and those limitations can be addressed by small molecules.
- 15:37So you go in, it plays to our sweet spot where there's been
- 15:41great validation, validation clinically, validation
- 15:45biologically, invalidation commercially, but there's
- 15:48opportunity for improvement where that small molecule
- 15:51expertise can come into play. So we have a whole pipeline
- 15:54ranging from early programs to these later stage programs.
- 15:58And maybe we'll talk a little bit more about this as well.
- 16:01We're well capitalized. So at this point, we sit here
- 16:05with over a billion dollars in cash and that enables us for
- 16:10example with that program cast data fan, it can take us all the
- 16:14way through its initial phase three study and get us through
- 16:18registration with the cash we currently have.
- 16:21Yeah, wow. It sounds exciting.
- 16:22And just on the sort of cash position, you guys have
- 16:25obviously attracted significant investor interest.
- 16:29From your perspective, what makes Arcus A compelling
- 16:31investment opportunity today And how do you balance like the long
- 16:35timelines and risks of drug development with the
- 16:38expectations of public markets and investors?
- 16:42I think that's, that's been, you know, something that's somewhat
- 16:46tricky to navigate, but we had an early strategy to leverage
- 16:51partnerships to fund us in the early days where, you know, you,
- 16:59you kind of had that glint in your eye.
- 17:00And and as you kind of imply, investors in the current era
- 17:06tend to have a maybe a shorter term focus then there might have
- 17:10been in, you know, way back. And you, you, you kind of at the
- 17:15early stage of companies have to generate a lot of progress, a
- 17:19lot of data early on. So we came up with a strategy
- 17:23and we were fortunate enough to be able to execute on it.
- 17:27They have multiple collaborations that funded the
- 17:31early days. But now we've gotten to position
- 17:35where we actually can show the value in intrinsic that by by to
- 17:41me what's the best way to show value which is through data.
- 17:45So we have these late stage programs.
- 17:48We have cast data fan which is in register of those studies.
- 17:52We have another molecule you mentioned adenosine.
- 17:55We have a molecule that blocks the rate limiting enzyme in
- 17:59adenosine production. That's an immuno oncology
- 18:02approach that fully enrolled phase three study in pancreatic
- 18:07cancer that's going to read out shortly.
- 18:09So we have these late stage programs that we've managed the
- 18:12fund. Interesting thing about cast
- 18:14data fan that's such a high value generating situation for
- 18:20investors is that Arcus fully owns that program.
- 18:25So you're talking about something that's good for
- 18:27patients and our differentiation from Merck takes us into
- 18:31something that's, you know, you're talking what'll, what
- 18:34will be like a $10 billion market.
- 18:37And we have this program that essentially because of their
- 18:41validation has almost 100% probability of technical
- 18:46success. So you can see that on the
- 18:48horizon for registration in the in the foreseeable future.
- 18:52But then we have a full pipeline coming along behind it as well.
- 18:58So we're we've managed to navigate those early years
- 19:03through the strategy of a lot of literally I'm talking like
- 19:08billion plus dollars of funding that came in through
- 19:11collaborations. A lot of that non dilutive to
- 19:15now we're point where people can smell that OK Arcus is in
- 19:19position to become a commercial company.
- 19:23Wow, that's, that's exciting. And looking ahead, what are the
- 19:25key milestones for Arcus in the next sort of year to to two
- 19:29years that the scientific and investment communities should
- 19:31really be paying attention to? And then are there any specific
- 19:35clinical trials, data readouts, partnership opportunities that
- 19:39you guys are particularly excited about as well?
- 19:42Yeah. So we're we're going to have a
- 19:45lot of data, a lot of milestones and that's kind of what's been
- 19:50going on for the past year, year and a half and it's going to
- 19:53become even more intense. So we had three medical
- 19:58conference presentations that really demonstrated.
- 20:02The advantages of cast data fan pretty unambiguously during 2027
- 20:08or 2026, we're actually going to have several more and what
- 20:13they're going to do, First off, they're going to de risk cast
- 20:17data fan in terms of the current phase three study that we're
- 20:22running. So that's a combination study.
- 20:25We'll have data that literally are the same combination, the
- 20:29same setting and will only enhance the confidence in of
- 20:35that particular setting. But perhaps even more
- 20:39importantly, the place where we're really going with cast
- 20:43data fan is in the front line setting and this is in kidney
- 20:47cancer. So it's clear cell renal cell
- 20:50carcinoma and there hasn't been much happening new in that field
- 20:55till HIF 2 inhibition. And what you have is a very safe
- 20:59and very effective therapy. And in fact in that particular
- 21:05cancer 80 to 90 plus percent of those cancers have a HIF 2
- 21:12driving component to that cancer.
