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Episode 242 - Sam Blackman · The BioHub - by Avetix

0:06
So welcome back to another episode of the Biohub the
0:08
Avetics podcast. Today, we're delighted to be
0:11
joined by Sam Blackman, who's a physician scientist, oncologist
0:15
and biotech entrepreneur who spent his career at the
0:17
intersection of drug development and company building.
0:20
Sam began his career as a pediatric oncologist before
0:23
moving into industry, holding senior roles at companies like
0:26
Merck, GSK, Seattle Genetics, Juno Therapeutics and Silverback
0:31
Therapeutics. Sam went on to Co found day one
0:34
Biopharmaceuticals where he served as Chief Medical Officer
0:37
and Head of R&D, helping build the company out from its early
0:40
stages through to an FDA approval.
0:42
In today's discussion, we'll talk about biotech exits found
0:46
in day one and seeing it through to an exit as well as
0:49
entrepreneurship. So Sam, it's an absolute
0:52
pleasure to have you on. How are you?
0:54
I'm very well, Tom, thanks. It's a, it's a beautiful day
0:56
here, late summer day here in the Pacific Northwest, and I'm
1:00
really delighted to be talking to you today.
1:03
Yeah. Look, it's a it's a pleasure to
1:04
have you on as well. So I appreciate you making the
1:06
time. So let's just start off with a
1:08
little bit about your journey through the field and ultimately
1:11
how you got to where you are today.
1:12
So you're a trained pediatric hematologist, oncologist before
1:16
moving into drug development. What originally drew you into
1:20
the industry and where did you realize you could have a much
1:23
greater impact? Developed developing medicines
1:25
rather than just treating patients one person at a time.
1:29
Yeah. And it's at that exact latter
1:31
point I I think that you hit on that really was part of the
1:36
decision for me. So, you know, I ended up in
1:38
pediatric oncology after, you know, quite a number of years of
1:42
training and, you know, never with the intent of going into
1:45
pediatric oncology. I think it's a field that
1:48
selects for, you know, a specific type of personality, a
1:51
specific type of mind, you know, people who want to work with
1:58
families at really the worst moments of their lives.
2:01
And I, I genuinely loved it. I wouldn't have ended up there
2:04
had it not been such an incredibly special place to
2:07
work. But at the end of the day, the
2:10
couple of things came together in my training that forced me
2:14
into a decision. One was I had a PhD and I did a
2:18
couple of postdoctoral fellowships.
2:20
And as much as I really wanted to enjoy being a scientist, I
2:26
discovered that as much as I enjoyed science, I actually
2:29
didn't like being in the lab. I just didn't have, at the time,
2:33
the focus and discipline to be so narrowly constructed around a
2:40
very, you know, small line of scientific inquiry just didn't
2:45
work for me. I really loved being in the
2:46
clinic, and I liked thinking about things at the intersection
2:49
of science and medicine. At the time, you know, the
2:53
government really wasn't funding translational research.
2:55
In fact, translational research wasn't even much of a thing back
2:58
in the sort of the mid 2000s. So I knew I wasn't going to be
3:03
competitive as a physician scientist in a major, major
3:06
academic center. The other was as much as I loved
3:09
taking care of patients and I really did love taking care of
3:12
patients, I also had become a father sort of later in my later
3:16
in my life. And I knew that I wanted to be
3:18
good at being a father. And that meant that, you know,
3:22
it was going to be a conflict between being on call, you know,
3:26
a great deal, and wanting to be at home.
3:28
And I saw industry as a third way, a way that would allow me
3:31
to be deeply immersed in emerging science, to be a
3:37
physician for a larger number of patients, you know, albeit those
3:41
on clinical trials. And with a schedule that would
3:44
allow me to hopefully have a little more balance so that I
3:47
could achieve my goals, personal goals of being this type of
3:51
father that I want to be. And, and in back in 2008 when I
3:55
made this decision, it was a little heretical for somebody
3:57
coming right out of academic training, but I've been known to
4:01
do things that are heretical. So it wasn't much of a surprise
4:03
to other people. And it turned out to be, I think
4:06
for me, not just a good choice, but frankly the right choice for
4:13
who I am and how I like to approach problem solving.
4:17
I tell people all the time, you know, in 20 years, I've never
4:20
had a moment's regret about the choice to go into drug
4:23
development. It has provided me with just a
4:26
wealth of amazing problems to think about and more
4:29
importantly, a universe of colleagues that I would have
4:32
never ever, ever had occasion to interact with had I stayed in
4:36
the laboratory and were just stayed in the clinic.
4:39
Yeah, amazing. And so before founding day one,
4:43
you spent time at some of the companies I mentioned, but
4:45
Merck, GSK, Seattle Genetics, Juno and and Silverback.
4:49
Look, looking back, what lessons from each of those companies
4:52
ultimately shaped the founder that you became at day one?
4:57
Yeah, they were. You know, you learn a lot along
5:00
the way. I think at every, every company.
5:03
You know, Merck was really the foundational education for me in
5:08
drug development. You know, people, you know, said
5:12
that, you know, Merck at the time was like the Harvard of,
5:16
of, of pharma and it was very academic, very, you know, sort
5:21
of senior people, very, you know, committee driven, very
5:25
high minded science, which I really genuinely enjoyed.
5:30
The reason why I didn't stay at Merck was because they in the
5:33
middle of my sort of first year there, they acquired Schering
5:36
Plough. So this massive merger and the
5:39
integration which went on for years was really focused on
5:44
downsizing. So the first year that I had at
5:47
Merck was really learning end to end drug development and then
5:50
the second year was spending all my time thinking about the
5:52
things that we weren't going to develop, which was just not
5:55
great. You know, at that point I was 40
5:57
or 41 years old and I wanted to be productive and there is no
6:01
way that you can be productive if you go to work every day
6:03
deciding what you're not going to do.
