Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to the Few and Far between podcast. I'm your host, Chris o'.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Brien.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Here's a thought. What if the future of biotech isn't early stage innovation, but rather late stage execution? My next guest is part of a new strategy in biotech support designed to operationalize R and D and P&Ls to get treatment across the finish line. Dr. Bruce Lucher is President and CEO at Nirvati Neurosciences, a Blackstone life sciences portfolio company set up to optimize the development of neuroscience platforms.
That strategy has evolved into Grin Therapeutics, a biotech subsidiary focused on rare genetically defined pediatric neurodevelopmental disorders. On today's episode, Bruce will start us off by defining the raison d' etre of the operating company's role in the market. From there, we'll touch on finding passionate business athletes for your company roster, building emotional intelligence for biotech CEOs, and how wingspan protects and provides for companies that love what they do.
Plus, we'll debut our lightning round. Quick questions and inspired answers from our podcast guests. We know you'll enjoy this episode and check out some of Bruce's favorite books and podcasts in the comments on LinkedIn. Okay, let's start the podcast.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Bruce, welcome to Few and Far Between.
[00:01:25] Speaker C: Thanks, Chris. Great to be here.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: I have been really looking forward to this conversation.
We're almost spoiled for choice. There's so much interesting stuff to cover. But let's start a little bit with Nervati and how, how it's different from your typical biotech and maybe a little bit of the origin story.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Great place to start.
Nervati is a. The creation of Blackstone Life Sciences and it's what they call an operating vehicle.
So we focus at Neurvadi on all things neuroscience. We are not restricted to a particular vertical in neuroscience. We simply look for compelling data sets in the clinic around which we can organize our efforts to contemplate licensing in the asset, acquiring the asset, and collaborate with Blackstone Life Sciences to fund that effort. But it's not just the capital, it's the mindshare, the partnership we have with them to get to the right answer on the things we bring in. But the people sit at the Nervatico level. That's why we call it an operating company.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: So that's, that's. So there's a bunch of stuff I just want to even unpack in your first couple of sentences.
I think that's pretty unusual, right? Having a broad hunting license in neuroscience as opposed to, you know, getting, getting support for A particular asset or something like that. How did, how did that come about?
[00:02:42] Speaker C: Well, I think the model and the focus for our sponsors Blackstone Life Sciences is mid to late stage development. So unlike venture backed companies that may be spinning technologies out of academic institutions, or for that matter venture backed entrepreneurs that may be looking at pre clinical assets, early stage clinical assets and then finance incrementally as they progress programs in the clinic, the mandate that we have from Blacks Only Sciences is to focus on mid and late stage development. And when you think about that universe of eligible opportunities, if you restricted your views to one vertical within neuroscience, you may find less substrate, less raw material. And so we were able to look at, as I like to rattle off the different verticals of neuroscience. It seems like an endless list, but everything from neuro oncology to neurovascular disease on one end of the spectrum, all the way over to neuropsychiatry on the other end of the spectrum and everything else in between. And really what we're, what we're eager to find is a compelling data set in the clinic, in patients where we can make a strong argument that mid and late stage clinical development will yield a positive outcome.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: That's fascinating. So when you're then, when you're, that must then shape the expertise that you're looking for.
I guess you have to go broader, broad as well as deep. Is that the right way to think about it? How do you build a team that can assess that range of potential, potential, you know, investments.
[00:04:07] Speaker C: Yes, we, we look at the most senior level of the company as the common thread that exists throughout all things we do. And we're fortunate enough to have really best in class people across functions at the organization. But we recognize that what is needed for a neurodevelopmental disease affiliate co like we have with Grin Therapeutics may not be needed for a neuro oncology opportunity. So we think about a fit for purpose model and as we take on additional affiliate codes, we will create the necessary team around it that has the expertise to prosecute it day to day. But I do think to your point, that the most senior people are deep and broad and that's a big part of what we look for when we're bringing senior leaders on board.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: So is judgment around expertise, human capital? Is that it's an unfair question but would you say in your job it's, it's more important the same, less than being able to assess data, you know, kind of data sets and opportunities as they come in?
[00:05:11] Speaker C: I'm not sure that I would Force rank one over the other. I think the basic core competence. I think when you achieve a certain level of success in your, in your career, particularly on the R and D side of the ledger, you're pretty dangerous across a lot of different verticals in neuroscience, if not lot of different therapeutic areas. And we've been fortunate enough to find those kinds of folks who are nimble and can pivot from one piece of subject matter onto another.
But I would say that what's perhaps maybe more important than that is the phenotype of the individual. There's. I like to call, it's a common use term, but to call professionals in our business athletes.
And I'm not Talking about Division 1 lacrosse players, I'm talking about the equivalent thereof as it relates to intellectual horsepower.
And not just the brain power part of it, but the fire in the belly, the passion, the desire to want to go out and compete and win. And not win strictly from an economic perspective, but win for productivity purposes, for patients, for caregivers and families, for our stakeholders.
So major quality that we look for independent of function is does this person want to plan a team and do they want to win?
And I think you can see that certainly in prolonged interview processes, you're proven right or wrong in the early, earliest days of that individual joining. And we've fortunately been proven right. We've got a really deep bench of Division 1 equivalent athletes.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: So do you.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Have you had occasions where you think, okay, this person has the horsepower and the intellectual skills to be valuable to us, but they just don't seem to have enough fire in their belly to fit in with the team? Are there times where that's a disqualifier?
[00:06:55] Speaker C: I would say they're in almost every position we've interviewed for and hired.
This calculus has been a component part of the decision making.
I wouldn't say that we've found incredible intellectual horsepower, but haven't found the fire in the belly. Maybe that's just luck at this point, but in our journey we seem to attract people who really have both.
