Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Welcome to the Few and Far between podcast. I'm your host, Chris o'. Brien. Today on the Pod, we're going to be talking about longevity, both from the perspective of expanding human lifespans and from the point of view of optimizing successful biotechs. So how do you leverage experience and ingenuity to accomplish both? My next guest has discovered a few ideas of his own in his 35 years in the biopharmaceutical industry. Jerry McLaughlin serves as both CEO and board member at Life Biosciences, a biotechnology company. Pioneering cellular rejuvenation therapies to reverse and prevent multiple diseases of aging. He's also held vital roles in developing multiple blockbuster product launches at Merck AG, AegeneBio and Neos Therapeutics. In today's episode, Jerry shares how leveraging his experience in large biopharma prepared him for the playground of small biotechs. We'll also zoom in on best practices for working hand in hand with the biotech board of directors, tips for knowing when to walk away from a clinical study, and how wearing multiple hats might be the secret sauce to recognizing and attracting the right team. This episode spotlights some great insights for CEOs from all levels of experience, and I hope you enjoy it. Okay, let's start the podcast.
Jerry McLaughlin, welcome to Few and Far Between.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Thank you, Chris. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: I've been looking forward to this conversation on a couple of levels. Got a lot of ground to cover, but longevity and life extension as a goal is a really just fascinating space right now and something that is every day nearer and dearer to all of our hearts. But before we get to all of that, let's talk a little bit about your background. So you worked in big Pharma at Merck, you worked at neos. How did that experience influence what you brought to biotech into the current role that you're in? Ed, Life Biosciences tell us a little bit about that.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, so I think what's interesting, Chris, I've managed to survive for 35 years without a science background in biotech. And I think though at Merck, the company under the leadership of Roy Vagelos very much was an R and D driven organization. And it spread throughout the organization, even into the commercial organization. And I think what I learned is a respect for science and taking a scientific approach to all aspects of the business, whether it's market research, marketing, planning. I think that's carried through for me that discipline of focus and scientific rigor And I think if you've met me, people who've been at Mercury spent a long time there, they really think in that way. And I admire it. And I have to say, some of the smartest people I ever worked with, I did have a chance to work with some smaller companies including Endo Pharmaceuticals and Neosterapeutics that you mentioned. I think there I learned more entrepreneurial habits and skill sets where we had to pivot very quickly, make very sound business decisions, decisions in short order, often either to grow the business or to fix the business. And so I think that's really influenced me over time is rely on your. And during those times I sort of rely on that foundational skill set and experience and pattern recognition developed at companies like Merck. And that's something I try and instill in others that I bring into these companies and try and look for it in their skill set. And so as we get to a smaller company where you don't have as many human resources and so much capital, you need to make decisions, informed decisions and do the proper research and analytics, but you do need to rely a bit on your experience and pattern recognition. So I think that's really helped advance and sort of develop my leadership style.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: I love that and pattern recognition specifically. So let's talk a little more there. How do you recognize that? I think most folks who hear this, if they work in a biotech startup, they're going to recognize that point that you made that people have to wear multiple hats. But I think you're describing something as more like wisdom, right? This ability to recognize something you've seen before or that resembles something you've seen before and then shortcut the decision making process. When you meet someone, what are the kinds of things you look for that are good indicators of that?
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Well, I think number one is relevant experience. And there is a caveat to that. I've met many people who have 25 years of work experience but seem to have had 25 careers one year at a time and not learned much. Right, right, right. I think you have to look at decision making, how folks handle more often, how they handle the difficult situation, the rejection letter from the FDA in the commercial stage, something going off, formulary competition, coming in, tough decisions around capital. I think that's what you look for. Those individ who've been in very difficult situations throughout their career and have built a foundation not only, but then beyond that, leverage that experience in future situations. And that's something we really look for. And having worked at a company like Merck, Once again, the smartest people in the world I've ever worked with, many of those individuals would not do very well in biotech.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Right. And actually we see that. Right, we see that some folks are able to take the experiences they had inside of big pharma, which is an amazing school for thinking about drug development, of course, and struggle though to then apply those in a capital constrained, resource constrained, fast moving biotech environment. So do you sometimes, you know, I'm sure you're trying to identify that. Do I have the folks who can go through that translation exercise? What do you look for there?