6:06
So Glaxo, you know, when I switched over to Glaxo was
6:11
really remarkable because it, it was a very different model.
6:15
Glaxo at the time was these what are called DP, US Drug
6:18
Performance Unit development Performance Units.
6:20
I can't remember what the acronym stood for, but they were
6:22
like a collection of small biotech companies.
6:25
So it was my first real taste of what a small focus team without
6:30
as much structure around it could do.
6:33
And, and I really, really, really enjoyed my time there.
6:37
And that's where I learned how to be creative as an early stage
6:41
cancer drug developer, how I learned to think about precision
6:43
medicine. I really the, the, the time that
6:46
I had at Glaxo was some of the best that I had in big pharma.
6:49
And it was on the back of that that I got recruited to Seattle
6:53
Genetics to take the things that I had learned about early stage
6:58
translationally focused drug development and bring those out
7:01
to the West Coast and apply them to this emerging field of
7:05
antibody drug conjugates. And while I, I think that that
7:10
was the aspiration, you know, I did make, I think a critical
7:13
mistake in my career that I learned a great deal from, which
7:16
was I took a position that I was wholly unequipped to take.
7:21
While I was capable of doing the drug development work, I was
7:23
actually hired in to run early development in translational
7:27
research, which is a group of about 40 people.
7:29
And I had never managed a single person before.
7:31
I'd never LED in any way, shape or form.
7:34
And I went to Seattle Genetics thinking like an individual
7:38
contributor, but my job was actually to be really a function
7:42
head. And I did what I think a lot of
7:46
people in those roles do for the first time, which is you focus
7:48
on the stuff that you're comfortable with, which for me
7:50
was running a program. And that meant I neglected the
7:54
leadership and management part of the job.
7:56
And that just didn't work out well.
7:58
Didn't work out for well for the people who were reporting into
8:01
me. And it didn't work out for me as
8:03
well. And that job, you know, that I
8:05
left after a couple of years really made me realize what it
8:11
feels like when you get out ahead of your skis, when you
8:13
take on something that you're not quite ready to take on it it
8:16
it has informed a lot of this career decisions in my life.
8:19
It also taught me the importance of being a good manager and how
8:25
that's not an intrinsic sort of thing that people are just born
8:28
with, but it's a learned set of skills.
8:31
It's a practice and a discipline much like any any other practice
8:34
in discipline. And for a complex organization
8:38
that's trying to do something incredibly complicated, it is a
8:41
critical set of skills to have. What we do is so intricate that
8:47
improperly managed it. It's just lighting money on
8:51
lighting money and time on fire. And so, you know, where as I
8:55
eschewed sort of management sciences and discipline going
8:58
into this on the other side, coming out of Seattle Genex, I
9:01
recognize like, wow, this is a huge gap in my skill set.
9:04
It's a huge gap and blind spot for me and something that I have
9:07
to get good at if I want to continue to ascend in my career.
9:10
And then, you know, Juno and Silverback were both small
9:14
start-ups when I joined them. And I learned a great deal
9:16
about, you know, how capital flows and how it's necessary to
9:21
support the very complex and expensive work that we do.
9:25
Recognize the importance of speed and time and focus, which
9:28
is really one of the things that makes biotech so much fun for
9:31
me. And all of those things, you
9:35
know, at at the end, the sort of academic Y type perspective that
9:41
I got from Merck and Glaxo, learning the fundamentals of
9:44
drug development and big pharma, The the hard lessons I learned
9:49
about about what what it means when you're not a good manager
9:52
and not a good leader. I learned from Seattle Genetics
9:55
and what I learned about biotech and speed and urgency from Juno
10:00
and Silverback. All of those things were in my
10:03
toolbox in 2018 when I met Julie Grant from Canaan Partners.
10:08
And she and I began to talk about building a new company
10:11
focused on pediatric cancer drug development.
10:13
So had it not been for both the highs and the lows of the
10:17
previous ten years or so, there's no way I would have been
10:20
ready or in a position to to start day one.
10:24
And this is, you know, this is sort of not a revelation.
10:27
Pasteur, right? Who said, you know, chance
10:29
favors the prepared mind? And you know, I was very, very
10:33
lucky that I was prepared at the time that the opportunity landed
10:37
on my doorstep to to start a new company.
10:40
Yeah, amazing. That's some journey for sure.
10:45
Just historically, pediatric oncology, it's an area that's
10:48
often been overlooked by drug developers in the past.
10:52
Why did you believe there was an opportunity to build an an
10:55
entire company focused on precision medicines, precision
10:59
medicines to children rather than simply adapting adult
11:02
programs? Just talk us through the thought
11:03
process that that you had there. Well, you know, part of this
11:07
came, part of the rationale came from just what I had experienced
11:11
in the, in the previous ten years.
11:13
I, I started my career in industry in 2008, which is right
11:17
around the time that the European Medicines Association
11:21
began requiring companies that wanted to seek approval in
11:24
Europe, requiring those companies to have pediatric
11:27
investigation plans and really a plan to develop those drugs for
11:30
pediatric diseases. And because I was working in
11:33
oncology, obviously that was mostly focused on pediatric
11:36
cancer. One of the things that I
11:38
learned, you know, over those 10 years was, you know, companies,
11:42
if you provided them the right incentives, right, both carrots
11:45
and, and the disincentives right to, to, to, to, to, you know,
11:50
to, to not shirk their responsibility, the sticks that
11:54
they could do that, that they would hire people like me and,
11:56
and allow us to focus on thinking about ways to apply
11:59
adult cancer medicines to pediatric cancers.
