Video Episode 67: Aoife Brennan, President and CEO of Climb Bio

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome to the Few and Far between podcast. I'm your host, Chris O'. Brien. W.B. yates once wrote, how can we tell the dancer from the dance? In biotech pays to be a good dancer, you need to rely on your experience to identify potential IP in a competitive and crowded industry. Today's guest understands both science and strategy, and also Yates recognizing budding success as well as opportunities for growth amidst the wreckage. Aoife Brennan is the president and CEO of Climb Bio, a biotech committed to developing better treatments for immune mediated diseases. On today's episode, Aoife takes us on a journey that spans Kilkenny, Ireland, Harvard Medical School and her expansive roles across drug development from Chief Medical Officer to CEO. We'll also get the inside scoop on the differences between those two chairs, CMO and CEO. How to build teams that deliver and balancing self worth with a strong desire to learn. I've been looking forward to having Aoife on the pod for a long time now and I know you're going to enjoy this one. Okay, let's get started. [00:01:06] Speaker C: Aoife Brennan, welcome to Few and Far Between. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Oh, thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be on. [00:01:11] Speaker C: I have been looking forward to this conversation. I think we could call this something that's a year and a half, two years in the making, right? [00:01:16] Speaker A: I know, yeah. Yeah. It's been a while. [00:01:18] Speaker C: Yeah. I think we first started talking when you were at your previous company and that's part of the story we're going to tell. But how you got to climb and all of the stuff that you've been doing here, which is really exciting. I'm delighted to be in your beautiful offices today. But let's start a little with your background. So there you were, a wee lass in Ireland. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Oh, God. [00:01:41] Speaker C: How did it all start? [00:01:42] Speaker A: We're really going into the west now. Yeah. So you're right. I grew up in Ireland. Was, grew up actually in rural Ireland, so down in the southeast in Kilkenny. Went to med school in Dublin. Always thought that I wanted to be an academic physician. That was kind of the pinnacle of career achievement when I was kind of coming up through med school and then met a guy who was my boss, you know, when I started working in a hospital, who really wanted to come to the States for a year. [00:02:13] Speaker C: Is that where it all began? [00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah. I used to, earlier in my career I hesitated as describing my story, as I was the trailing spouse that followed my husband. And that's how I ended up here. I used to kind of tell this story that I was like driven by ambition. I really knew I Wanted to be a magic CEO and I started studying for it. But no, that's not really what happens. I think you get to a stage in your life where you're okay with your truth and your background and that's kind of where I am now. Yeah. But I was a trailing spouse. We moved on. My first son was six weeks old. So I had this tiny little baby. Broke my mom's heart, of course. Took the first grandchild out of the country. [00:02:50] Speaker C: Ripped out of the country, out of the womb of. [00:02:53] Speaker A: I still hear about that and I still think she holds out hope that I will move back. She's probably actually one of the few people who will watch this. So I have to shout out to my mom, but yeah. So we ended up, came for a year and never went back. I mean it's kind of the classic story. [00:03:11] Speaker C: And did you come to Boston? Which of course is the typical, you know, if you're Irish and you're coming, it's here. It was here in New York for 150 years. [00:03:18] Speaker A: It was funny because there were a couple of. My husband was interviewing for a bunch of roles and it's really tricky to be in a kind of two career. And at the time I thought, well, you know, you find your role and then I'll kind of figure something out. It's just funny how that kind of dance of career decisions has kind of followed us throughout. I'm still married to him. Yeah, we still here. We now have three boys, all Irish names and the first one who was this tiny baby when we moved is now like a six foot three, you know, Bu. Yeah, yeah, Junior. So, yeah, it's kind of crazy how time flies. [00:03:54] Speaker C: That's wonderful. And I think it's great that you share the sort of candid version of the story. I think a lot of times when we look back on our careers, it's very easy to tell a through line kind of story and, and there's kind of one in hindsight. But at the time, of course, we're all just stumbling along trying to figure it out. [00:04:11] Speaker A: I know. [00:04:12] Speaker C: And when I'm talking to young people like, you know, college age or 20 somethings who often are really overwhelmed by the world, it's my kids, their friends, others, you know, it's really helpful to hear that people just sort of figured. [00:04:26] Speaker A: It out, stumbled on it. Yeah, I know. Yeah. People spend. Kids spend all this time, you know, searching for their passion and they expect that they're going to find that and it will be this guiding light for their career. But often it's kind of random. Your curiosity takes you in a certain direction, you follow it, an opportunity opens up, you jump through that door and, you know, the rest kind of just happens. [00:04:45] Speaker