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the nice part about having done this for 35 years, you develop a list. Yeah. Okay. And you know, right or wrong, I have a list of individuals whom I've worked with in the past or know very closely and something I can touch on in a second about making that transition from large pharma to small biotech. I think it's really finding those individuals who have a demonstrated ability to have moved from a large situation with lots of, like you said, lots of resources, of safety nets. And I call it, you're moving into the deep end of the pool before you know how to swim biotech. And what I look for are folks who don't define themselves necessarily by their job descriptions, have the willingness and the ability, the skill and the will to go beyond the borders of their job description. And this is something actually I learned at endopharmaceuticals. Leaving Merck. We were a company, I think I was employee number 125 in the six years I was there. We grew to over 1300 as we were hiring.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Big change.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: I made a lot of mistakes when I first became a manager hired on resume. And what I quickly learned is we had to hire on the old term grit. But I think it's for me personally, it's do they have the skill, the necessary skill, but then do they have the will? Because what I'm always looking for is folks who thrive in uncertainty, thrive in the ability and the opportunity to contribute beyond their job description. And that's not always easy because it's more work and you're not always recognized for that work. But for me personally, that was a playground for me when I went to Endo Pharmaceuticals.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah, right. That resonates a lot for me too. The CRO world is not too dissimilar. You can imagine there are people with terrific experience from large CROs and some of those folks bring terrific professionalization and skill upgrades to smaller organizations. And some of them don't Some of them really struggle to translate the stuff that they developed and learned into a different environment. I think you're right. Sometimes people actually really like living in their comfort zone of the stuff that they've riding on the rails. I'd say sometimes I think that people in big companies think they're driving the car, but it's a car. Looks more like a train. You know what I mean? They haven't actually had to make that many hard decisions in their career, Chris, and that's okay.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah, that's wonderful. But I'll give you a tangible example of someone who works for us today, and I think it's a good example example of how this works in the biotech community. So I took my first CEO role. It was a spin out of Johns Hopkins in the Alzheimer's space. And there was a woman I met there, and her background was phenomenal. The academic background was perfect. Undergrad at Penn, Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard, spent 20 some years at Wyeth and ran a large site from a discovery site and translational research site. Just all the pedigree that you could ever imagine. And I show up at this little company and there were four of us and her name's Sharon Rose and twinklipson. And Sharon, despite being a discovery scientist and a prominent one, when I got there, she working on formulation development, identifying a CRO, I mean a cdmo, another discovery stage program, and advancing our lead asset into a phase two, a clinical trial, collecting grants from the NIA and planning out a phase two trial for Alzheimer's.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Holy cow.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: And so you see people like that and that ability to advance their skills in a lot of areas. Right. And that thirst for learning. And so just amazing. And then fast forward. So that was worked with her from 2014 to 2018. And I joined Life Bioscience since 2018, 2021. And I think we'll probably touch on some of this later. And there were some changes need to be made, but my first inclination was I need Sharon.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Okay, Right, right.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: And here's the thing. Sharon had never worked in gene therapy, had never worked in ophthalmology. That didn't matter to me. She's an elite athlete.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: Yeah. You knew she could run.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. That's right. And on top of that, when you're in a small biotech, this is what you also learn individuals, how they handle adversity and how they solve problems. And so you have that. It's the perfect combination, I think, for biotech when you have, you have someone with that pedigree and that experience and that foundation at Big Pharma and the SC scientific background. But then they have that ability, willingness, and get the satisfaction out of solving the problems and really diversifying their experiences and touching all parts of the business. So I begged and prodded her for a year and a half to join us.
What do I need to say to get her. And literally, and this is advice for people who are cic, just don't give up, right?
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: She would say no because she was enjoying what she was doing. I said, you're saying no? And I'm hearing not yet. I literally said that to her.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Call you again next week. Yeah, right.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: So we did it for about a year and a half, and then she finally said, I can give you 10 hours. I said, okay. I don't think she ever worked less than 25 and a year and a half later, she said, I want the CSO job. And it's been phenomenal.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: That's a great story. That's a great story.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: But you fast forward, right? At first, people look at, well, she doesn't have ophthalmology experience. She doesn't have gene therapy experience. She now is presenting at the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Her presentation was rated number two key takeaway at last year's AAO meeting. You get the picture, right? And so those are the types of individuals I think that you want on your leadership team who lack an ego, take personal pride in being experts, are intellectually curious and welcome problems to solve because that's all we do in biotech.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: So I want to just underline a few things that you said. I loved your point about how it felt like a playground to you when you got into biotech. Sort of like, hey, now I can actually take these skills that I've developed and I can run with them. And it sounds like she, obviously, Sharon's that kind of person as well. That's a thing. I think that's a very valuable thing to look for. And I think to be candid with people about who are making the transition, that this is going to feel different. That's either energizing or scary, right? Depending on the person.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: And Chris, the biggest piece of advice I was given day one, when I was leaving at the Comfortable Land, you know, a profitable company where the money just came in and we got bonuses and, you know, everything was nice, lots of staff. And I remember I went to a little company, neuroscience company, New Path, employee number nine. And I get there and I went to the first staff meeting and they said, oh, by the way, we run out of capital in six months and we're going to go start visiting these people called venture capitalists. And I said, what's that? Two weeks later I was in front of nea, which is one of the most prominent.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Very well regarded.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: It's a baptism by fire. But the advice I was given is, and I really hold that to this day, don't come for the money. Don't come for the money.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Say more about that though. Say more about the why.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: So biotech is a risky business and there's going to be ups and downs and guaranteed bonuses are not guaranteed. Right. It's not show up and get it right. And so you really have to continue to build value. And the reality is we can do everything right. And sometimes the science doesn't work out. Yes. Or the market's not was a market five years ago. Reimbursement landscape, competitive landscape changes and there's no longer a market. So there's no guaranteed payout. You're not coming into this to get rich if it happens. Boy, that's nice because you've helped a lot of patients, most likely and you've helped your investors. But I love that love and the respect of the science and the challenge which for me, not being a scientist, I love to learn about the science and I respect the science. But the challenge of building a company, the challenge of going through it together with the team, I could say if you enjoy that, there's nothing more rewarding than going through the wars of a biotech with a small group.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And to your point, if making money is your goal, there are easier ways to do it. There are lots of people in lots of industries who say, oh, I'm not really in it for the money. And in some cases that's true. In other cases that's maybe a little harder to believe. But certainly in biotech you should come because you're passionate about the work. So I think that's a great takeaway.