- 21:14So it's, it's a very effective drug for that particular
- 21:20setting. And now the front line, that's
- 21:23where we have an extremely high differentiation from the Merck
- 21:29molecule because what Castatifen does is it hits the target
- 21:34harder and it hits the target faster.
- 21:37And we've done it demonstrated that a number of ways.
- 21:40And the reason that's important is what that enables is there's
- 21:44a term called primary progression that people think
- 21:48about when they think about treating cancer.
- 21:50And what that means is if you give someone a drug and they
- 21:54blow right through it, they progress.
- 21:56They don't even get the first scan.
- 21:57That's a primary progressor. And that's devastating for
- 22:01patients and it's devastating for physicians.
- 22:04And it's particularly important when it's frontline.
- 22:08Frontline is when you first have the disease and you show up for
- 22:12treatment. So it's very important to get
- 22:14things under control when you have that rate, high rate of
- 22:16primary progression, that's something that's not good.
- 22:20So Merck has had to combine, you remember we were talking about
- 22:25combinations. Almost everything in oncology
- 22:27involves combinations. And Merck has had to combine
- 22:32their HIF 2 inhibitor with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor in the
- 22:37in, in their studies in the front line.
- 22:39And the reason that's important is those tyrosine kinase
- 22:42inhibitors do have a low rate of primary progression, but they
- 22:46come with a lot of side effects, a lot of toxicological baggage.
- 22:52Now, because we have that low rate of primary progression, we
- 22:56can go into the front line with what's referred to as TKI
- 23:01sparing without the TKI. So what that does is it offers
- 23:05the patient a much higher quality of life.
- 23:09And from all the data that have been generated, it's likely that
- 23:13that high quality of life can be 235 years before they'd have to
- 23:19take a TKI. So they'll still get a TKI, but
- 23:22you're driving the TKI from the early line setting to a much
- 23:27later line setting. So what you're essentially
- 23:30offering is a value proposition, is not just an incremental
- 23:34difference, but two distinct types of therapies.
- 23:38They're each going to contain a HIF 2 inhibitor, but ones
- 23:41without a TKI, ones with a TKI in physicians.
- 23:46This isn't sort of an ARCUS narrative.
- 23:48This is something that physicians and patients have
- 23:50been, you know, longing for a regimen where you could keep the
- 23:54patient and reserve that TKI for much longer.
- 23:58So a lot of the data that we're going to be sharing in 2026 are
- 24:04the early studies as we refine what's going to be our
- 24:08combination to go with our inhib 2 inhibitor for that TKI sparing
- 24:14strategy. So we have somewhat of a Bake
- 24:16Off going on in our aim is to be starting that phase three study
- 24:20which one position to do by the end of 2026.
- 24:24We're also as I mentioned during that you know one to two year
- 24:28time frame that pancreatic cancer trial that I talked about
- 24:32that was fully enrolled in September of last year, that's
- 24:35going to read out. And then very importantly on the
- 24:38other end of the spectrum, our first two inflammation
- 24:42candidates will be taking those into the clinic in the next
- 24:46year, year and a half as well. Now just I'll highlight, you
- 24:49know, I was like to get into some details as opposed to just,
- 24:53you know, high level platters and I was talking about like TNF
- 24:57inhibition where you have drugs like Humira, Enbrel that have
- 25:02created, you know, just dramatic changes for patients, for
- 25:05example, with rheumatoid arthritis, the small molecule
- 25:09approach here's where like you can have a clear
- 25:12differentiation. So an antibody like Humira,
- 25:16intrinsically there's actually 2 TNF receptors, they're called
- 25:21TNF receptor one, TNF receptor 2.
- 25:24Now ironically, TNF receptor 2, when you inhibit it can actually
- 25:31cause inflammation, can have some patients that emerge with
- 25:35psoriasis, for example. So while these drugs have been
- 25:38extremely effective, there's room for improvement.
- 25:42And the idea is that with a small molecule, you can in fact
- 25:46just inhibit the one TNF receptor, TNF receptor, one
- 25:51that's responsible for the efficacy.
- 25:52And in fact, you know, we have molecules that do that.
- 25:55And as I said, expect to take one of those into the clinic in
- 25:59the next 18 months or so. So again, leveraging that small
- 26:03molecule expertise versus a target that's got extraordinary
- 26:09validation in every respect and playing to our strength.