C: Yeah, Chris Rock has a line about that that's like, follow your passion if it pays or if it's hiring or something. [00:04:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. [00:04:52] Speaker C: Okay, so. But did you know when did. So when did you decide being an academic position was not the final role for you? [00:04:59] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:00] Speaker C: In Ireland still or over here? [00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think the first kind of, the first aha moment. And it's funny how when you look back in your career, often it's like, I can't remember what I had for breakfast, but I can remember this moment when the first Christmas that we were here in the US we went back to Ireland and came back, landed Logan got in the car, turned on the radio, which was the first shock, like hearing the American accents and the voices, having been back in Ireland for, you know, two weeks. And then we're going down Star Drive and the sitgo sign comes into view. And my husband was like, oh, it's so great to be home. And I just had this, like, what are you talking about? This is home. This is not home. This is not home. But I think something happened in the back of my mind, kind of clicked at that moment and said, you know, there's a good chance we may never go back. And so, you know, we had, when we came here, it was with the, you know, very distinct purpose that we were going to work a year to max in hospital academic medicine and then move back. But I think that was the first kind of moment when I started to open up. Okay, we may be here for longer than I anticipate and I really need to start thinking about what's going to satisfy me not just for kind of another six months, but like, what would that path look like for me professionally? And that kind of started that kind of, you know, the cogs turning around. Where do I see myself? Do I see myself continuing to work where I am versus doing something else? I think the second moment came when you mentioned you were at Harvard Business School yesterday. I had this opportunity towards the end of the first year to do a program that at the time was called Scholars in Medicine. But one of the things they did was they sent you for a semester to business school, which was a complete eye opening experience for me. I never saw any opportunity outside of academic medicine and that kind of career path. And I remember coming home one like snowy afternoon in the middle of winter to my husband. And they just kind of formed teams to do a business plan where you had to. They would give you a piece of IP from the Harvard system and you would work with your MBA colleagues and PhD colleagues and put together a business plan and then pitch at the end of it. That was kind of the project. A complete fish out of water experience for this, like, geek, right? From Irish geek, Maryland. Like, no idea. I couldn't even like, balance my checkbook. [00:07:24] Speaker C: Right, right, right. [00:07:26] Speaker A: And I remember my husband saying to me, you know, I don't know what you're doing now, but, like, you're super energized by it. You just seem like you're really having fun. And, you know, I see, see the light in your eyes and when somebody who's close to you makes that observation. [00:07:40] Speaker C: About you, that's really cool. [00:07:41] Speaker A: It's like that's kind of. That is an indicator, right? That's a flag that maybe you should move in that direction. And sure enough, a couple of months later, I got a call from a recruiter that there was a biotech company in the Boston area looking for a physician. And I said, yes. [00:07:58] Speaker C: What was the role? [00:07:59] Speaker A: So it was a classic entry level medical director. It was pretty unusual at the time because I'm an endocrinologist by training. And when I kind of explored industry careers, I was told, you know, you either have to go to Indianapolis and work for Lilly on the next insulin. [00:08:14] Speaker C: Yes. [00:08:15] Speaker A: You know, Lilly has changed a lot, obviously, and I love to work for Lilly now. But that was kind of like, okay, that can't happen. [00:08:20] Speaker C: That doesn't seem right. [00:08:21] Speaker A: Or you stick where you are and stick what you're doing. But this company was a really cool company. And it's funny because the science has taken a while to mature. I think the move and the science was right. It was probably just a little too early. But they were developing an immunotherapy for new onset type 1 diabetes, which is a hot area now. [00:08:41] Speaker C: Yeah, sure, hot area now. [00:08:42] Speaker A: But this was kind of one of the first companies that was. No, this is 20 years ago. [00:08:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:08:47] Speaker A: No path called Tolerex. You know, really exciting company. Great first experience in industry. For me, a lot of the feedback I got was, you know, you need to go somewhere like, you know, go to Merck or go somewhere where they can train you. And there's a formal training program and a rotational program. But this company just had really experienced people in there. So I had this opportunity to wear a lot of hats, but also Learn from people who had 10, 20 years experience. So it was the perfect setup for me and I just learned really quickly. And within six months I was just like, I'm never going to. This is it, this is it. [00:09:22] Speaker C: So what's the framework? Somebody. So imagine you're giving this advice to you 20 years ago, somebody else who's thinking about coming