12:03
The problem was when the adult program didn't succeed, they
12:08
would just drop the pediatric work because at the end of the
12:10
day, it financially wasn't worth it to them.
12:13
Pediatric cancer as a whole is relatively small and anyone
12:17
given disease within that pie of pediatric cancers is also small.
12:21
So, you know, there is no incentive to develop for
12:24
Pediatrics alone. But I did learn this important
12:26
point, which is that if you could find a molecule that
12:29
served both pediatric and adult indications, that would be
12:32
something that companies would be interested in funding.
12:35
And so all I did with day one, all we did was really take that
12:40
idea and we flipped it on its head.
12:43
As opposed to starting with adult targets and adult diseases
12:46
and then trying to figure out a way to use them in Pediatrics to
12:50
get the European Medicines Association to approve your
12:53
pediatric investigation plan. We started with pediatric
12:56
indications. We said, let's think about the
12:58
target space for pediatric diseases, find programs that we
13:03
think are going to serve those targets in those diseases, and
13:06
then flip it around and look for adult indications where we can
13:09
create even more value. So that was 1 realization why we
13:12
thought we could succeed. The second was there are
13:17
diseases in children that are just chronic diseases that you
13:23
know, where patients tumors aren't exploding, where they're
13:26
not dying of their disease in a year or two years, but they're
13:29
living with their disease, their tumor for a long time.
13:32
And so that allows you, if you find a drug that successfully
13:36
modifies the behavior of that tumor to take a small
13:39
population, but you're treating them for a much longer period of
13:41
time. And so that then changes the
13:45
value proposition both for patients, it also changes the
13:48
value proposition for investors. And I think by taking those two
13:52
ideas that there's a set of targets or set of molecular
13:56
targets that serve both adult and pediatric patients.
13:59
And that for the pediatric targets, while the numbers may
14:02
be on the smaller side, the duration of treatment is on the
14:04
longer side. You put those two things
14:07
together and we do the sort of the venture capital math and all
14:11
of a sudden you go, you know, for $100 million in the cost of
14:16
development, I can unlock six or seven or eight fold return on
14:21
that investment because I can pick up a couple of adult
14:25
indications or I'm going to be treating patients for four years
14:27
as opposed to a year, you know which which you typically see
14:31
with adult diseases. And we tested that hypothesis
14:35
once we had identified some molecules that fit that bill
14:39
with investors and they clearly felt that that was a hypothesis
14:43
worth evaluating and and that's how we were able to secure our
14:46
initial funding. Yeah, amazing.
14:50
Day one ultimately delivered an FDA approved therapy for
14:53
children with relapse pediatric low grade diloma.
14:58
What what did that moment mean for you personally?
15:00
Knowing how many families had been waiting for for better
15:03
treatment options that that must have been some feeling for for
15:06
you and the team over at day one.
15:10
Yeah, it it, it was incredible. I mean, so you know, pediatric
15:13
low glioma is the most common brain tumor of childhood.
15:17
So when I was a pediatric neuro oncology fellow, I took care of
15:21
a lot of these patients. So I know first hand what the
15:26
disease does to children and I know what it does to families.
15:30
And you know, one of the things that always bothered me when I
15:33
was taking care of patients was the fact that by calling it low
15:37
grade, which really refers to the Histology of the tumor or
15:41
how it looks under the microscope.
15:44
Calling it low grade sort of signals to people who don't
15:48
understand the field that maybe it's just not a severe disease.
15:52
And that's a little ridiculous when you think about a non
15:56
severe brain tumor. I, I would think that any brain
15:58
tumor, right, any mass growing in an enclosed Bony space, it's
16:04
going to be severe at some point.
16:05
And, and, and, but people here low grade and they're like, so,
16:10
you know, I would take care of these patients and I would see
16:13
over the arc, not just of the time that I spent taking care of
16:16
them, but I stayed in touch with a lot of my patients and their
16:19
families for years beyond my clinical, my clinical work.
16:23
And I would see how these tumors not just didn't just impact
16:27
their lives at the time that we were treating them, but the
16:29
residual of these tumors altered the course of the life of these
16:34
children for decades and their families.
16:38
And the fact that we just didn't have great drugs to take care of
16:42
them was always unsatisfying to me.
16:45
The fact that day one that our very first program was for the
16:50
most common type of pediatric brain tumor, right?
16:53
A disease that I treated plenty of when I was taking care of
16:55
patients where I had plenty of patients who I knew suffered
16:59
from this disease and, and that we were able to make a
17:04
difference there was immensely and profoundly satisfying.
17:10
And I, we knew this from no pun intended from, from day one,
17:14
right? We would hear from families of
17:17
children who had exhausted all of the available therapies and
17:21
were desperate to get access to our drug.
17:24
It's part of the reason that we started a compassionate use
17:26
program within the first year of starting the company.
17:29
And for the children that did where the the drug made a
17:32
difference. You know, I would get emails and
17:37
text messages from these families talking about how much
17:41
this impacted their lives in a in a positive way.
17:44
And you know, much in the same way that I saved all of the bits
17:47
and bobs and cards and, and, and drawings and whatnot from, from
17:52
when I was taking care of patients as a pediatric
17:54
oncologist, those text messages or emails that I would get that
17:59
had the exact same impact on me. It gave me a sense that that,
18:02
that the premise of why I went into industry that is to, to
18:08
help children with cancer at scale was within reach and to
18:14
get the FDA approval to have that become real was really the,
18:20
the achievement of now this 20 year journey that I've had in
18:26
the world of, of pediatric oncology.