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[00:12:47] Speaker B: Let'S move to Life Biosciences. So tell us the origin story, if you will.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a fascinating. It's that classic. It's almost like Southwest Airlines on the back of a napkin. So we have. Our founders are both Australian. One, David Sinclair, is a pretty famous longevity scientist at Harvard. And so David had been publishing, it was well known throughout the world, had a former hedge fund manager who I think had a midlife crisis at 35 and was really into health and longevity. And he'd been reading about David. And David's Australian, and he was living in Sydney or Melbourne, I think, and he reached out to David, this guy, you have to know him. He's one of those entrepreneurs, just speaks first and then thinks and then amazing. But he's brilliant. And he said to David, I love what you're doing. Let's start a company.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: That's fantastic.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: I'm at Harvard right now, and I'm pretty busy with a lot of things. And he goes, well, I want to meet you. And he goes, all right, well, where are you? And he goes, I'm in Australia. And he goes, well, I'm available Friday. And he literally. It was Wednesday. He literally hopped on a plane and they.
They mapped it out on a piece of paper, and they decided to form a company of companies like holding company. And what they did, they raised capital, and they went out, they traveled the world and evaluated. The nice thing is you have David, an expert in longevity, and Tristan, entrepreneur, and sort of a builder creator. And they partnered with eight of the leading academic researchers in the field of longevity around the globe. And they set up what they called daughter companies, and they set up a corporate structure where each of those individuals would be CEOs of their own entity and advance the science. And the idea was if at some point, if they were licensed, if sold or licensed out, you can flow through the capital, through the structure, to the partnership. Got it.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: What does daughter company mean in this context?
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Well, I think it means a sub subsidiary.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Okay, got it.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: That's probably the better term to use. And so fascinating idea. Particularly in the early days, they were talking longevity before anybody was. This was 2016 and 2017.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's very cool.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: And so what it did. And companies take on many chapters, right? They have many chapters in their lives. So that was the origination story, which was just really formed out of nothing and created all this opportunity to evaluate science. And as one could imagine, over time, markets changed Science advances in some areas versus others and you had a natural sort of weeding out of some of those entities. And then so there was a rationalization to then let's get more focused, let the science win. Right. And the company whittled down to three platforms. And then there came a time when transitioning to a single structure. So the subsidiary model rolling up underneath Life Biosciences, the remaining platforms. And so Life bioscience became a single entity and these were wholly owned subsidiaries.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: When do you join in this?
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Yeah, and I joined in the. About two thirds through the roll up. Okay. And so when I joined, I was going to take a summer off for the first time in my life after 30 years of doing this. 30 plus years.
I hadn't taken more than two weeks off in 30 years. And I received a call and I spoke to David Sinclair. I'm telling you, meet the guy. And it's phenomenal. Yeah, I met him the day before we had our closing call for the prior we were acquired the last company and I said I guess I'm not taking the summer off. And the science was too compelling, too compelling. And so I did a lot of research, I started talking to scientists, I read papers. And this idea, it really struck a chord with me. From my early days at Merck. Merck was America's Most admired company 5 years in a row. If we weren't launching a new class of drugs, it was a bad electrol market then, you know, in osteoporosis and you name it, on and on and on. Right. And so there was a fundamental difference. And not that we didn't do great work at Merck in those days and others, but. But we treated a lot of aging persons, but we were treating the disease in a different way. We were targeting symptoms and managing the decline. And when you really look at it, that's what we were doing. Which had benefit, clear benefit, clinical benefit. However, in the 30 years science had advanced and now we had a clear understanding of the underlying biology of aging. And particularly with David's work. There was a Yamanaka out of Japan, won the Nobel Prize. What he did, he took aged cells and was able to turn them all the way back to a pluripotent state wild, which is amazing. Right. But from a clinical standpoint, it's not necessarily attractive because when you do that, a cell loses its identity and then does not know what it was and you quickly conform teratomas. But what David had through years and years and years of work was able to develop a therapeutic that could Reduce the age of the cell, bring it back to a young state, but have almost a limiter and it brings back to a youthful state, but not a pluripotent state. And so that really changed the game and opens up tremendous therapeutic potential.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: So when you joined, you said you're sort of in the middle of the roll up and the sort of, I guess, rationalization of the portfolio. How does that work? Tell us a little bit about the sort of strategic conversations you must have been having. In a way it sounds like you're spoiled for choice. You have a lot of things you'd focus on at that stage, right?