out and they're hearing. And I've heard that same advice being offered to academic medical folks. You know, you should go to a big company and you'll learn the proper way to do it and blah, blah, blah. Do you sort of think that is generally good advice or do you think no, no, no. There are small and medium sized companies, if you can find X, Y and Z, you should think about that. [00:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really about like, you know, there's a climate, then there's a micro climate and when you come as an entry level medical director, what's really going to determine, you know, the CEO of the company is irrelevant. [00:10:01] Speaker C: Right. [00:10:01] Speaker A: Like, or people that are like, you know, 10 levels above you in the org chart. It's really the people that are around you, with you and not just do they have the experience. They need to have the experience and the right mindset to be able to mentor you and bring you along and the patience to explain all the terminology and to work with somebody where you can help them see that they're adding value, but yet have a lot to learn. And I've now brought people over from straight out of academia or out of clinical practice and it only works a proportion of the time because I think it's part of it is the seed and part of it's the soil right where you land. But you also need to come in with the right attitude of like you are learning a new language, you're learning a new. You can't bluff it if you don't know what you're talking about. You know, ask and respecting the multidisciplinary team, but then also being prepared to kind of train them on the clinical aspect and what you know from the clinic and the people who get that balance right of like knowing their own self worth and what they can bring to the table, but being open to learning. I think ultimately are the people that I see, just really a lot of them now are CMOs or doing really great things across the industry because they've kind of had that right combo. [00:11:17] Speaker C: So I think you said two important things there. One, there's a diagnostic on yourself you should do if you're thinking about making this move and it's a little bit how flexible am I, how willing am I to learn a new language? Which really the business of biotech is very different, as you said, from academic norms. The expectations are different. The way you sort of, I don't know, stretch your stuff and show that you're good. Right. All of that is different. So am I a person who is ready to do all of that? And then if I'm a yes on that, I think you're saying look hard at the team immediately around you and see if they're the folks that can help you with the kind of onboard into that. [00:11:50] Speaker A: Because somebody with great experience, if they don't have the time to actually sit and mentor you and bring you along is absolutely useless. And somebody who's, you know, who's never done it before and they're trying, you're trying to learn from them, that's also useless. So you kind of need like everything's a two by two table, right. You need people in that upper outer quadrant who both have the experience themselves and also have the time and the willingness and the kind of just personality. Personality to actually want. And generosity. Yeah, generosity to be able to, you know, bring you a mentor, someone just completely new. Because for the first couple of months you're going to be like asking them more than you're helping them. So you know, I think that's super important. [00:12:27] Speaker C: Now what you didn't say is pick a high flying stock or a fancy scientific advisory board or a hot asset class in any of those things, right? Yeah. Especially for a young person. I think that's great advice. [00:12:38] Speaker A: I mean just look at what's happened. [00:12:40] Speaker C: Over the last, I mean the wreckage that we've seen. [00:12:43] Speaker A: I know, it's like nobody can predict, Nobody, no one can predict. You can go to, you know, a big pharma company and your entire, you know, group can get wiped out, eliminated. You know, so those, those things, we can't tell the future and any of those things, like, I mean, for goodness sake, three, four years ago, gene therapy was hard and everyone was building. And now you see companies just completely taking a knife, a machete to that whole part of their business and just cutting it off. So those things are so hard to predict. I think you have a much better chance if you surround yourself by good people because things will come, things will happen for you on the other side, even if it's failure. [00:13:22] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:13:23] Speaker C: So somebody said to me, I like this a lot, like accept the fact that you're probably going to choose wrong out of the gates in other words, you're probably not going to land at the next rocket that does everything right, and the drug gets approved and gets sold for a zillion dollars. Just accept that and instead try to really focus on the learning part of it. And I heard one person responded to that. This was at a thing yesterday. One person responded to that like, well, that's kind of. Are you suggesting to just come into it with a failure mindset? No, no, that's not it at all. You're going to try really hard, but just allow for the possibility that you need to be able to define the success a little bit differently. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Yes, 100%. 