18:28
And it really validated, I think all of the choices along the way
18:35
and justified all of the ups and downs and the painful bits and
18:39
the long, long hours and, and, and time away from time away
18:43
from home. And honestly, Tom, it's the gift
18:47
that keeps on giving. You know, tovirapinib not only
18:50
got FDA approval in relapse, but it got very recently marketing
18:57
authorization in the European medicine in the, in the, in by
19:01
the from the European Medicines Association.
19:03
And we have achieved approval in other countries beyond Europe.
19:08
So it's now a global drug. And I think for any one person
19:14
working in in this field in drug development, the idea that
19:18
something that you have worked hard on, something that you had
19:22
a vision for, that you were able to convince a lot of other
19:25
people to support that vision and come work with you.
19:28
That that now is a medicine that's accessible around the
19:32
world, for children around the world.
19:35
And that you're able to make a difference in places that you
19:39
would have never imagined you'd be able to make a difference.
19:41
I mean, it's, it's, it's fulfilling in a way that I just
19:47
don't ever have the full words to full words to describe.
19:53
Yeah. Well, look, some achievements.
19:55
So yeah, congratulations for for you and everyone involved in
19:58
that. Just to take it back to yourself
20:01
personally, you've obviously spent years as a as an operator.
20:05
What made this to right the right time to now move more into
20:08
venture investing with Google Ventures?
20:10
How can you want it to maybe go into that side instead of maybe
20:13
taking another operator role or lead in another company?
20:19
Well, I'll be completely honest with you.
20:23
I, I mean, it was pretty, pretty straightforward, pretty
20:27
straightforward decision. I was tired, I was exhausted.
20:31
You know, the day one was one of these instances where you just
20:35
sort of leave it all on the, on the pitch.
20:39
I was, I was, you know, I, I sort of used up all the energy
20:43
that I had. And, and honestly, my family
20:49
said, you know, basically raised the sort of the yellow card and
20:51
said, you know, you need to, you need to take a break.
20:54
You've been gone too long. And when you haven't been gone,
20:57
you really haven't been here, been in your head the whole
20:59
time. And they needed me back.
21:02
It was my daughter's last year at home before she went off to
21:06
university. And she said to me, you know,
21:09
this is my last year at home and you're going to miss it if you
21:11
keep, keep going at this pace. And I paid attention to that
21:16
because, you know, again, you know, I, I like to think that
21:21
what I do on a day-to-day basis in drug development is important
21:26
and meaningful work, but it's not the only important
21:29
meaningful work in my life. I've got other stakeholders,
21:32
other people who I serve and, and, and I happen to live with
21:37
two of them right here. And the longer that I neglect
21:40
that, the less happy they are. So I needed a break and Google
21:46
Ventures, which offered me an entrepreneurial residence
21:48
position was a perfect fit for me in terms of the, the quality
21:55
of the team, just the brilliance of the people at GB, the
21:59
exposure to really things that are at the cutting edge of life
22:03
science, but beyond just life science, healthcare delivery
22:07
payer provider and pure technology.
22:11
And the patience that they had for allowing me to regroup, get
22:16
the creative juices flowing again and start thinking about
22:20
whether or not there's another operating role sort of left in
22:22
me before I, you know, have all Gray hair or all no hair or
22:26
whatever. So, you know, the past year and
22:29
a quarter at GD has been brilliant.
22:31
I feel energized and creative in a way that I haven't felt since
22:36
the very start of day one. I'm starting to think about new
22:40
company ideas again and have also been learning a lot about
22:44
how to think like a life science investor and how to deploy
22:47
capital to bring the very best science forward, you know, as a
22:53
different way of trying to facilitate the development of
22:55
new medicines. And so, you know, this has been
22:58
in just a terrific next step while I think about whether or
23:03
not there's one more operating role left in me and whether or
23:06
not I want to try to make that transition, whether or not I'm
23:10
ready to make that transition from head of R&D to ACEO.
23:16
And maybe just to be a little bit circular.
23:20
You know, that very hard lesson that I learned at Seattle
23:23
Genetics when I took a leap that I wasn't ready to take has meant
23:29
that whenever I think about another big transition, I'm
23:32
going to be super thoughtful about whether or not I'm ready.
23:35
And that's been the process that that I've been going through.
23:39
And GV has given me that space to do that, which I've been
23:42
grateful for. I will maybe not preview what
23:44
the answer to that question is. I'll let people find out in the
23:48
usual ways, LinkedIn or or whatnot, when I if and when I do
23:52
decide to make that transition. But, but this has been a
23:55
terrific chance for me to learn a lot about all the oncology
23:59
that I missed in the last six years and important, learn a lot
24:02
about myself and, and, and evaluate where, where I'm
24:05
heading to next. Yeah.
24:06
So I mean, this next bit, it's an area that we kind of
24:09
initially spoke about when we first met, but every founder
24:13
dreams about an exit, successful exit.
24:18
Very few people can honestly talk about what that actually
24:21
feels like. Just take us through that
24:24
period. What emotions were you feeling
24:26
as as the acquisition became real?
24:28
Was it, you know, you were super excited on on Cloud 9, you were
24:31
happy or what? Or was it something different
24:33
that you felt? Yeah, it's a great, it's a great
24:36
question. And you know, one that I, I
24:39
spent a lot of time thinking through and processing over the
24:43
last, you know, whatever it's been 5 months or, or whatnot.
24:47
So I was actually in Oxford had I left day one about a year
24:54
prior to join GVI, all my consulting agreements had
25:00
wrapped up. So I was completely on the
25:02
outside. So I had no idea what was going
25:04
on regarding M&A activity. And I was in Oxford having some
25:11
meetings, and I was actually with somebody that I met along
25:15
the way, John Pollard, who is the chief scientific officer of
25:19
a company called Dark Blue Therapeutics that had been
25:21
acquired by Amgen the year prior.