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Yeah. So what we did and what didn't exist when I arrived, we didn't have decision trees, we didn't have target product profiles. And so what we wanted to do was apply some decision sciences. And this is where people like Sharon Rose, Toy Glipson and the rest of our team came into play. We put that rigor in place and we ran a strategic review. And so we had, we knew we wanted to be able to let the science then dictate. And we had a program that was frankly very attractive. And it could have been in the weight loss space, but we had a GOP tox study. We had a GOP tox study. It didn't pass. And you know, it's unfortunate when you look back. It was one of those, I think that classic mistakes some biotechs make. They hope the next study is the one to tell them the answer they want. And I think we had spent enough time and energy on that and we had to make the tough decision to walk away.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: One of my favorite lines is from the physicist Richard Feynman who says the most important thing is not to fool yourself. And you are the easiest one to fool. And I think hope is powerful but sometimes dangerous component in strategic thinking.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. But to tell investors that is a hard thing to do. But I learned long ago, and I think it was Microsoft, they actually rewarded folks for making tough decisions to kill projects.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Oh, interesting.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: As long as the process was followed correctly and good hard science, you really should let the science lead the way. Because the reality is in a small biotech, we don't have the human resources, we don't have the capital to waste time.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: We have to make the rational decision. So then we went from three to two in that case. And then later on we had a really interesting small molecule program that we thought could have a lot of promise in neurodegeneration and some other areas. But boy, the chemistry was giving us such a fit. And we really talked to some other folks about other projects with similar chemistry. It was a daunting task and we just had to make the decision for us. And at the same time. Right. Our partial epigenetic reprogramming platform at a of Sinclair lab was burgeoning and we'd taken that from. And maybe we'll talk about this from mice to non human primates. And we once again made that decision is to pour. We'd rather allocate. Where would the next dollar be best allocated? The next dollar would be best allocated to our partial epigenetic reprogramming platform.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Well, let's go there right now. So tell us a little bit about like, what is the layman's version of the science there? And then we can talk about what got you excited and then we can talk about where we go from there.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think how I tell my kids is we are able to take dad's old cells and make them young again.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: They're like. That sounds like quite an accomplishment. I know my dad.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is not science fiction. Science exists and it's not just in the scale. It exists around the world and it's been replicated. It is known. We have the ability to manipulate cells and we're not messing with the DNA. It's what's called the epigenome, which is the software package that determines what DNA are expressed and where and when. And that gets corrupted as we get older. It's just random, random living and bad luck. Exposure to sun, exposure to pollutants, eating unhealthy, not exercising, all the things, stress, all the stuff, it just happens over time. But we are able to introduce therapeutics that can induce the cell to remove these, what are called methylation marks that are markers of aging. That's the simplest way to say it. It's much more complicated than that. But when you remove those marks, you actually reverse the biological age of the cell. There's a big so what? So what? So I have younger cells. The next question is, does that translate into functional improvement?
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Right, right.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: That's the big next step. Right.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: So where are we on that journey?
[00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah. So once again, David Sinclair did a phenomenal job and we licensed the technology. We have exclusive lice.
This OSK technology did a phenomenal job showing age reversal, vision restoration, optic nerve crush model where we restored nerve axon growth, even all the way back to the brain. I mean, phenomenal stuff. They did the COVID paper of nature. The big step for us Going forward was we translated that and we're focused on eye, so we're focusing on glaucoma and a rare issue called nyon, which is like a stroke in the back of the eye.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: How did you pick the eye?
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah, so the eye is a logical, nice place to start when you think about everything from us. And David had done a lot of work in that area.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: That certainly helps.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a immunoprotected area. There's a good history with use of gene therapy in the eye.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Yep, for sure.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: And so also was an area where he did his proof of concept.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: So no brainer in a way.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: And there was tremendous market need and tremendous commercial opportunity as well. So we thought it was a perfect place to start. A lot of good experience with. We're using an AAV2 and so a lot of good experience there as well. So it made a lot of sense for us just to build upon that work as our initial thrust. In the eye, of course, there are epigenetic changes throughout the body, so there's a tremendous range of opportunity. So that made the perfect sense. And so what we did, we translated that data from the mice into non human primates. And in the eye it's very important because the construct of the, in this case monkeys, their eye is very similar to the human. They have an inter limiting membrane which is important. We have to get past that. And so the good news is, just to cut to the chase is we were able to replicate what we saw in the mice and the non human primates in a naion model where we induced with a laser, we induced damage to the retinal ganglion cells where they started to die. And we were able to show a restoration of visual function through pattern erg, which was phenomenal. We showed statistical significance despite single digit number of primate. And also we were able to increase axon counts. So it leads you to the hypothesis that we are able to rescue sick axons. Right. So think about it very simply to the general audience, right? Either you have healthy retinal ganglion cells and axons sick or dead. When they're dead, they're dead, they're gone. If you can preserve more healthy axons when you're having damage and then regenerate sick axons, boy, then you have the opportunity to reverse disease and restore lost functionality. In this case, vision.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Yeah, amazing.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: And so right now we're finishing up our IND enabling pack. We met with the FDA a year ago, we're finishing up our IND enabling pack agreed upon with the FDA and Our plan is to file an IND at the end of the year and initiate the first human clinical trials in partial epigenic reprogramming in the first quarter. I mean, it's a monumentous event. It's getting a lot of attention in not only in the longevity field, but in the broader, more broadly.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Right?