And I like to say completely biased comment, but that New York biotech offers up a certain kind of phenotype and I think we love it. The New York advantage to tap that resource.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Okay, that's, that's great. Suck it, Boston.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: You said it, not me.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: I say that as a longtime and former Bostonian. So no, no hate, no hate at our friends in Boston.
Okay, but so then you're. Let's put a little more flesh on the bone about what Problem.
This structure enables you to go after that. You wouldn't have been able to go if you did a more, a more traditional, A more traditional structure.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
Well, you know, as I mentioned before, I think common things being common, at least historically, before all the dislocation in the market over the last couple of years, you found a lot of early stage companies and you were out doing early stage work, in some cases even discovery level work, and then found your way to the clinic a couple few years later.
What we do is different and we aim to identify need states in the neuroscience market that are consistent with our model. Turns out there's a lot of those need states and you find Companies, multinational pharmas, SmithCap, biotech, sometimes privately held companies that are in the clinic with their programs and for whatever reason on the multinational pharma side have made strategic decisions. There aren't a referendum on the program but just are a product of portfolio reshaping exercises that we know exist and go on all day in large cap pharma land.
And there's ambivalence. They don't want to externalize the asset. They believe in the science, they believe in the data.
What they don't have is the R and D resources or the desire to take on the P and L head to bring those products through costly and sometimes prolonged mid and late stage development. And that need state, I'd argue has been there for a long, long time because it's sort of dislocated to some extent from the market and non correlated from how volatile capital markets may be. Companies, particularly large caps and multinational mid caps, are all day long trying to figure out how to do everything because oftentimes there's a lot of affinity and loyalty and commitment to the work that has been done within that organization. They just can't do it all. So we find ourselves in discussions with those kinds of parties and it is true that other entrepreneurs may be in similar kinds of discussions. But what is different about our model is that when we get to conviction and it's significant lift to get there, an enormous amount of work for us to get convicted on a particular opportunity. When we do get there though, we've got Blackstone Life Sciences to help fund that program through approval. That is different. And we found that the multinationals who are quite keen on seeing these programs succeed take comfort in the fact that there's a, there's an established team with the track.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: That's really, yeah, that's really cool. So let me, let me, let me summarize that. Just make sure, I've got it. So you're saying you guys bring a couple of things to the table. You have the ability to go deep and get, get to conviction and then when you do, you're backed by deeper pockets than your typical venture backed entity. That would be good. You know, their, their current investors are going to fund them in the current phase, but they very well might need different investors to kind of run the next stage of the, of the assets.
[00:10:52] Speaker C: Development or, or a syndicate of investors. When you're heading into a mid to late stage study, you could be talking about triple digit, hundreds or hundreds of millions of dollars. And at a minimum in other models you would need to syndicate that, find four or five, six investors around which you can organize your financing of that opportunity. And you may not be able to find that.
And the licensor, the seller of the asset, the partner may not want to take on that risk. They may like the idea of externalizing the asset, but what they don't necessarily like is uncertainty surrounding the team that would have to be built once it's out licensed and then the capital that would need to be sourced likely from multiple investors in order to actually hit the ground running and deliver in the clinic. And we solve for both of those problems.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Put us in the mindset of that person on the other side of the table who's making that decision. When they are uncomfortable with that. Do you think it's because they are committed to getting this drug approved and get, and getting it to help patients? Is it because they, there's some reputational risk if they pick a partner who can't see it through?
Do they keep a residual interest in the, in the drug? What, what, what's the logic from their side?
[00:12:06] Speaker C: I think it's pretty pure and, and pretty romantic, if you will. I think people do fall in love with the work they do. And as you know, I think when you say words like large cap pharma, you get certain reactions from people. And I don't think the word romance is often used.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: It's probably not top of the actions.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: But the truth of the matter is you've got incredibly talented, capable people who devoted a whole lot of their professional life to the success of developing novel therapeutics to treat patients and families. And yes, large cap pharma is their large organizations, but that does not mean that the people who reside within them are not passionate about what they do. So when they find a team where they've accounted for some of the fundamental risks, capabilities and capital being the two primary ones, I think they take comfort in that because they want success ultimately for the programs that they've nurtured over a certain period of time.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: I think it makes perfect sense. We're in a sad place where an industry that has done overall more for human health than anything we can come up with is somehow often demonized and mischaracterized as sort of cynical money grubbing. I don't know, whatever crazy thing people say about big Pharma. And yeah, my experience is the same as yours, that these are overwhelmingly filled with mission driven, smart people who want to see these assets come to a good place. So let's switch to Grin a little bit. So tell us a little bit about that. What are you building there and what about that is exciting?
[00:13:41] Speaker C: So it's our first affiliate code within the Nervati model and it's the Alpha case.
We formed Grin Therapeutics and Nervati Neurosciences simultaneously almost exactly four years ago. September 1st was our four year anniversary. Congratulations and thank you very much.
And we've had great success and we're proud of it. But why did we do it in the first place? And it gets to some of the major tenants of our model, which is develop conviction in biological rationale, mechanistic rationale, leverage human genetics when you can address high unmet medical need and get to a view on probability of technical and regulatory success, that justifies the kind of capital commitment that we ask Blackstone Life Sciences to make.
And when we looked at rudiprodil, which is the asset and development within Grin Therapeutics, a negative allosteric modulator against the nr2b subunit of the NMDA receptor, we had a lot of those things. We had a data package that indicated the molecule was safe and well tolerated based on 400 plus patients of data that had been generated prior.
We had a biological thesis surrounding using an NR2B NAM to go out and treat patients who suffer from a disease where the gene that's implicated encodes for the NMDA receptor.
So when we thought about biological rationale for ridipodil and Grin related neurodevelopmental disorder, it was pretty clear. It was just about as clear as you can get in taking good biological rationale and trying to translate it. But what we also had in addition to the human data and other indications was a handful of data from a rare pediatric epilepsy called infantile spasm. So we had safety, we had tolerability, we had actual data in infants and babies that showed clinical benefit.