25:24
And we were catching up and he was touring me around Oxford.
25:27
And we were, interestingly enough, standing outside of the
25:31
Ashmolean Library, which I, you know, a huge fan of, huge fan of
25:38
because I love to watch the show Endeavour and Inspector Morrison
25:42
Lewis. I just anything set knocks here,
25:44
I'm going to watch it. And I got a text message from a
25:49
colleague, former colleague at day one that essentially told me
25:52
that the company was being acquired by Serbiae for 2 1/2
25:56
billion dollars and they're about to make the announcement.
25:59
And I was gobsmacked. I had sort of expected, I think
26:05
anytime you have a biotech company that actually succeeds,
26:10
gets a drug approved, launches a drug, a small biotech company,
26:13
the the odds are overwhelmingly that you're going to be acquired
26:17
at some point. I just hadn't actually priced
26:21
that into the way that I thought about myself.
26:23
I thought about my life, I thought about day one.
26:26
I, I knew it was a theoretical possibility.
26:28
I kind of expected it at some point, but that was, I never
26:31
actually did any deep thinking about it.
26:33
And so it was really standing there in Oxford that all of the
26:39
emotional processing started to take place.
26:44
And, and one of the things that I think caught me by surprise is
26:47
that it wasn't just sort of all at once how I felt, how I
26:52
thought about it. The full impact of it actually
26:54
took several months to sort of come out.
27:00
I mean, obviously I was elated because I think in terms of, you
27:07
know, all of the people who had invested in day one.
27:10
And I don't just mean the public investors or the private
27:14
investors. I mean, the people who had taken
27:17
a chance with their careers and invested their time and effort,
27:21
time away from the family, all that stuff in building what we
27:24
had built at day one, all of those people were going to at
27:29
least now materially recognize the value of that investment.
27:34
And you know, I was very close to the whole team at day one.
27:38
I saw, you know, you know, 100 and some people 100, almost 200
27:42
people hired in and knowing that those people were going to now
27:47
see I think in a very different way, the value of their
27:51
investment of themselves in day one realized was very satisfying
27:55
because I'm happy for my friends that they're, you know, going to
27:58
going to going to maturely benefit from from this type of
28:01
transaction. I was also excited for the fact
28:06
that, you know, Tovarafnib and our other programs were going to
28:09
have much more capital available to them through Servier to
28:14
continue their development. And you know, it's happy for
28:19
patients that, you know, we're going to have the muscle of a
28:21
larger company to continue to support this drug.
28:27
Interestingly, it took a few weeks for me to to actually have
28:33
all this land because there's a lot more beyond just sort of the
28:36
immediate sort of material nature of the transaction.
28:41
A couple of weeks into this, I found myself just super
28:44
agitated. I would get up in the morning,
28:47
I'd walk to my office, I'd sort of do my thing.
28:50
And by like 10 or 11:00 in the morning, I was just restless and
28:54
agitated. I didn't feel right.
28:56
Even my family noticed. Like, what's wrong with you?
28:59
Like you should be elated. You'd be thrilled.
29:01
You should be on cloud 9. And I was not quite right.
29:05
And what I eventually came to realize through talking to a lot
29:10
of people was that this was this was like watching your baby grow
29:18
up and leave home and go out into the world and not know
29:23
whether or not you're going to see them again.
29:25
And I mean that on multiple levels.
29:28
It was the fact that the team that, you know, we had worked so
29:31
hard to put together was going to change it.
29:35
Maybe it was going to stay together.
29:36
Maybe it wasn't going to stay together.
29:38
It meant that day one, which is so much linked to me, Sam
29:43
Blackman, was no longer going to be day one.
29:45
It was going to be a part of survey that day one.
29:48
This was going to disappear. It meant that the culture and
29:51
the values of the company that we had created was going to
29:56
shift because it wasn't ours anymore.
30:00
We we were not going to be able to be the sole defenders of day
30:02
one culture, values sort of way of doing things.
30:06
It was now going to be part of another company.
30:09
And then I think on a personal level, I don't think I fully
30:14
understood what it meant for me to achieve an exit in terms of
30:21
what I'm supposed to do with the rest of my life.
30:25
It's a it's just not something that people tell you about or
30:28
maybe they do, but I just didn't actually think about it.
30:31
But it raised a lot of questions as to what am I supposed to do
30:35
now? Like what does this mean for
30:38
what motivates me to get up every single day?
30:41
What does it mean for my motivation to do super hard
30:44
things that are risky? And for a while I had this sense
30:49
of like, well, well, maybe I don't want to work that hard
30:52
anymore. Like maybe I don't like, why
30:54
would I go through the pain and suffering of taking on risk and
30:58
going through all this and the ups and downs and the
31:00
uncertainty, especially in such a weird time.
31:04
And where I've now gotten to four or five months later is
31:09
this sense of liberation that now I can take even bigger risks
31:14
because the there's a lot less downside.
31:17
Anything that I decide to start or get involved in now, I'm
31:21
going to do everything that I can to make it work.
31:23
But if it doesn't, it doesn't change my life significantly.
31:27
Failure doesn't change my life significantly.
31:29
Success actually probably doesn't change my life
31:31
significantly. I'm doing the work because I can
31:35
do bigger and harder things with less, less personal risk.
31:40
And that's incredibly liberating.
31:42
And what that means for me is holy cow, like I can now try to
31:47
solve some really hard problems. Like that problem was hard.
31:51
Like here's a really hard problem.