[00:22:42] Speaker A: Yes, yes. I mean, this is an area of big growth. You've heard and maybe you've talked to folks of big companies like Altos and New Limit Retro. They're all working folks are working in this area. And we're excited because we happen to be first and well out in advance, thanks to David's work at Harvard.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: That's incredibly exciting. So was it a challenge or is it a challenge to stay focused on lead therapy that you guys are developing now? Were you under pressure to sort of expand and try and do other things? What's the trade off between trying to move as quickly as possible and help as many people as possible?
[00:23:13] Speaker A: Of course.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: And also not get unfocused, not get out over your skis, kind of. Tell us a little about that.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah, you have to chain yourself down a little bit because it's too exciting. And what I can't talk about today is we have tremendous early indications of opportunity and a plethora of age related diseases. However, the business side, we need to remain focused. We need to create value. Right. For investors and for raising capital so we can do much more. It's a balance. What I can share with you is that we have and our board's been tremendous. We go to them proactively and say, here's the situation, here's the cash on hand, here's what we intend to raise. If we do, if we don't, here's the plan and we go in. Our priority number one, two and three is to generate sufficient phase one clinical data in optic neuropathy. Yeah.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: Nice and clear.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Yeah. For proof of concept. Right. And that's priority number one, two and three. In the meantime, in the short term, we have additional work going on in pipeline because it's that appropriate balance of short term focus on the lead asset, but also advancing a pipeline for long term value creation. And so we're spending a modest amount of work at this point to advance multiple indications, the next indication for discovery. And then we'll make decisions on where we are with capital, where we are with the program, whether we pause, go fast or slow or expand. And we have those decisions in place. The board is well aware. And we'll come back and we'll say we'll come back to on this date, we'll come back with a plan. Here's what alternative A might look like. Here's what alternative B look like. We'll have a much clearer understanding later. And what we said, we said priority is ER100 generating that clinical data. But there's an appropriate balance on spend in the pipeline. Yep.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: So you're building the next set of sort of follow on opportunities. Jerry, do you think of this as something that, is this a platform that you'll, you would like to develop? Let's assume that you get good data and you're advancing other, this flagship asset, but other opportunities as well. Is this something you think you would want to do do solely within life biosciences or is this something that if things go well you'd out license or is that a decision that's too early to kind of think about?
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Just the reality is when you look at something like glaucoma.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: And maybe we can handle that commercially but I think they'll be at a point the cost of clinical trials in the advanced stage is so high and manufacturing, particularly in gene therapy, so high. I think partnerships along the way would make perfect sense now for something like NI on that's a rare disease, it's only a few thousand people per year. That's perhaps something we could handle ourselves. We'll weigh those options as we go. You know, our goal is not to stop with the eye. Right. We're looking at things in all aspects of age related. Think of age related symptoms that affect quality of life. There's a lot of those areas we can target. So it would never make sense for us to take all of those forward. You know, our goal is with this next with the capital we have on hand and the ability to generate this phase 1 clinical data creates optionality for us from a licensing standpoint and also from a capital markets perspective. We think there could be an opportunity for liquidity for our investors with this phase one data in the next two to three years. So that's how we look at and we welcome the partnership discussion. So we talk to folks now and they'll say it's too early and we say it's too early. But it's good for them to get to know the science. It takes a while to really understand this new cellular rejuvenation therapeutics area.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think when you're thinking about stuff like this, building a partnership over time and getting to know each other and all that kind of stuff does really matter. So that makes a lot of sense.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: I'll give you a quick example on that. Back in my early days at Endo, I mean, New Path, we talked to Endo Pharmaceuticals for six years, and it was no. And then one day it was yes.
Strategies change, people change. And we ended up getting acquired by Teva. They demanded a topping. But it's one of those things where that's another lesson is you build the relationships early and often. Yes, that's a great one.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: That's a really important, actually, takeaway, I think, especially for young CEOs who are passionate about the thing they've got and maybe frustrated when they have encounters with people who don't seem to get it or don't care as much about it as they do. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Keep those relationships alive. And I really like your point about focus and about delivering on this initial program. Give a little advice, if you would, about board management. A thing that I think all CEOs, unless they're sole owners, have to manage is a board. And you want to have a largely aligned set of objectives, but you also want thoughtful people who maybe challenge your thinking and provide expertise and all that stuff. So to some extent, boards often are at least partially composed of investors who may have preceded us or who are the right person at the time to make the financial commitment. So in other words, you don't always get to choose everything. Talk a little bit about board management, if you would, Jerry, what have you learned there? What advice would you have for people?