100%. You can be a success in a project that ultimately ends up in failure. And I think people who are experienced in this ecosystem can tell the difference. I joke. It's like telling. It's like a Yates poem. Like, tell the dancer from the dance. And I think when you've observed enough. [00:14:15] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. [00:14:18] Speaker A: You could tell the difference. [00:14:23] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I agree. So, okay, so then how do you get to Biogen? [00:14:28] Speaker A: So that's a good story. So the first that company was great experience for me. After three years, investors decided it was going to be a long road to get the science. And we now have a product approved on the basis of that science. Right. So we do have the first product approved to intervene and prevent type 1 diabetes. But at the time, that was very early. There was a long road ahead. And the first big lesson was the speed and the rapidity of the company shut down and everything being laid off. And so I was then like, oh, my goodness, now I have no job. I've gone out in a limb. The limb got cut off. No more limb, no more limb. So that was kind of this big existential career situation, being laid off. And when you're coming from a clinical background, you know, to get laid off is really hard. Right. Like, you really have to do something egregious. But this is just. It's the business, how the system works. This is just the biotech ecosystem, and you have to get comfortable with that. But at the time, I was not comfortable with that. My husband was not comfortable. We had two young kids. [00:15:31] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:15:31] Speaker A: You know, it was. It was difficult. And so I interviewed and, you know, I think another kind of lesson learned to people coming up, once you have navigated that language barrier and you've demonstrated that you're somebody who can work with the team, who can deliver, who can get stuff done, the world's your oyster. Right. So often it's hard to break in, to get your foot in the door. But then once you establish a reputation for yourself, you have one or two people who are respected in the industry who can kind of speak for you and say, chris is a solid citizen, he did the right thing. The project didn't work out, but he was a great player. You know, that really opens up a. [00:16:07] Speaker C: Lot of doors, makes a lot of sense. [00:16:08] Speaker A: And so I had a really lucky that I had a bunch of options and opportunities at that time. Some of the people I interviewed with back then I still stayed friendly with and network with. But Biogen was one of the decisions that I made at the time. I thought I was making the wrong decision, but went for it anyway. And it turned out subsequently to actually be a great decision. But it was a very heavily neuroscience. It was a very heavily neuroscience company. They were looking for somebody who to be a development lead for Avonix. And this would have been like maybe 2010. Avenix had been approved in 1996 or something. So it was like one of the most boring. [00:16:45] Speaker C: Come on, man. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. So it was like, get a pen developed, get this product approved in China. Two very important skill sets, by the way. Yes. Drug device combo and China development. Still harvesting some of what I learned back then. But, you know, at the time there was like, I had an opportunity to join Al Nylam. There was an opportunity with Shire to work on some. [00:17:08] Speaker C: Now that was probably kind of a high flyer at that time. [00:17:11] Speaker A: No, they just done their second riff. It was like. [00:17:13] Speaker C: And that was kind of not a high flyer. [00:17:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So no, it was like part of the, you know, the twists and turns. It just did a period. Yeah. Where they were kind of still trying to find their way. And so I interviewed Abaijan. Just really loved the culture there. There was just something about the vibe and being very science centric and very kind of a lot of responsibility on the medical directors in terms of determining the strategy and everything else. And I love this concept of you manage your own program, but you actually had insight into other programs. All of the medical directors all sat together. There were weekly meetings where we went through all the programs and discussed issues with all the programs. So it was a huge accelerator for me in terms of education across all these different assets. Exposure. And every time I was there for six years, every time I would get comfortable and achieve a plateau, I would get another. And so the company was really expanding rapidly. They just had the first Tech Federa readout. So there was suddenly exceeded everyone's expectations, was a big Inflow of capital. [00:18:18] Speaker C: Now it was a hot company. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Now it was a hot company. And there was this. I wasn't so interested in the stock price or the Wall street metrics. For me, what was really important was this exercise of what they called at the time, open the appetite of like looking beyond neuroscience, looking at other kind of adjacent therapeutic areas. And I established a reputation as being somebody who would like, take on the extra projects and look into the diligence things. And if somebody was doing a diligence project or thinking about, you know, doing some new area that was like, you got the call. I got the call because I would say yes. And I was prepared to do the nights and weekends projects. And that is another great tip for people early in their career, because some of the companies that I did diligence on at that time, I then felt like I was a stakeholder in those companies or that deal or that transaction. So the stuff that didn't happen, you know, I was able to look, you follow those companies subsequently and see what happened. Did you know that risk that we identified actually manifest or was it not? And when you have that ability to learn from others, it's just an amazing kind of learning experience. And so that was amazing. But they had just acquired a small company in Waltham looking at FC Fusion technology, and two of the lead assets were in hemophilia. So this was a neuroscience company. A lot of really smart neuroscientists, nobody knew anything about hemophilia. And so I got this knock. The head of regulatory at the time knocked on my door, literally like five o' clock some evening, I'm packing up. And she said, do you know anything about hemophilia? And I'm like, honey, you should ask because I actually have a family history of hemophilia. [00:20:00] Speaker E: Oh, wow. [00:20:01] Speaker A: And she's like, great. [00:20:02] Speaker C: You have a nutrient, you're in charge. [00:20:05] Speaker A: That's awesome. I'm like, but I don't know, I mean, I've never, I'm not a hematologist. I don't know, maybe an expert, but. And that ended up being kind of one of these opportunities career wise where I was able to go out, help integrate this newly acquired company. These two assets, it turned out, were really interesting. And we're in kind of late phase development. So we got both of those approved. And then I kind of made a name for myself of being able to do kind of strange and new things. And, you know, one opportunity led to the other. I had an opportunity to lead the new Sun Ursin program, which was Spinraza, which was amazing. So you just end up kind of accumulating experiences, which was wonderful. [00:20:47] Speaker C: So the lucky thing was like, yeah, I happen to have a pet family history of hemophilia. But the make your own luck part of it was having showed up, having said yes, having delivered so that the person comes to your office. [00:20:58] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. And being open and approachable. I think that was a key. [00:21:04] Speaker C: How many drugs were you involved with that got to approval? [00:21:08] Speaker A: So we had three during that period. [00:21:09] Speaker C: Of time, which is kind of a crazy. [00:21:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. I mean, actually, I thought that I was this amazing picker. Everything I touched, everything I touched, solid gold. This is wonderful. I'm just this amazing ability that, like every project I work with seems to end in success. But, you know, as we know, that's the case in this industry. It was just kind of a lucky streak, but a lot of fun and huge mental learning. [00:21:33] Speaker C: So, okay, so you roll out of Biogen. Why did you decide to leave? And that. Is that when you moved to becoming a CEO? [00:21:40] Speaker A: No, no. So Biogen at the time was going through a strategic review of, you know, how it could. Sometimes growth is great, but it's also a problem because everyone expects, oh, the stock has increased a lot. It's going to continue to increase a lot. And so one of the strategic decisions that was made at that point in time was the Hemophilia assets had been commercialized, but we weren't actually seeing a lot of shareholder value being delivered from those assets and that revenue. And it was also kind of a difficult fit with a very neuroscience company. And Aducanumab was coming along. That was going to require a lot of focus and resources. Resources, yeah. So a decision was made to spin out the Hemophilia programs into a separate company, which became bioverativ. [00:22:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:23] Speaker A: And had that decision not been made, I'd probably still be a Biogen. But it kind of forced me to make a decision of do I want to go to bioverativ, do I want to stay at Biogen? [00:22:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:34] Speaker A: You know, what's going to happen? Or door number three or do an alternative. Door number three. Yeah. So it was like I was like, oh, I haven't, you know, even thought about, you know, moving outside. But this was the point where your life is going to change one way or another. Right. These were essentially going to be two different companies. Yeah. So I might as well look at, you know, whether there's a door number three option. Until one of the first companies that came back was synlogic. And I joined there as chief medical officer. [00:23:01] Speaker E: That's right. [00:23:02] Speaker A: I forgot that I actually thought at the time, I thought chief medical officer was the best job in the world because you have a seat at the table. You're still really close to the science and the strategy, but you get to have a say in the decisions that are made without having ultimate responsibility. [00:23:16] Speaker E: Yeah, right. [00:23:17] Speaker C: Hopefully you can sleep a little better. [00:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. And the company was in this rapid period of growth and just closed a series B and had an opportunity to go public through reverse merger. This was all, of course, completely new to me, so insulated from any kind of investor relations or finance stuff. At Biogen, I was part of the R and D organization. Yeah. So very far away from it. So this was a whole other element that I had to learn and it was a really interesting experience and it was great to see it from the CMO seat. So that was wonderful. But then again, that's sort of the. [00:23:56] Speaker C: Perfect chair, isn't it? [00:23:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:57] Speaker C: Kind of. If you have, I guess back to your point. If you have a CEO who's collaborative and shares and all that kind of stuff. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You get to experience a lot. And then about six months into the company being public, the board approached me and said, you know, we're going to make leadership change. Are you interested? And my first reaction was, God, no. It's like, you've got the wrong girl. This is not as. Even my fans would not consider me to be a, you know, candidate for this kind of job. [00:24:23] Speaker D: Really? [00:24:24] Speaker C: You thought that even at that point? [00:24:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I mean, I had a two year old at home. I had this vision of CEOs spending their time on airplanes, going to golfing trips, that kind of stuff. I'm like, you know, that's not me. But luckily at the time there was some really great board members and they were like, look, we see this in you. We see this in you and try it for a while. We've been impressed, whatever. So I decided to give it a go. And yeah, that was kind of the first CEO role. [00:24:53] Speaker C: That's a wild story. When did you become CEO? A time. [00:24:57] Speaker A: So that was around. I became a CEO about six months into. After the reverse merger. [00:25:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:05] Speaker A: Happened. Which was, you know, again, a baptism of fire. Yes. But like, I think there's kind of a pattern here because just like my first role in industry, you know, the, the people around you and, you know, really being able to leverage the board for advice, formal and informal, it was great. Every investment banker that Came to visit the company, got grilled for like the first six months. I used to joke that that was kind of my mba. But I wouldn't let them leave without explaining exactly the mechanics of a recent financing that they had learned. They come in with their flip pages and I'm like, can I really drill down on this and really grill them on. [00:25:43] Speaker C: I had an actor say to me once because I was asking a lot of questions and he said, you know, a lot of CEOs don't. They mostly do the talking, they mostly don't ask questions. And I thought, my God, so what a missed opportunity. [00:25:52] Speaker A: I know. [00:25:53] Speaker C: I don't want to listen to myself for the whole time. [00:25:54] Speaker A: I know, I know. So that was kind of my mini MBA and first education and being a CEO. [00:26:02] Speaker C: So let's jump to so synlogic. Let's jump to what happened. [00:26:07] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. So it was this really interesting platform company, really based. The premise of the company was that you could engineer bacteria to kind of be a more precise microbiome manipulation. So we were developing therapies for rare metabolic disease and things start to become a little difficult. You know, it was taking longer, requiring more resources than we thought. So we shrank down to really focusing on one program, which is a program in a rare metabolic disease called pku. A lot of support from the advocacy community and organization. They really felt like this could be great for kids with PKU and particular where, you know, managing the blood fee levels early in life is just so critical for long term outcomes. And we started doing a phase three study with the understanding that we had an interim. It really had to be good data to support. And when we unblinded the interim, it just, you know, didn't meet the mark. And we were in difficult situation at that point in time. We didn't have the capital or, you know, we're unlikely to be able to raise the capital to kind of go back again and do the full diagnostic and iterate and redesign and come forward. So we had to make the really difficult decision to shut the company down and discontinue the program. So that's kind of how that venture ended. [00:27:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think that as we look around now, there's been a fair amount of talk lately in the sort of Cambridge ecosystem about how more biotech companies still need to shut their doors. We've had some return funds to investors, but we've also had a bunch of companies say like, hey, I've got another idea. And I think that the general consensus from everybody except the teams at those companies is that there should be less of that and that the cycle of creative destruction is kind of a big part of what makes the system work. [00:27:55] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, that's the special sauce of the US Innovation ecosystem. It's kind of the edge we have over our competitors in China. You know, we actually have the system that supports failure and try and attempt and try to make things work and move on to the next idea and recycle this idea over here, recycle the people. The cash goes back into the system. I think that's a real special sauce. And it works in Boston, Massachusetts, because you have that proximity. People are scooped up by other companies who benefit from the training and the experience that those individuals have had in their prior companies. And I think that's a really special thing about this ecosystem that we live in. [00:28:36] Speaker C: You mentioned China, but if you contrast it with Europe, do you think that we've got amazing scientists in Europe? There's not as much access to capital, but there's some. How much of it do you think is about that sort of appetite for risk and the reputational hit that somebody might take if a company fails versus here, where it's kind of like if you did it well, people are like, well, she managed a really tough situation well, she's ready for the next thing. [00:29:01] Speaker A: Kind of. I guess. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the big thing that places like San Francisco and Boston have going for them is that cultural piece. It's the absence of shame when something doesn't work out. And I don't. I've never worked. You know, I've worked in the hospital setting in Europe, but I've never worked in biotech or startup. But when I meet colleagues who are kind of close observers of those ecosystems, I think it's much more difficult to do that. I think you kind of carry those scars with you here. I think it's almost like a considered like graduating, you know, graduating school of hardship. [00:29:36] Speaker C: She must have learned a lot, you know what I mean? [00:29:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I wonder what she's going to do differently next time. And people will follow you and continue to support you even though, you know, you didn't make the money in the last investment. So I think that's just something really special that we have to guard and maintain. [00:29:51] Speaker C: So that's what happened. [00:29:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:53] Speaker C: So you. So then that company shut down. Was it six months later that, you know, that climb got going? [00:30:01] Speaker A: Oh, yes. So about six months later, I got the call here. Actually, I think it was maybe even not that long. Could be, maybe Three months. Yeah, so we, I finished in March and then I started here in this company right before the fourth of July. [00:30:16] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, yeah, I remember when synlogic shut down or symbiosis. Sorry, shut down. Wait, what's the Sylogic kid? Synlogic. Okay, great, shut down. And then your email disappeared and I was like, I wonder what happens, what Aoife's up to. And I think I looked on LinkedIn and either you had just announced or you were in stealth or. So there was some kind of a reference like, okay, she's got something coming. [00:30:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. [00:30:40] Speaker D: We'll be back with the podcast in a moment. Hi, I'm Aoife Brennan, CEO of Climb Bio. [00:30:46] Speaker A: At Climb Bio, we're driven by a. [00:30:49] Speaker D: Clear and urgent mission to deliver high impact disease modifying medicines for people living with immune mediated diseases. Our team brings together deep immunology expertise and drug development experience. We're united by the belief that people deserve therapies that ultimately give them more quality time with less time thinking of themselves as patients. 2025 was our year of execution. We operated with discipline and purpose, advancing our differentiated monoclonal antibody programs, BUDO and CLYME116, both rooted in clinically validated B cell targets. These efforts reflect our commitment to developing therapies with strong clinical profiles and meaningful potential for people living with serious immune mediated conditions. This momentum propels us into 2026, a year of ascent. We enter a data rich period that will shape the next steps in our mission. With multiple clinical readouts ahead, we're positioned to convert progress into measurable impact across indications with high unmet need. At climbbio, every step in our journey matters, every insight, every collaboration, every data point moves us closer to a future where immune mediated diseases are met with transformative, targeted immune medicines that change lives. Now back to the podcast. [00:32:17] Speaker C: Okay, so how, what did you, what did that, that person propose to you? What state was it? [00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, so it was. You know, it's funny when you go through a transition like that, you know, we had a really close team at synlogic. Yeah, you go through a grieving process of, you know, you suddenly spend a long time building something up and then it gets ripped away. And a lot of people said, I initially thought, oh, I'm going to jump straight back into something. And people are like, no, no, take your time and you get these decks and people start calling you. And I knew my heart wasn't in it because I was just like, you know, and that's part of knowing when you're ready to go again, you know, it's when you're actually open to the, you're curious, like, you're like, oh, I want to open that deck, I want to see what they're doing. And a lot of the opportunities were like very similar in terms of like scope and stage and everything else. But then this opportunity came up and it was just so different from anything else that had been proposed to me that I thought, oh, I kind of need to pay attention to this one. And it was also very unique in that I thought my plan had been to take more time on the beach, as it were. So I thought, okay, if I don't look into this one now, it may not be available. Like September, October. [00:33:26] Speaker C: That might be an interesting question too, is if you feel that a little bit fomo, then maybe it is time to grab it, you know what I mean? [00:33:31] Speaker A: I know that was kind of the sign, right, of like time, time to go. So at the time climb was not climb, it was Elium. And it did an IPO in 