31:53
Let me have at it because if it doesn't work, then OK, try
31:57
something else. If it does work, great.
32:01
And, and I didn't realize how freeing it could be.
32:05
And it's part of the reason why I'm excited about the next
32:07
couple years of my life because I'm, I have this renewed, not
32:13
only fund of knowledge from all the things I've learned over the
32:18
past year and a half, but I feel free to, to, to actually go and
32:24
take risks. I don't have to be conservative
32:28
at my age. I can be now risk seeking at my
32:30
age, which I think is what makes, you know, makes me happy.
32:35
I want to take chances to do big, hard things.
32:38
So the exit has been quite a journey in and of itself.
32:42
I didn't know where I was going to end up at the end of it in
32:44
terms of my thinking. And I end up in this place where
32:47
finally I'm really happy, but for reasons that I completely
32:51
didn't expect, which was I'm like, I'm ready for more.
32:55
I'm ready to take more chances, which is not what I would have
32:57
expected. That's so interesting that you
33:00
say that. I've I've not heard that many
33:02
times before. This is completely different way
33:04
of of seeing things. What you're obviously with day
33:07
one, for so long, it was such a big part of your life.
33:11
How did you kind of redefine your own identity outside of the
33:15
business post acquisition? Is that something still that you
33:18
you're trying to figure out now or just talk us through that
33:21
because you're obviously with the company just for so long?
33:24
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's very
33:28
interesting. There's so many different
33:32
spheres that I had the chance to to occupy.
33:36
You know, I think within the pediatric oncology community,
33:40
people have, you know, sort of identified me as the as the day
33:44
one guy. And what I've been trying to do
33:47
is spend more time invested in the pediatric oncology
33:51
community, but not from the perspective of day one, really
33:55
from the perspective of somebody who understands drug development
33:59
and now understands the financing of drug development to
34:02
help think about how we can work together as a community to
34:06
continue to solve problems. And so, you know, I'm, I spend a
34:11
lot of time I'm on the board of the Pediatric Brain Tumor
34:13
Foundation, pretty much any pediatric foundation or
34:16
organization that invites me to speak about what I've learned in
34:20
terms of drug development and what I've learned about
34:21
investing in, in cancer drug development for rare diseases.
34:25
I go to those talks all the time, not because I like
34:29
necessarily getting on planes and flying places, but because I
34:32
think it's important to have somebody who's on the inside
34:36
talking to the broader pediatric oncology and pediatric rare
34:38
disease world about how the landscape is changing and how we
34:42
have to work differently to solve the problems that we care
34:45
about. So I'm, if that's a rebranding
34:49
as sort of a, you know, sort of voice of experience and drug
34:52
development for rare indications, that's fine.
34:54
That works for me on the other side, on the sort of investor
34:59
drug developer side. I think trying to, I want to say
35:06
rebrand myself, but but but maybe regard myself or hold
35:11
myself out to others as somebody who is now battle tested and
35:15
experienced and ready to lead in a different way.
35:20
Not necessarily as AR and D head, but as a, as a, as a chief
35:25
executive officer. And that I've learned these
35:28
lessons and I've accumulated these skills and not so that I
35:33
can necessarily replicate them, but so that they can be 1 module
35:37
amongst others that could make me an effective leader for an
35:40
entire company. That's, you know, another way in
35:43
which I'm sort of trying to, you know, that Sam, sort of two
35:48
point O or three-point O. Whatever version of my operating
35:51
system I'm on right now is emerging is hopefully one where
35:55
people will see me as a thoughtful, equanimitable and
36:00
deeply experienced executive who's capable of driving a team
36:06
forward as their leader to achieve, you know, our goal of
36:13
getting to proof of concept for a new molecule or a new
36:15
mechanism or getting a new drug to market.
36:20
Yeah, if you could kind of go back and rewind today, one's
36:23
very first board meeting, knowing everything that you do
36:27
now what? What advice would you give
36:29
yourself if if you could go back and yeah, go back in time?
36:35
So our very first board meeting interestingly, was March, I
36:38
think March 4th of 2020, which as most people will understand,
36:44
that is about two or three weeks before COVID shut the world
36:48
down. And I think that I would have,
36:52
if I could go back and talk to Sam Blackman back then, I would
36:56
have told him a number of things.
36:59
One is, you know, the world is about to change.
37:03
Don't freak out, right? You know, the world has been
37:06
through a lot of seismic changes before.
37:08
It miraculously keeps going. So keep going.
37:12
The second is that, you know, we're going to the world is
37:17
going to be rocked in ways that we we couldn't have possibly
37:19
imagined, obviously financially and in terms of infrastructure
37:24
working so on and so forth. But the biggest thing is how
37:26
people relate to each other and this sort of very weird world
37:31
that we live in where we tend to know people more in 2
37:34
dimensions, right, like this versus 3 dimensions and how
37:41
trying to replicate that three-dimensional relationship
37:46
is really important. And don't, don't wait until it's
37:50
too late to do that. Make the extra effort to try to
37:54
spend more time with people, talking to people, listening to
37:58
people, as opposed to just sort of seeing them through a box on
38:02
a screen, trying to get a task done.
38:04
Like you really need to know people in depth.
38:07
And I think we lost a little bit of that during COVID.
38:09
We've sort of withdrew into our shells and, and I think we're
38:12
still suffering from that. It's part of the reason why, you
38:15
know, I, I really strive to go to the office as much as I can
38:20
and to see people in three dimensions.
38:22
I think it's super important. And then I think the other
38:26
thing, you know, I would have told myself at that first board
38:30
meeting is interestingly, write everything down.
38:35
Somebody actually gave me this advice when I told them that I
38:38
was thinking about starting a company.