[00:27:18] Speaker A: So here's what I've learned from experience. And I had situations where I've had CEOs where the conversation we had in the executive room wasn't the conversation we had at the board level. And I kind of. I didn't like that approach. And I had a CEO who was literally, the conversation we had in the room was the conversation you had with the board. So, one, transparency. Transparency wins out all the time. And number two, I think there is a understanding their perspective and what their competing priorities are. As you mentioned, and this is for some folks think someone's on a board, their fiduciary responsibilities to the company, but when they have a significant financial stake in the yes, sir, it's going to influence. So a lot of it is selling, frankly, and educating and bartering. Why? Let's say you want additional capital beyond what's necessary just to get to the next milestone. And let's say, well, with dilution, and you say there's a risk with that, you have to barter and Negotiate to make your points. The other thing I really like doing, it's been a good practice for me. I have a very good relationship with our chairman, which is David Sinclair. I mean, we talk probably three times a week. We travel together. Yeah, terrific. Intimately involved in the company because he provides tremendous value from an experience standpoint with his science and otherwise. So we have a really good relationship. And then I can pick up the phone anytime and talk to the board members. But I specifically, before every board meeting, we have a pre board call and we review all the issues, what we're gonna present and. And really get everything on the table.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Is that with your internal team or.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: I do it with the board members.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: One on one.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: So everybody's got a sense of what's coming ahead of the meeting. Yeah, that's a great point.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Back to the exec team. Yep. It just helps in terms of letting them to digest. And so there are no surprises. The worst thing you could do to a board member. Surprise them. That is, I think, a big lesson. And someone can take away who's becoming a CEO for the first time. No surprises.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: I want to double click on those for a second. So transparency. So the same kind of conversation when they're not there, it's the same conversation that you're having with the board members. That obviously builds a lot of trust. Because if I'm a board member and I feel that. I don't feel that the CEO and the team are sort of trying to hide things or show things to me selectively, then I relax and I can just try to add value. I'm not trying to solve a puzzle of what's really going on in the company. So that makes a lot of sense. Right. And then you talked about the importance of the pre meeting at the individual level. And you said some things about listening carefully and sort of maybe some pre negotiating. Will you explain a little bit more about that? You know, what does a conversation like that look like when it goes well?
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Well, see, when you get to know your board members over time, frankly, you pretty much will understand where their hot buttons are going to be.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: It comes from their frame of reference. Right. And their experiences. I think if there's an issue on the table, you might want to have a little bit of a discussion about why management feels this way and why we're recommending it. And they may disagree. And then what often happens. I hear you. We understand. We'll have. I look forward to the discussion at the board meeting. Right. And that's a very different. That's A very different environment you're creating versus introducing that in the setting.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: Catching people by surprise with, hey, I want to do this thing that I haven't talked to you about before. And I think what we have to.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: Remember is management is that. And it's helpful that I actually serve on a board. Right. I serve on as an independent director. They have day jobs and this is not their focus all the time. Right. And so it's incumbent upon us to ensure that they're properly informed. And we have to be patient and not get frustrated if they miss a point or have to ask something second time, third time. So the more we can keep them informed ahead of time, the more more they're comfortable with the strategy. It makes for a very much more productive board session where you're talking about strategy and path forward and new ideas.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. So you know new CEOs, take note. Try to put yourself in the shoes of that board member or the seat of that board member. Think about what you'd want to understand or know in order to be able to make good decisions and be a good steward and a good advisor. That makes a ton of sense.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: I'm going to flip us to future state stuff for a second, but I just want to see if there's. There are any other lessons for biotech CEOs. This conversation has been peppered with them. We talked about being persistent in recruiting and knowing your stars and being able to predict people who are going to be able to succeed. We talked about board management. Are there other lessons that you think about if you were advising somebody who's stepping into the CEO chair for the first time to think about?
[00:31:09] Speaker A: Yes. I think, don't forget it's still a people business even at the executive level. Really investing time and energy in those relationships and the executive team relationships I think is really important for CEO CEOs. The other for biotech is really. And we talked about this a little bit. But the mentality I have is shed in focus. Your capital is so valuable to you. And as we've learned in the environment today, it's not ever flowing all the time.
You need to anticipate and really be judicious in how you allocate your capital. That's another thing. And I think we talked about recruiting again, finding those who can deliver more than one job. Right. I'll give another example. Chief administrative officers. Phenomenal. And general counsel. One of the best lawyers I've ever met. From a corporate structure. Governance has worked in companies 3,000 people and even larger he came and had no experience in biotech, but has a thirst for understanding and super smart and strategic. He's now our chief administrative officer.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: That's fantastic.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: He's running and right now he's overseeing finance, hr, real estate, insurance, also the legal function. He's very involved in corporate strategy and the financings.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: Gary, he's doing all the stuff you don't want to do. That sounds great.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: That's great. Isn't it Great?
But my point is with this, there's someone who will be a biotech CEO who wasn't in the industry six years ago, but has the skill sets to do. Once again, it's identifying one, and this is, I think, important. You need to invest, continue to invest in your people and put them in the position to succeed, even if you're relegating some things that you might want to necessarily hold on to, but slowly over time. And you have to have an individual who sees it and is willing to take on that additional responsibility and thrive in that situation because it keeps them satisfied and hungry. And there's an individual as his name is Amit Shashank and he will be a biotech CEO.