And we had airtight biological rationale, mechanistic Rationale that gave us conviction to go do this. And it was the first time that a drug had ever been developed in Grin related NDD gain of function patients. So there we knew there was going to be a significant lift to orient the patient advocacy groups to what a clinical trial is, align ourselves with the principal investigators, put the infrastructure in place that allows us to execute on the study.
And we're here on the other side of proof of concept data with incredibly robust effect on seizure frequency and on non seizure symptoms. The key to GRIN therapeutics, this is also relevant to our model, is we take what has been typical in neurodevelopmental disease or developmental epileptic encephalopathies, which is the seizures, let's treat the seizures. And we take that and we say, what else can we do? And this is part of the creativity of the model.
How else can we leverage our knowledge, expertise, creativity and the bonafides of the disease state with the molecule we're developing and do something different, more dramatic, more pronounced for patients. And what we did in Grin is exactly that. So we studied two cohorts of patients, one with seizure, pretty conventional, and the others whose seizures were pretty well controlled. And we did that deliberately to see the impact of the drug on that kind of cohort of patients, as opposed to trying to disaggregate or parse the impact of the drug on non seizure symptoms in patients who actually have a significant number of seizures. That was, it took a lot of forethought. It was part of the strategy, it was our angle on differentiation. And now we're heading into a phase three study.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really exciting. So I want to go back to when you made this decision actually, and maybe even the time right before you guys greenlit Grin agreed to develop grin.
How many, how many opportunities do you think you looked at before you settled on this? This one feels like it really checks a lot of boxes around risk and around opportunity, you know?
Was this one of the first 10 things you looked at 100? Like, what do you think? What did that look like?
[00:17:39] Speaker C: Well, I think we've all been living around this space for decades, really at this point. And by we all, I mean myself, Kieran Reddy, who was, who is senior managing director at Blacks and Life Sciences.
We'd seen dozens and dozens of things in our collective experiences.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Got it.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: We knew we wanted to create Nervati simultaneously with creating an affiliate co, because we didn't want just a concept, we wanted the model and then we wanted our alpha case. So we got it but a way to answer your, what I think you may be getting at in the question is what is the substrate? Like, how many things are out there and how do you sort through them in a way that allows you to get to a final answer on a particular program?
And, and since starting Nervati and Grand four years ago, countless numbers of opportunities have come across. And as I mentioned earlier, they've been across the waterfront in neuroscience, all these different areas, and we've gotten close on a number of different things. We believe in the science, we believe in the viability of the molecule, but there are things that come up along the way as you're doing your diligence. And that diligence process, as I mentioned before, is a heavy lift and over a number of months.
So you begin with a compelling view, encouraging view of a certain molecule and a certain disease, and you work your way through all of the different components of the diligence process and you find things that sort of preclude you from moving forward. In some cases it's molecule specific, in some cases it's not. In some cases the molecule. If everything else was easy to do, deal structure, valuation, expectations, how we think about development, time horizon, you know, perhaps, perhaps we would have crossed the finish line.
But I think we, we need everything to work. And it's not just the scientific and clinical bonafides. It's does the deal make sense and does it make sense for our sponsors and how do we get it done? And sometimes those, those viewpoints don't necessarily align with the potential partner or counterparty with whom you're working. So it's a combination of things. But we're, we're committed to the model. Blackstone Life Sciences is committed to the model, and we are working on a lot of interesting things. Now, the good news, as I was mentioning to someone just the other day, is that the dislocation that is in the market and some of the frustrations that we all have experienced over the last couple of years have enabled opportunities, things that perhaps wouldn't turn, might not.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Have been available, and now they are.
So I'm imagining that it must have been an important factor here, must be alignment between you as the CEO and your colleagues, partners at Blackstone, because there could be a scenario where you're just under pressure to get something going and, and they're saying, hey, Bruce, come on, you know, you've been, you've been working, you've been sitting on your hands and you're thinking, I'm not sitting on my hands. I haven't found an asset that checks enough boxes for this to be the right risk profile. So how did you set the table? How did you guys collectively agree on that coming into it to get to the point now where, look, whether whether Grin ultimately gets there or not is still a question, but you guys have cleared some important hurdles already. It's, it's obvious that you were, you were collectively thoughtful about all this stuff.
[00:20:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I think that's the right way to say it. Collectively thoughtful. And I wouldn't represent that there's any distance, daylight, between how we think about the world and how black so much sciences thinks about the world. That's good. And there's an enormous amount of alignment and everyone's heart and mind is in the right place.
What we don't want to do is push a square peg through a round hole because the kinds of commitments that we make as an operating team and that Blackstone Life Sciences makes as the investor are pretty significant and require that kind of level of conviction, as we've been saying.
So no pressure whatsoever to find another, another asset and just get something done for the sake of getting something done, it's much more about let's do the right thing at the right time, the right asset, and we're all rowing in the same direction. There's a lot of cross collaborative work. We do our work certainly as an independent team at Nervati and at Grin, but Blackstone has their own independent processes. And then we come together and we decide together through a number of different mechanisms how to move forward. And what I can tell you is that there's no pressure, there's no disagreement.
It's really about doing what's right for the business. And ultimately that means what's right for patients. And we want things to work. Our goal in this model at Nervati is to create a flywheel to demonstrate success and then to continue to push that into additional programs, with any luck over time, will be seen as the favored nation, the port of call for companies that are contending with what I was describing a few minutes ago, which is programs they quite like and want to keep working on, but with no ability, ability to do so. And we want them to think about us because we, we have succeeded. Right. So success begets success and we realize that.