38:41
And I, I regret that I didn't take it, which is to write down
38:46
every day just a little bit about what that day was like,
38:50
because it goes by so fast. It's like, it's like being a
38:54
parent, right? The, you know, the days are
38:57
long, the years are short. It goes by so fast.
39:01
And I experienced so much as a human being at day one in terms
39:08
of how I changed and grew, saw myself, how I interacted with
39:12
people, how different things affected me.
39:15
And at the end of the day, I was just so dog tired.
39:17
I never, I never bothered to write down, you know, what I was
39:20
feeling or thinking on any given day.
39:22
I really wish I could have. I really wish I could go back
39:25
and examine, you know, all that went into those transitions.
39:29
I'm sure I would. There's a lot in there that I
39:33
probably don't remember. That's important stuff as well.
39:36
And I think keeping track of your journey, you know, we do
39:40
this people who journal or or or keep Diaries of their travel.
39:45
This is a different type of journey.
39:46
It's a long journey, very emotional and personal journey,
39:48
scientific journey. I wish I had kept a better
39:52
journal of it, because it was, it was amazing.
39:55
Amazing. If someone is listening to this
39:58
and is considering founding their first biotech company,
40:02
what's 1 lesson you wish someone had shared with you before you
40:05
had started day one? Yeah.
40:08
Just talk us around that with. And yeah, I guess just
40:11
entrepreneurship generally as well.
40:15
I think, yeah. I mean, you know, maybe,
40:18
probably. I mean, there's so many things
40:20
you could say. I think maybe that I'll give you
40:24
2 lessons. One is don't give up so easily,
40:33
but also don't hold on so hard, right?
40:37
You know, ideas for new companies, ideas for new
40:40
products, ideas for new, whatever ideas are cheap, right?
40:47
Actually being able to deliver is really what, what matters,
40:51
right? Feasibility and tractability are
40:53
what matter. Cleverness and, and sort of, you
40:56
know, novelty. You know, there's plenty of
40:59
novelty and plenty of cleverness in the world, but actually being
41:02
able to get things done, that's really what, what people reward
41:05
and that's what people are going to invest in.
41:08
So if you're going to start a new company, you know, you're
41:11
going to run into all sorts of friction, you're going to run
41:13
into all sorts of headwinds, particularly now where you know,
41:17
we're still a little risk off for new, particularly drug
41:20
development ideas. You want to, you don't want to
41:25
give up so easily, but you also need to listen to the market.
41:29
And I've met a lot of founders who are 2345610 years in and the
41:35
market has repeatedly told them like, we're not ready for this
41:40
or it's not ready for us or whatever the case may be, you
41:45
know, spend a year sort of trying to, to get through those
41:50
walls and barriers. That's great.
41:52
Five years, six years, 10 years. At some point, there's an
41:56
opportunity cost to the number of years in your life that
41:58
you're spending on something. And I think you need to pay
42:00
attention to that because we don't have infinite time.
42:04
The second thing I would sort of tell people is really tell learn
42:12
how to tell a compelling story. So much of what we invest in is
42:21
around a story of a different future that could be a result of
42:29
bringing forward new science and new medicine.
42:34
But you need to get people to believe that story.
42:36
It has to be a credible story, but it can't just be a
42:39
recitation of facts. It actually has to be a story
42:41
that gets people motivated. So your science has to be
42:45
impeccable. The data has to be supportive.
42:47
But I've seen good science and good data not get funded because
42:52
people couldn't get the story out.
42:54
They couldn't show the vision of how this is going to make a
42:57
difference. And I'll throw in maybe one free
42:59
last piece of advice, which is that we are in a time right now
43:03
that is very product focused. And so bringing forward science
43:07
without line of sight to how that's actually going to be a
43:09
product is a risk work backwards from if I'm successful, how is
43:16
this going to make a difference in people's lives?
43:18
How are they going to use this drug?
43:20
How many people are going to use this drug?
43:22
How long are they going to use it for?
43:25
What's going to get them to use it?
43:26
What's going to make them stop using it?
43:29
And what does that represent in terms of quantifiable value?
43:33
And then once you have a sense of what it's worth, how much and
43:36
how long does it take for me to unlock that value?
43:39
And then just do the math. Because if you divide the value
43:42
by the amount of time and effort that it's going to take to to
43:44
get there and that that multiple is 1, you're going to have a
43:50
hard time funding that. If that multiple is five, you're
43:52
probably in pretty good shape. And if it's 10, go as fast and
43:55
hard as you can. So those are my sort of three
43:57
bits of advice for people who think about starting new
43:59
companies. Nice.
44:03
And this is a way that we would always finish with on the
44:05
podcast as well, kind of like a quick fire, few questions, a
44:08
little bit more of a personal way to round it off.
44:10
But I think you kind of just mentioned it then.
44:12
But what what's the best piece of leadership advice that you've
44:15
ever received for your career? Yeah.
44:21
You know, I mean, it's, it's essentially, you know, you know,
44:24
you know, leaders eat last. It's, it's, you know, the I
44:29
became a much better leader when I stopped thinking about myself
44:33
and I started focusing on other people.
44:37
What I took me a long time to learn, mostly because I'm I'm
44:41
thick headed, is that if I stop thinking about myself, but I'm
44:45
good as a leader, I will be fine, right.
44:49
People will recognize that when you think about yourself first,
44:53
that's obvious to everybody. So really that whole sort of
44:57
leaders eat Last thing I think is important, important thing to
45:01
remember. You're the the best thing that
45:03
you can do, I think, as a leader is sit on your own ego.
45:06
Sit on it. What which book has had the
45:09
biggest influence on on how you think?