[00:32:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that point. And I think sometimes we're all under a lot of pressure to perform, of course. And it can feel like I don't have time to train anybody or mentor anybody. I just want them to do the thing. And that's a pretty shortsighted way to move through life as a CEO. I 100% agree with what you shared there.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: And then the final thing is on the recruitment, because it's another thing as you build your team, because I think right now I couldn't be happier. I love my job.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: The entire company. But we had the opportunity. We knew a gentleman, Michael Ringle, who was a managing director and senior partner at Boston consulting group for 25 years and worked with. You may know him, he worked with Phillips Hop Pharma.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Yeah, very senior guy in this business.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: Yeah, very senior guy and an expert in longevity. And he wanted to join a company and he chose us. And it's understanding that when you have opportunities to bring in unique talent and experience and someone who can really turbocharge your company, you. You do it. And Michael joined us as coo. And frankly, I can tell you for sure from coming from being a managing director and senior partner at bcg, it took quite the pay cut to come to work for biotech.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Sure, yeah.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: We thought we maybe caught him at a point of confusion, but what he's done is come with Our stellar team, our small executive team has really just elevated us to a level beyond which we could ever have hoped, which is fantastic. And I think the final thing is, and everybody has a different leadership style, but we are teammates on the executive team. Ultimately I have to make the call and there are times I have to break the tie or settle the argument. But I think to the extent you have your executive team, in our case the four of us working as one, I think that's really important in a biotech. I really think it is to leverage your experience and expertise.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: I love that. That's terrific. Okay, in closing, I'm going to ask you to put your prognostication hat on and tell us what you think life biosciences looks like and also kind of longevity science in general. General over the next five, 10 years. What are the things that if things go kind of as we would hope with all the caveats that everything can go wrong, what do you think the world looks like a few years down the road?
[00:34:38] Speaker A: I think at five years we have the first therapeutics either entering or soon to enter. In our case, I think if all goes well, we'll have regenerative medicine for glaucoma and for NI on that stroke in the back of the eye which is actually increasing due to it's related to GLP1 use. It's increasing the risk of nyon and then I think there'll be others along the way. So I think you'll see partial epigenetic reprogram become a broad class with multiple players in development. Just fine, we're all for that. And we'll have multiple indications following quickly behind with human clinical data. So I think you'll see a build out of this and other areas in aging.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Really exciting.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: AI is going to turbocharge this, right? It's really going to help. Particularly when we're looking at small. The next thing is, and what we're looking for, I think 10 plus years, you should see small molecules in the clinic advancing well in the clinic ever faster due to AI. I think where we're looking at multi organ regeneration, right. Rejuvenation, that's our goal and that's something we're working on already.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Sort of the Holy Grail, I suppose, right?
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's the Holy Grail and I think it will start in ages. Right. To think you're going to in 10 years, 15 years, take a pill and it's going to rejuvenate it. That's probably not the case, but I think we'll be able to see multi organ and eventually broadening beyond that as well. And the ultimate goal, whether it's 20, 30, 40 years from now, is whole body rejuvenation. And I think what it's going to allow us to do. And I'm an economics by training and mba. Right. What really keeps me up at night is our global population issue. We have this massively aging population around the world globe and replacement rates with children is just not keeping up. We're going to need something, we're going to need to live longer and healthier and more productively.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: Yeah. It's good for the world and good for individuals. Right. If we can all live longer, be productive longer.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Well, that's right.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Right. I think the near term goal is live longer. Right. Add decades to healthy life and you will live longer by default. And I think that will help us economically. It'll help the system in many ways because we just don't have the population to take care of us. So we better do it.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: I love that, Jerry. All right. I think we'll close on that optimistic future facing note. Thanks so much for joining us on Few and Far between today.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: I really appreciate it, Chris. It's been a lot of fun.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: Welcome producer Adam.
[00:36:36] Speaker D: Hi, Chris. Jerry was just a great guest. He discussed a lot of areas that we've only touched on, maybe briefly in a couple of other episodes. So let's start with his advice on working with a board of directors, specifically leveraging transparency, which of course is one of our core values at Biorazi. So how do you integrate. Integrate stronger communication and less surprises into an existing CEO board dynamic?
[00:37:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question and I agree it was really, really helpful. I think there are lots of, especially new CEOs, maybe some experienced ones as well, who would benefit from Jerry's advice there. I do think that if you start from trying to sit in the shoes of your board members, remembering that they really are on the outside looking in, they've got a very narrow, narrow view into what's going on in the business, really. It's what you tell them and what they hear from other senior executives that you present. So that means there's a lot of, I think, a lot of pressure on the CEO if they're doing a good job to make sure they're communicating clearly. You can't eliminate all surprises, but there are lots that you can tell them are coming. And, you know, the more effectively the CEO does that, I think the stronger relationships they build with those board members. I Think that was kind of a core point Jerry made.
[00:37:49] Speaker D: It sounds like an optimization of your board of directors and how you work with them. And similarly, he talked about resource optimization too, which I thought was a great topic, especially the importance of recruiting a biotech team that can wear multiple hats in their role. So how do you find individuals who go beyond the borders of their job description?
[00:38:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I think he was really good on this topic. And we know that we've seen sponsors and other companies that we work with, examples of people who come with, for example, big pharma experience, and they're able to translate that effectively into smaller organizations, organizations, and we've seen folks who aren't able to do that. So I really liked his point about being very transparent up front with what your expectations are. So, you know, telling people that one of the advantages of working in a smaller organization is you get to wear multiple hats, you get to do different kinds of things. And I think you're trying to assess the enthusiasm that the person on the other side has for that. So there's a difference between, okay, I can probably do that and like, that's great. That's what's attracting me to this organization. So I liked again, his focus on transparency. That was kind of a theme, I think, with Jerry.