But a lot of alignment. And I, I think, you know, one of the questions I, I get along these lines around the collaboration partnership with Blackstone is how does it, how does it get done? And it gets done through information sharing, through thought partnership, through alignment, through Transparency, expectation management. It goes both ways. We get it from them, they get it from us. And we found our way now, you know, to a four plus year relationship where we're feeling pretty good about the future.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess also, you know, you started out by saying this intense desire to win coupled with, you know, very, very high skill set, you know, the elite athlete stuff, I guess that must apply in both directions. Like, first of all, they have to believe that about you.
Because if you haven't, if you, the CEO has intense desire to win and has good judgment, then you trust that person, you give that person some room to do their thing. If you don't think that you're going to manage them differently. And of course they must have that as well in order for that to be a productive partnership, I guess, right?
[00:23:37] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And I think they share the view that we have, which is, you know, life's not a sprint, it's a marathon. Right. I think we see this exercise as a marathon. We've trained for it, you know, we're in it. And what we don't want is to break our pace and find ourselves over indexed. And I think they share that view. So we're patient.
I think we both have a lot of respect for how each other are operating. Again, they've just been tremendous partners and there's a whole lot of good that we can do if we maintain that cautious approach. Not cautious in terms of indecisive, those two things are different, those are not the same.
[00:24:16] Speaker D: Right.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: We're quite decisive. But we also realize that the best kinds of relationships are those that endure for a long time. To your point, you build mutual respect, you build trust.
And we want to do everything we can to enhance that. And that's why we've taken such a measured approach to the work that we do. But if you ask my business development team, you know, the amount of work that we've done and productivity that we've had has been remarkable. And you know, I think we're at a point in time now, four years in, where companies know what we do. So it's not us going out, knocking on doors and trying to get people interested in things and having to explain to them how our model works and why it's worthwhile considering they're coming to us. And now it's two way traffic and we find that to be validating of what we've been able to build.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's got to be extremely gratifying. Okay, I want to talk a little bit about platforms.
It seems to me that there's a pendulum between people who feel there's, there are periods where investors are super excited about platforms almost to the, almost, it appears to the exclusion of wanting to fund anything else. And there are other times where there's a real focus on having a specific asset and thesis and people, people are worried about distraction and all that stuff is.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: First of all, do you think that's.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: Right, that, that, that investors just kind of tend to, I don't know, things come in and out of vogue and if so, how do you manage that since you are, you are a platform on top of platform in a way. Right. It's a bigger, it's a bigger way to think about the opportunity.
[00:25:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I do agree with that. I think, you know, again, prior to the last couple of years, platform technologies that could churn out program after program after program and do it in a way that, you know, just creates more validation around the scientific platform.
The word scientific being key was all the rage and for good reason. A tremendous amount of innovation is, has come to the forefront here over, over the last decade and we should all be really proud of that. And there's been a lot of success for investors who've gotten behind those programs and those platform technologies. But you are right, typically we're thinking about earlier stage technology when we're thinking about platform capabilities. And while you're churning out asset after asset, typically those assets are not in the clinic and they may get there, but at least in the first instance they're not and they need that work. So how do we think about us and our quote unquote platform?
And the way I think about it is the platform really is the people. It's not just the people. At Nervati, of course, we think we've got best in class folks, but it is Blackstone as well and tremendous amount of muscle that they have scientifically, clinically, commercially, from a regulatory perspective, from an investment perspective, there's all kinds of expertise and for them it's the people. So we take as an organizing principle people as the driver of success.
And that's exactly what we do. It gets back to one of your questions from earlier on in the talk where we were asking whether or not different capabilities are required when you move from one vertical within neuroscience to another.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:21] Speaker C: And while the short answer is yes, the longer answer is when you've got the right people who can think the right way and you have this sort of creative mindset, really cross functionally you can get there even if that's not what you're working on today. And I think Blackstone's a great example of, of how we benefit from the kind of thought partnership that we have with them. So the people are the platform. And the longer that we can remain intact as a team.
To come back to this notion of a flywheel and to come back to what I was referencing in terms of the licensors or sellers or partners that are thinking about externalizing assets, the more credibility we have. And that, that platform, that kind of platform, while not an antibody platform or a CAR T platform, know coming out of an academic institution, it's a platform nonetheless. And I think it's the real difference maker.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I love that. I mean, in some ways I'm thinking about, you know, the sort of venture model writ broadly, like Silicon Valley. It's a similar kind of thing, right? Yes, it was access to. It is access to capital, but it's also this, this collection of entrepreneurs and investors and et cetera, who are able to come together. And there's some weird alchemy that happens that that unlocked, has unlocked, continues to unlock trillions of dollars in value. And I think you're saying the right group of people yields progress. I won't say success, because who knows how we define exactly that, but yields progress. And progress yields maybe better opportunities, more awareness from the community. So you should be getting, over time, one would hope, a better average set of opportunities to take a look at, which means it can increase your hit rate. And the flywheel sounds like a powerful way to think about this.
[00:29:05] Speaker C: And we've seen it for many, many years in this industry. We've seen people who've had success with their teams come back, take another at bat, had success again, and that success just continues to grow their credibility in the market. And the trust that people have in them, investor trust, partner trust, team trust, and all of that is really mission critical. I think people in biotech focus on. As a biotech company, right. I think you focus on science, you focus on regulatory dynamics, you focus on capital markets. And of course those things are front and center. Of course they are. But what I would represent to you is, is one of the learnings from the last few years in this role is that people trumps all of that.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:29:51] Speaker C: That was a bit of. A. Bit of a surprise.
And I think, I think you get pretty deep into the weeds on the nuances of science and regulatory dynamics and investor dynamics, and you need to.