45:11
So it's not so much a book as it is a speech.
45:17
William Osler, who was, you know, one of the founders of,
45:22
you know, or sort of one of the, the, the, the Seminole figures
45:25
in Western medicine the turn of the century gave a speech at
45:30
Johns Hopkins University called equanimitas.
45:33
And it's about the, the, the, the nature of equanimity, the
45:37
ability to keep a level head in the middle of a storm.
45:42
And he was referring to the need for physicians to be
45:48
equanimitable in the face of uncertainty and illness and
45:53
death. All right, the patients that
45:55
they were taken care of. But I think that that also
45:59
applies very much so to a life spent in biotech and drug
46:04
development where there are external factors that we can't
46:08
control. Things that are big and scary.
46:10
There's internal things that your company, your team, there's
46:12
going to be stuff in your own life.
46:15
Good leaders have a keep a level head.
46:18
They are the calm in the storm and can see the path forward.
46:23
And I that understanding that what that looks like and the
46:28
power of equanimity in the face of a constantly and rapidly
46:33
shifting world is something that I learned very early.
46:36
And it affected me not just in my career as a physician, but
46:39
certainly now in my role as an executive.
46:42
What? What's 1 belief you held ten
46:44
years ago that you've completely changed your mind on now?
46:48
I think that and I want to be, I want to be positive about this.
46:52
I think again, relating to leadership, I think 10 years
46:55
ago, you know, I, I would tell people, you know, I, I told the
47:02
coach this, It was, it's, it's almost embarrassing for me to
47:05
say it now. I said, you know that, you know,
47:10
I expect everybody to come to work sort of the way that I come
47:13
to work, which is you put your, you sort of put your ego aside
47:16
and you just do your job, right? You don't like, I don't want to
47:20
hear about your personal problems, like just come to work
47:22
and do your job. Like I expect everybody to come
47:23
to work and do their job. And, and 10 years later, I can
47:29
tell you that's almost impossible to do.
47:32
We're not automatons, we're not robots yet, right?
47:36
We're human beings and we show up every day to do our jobs, but
47:41
we have multitudes within ourselves like things that that
47:47
that we're carrying around either from our past or present,
47:52
that we tend not to let other people see.
47:56
It doesn't mean it doesn't affect us.
47:58
And I think failure to recognize what is going on inside of other
48:04
people, or at least acknowledge that there's just more that you
48:07
don't know than you do know when you interact with or when you
48:10
lead people is critical you, it's a critical mistake.
48:14
You have to recognize that when you encounter somebody and they
48:19
are having an off day, that's not that may not be that they're
48:24
incapable of doing their job. It may be that something
48:27
horrendous is happening in their life and they're showing up
48:30
Despite that to do their job. And I think pausing when things
48:37
are not going well to see the whole person.
48:40
I think pausing when things are going well to recognize that
48:43
your team is delivering despite the fact that they've got a lot
48:46
going on in their lives, I think is what makes a good leader, a
48:50
great leader. It's it's seeing all the people
48:54
that you deal with as full human beings.
48:57
And I don't think that we take the time to do that enough.
49:01
Amazing. I love that.
49:02
And and just finally, if you were to invite any three people
49:06
for a dinner from past or present, who would you want to
49:09
invite and why? You know, what would you want to
49:11
learn from them? What makes them so fascinating?
49:13
It can be anyone as well. It can be people in the
49:16
industry. It can be sports figures.
49:18
Oh, I thought about this. I thought about this question a
49:20
lot. Yeah.
49:21
No, I thought about this question a lot.
49:24
I mean, so the first person I would invite would be Franklin
49:27
Delano Roosevelt. And part of the reason is, you
49:31
know, he inherited the presidency at a time when
49:37
America was in the depths of a profound depression, and he
49:43
found a path forward that allowed us to recover as a
49:48
country. And I think given what is going
49:51
on right now in the United States, you know, which is a
49:56
very challenging and difficult and unpleasant period of
50:00
history, I want to hear from somebody who has been through
50:04
something this dark before and can see a path forward and can
50:08
have hope. Which gets me to the second
50:11
person who I would invite, which would be Barack Obama.
50:14
Because, you know, I remember, I remember his speech in Iowa
50:19
during the primaries that brought me to tears.
50:21
I remember standing in line to vote for him.
50:24
I remember his inauguration. And this is a, a man who is
50:30
profoundly hopeful. And I want to understand from
50:34
him how he maintains hope in the face of what has been, you know,
50:39
20 years of adversity, plus that he's faced in the political
50:43
sphere. And then the third person that I
50:46
would invite just because he can't have three presents at a
50:49
table that would be too much, would be Robin Williams, who I
50:55
think as a human being clearly had so much in him that we
51:01
didn't see, unfortunately, until the very end of his life.
51:06
But a creative genius and a a childlike way of looking at the
51:12
world, you know, a spontaneity and ability to translate things
51:18
into humor, I think better than any other human being that I've
51:22
ever seen perform in my life. And understanding how he how he
51:27
did that. And plus, I think it'd just be
51:30
fun to sit at a table between Barack Obama and Robin Williams
51:33
and have Franklin Diller and all on the other side.
51:35
I think it would be a a fabulous foursome for dinner.
51:39
Yeah. But look, 3 great answers there.
51:42
And thanks again for coming on and helping us out with this.
51:45
It's super inspiring what you've done for your career.
51:48
Congratulations on on this, on the successful exit, FDA
51:52
approved, everything that you did with day one.
51:54
And yeah, Sam, it was a pleasure.
51:55
So appreciate you making the time.
51:57
Really enjoyed that. Likewise, Tom, great questions.
52:01
This was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.