- 26:13And so that'll be another milestone in the coming, you
- 26:17know, 12 to 18 months. Nice, super exciting.
- 26:21And in your opinion, what are the biggest opportunities and
- 26:24challenges for biotech companies navigating today's public market
- 26:28environment? It's obviously been a super
- 26:29interesting time in the past couple of years with with
- 26:32layoffs, lack of funding, yeah. What do you think some of the
- 26:35lessons learned and and opportunities and challenges for
- 26:37for biotechs in the the current public markets?
- 26:41So as you know, like a lot of things in life, a lot of times
- 26:46there's opportunity where you kind of go in the opposite
- 26:50direction of the herd. And it's not always an
- 26:54opportunity, but often times it is.
- 26:56Yeah. I think as you also know, in
- 27:00biotech, this is kind of what I was talking about before.
- 27:03A lot of that no bio, no tech is that you'll bring in a single
- 27:08asset, try to take it to an inflection and then hope that
- 27:13you can sell it off. And there's been, I would say
- 27:16that's been a predominant feature.
- 27:20On the other hand, there's a lot of very early stage companies
- 27:24that are focused on technology. But you know, we often look at
- 27:29technology and think about the difference between bleeding edge
- 27:33and cutting edge, which things are going to take forever to
- 27:36just get the point we can use it, whereas which things can you
- 27:40use to, you know, create, create drugs.
- 27:44And so there's that sort of sweet Goldilocks state.
- 27:48So I think you know, there is opportunity to go a little bit
- 27:53back in time to a place where you actually are doing that type
- 27:59of drug discovery that isn't just go and in license a
- 28:03molecule from China, try to develop it and see if someone's
- 28:07going to buy it. Or at the same time, developing
- 28:10a, a technology that's so cutting edge or bleeding edge
- 28:15that you know, it's going to be forever before you can utilize
- 28:18it to taking something where you have expertise and you can
- 28:21actually translate either technology or biology into drugs
- 28:26that, you know, take a little bit more work, but you'll create
- 28:30enormous value. And that's something that there
- 28:33hasn't been as much investment in.
- 28:36I think a part of the challenge there of course though is the
- 28:39funding and, and some of that is I think can be, you know, smart
- 28:43and strategic collaboration where you recognize Juan and I,
- 28:48you know, always had this notion of we'd rather own 50% of a lot
- 28:54than 100% of nothing. I think there's companies have
- 28:58to realize sometimes you can do some early stage strategic
- 29:02collaborations where you maintain a lot of rights, but
- 29:06not 100% of the rights that allows you to execute for a
- 29:09period, generate very tangible value, bring in the investors
- 29:14that have a long term focus, you know, quote UN quote longs that
- 29:18are going to sort of drive the later phases that you get to be
- 29:22more and more capital intense. And I think that's where
- 29:26there's, you know, actually huge opportunity where you focus on,
- 29:31you know, very tangible substance, not just sort of the
- 29:35get rich quick kind of schemes where you're really creating
- 29:39value for patients, for investors, you know, leveraging
- 29:44true innovation, which I think you know, is despite a lot of
- 29:49lip service paid to it, somewhat falls out of favour often times
- 29:54in terms of an investment thesis.
- 29:56And this final question that we always finish with on the Bio
- 29:59Hub, if you were to sit down and have dinner with any free people
- 30:04from past or present, it can be scientists, entrepreneurs,
- 30:08historical figures, whoever you like.
- 30:10If you were to have three people, who are the B&Y and what
- 30:13would you hope to learn from them as well?
- 30:16So I, I kind of have a collective group.
- 30:18I've been fortunate, you know, because of being in this
- 30:21industry for so long and I, you know, being very involved in
- 30:26academic science. I've met a lot of the people in
- 30:29chemistry and biology that, you know, you'd want to have those
- 30:33conversations and they have a lot of fascinating conversations
- 30:36and relationships. But on the other hand, there's
- 30:39people in life that you kind of observe for one reason or
- 30:43another that, you know, strike you as boy, I'd love to have a
- 30:47conversation. So one of those, you know,
- 30:51growing up, I was very much into sports.
- 30:54I still am, but not as much. You know, I'm, I'm on the other
- 30:58side of your peak to to speak. But when I was young, I followed
- 31:05college basketball very closely. And you know, during the era of
- 31:10UCLA dominance, when John Wooden was the coach, when you know,
- 31:15Lou Alcindor before his cream Abdul Jabbar, they had just a
- 31:19remarkable team, not in in teams.
- 31:22He they had 88 consecutive wins. You won 10 championships.