But if you haven't focused on the people and getting people to buy into what you're doing, Feel invigorated by it, feel energized by it, and want to go and compete every day, that stuff matters a little bit less.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think everyone in the industry is concerned about those kind of core factors. If that were sufficient, we'd win a lot more. Right, right. You know, I mean, so it's, it's, it's more complicated than that. And I think, I think it's. It may be frustrating to some listeners to hear it's the people, because that is a, that is a frustratingly vague specific, if you will, because you can imagine somebody saying, what about the people? So maybe you want to riff a little bit on that, Bruce, like, what are some of the things in addition to a passion for winning and being, you know, very, very smart at whatever and talent at their domain, Are there any other things you can say there about how to find those kinds of folks?
[00:30:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's the individual and to your point, capabilities, intellect, track record, all of those things matter for sure.
But it's the sum of the parts, not just each individual player.
You can get the sum of the parts to be greater than the whole.
That's where you get supercharged.
And that isn't easy. That doesn't happen overnight. And you gotta have people who really do wanna lock arms and jump off together and continue to do the good work for as long as the eye can see.
I think if you were to perseverate on credentials and not character, if you were to think more about intellectual horsepower and not vision and passion. Yeah, you probably aren't on the winning side of the equation. There's a lot of ground.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Lead yourself astray.
[00:31:52] Speaker C: Yeah, there's a lot of ground that one can make up, that a team can make up when they do coalesce around, you know, a collective task.
And that is to say, you might not need a Nobel Prize winner to succeed in biotech. What you do need is some critical mass of core competency and expertise. But then you need people to come together, believe in one another and believe in what we're doing.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: And what we're doing.
[00:32:19] Speaker C: Yeah, what we're doing is not just trying to generate a return. You know, I think the, the people who, who perhaps hyper focus on that miss the opportunity to grow in the way that I just described. You know, the, the, the vision is too narrow, the aperture is too narrow.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:32:38] Speaker C: And we all know that in biotech things fail, and they fail more frequently than they don't.
And if you're focused strictly on the return and not focused on doing right along the way, you're going to draw the short straw. But what do I mean by doing right along the way?
How does one do right along the way and not be exclusively focused on the outcome?
And I would say that's core to success in biotech as I see it. And I think people need to understand that what goes on day to day in a biotech company, clinical stage biotech companies in particular, is patient engagement, family engagement, engaging with principal investigators, understanding systems, operationalizing clinical trials, and delivering potential hope to patients and families. That's incredibly gratifying.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: And you need to be in it to win it every day.
But you're delivering for that purpose. And then there's the personal and professional growth that you experience as you're contending with some of the difficulties that are inevitable in this business.
And you need to feel somewhat energized by that too and being solution oriented, but not believing that it's entirely on you to come up with that solution. And this gets back to the locking arms phenomenon. You have to be comfortable enough, trust enough and believe enough in the people you're working with to come back to the group and figure out how to solve for it together. And that yields camaraderie and collegiality and good general feelings. Good vibes, as the kids say these days.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: And I think you can get a lot of mileage out of that. And ultimately if you're doing that part of it right, then the outcome is the outcome. And at the end of the day, you may not be able to control data, but if you've done everything in your power to serve your stakeholders, including the patient community and the physician community, I would argue that the likelihood of you achieving success is higher and in some ways, not always. I think we're all wanting to win economically as well for our investors and wanting to achieve success there. But, but it becomes only a component part of how you define success and not all of it.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Also, I don't think it decreases the likelihood of a good economic result. I mean, quite the opposite because you attract the right kinds of people to participate in this work. Because, you know, Biotric fundamentally is a mission driven industry.
[00:35:15] Speaker D: Right.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: I mean, there are easier ways to make money if that's your, if that's your only objective. So what you're describing sounds like, you know, credit corps to summon, you know, call, call best and brightest of the battlements. And that, that feels to me, I don't have supporting data on this, but it feels to me like that would have economic.
That would up your odds on getting to an economic result.
[00:35:38] Speaker C: I think it does. And it gets to passion. You know, there are five values of our company, which I think capture all this pretty well, if I do say so myself.
The five values are honor, trust, partnership, vision, and passion. And they're in that order for a reason.
So you need to act honorably in everything you do. And that should. That should be the governing principle of every action you take internally and externally.
Trust. Suppose you could probably trust someone, but you might not act honorably.
So trust is built on top of honor, and those two things kind of go together.
Partnership, similar to trust. You could probably believe in partnership, but not necessarily in trust or honor. Right. So if you have trust and honor, partnership goes a whole lot further.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:36:31] Speaker C: Same same with vision. And then the reason why passion is last is because it's the most unwieldy of. Of Right. And it needs to be harnessed.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: Yes. Ungoverned. It's unhelpful.
[00:36:46] Speaker C: Exactly. And. And I think we are all fired up to deliver in this business. We are all in it, I would argue, for very similar reasons. We want to. We want to compete, we want to deliver, and we want to win for patients, families, and our stakeholders.
But if you're not careful and you don't contextualize that passion, you know, you don't do it through honor, trust, partnership and vision. It can lead you astray, given how high octane this business is.
[00:37:16] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: And so, you know, I tend to lean on those five values because I think it captures a lot of what biotech is about, and you have to have all five to be sure. But you do stack them one on the other to get to the best outcome.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: So, first of all, I love all of that, Bruce, and this is. That's a bit of a masterclass, I think, on biotech culture, company culture, in a lot of ways. I think a lot of that applies. Certainly it applies in my world, in the clinical research world and CRO, but also I think much more broadly, outside even of healthcare. So a snippet there that we'll come back to, given that you're obviously a guy who thinks carefully about what decisions you're going to make, the framework you want to operate under, et cetera. We're living in an environment of extreme change, whether that's technological change from. From AI, whether it's regulatory change, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
What keeps you up at night and how do you manage your way through those kinds of things?