[00:38:51] Speaker D: Oh, very much so. And again, you know, in a lot of the roles that we have at our company, you see a lot of people who are willing to move out of their comfort zone and also out of their skill set in order to get things done.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And again, you know, I think what I look for and certainly what we want are people who see that as a positive. Now again, that doesn't mean pushing people outside of their area of competency. So, you know, there are plenty of cases where someone could be asked to do something that they just don't know how to do. That's different.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: What we're trying to do instead is look for places that are lateral to the expertise people have. And I think that's really what Jerry was talking about.
[00:39:26] Speaker D: Agreed, agreed. So let's talk about the small biotech playground, as Jerry referred to it.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:32] Speaker D: He basically said that a lot of his experience in big pharma, he was trying to transfer into this playground. What skills do you think transfer? Well, from a big biopharma or biotech into the small biotech ecosystem.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And of course, we see this in CRO as well. In our world. We see people who've come from large CROs and then tried to work in a medium sized business like Ours, I think it's very similar. Deep experience translates very, very well. So, you know, if you've seen something done really well, you understand how to attack a problem. You bring specific expertise. That's usually a big win. For smaller organizations, the how you do it is often the challenge. So in a resource constrained environment, I can't hire consultants to give me the answer. I can't necessarily even hire as many staff as I would like to or acquire all of the software and other resources that I'd like to have. So how am I going to be able to put that expertise that I have to work directly in a way that's productive in the business? I think you see some people who think like that who are sort of excited about that. It engages their creativity and they're thinking, oh, oh, I want to accomplish X. I can find a way to do that more efficiently than I did it in my predecessor big pharma employer. And then there are other people who think, you know, geez, I really liked all those resources and I just want to go back to that. So trying to sort out which kind of person you're dealing with I think is part of the sort of initial engagement process with people.
[00:40:53] Speaker D: Gotcha. You had a ski analogy during this episode. You mentioned not getting over your skis when you're choosing your lead therapy out of a vast number of potential opportunities. And that one really stuck with me because here you are, you have this great treatment or diagnostic, and you have all these opportunities and you don't know what to stick with or what goes in your pipeline and what goes away. So, you know, there's a lot of complex variables there.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we've seen a bunch of this as we've talked to a number of CEOs as we go forward. I think the really talented ones who are on the path to success are picking some kind of lead candidate where they believe that their technology and the need align really well to create a business opportunity. And they're thinking about what that economic, economic answer is going to look like. And then they're not ignoring secondary opportunities and platform potential, but they're deprioritizing them in a lot of cases because it's hard to chase multiple things full out at the same time. So the folks that we see that are doing that really well. I think Jerry described this. You're picking something that you're going after out of the gates, but as a CEO, you're also bouncing up to a higher elevation and looking at your other opportunities. And you're thinking like, hey, can I invest a little bit in opportunity number two or platform play number three, or whatever it might be, such that if the first asset is not successful, or even if it is, and I want to be sort of moving on to the next thing afterwards, I'm well prepared for that. And I think that ability to switch elevations is a really critical one for biotech CEOs, probably. For CEOs in general, you can't spend all your time at 50,000ft. Companies that do that tend to go out of business. On the other hand, if you're really just looking at the very next thing that you're going to do, you may not be preparing well for what's coming later. I think he was good at talking about how to do that.
[00:42:38] Speaker D: Agreed. Again, I thought it was a great topic. I don't think we've had a chance to talk about that one. Okay, so last question. Let's talk about longevity and lifespan. When do you think the idea of living oil surpassed the concept of living forever?
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Such an interesting question.
[00:42:53] Speaker D: We've seen that.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it is. It really is percolating in the culture right now, this idea of health span of. Of people wanting to extend the period of time where they can be effective, where they can feel good and where they can do stuff, whatever that looks like for them in the world, as opposed to thinking about, I just wanna maximize my years. I don't know, it does feel relatively recent to me. And I think it's an exciting change. If you yourself are elderly or if you have elderly relatives, the end is not always pretty. And I think what we all would like is a relative. Well, at least I would like a relatively rapid decline after. After many, many years of productive and reasonably healthy life. And that really feels like where the longevity industry is headed.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:34] Speaker D: It's just an interesting piece and it has definitely become such a great part of our culture. Out of science fiction and into reality.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: That's right. Like so many of our most interesting guests. Out of science fiction and into reality.
[00:43:46] Speaker D: Yes, true.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: Could be a tagline for the pod.
[00:43:48] Speaker D: I like that. I like that.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: All right, Adam, that was a good one. Thanks.
Thank you for listening to the latest episode of Few and Far Between Conversations from the Front Lines of Drug Development. Our podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts and other streaming services. Please take a moment and leave us a user review and rating today. It really helps people discover the podcast and we read all the comments. Those comments help us make few and far between better and better. Also, be sure to subscribe to Few and far between so you don't miss a single, single episode. Got an idea for a future episode? Email us at fewandfarbetweenbiroi.com or contact us on our website at bio rossi.com I'm your host, Chris O'. Brien. See you next time.