- 31:28John Wooden had, you know, awesome discipline, but the
- 31:31players liked him. He was able to recruit the best
- 31:34players. They had a freshman team that
- 31:37beat their varsity team when the varsity team won the national
- 31:42championship. So here you have a guy who puts
- 31:45everything together and I just think it'd be fascinating to
- 31:49speak with the John Wooden, a second person that I think a lot
- 31:54of people would love to speak with.
- 31:55I, I kind of have a, what I think might be unique
- 31:59perspective. Why is a guy like Einstein?
- 32:02And the reason that I've always been intriguing in Einstein to
- 32:06me as a surrogate for those individuals who are just in
- 32:11another level when it comes to theoretical math, theoretical
- 32:16physics, that type of mindset, because I've always felt that
- 32:21different people have a different ability to translate
- 32:27mathematical concepts into like a physical reality.
- 32:31So what I mean like that is we can all sit here and say like
- 32:35multiplication. If I have 5 doughnuts and I
- 32:39multiply it by three, we can all see, oh, that's 15 doughnuts.
- 32:44Then I think you kind of move in complex if you start to think
- 32:47about calculus, you know, taking a derivative and you sort of get
- 32:51to that rate of change of, you know, distance with time.
- 32:55Oh, that's velocity. You can visualize that.
- 32:58And I think all of us have a different place where we lose
- 33:03that ability to like, actually take an equation that you might
- 33:08learn and sort of conceptualize what that is.
- 33:11And I think someone like Einstein is like at the crazy
- 33:15end of the spectrum where I imagine that a lot of the things
- 33:20that mortals can't conceptualize, he he, he can
- 33:26kind of translate that mathematical concept into
- 33:30something that's tangible. And I'd love to have that
- 33:34conversation. A third person that I think
- 33:38would be fascinating to me. I, you know, as, as I got older,
- 33:42I became a distance runner and looked at a lot of the
- 33:46historical runners. And the guy that I think is
- 33:52fascinating is Bill Rogers. So actually even in the 10 Ki
- 33:55was running a 10K in Boston with my son and Bill Rogers was 63
- 34:02years old. And Bill Rogers won four Boston
- 34:06Marathons, I think for New York Marathons.
- 34:09And my son and him, he was 63 years old.
- 34:12They crossed the finish line together and he was chatting as
- 34:15a super nice guy, saying, boy, we were really sweating out
- 34:18there and I just love to talk to that guy.
- 34:20He he was sort of, in my mind before science became so
- 34:26important in sports and how you do everything and perfectly
- 34:31optimized. He was sort of famous for, you
- 34:34know, eating a pizza covered with mayonnaise the night before
- 34:37race. Most people think like they
- 34:39would end up throwing up. And I think he did have some
- 34:42incidents where he had to run into bathrooms, you know, 20
- 34:46minutes before the marathon was started because of what he ate
- 34:50the last night before. And, you know, it's funny, one
- 34:53more just popped up on my mind. So yes, for three, I'll give you
- 34:564. And he happened to this past
- 34:59weekend, I saw Dave Chappelle at the Chase Center.
- 35:04You know, he was in town the night before the Super Bowl.
- 35:08What an awesome comedian and just so unique.
- 35:13I'm walking out of that literally just to your question
- 35:17as I'm walking out, when he ended and he, he was just, you
- 35:21could tell how much fun he was having and he went to Perfume,
- 35:25you know, where they have to basically stop.
- 35:27So it was 11:00 at night and it was just so fun.
- 35:31And I was thinking, boy, I would just love to sit and talk with
- 35:34him. He's so smart, he's so creative,
- 35:37he's so unique. It was interesting because he
- 35:39had all these, he had musicians within, yet other comedians with
- 35:45them. And you could tell all of those
- 35:48guys, they were thinking they were thrilled to be on the stage
- 35:53with him because they were going to be telling their grandkids,
- 35:55you know, they were on the stage with The Beatles of of comedy
- 35:59that he's just such a smart, unique guy.
- 36:02I'd love to love to have just a fun conversation dinner with.
- 36:05So I cheated and gave you 4. Yeah, we'll look for terrific
- 36:10answers and thanks so much for coming on helping us out with
- 36:12this. It sounds like what you're
- 36:14building at Arcus is just super inspiring.
- 36:16And yeah, it sounds like you guys that have got a really
- 36:19exciting next year too and, and beyond.
- 36:21So I'm excited to follow that journey and and yeah, thanks
- 36:24again, Terry. It was a pleasure to to have you
- 36:26on. Thanks love to come talk to you
- 36:28for version 2.0 sometime.