[00:38:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's exogenous risk is terminology that I heard a while back. And I just think it's the best way to describe what it is that I worry about. There are plenty of things that you cannot control in day to day operations of a biotech company. Despite best efforts, you just can't control them. And what you look to, particularly in drug development, is stability in the macro environment.
And I mean regulatory stability and institutional stability.
And when you have to contend with unknown risk in those parts of the world, which has dramatic impact on how we think about drug development in biotech, you're now contending with two flavors of unknown that I think create some destabilization. Now, having said that, it is true that with every changing of the guard, there are changes administratively, there are changes in policy, and we all have to deal with that. So to some extent, I would argue that we should take a deep breath and understand that change is inevitable, that there isn't a single person in our country who doesn't believe that we should continue to fight for leadership in biomedical research and innovation. And I think that a few things in this world are nonpartisan, bipartisan. This is one of them.
It feels like the breadcrumbs have been swept away by Augusta Wind, you know, at this exact moment in time. But, but I've got confidence that we will find our way through it. But when you, when people do ask about what keeps me up at night, the real answer, plenty of things, you know, but we only have an hour.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: Yeah. How much time do you have?
[00:40:15] Speaker C: Yeah, but I would say, I would say it's the risks that are coming from the outside in that, that keep me up at night.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: That makes a lot of sense. I also think I'm testing a hypothesis with you. I think that it's understandable that everybody needed to take a breath in the first quarter, second quarter of this year. Lots of change in a very short period of time.
But there is a point where it's incumbent on leaders in the industry to get on with it. And especially if we are pre commercial biotech companies or that community, we got to get into the clinic and drive forward towards results.
And if you're preclinical, you gotta, you gotta exercise, you gotta get all that work done.
And even in a time of uncertainty, I think that's still a North Star.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Agreed.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: All right, I'm gonna switch us now to a lightning round and just run through, through a bunch of questions here.
[00:41:16] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: In relatively short order. So let's start with career advice. And your answer doesn't have to be that brief. But what's the best career advice that you've received?
[00:41:27] Speaker C: There was a comment made by my former chairman, Jack Barkus at Weill Cornell Medical College, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry.
He said, as you go out and pursue different things, don't forget to believe in regression of the ego in the service of the mind.
[00:41:45] Speaker B: That's a great sentence.
[00:41:47] Speaker C: There has been no truer and more relevant advice that I've ever gotten. I think we all, as we achieve things in our careers, we develop confidence, we develop a belief in ourselves, and we also develop pattern recognition. And when you pull that away, it's destabilizing. But in truth, if you accept that there might be a little bit of instability on the ego front, you are much more likely to learn, take on challenges and succeed in ways you never thought possible.
I love that.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: That's, that's terrific. There's one of my favorite bits of advice comes from Nobel prize winning physicist who said the most important thing in life is not to fool yourself. And you are the easiest one to fool.
I think that's related to what you just shared.
[00:42:36] Speaker C: Yeah, it is.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: Okay. What's the most underrated skill for a biotech CEO?
[00:42:43] Speaker C: Emotional intelligence. You know, I think, I think particularly in biotech where everyone is looking high and low for advanced degree folks, accomplished scientists, accomplished clinicians.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:42:54] Speaker C: What they, what they might miss is how important human behavior is and an ability to appreciate and understand and be sensitive to the needs and concerns of others. And that getting, getting back to the people. The people, the people being the platform.
If you're not doing it with high eq, then you're going to run into trouble.
So I think the most underrated skill of really any executive, but certainly a biotech CEO, given that's where I sit right now, is emotional intelligence.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: I love that. I wonder if it's maybe even more important in biotech given what you said earlier about how you define success. That success is about all these things along the way as well as the final results. You can't control the final result that will come out of the clinic. But, but you can do all these other things and then I imagine you must spend time thinking about how to keep everybody motivated and positive when the inevitable setbacks and, and curveballs arrive.
[00:43:52] Speaker C: Well, think about it. These are some of the world's smartest people. You know, I mean, how many advanced degrees can fit into one company around one conference table? Biotech companies set the standard there and people are aspirational, they're ambitious, they're smart. And I think you need to respect that, understand that and meet halfway. And that does require stepping outside yourself and trying to step into, inside someone else's mind and do what's right for the group.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: Love it.
Is there a book you'd recommend to other biotech leaders?
[00:44:27] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, this question I guess I've gotten before, it's sort of a corny response because it's one of these self help type books. But I'm not above revealing the fact that nor am I, you know, is often, often needed. But it's seven habits of Highly Effective People. And there were a couple of these habits. These, you know, these takeaways that really stuck with me. First was seek first to understand, then to be understood.
This gets to eq, right? So listen empathically and then speak.
And so that one always stuck with me. And then sharpen the saw, which I suppose has been a governing principle for my career. And the idea behind sharpening the saw is investing in continuous self renewal and all the twists and turns that I've undertaken in my career. Different, very different kinds of life experiences. If not for committing to sharpening the saw and regressing the ego in the service of the mind, wouldn't have had the opportunity to do the sorts of things that I've done. And while it's been difficult along the way, gratifying at the end of the day.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I think first of all, Covey's book is a classic for a reason.
And sometimes I think you're right. Especially with very smart people, highly credentialed people, it can be easy to be dismissive of, you know, things that have, that have popular appeal.
But that one, that one has, there's some, there's some real, there's some real gems in there. And those are two great examples.
[00:46:03] Speaker D: So.
[00:46:04] Speaker B: Okay, well, we're going to put all these in the, in the notes that come with, come with the, with the bot. Is there a podcast or a TV show that you never miss? Now, you don't have to say few and far between.
[00:46:13] Speaker C: You can, you can really pick anything.
Yeah, I guess you beat me with a punch on that one.
I. There's a podcast. So full disclosure, I am a podcast consumer and a media consumer, but I do cross pollinate. One that I felt hits the mark for me, given how I like to think about the world, is Hidden Brain.
And what Hidden Brain, if you're familiar with it, there's a book written multiple different podcasts and it tries to tap into some of the psychoanalytic or or unconscious motivations that drive us as leaders and drive us in business. And it gets to strategy. And I think, you know the quote you made just a moment ago.
[00:47:00] Speaker D: You'Re.
[00:47:00] Speaker C: The easiest person to fool.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:02] Speaker C: Yourself, I think, gets to, that gets to some of those unconscious motivations that if we're not trying to tap into, may get the best of us.
So I find the mix of, of psychological commentary, psychoanalytical tendencies mixed with a nice contribution of business and leadership to really float my boat.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: That's a, that's a great one. I can imagine somewhere that if the host of that podcast, Shankar, if he heard that imagine, he'd be gratified because you're a pretty discriminating consumer of a podcast that deals with those kinds of issues.
So that's, that's great.
Partnership or independence? What do you think is a bigger long term value creator, if I can ask?
[00:47:42] Speaker C: I think it's facts and circumstances specific. I guess the way, the way that I would answer the question is independence can be great until it's not.
And I think if you are myopic around remaining independent at all costs, you're not availing yourself of some of the leverage that can be found in strategic partnerships.
Partnerships that don't add much strategic upside are just less interesting and perhaps argue for independence. But the way we think about, excuse me, way we think about our business is there are lots of great companies out there focused on neuroscience. They've been there, done that in many cases. They've got the scar tissue to prove it. And as we find ourselves in these discussions with these companies, we learn every single time. And with the partnership that we've been able to forge with Angelini Pharma, that's happening every day now as well, we benefit from their alternative perspective on the world. Turns out those circles overlap quite a bit. We see the world very similarly, but we are still learning every day and benefiting from that thought partnership and benefiting from the wingspan. You know, as a small biotech company, there's only so much you can simply just don't have the wingspan of a larger company. And we're benefiting from that increased wingspan and hopefully we'll continue to benefit from it. And as I mentioned throughout this conversation, relationships matter and may not have used those exact words, but human behavior and relationships are really important.
And the more that you can develop trust and partnership and mutual respect, the more likely you are to be able to help one another. And we're seeing that in our current partnership and I suspect we'll see it in future partnerships. It's not a partnership only view of the world, but it's a partnership when it makes sense view of the world.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's something in there about being nimble. Right. Not wedding yourself to one particular strategic answer and then being open to the benefits. By the way, I love the use of wingspan there. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Immediately intelligible and, and something that bigger orgs can offer. And I think it, it is a, it is a foolish decision when people write off larger orgs or smaller ones because, you know, the different problems are better suited to different sized teams. Okay, let's move on to AI. We didn't talk much about this as of today.
Do you see AI as overrated, underrated, a game changer, sort of modestly helpful? Where do you feel like AI fits into your. I mean we've already agreed that, that you know, that your platform is about people. So now let's talk about artificial people.
[00:50:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, it enables the success of the actual people who sit in the office every day.
It's a game changer. No other way to see it. And I think we shouldn't be absorbed completely by the hype.
It needs to be applied in the way that every single other thing needs to be applied in order to derive maximum value. But it's really hard not to call it a game changer. And that could be day to day operational efficiencies. It could be data mining, it could be our understanding of the viability of a molecule. It could be future discovery stage programs that are informed by AI that get us the kind of safety tolerability profile that we look for in every program we have with limited cross reactivity and better safety and tolerability.
It's a game changer, full stop. I think it needs to be harnessed and it needs a conductor of sorts, you know, as, as you're rolling it.
[00:51:17] Speaker B: Out like passion perhaps.
[00:51:19] Speaker C: But what I've seen, you know, in we had a couple of interns, potentially some of the smartest people you've ever met in your life, you know, at the company this summer, which is incredibly energizing and we benefit just as much from it as they do, but seeing how they are incorporating it into their day to day and not, I'm not just talking about, you know, picking your football games for the weekend spread, you know, I'm, I'm talking about real work and real fundamental acceleration and leverage of work to get us to a better spot. So without question the game changer.
But like anything else, Tulips or otherwise. You know, be careful of the hype.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. I saw a great cartoon the other day and it was a group of, you know, executives and they're raising their fists in the air and they're saying, what do we want, AI? When do we want it? Now. Oh, sorry, it's CEOs. What do we want, AI? When do we want it?
[00:52:14] Speaker C: Now.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Why do we want it? We don't know which. I thought I was a date. That's the danger, right? Is AI not wedded to clear eyed purpose? That's right. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, last one. In closing for, for those aspiring CEOs or actual CEOs out there who are in the fundraising game or plan to get into it, what advice do you have for somebody who's trying to raise money and buy biotech today?
[00:52:43] Speaker C: Be brutally clear.
I think there's a lot of potential seduction around developing novel therapeutics and a lot of complicated nuance.
And it's hard to argue that there's any biotech company that can't speak to that nuance and speak to that seduction all day long.
At the end of the day, the market that we're in right now may not have been true three years ago. The market that we're in right now I think puts a pretty heavy discount on seduction and I think it puts a pretty heavy premium on pragmatism and clarity and transparency.
And it is not these conversations that we've had a number of them over the last. We just did a big financing a few months back. We were in the market.
I'm speaking from personal experience.
The, the kind of resonance that you get from clear transparent communications being brutally honest with these investors, that doesn't mean you lowball yourself.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:53:48] Speaker C: It means you arm them with information that's going to get them to the right answer and you do it in a transparent, brutally honest way that must.
[00:53:56] Speaker B: I think, implied there is. You made this point about getting to conviction.
Is that a critical part of how you do that? Kind of coming from a place of conviction around the why?
[00:54:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I think if you've developed conviction in the way that we do, and this is more of a nirvati grin comment. Yes, you've been brutally honest along the way and yes, there's plenty of seduction around emerging growth biotech. Certainly our program we think is incredibly valuable and will do great things for patients.
But at the end of the day, what we need to convey is clear facts, information that's going to allow the investor to make the right decision and to do it with brutal honesty.
[00:54:40] Speaker B: I can't think of a better way to end. Bruce, thanks so much for joining us today on Few and Far Between.
[00:54:45] Speaker C: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: Okay. Welcome, producer Adam.
[00:54:50] Speaker D: Hey, Chris. This might be the first time that our listeners get to see us on video, so we better make a pretty good first impression.
[00:54:59] Speaker B: Yeah, well, my dad always used to.
[00:55:00] Speaker A: Say I had a face for radio.
[00:55:01] Speaker B: So, you know, let's see.
[00:55:04] Speaker A: But that's right. Very, very exciting to be video with you.
[00:55:08] Speaker D: Yeah, likewise. So this episode with Bruce has a lot of things to unpack, but let's start with mid and late stage platforms. Are these opportunities better as an investment? And why is that?
[00:55:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think in general they're better as an investment because we know more investors and the leadership team inside of these companies know more about the drugs that are under development or the mechanisms of action that they're chasing. So just, they're just further along in the process and anytime we have more data, it decreases risk. So, yeah, I think they are sort of a slightly lower risk.
You know, opportunity, on the other hand, man, it's. Everything is risky in biotech.
[00:55:50] Speaker D: True statement. True statement. And speaking of which, I think we should talk about the concept of an operational company like Nervati is.
Let's zoom in on the fact whether it's a new platform or is it a tested strategy that has just kind of reached its evolution?
[00:56:07] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a different way of thinking about a platform. So I think one of the sort of more common thing that people mean when they talk about a platform is we've got a technology that we can apply, you know, across a number of different therapy, you know, know, diseases or a number of different assets.
And in this case it's more about combining a bunch of the back end stuff efficiently and then hiving off these, you know, little companies that share a bunch of the stuff that they think is not essential, that is not differentiating, and then are focused on the things where, where difference exists. I think that's a, I think that's a smart way to approach this. And I think we'll see more of these guys are not the only folks doing this, but it is, I think, a smart way to attack drug development.
[00:56:54] Speaker D: It is a very interesting concept and Bruce explained it really well.
One of the things that he also talked about was honor, romance and passion. Things that you might find in a romance novel, not things you expect to find in the biotech killers.
[00:57:10] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: That's right. Our Leading man here. We could picture the front cover of the novelization of Nirvati and it's, it's Bruce on a horse. No, I think he talked about that stuff really well. And you know, of course, if you have those kinds of elements and you don't have deep understanding of the science and a novel approach, you're nowhere. On the other hand, caring about the things, the emotional things that resonate with staff, with investors, with everyone, eventually with, with docs and with patients, I think is a really important element that, that can lead to recruiting the very best people, which can lead to success. So I really liked the way that he talked about this stuff.
And you know, I think if you, if you go to business school, case studies, they're going to tend to focus mostly on, you know, strategic position and scientific differentiation and stuff like that. But these kinds of elements, wanting to work for a leader that people think is. Whose heart and head are pointed in the right direction, I think can be really powerful differentiators.
[00:58:18] Speaker D: And do you think that when it comes to most industries that even with all of these, you know, statistics and business and resources, that it all comes down to having an emotional heart within that industry?
[00:58:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I do. I mean, I think again, if you have an emotional heart but you don't have the content to back it up, that's a, that's a mess.
[00:58:39] Speaker D: Right.
[00:58:40] Speaker A: But similarly, if you have really practical stuff organized, but the company has no soul, I think it's trouble. It's difficult to get people to stay through the hard times. And all businesses, especially biotech businesses, are going to have their ups and their downs. And so I think this is a really important aspect, aspect of building something extraordinary.
[00:59:01] Speaker D: A good point. Going along with that, I will say that this was our first episode with a lightning round, which I think is a great idea. And I think it got to the heart of a lot of Bruce's personal and professional philosophies and his connections within the industry. How do you feel about that?
[00:59:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we're going to continue that segment. We sort of did it as, you know, things thinking like, well, that'll get us some little snippets of content. But you're right, it gives the, it gives the subject of the interview a chance to kind of round out a little bit more about how they think. And I think that's one of the most valuable things we can do. We, we know that the biotech CEOs who come on the pod mostly come on to tell the story of what they're building because you know, it's that great long form opportunity to talk about both the science, the success that they're having, and the impact they want to have on patients, which is great and we want them to do that.
[00:59:54] Speaker B: But I feel like the lightning round.
[00:59:55] Speaker A: Gives them a chance to talk about some of the hacks, ideas, philosophies that they have that can be really helpful to other people who are running or considering running these kinds of companies.
[01:00:06] Speaker D: Agreed.
So before we go, we should talk a little bit about how video, for the most part, is going to be our predominant platform for the few and far between podcasts. Yes.
[01:00:16] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[01:00:16] Speaker A: I think, you know what we've, what we've learned, all of us who make podcast content, is that people prefer video, at least as an option. So many people, you know, are going to listen in the car or, you know, when they're working out or doing something like that, but a lot of people really like to be able to have it open in video format on YouTube or something similar.
So we're going to lean in that in that direction. We'll probably still have some audio only ones because there will be times when we just can't. You know, the person is great, but for whatever reasons they can't record video and that's fine. But I think this is the new normal.
[01:00:50] Speaker D: Yes. Yeah, I definitely agree with that and I'm looking forward to our next one. So thanks, Chris.
[01:00:56] Speaker A: Excellent. All right, if you're listening, share your feedback. It was certainly a lot of fun.
[01:01:00] Speaker B: Thanks, Adam.
[01:01:06] Speaker D: Sa.