21. So it was a neuroscience focused company, A lot of investor interest. They did a very successful ipo, raised money. But then similar to the Synlogic store, the investment thesis just disappeared and the right decision was made of like, okay, there's capital here. We have a NASDAQ listing which is going to pause operations and reevaluate what's next for this company. The lead investor was Andrew Levin at RA Capital. He's wonderful, continues to be involved in the company. And they had the idea of like, let's rebuild a public company using the capital that's available, but repositioning it in a different therapeutic area where there's more investor appetite, where the science is more exciting. And so that decision had been made. They had identified a target company that they wanted to acquire. You know, they wanted the shell to acquire. But there really, there was no management team at private company, which was called tenant, no management team at Eliam, a couple of people in finance just maintaining the listing, but everyone else had disappeared. There was, you know, no banking support, no analyst coverage. You know, a lot of the day to day kind of functions of a public company had atrophied at that point. [00:34:54] Speaker C: Makes sense. [00:34:56] Speaker A: And so there was this realization, okay, we need to grow rapidly if we're going to be successful that can re group and reposition the company. And so that was when I got the call. So there was a clinical asset that had some really interesting clinical data and a lot of capital so we could spend, look for other assets. Really think about positioning this kind of one Asset that they had found at that time. [00:35:23] Speaker C: It's public, the number, I think. So how much capital was. [00:35:26] Speaker A: Was on the. We had. So There was about 120. It was about 100 million when the, the kind of acquisition happened. And then there was a pipe of 120 raised kind of concurrent with that. So that was great. [00:35:39] Speaker C: You had a pretty flexibility, big pocketbook. [00:35:42] Speaker A: No kind of long term lease obligations, no big, you know, research organization that need to be sustained. So that optionality. And I had a good sense, you know, there was. It's part of what you learn being a CEO, right. That there's always next year is going to be different and the biotech markets are going to open up. There's going to be loads of IPOs. [00:36:02] Speaker C: We are a collection of optimists. Yes. [00:36:04] Speaker A: We've been through a couple of cycles where that did not come to fruition. [00:36:08] Speaker C: A tough time for optimists. [00:36:09] Speaker A: I know, Tough time for optimists. And so I thought, okay, there's at least a bunch of Runway. [00:36:16] Speaker C: Who knows what employee number were you? Do you remember? [00:36:18] Speaker A: Well, it didn't because we kind of went down and then went back up again. But we started off with I think three or four and then we're now up to maybe 27. [00:36:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. So what an interesting thing to have no infrastructure, but none of the baggage either. [00:36:36] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. [00:36:36] Speaker C: So you really could kind of build it from scratch. [00:36:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was wonderful because I remember having the initial conversation with some of the board members and being like, you know, do you mind where the headquarters is? The headquarters had been in Seattle and small office in Cambridge, UK and it was like, no, no. You know, you run the company, you go for it, make decisions, start, you know, rebuild it. [00:36:59] Speaker E: Let's go. [00:37:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's kind of crazy that first summer of like just having. I'd gone from having a public company but having a, you know, chief people officer. Chief financial officer. Right. Chief legal officer. And now suddenly there's none of those things. [00:37:12] Speaker C: You're a chief everything officer. [00:37:13] Speaker A: Everything. I had to learn how to like do a document sign. I was putting a DocuSign in, sending it to myself, signing it, downloading it, you know, doing the whole thing. So that was kind of this surreal experience but also a lot of fun. It was really fun. And it's a good kind of validation of yourself when you start again from scratch and like actually, you know, pull up the blank piece of paper, start drafting, you know, a corporate deck, you know, do Some of those things from, like, reading nothing. [00:37:42] Speaker C: The problem is you really can't blame anybody because there's no legacy. You know, it's like, yep, these are my. My team, my structure. [00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:50] Speaker C: So, okay, let's talk about the assets a little bit. So you know what got you excited about the science in the pipeline? [00:37:57] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's kind of everything happens for a reason. Right. And earlier that spring, I'd gone to an academic meeting where I heard George Shett, who did a lot of the cards, CD19 cards, carti, like an amazing innovator. I mean, he just took, you know, took something that was working in oncology and started to think about, like, well, could this really help? Yeah, so really severe SLE patients. [00:38:18] Speaker C: So exciting. Yeah. [00:38:19] Speaker A: And so the first, you know, kind of cohort of data from that and just been really like, wow, this is pretty amazing. But I'd come from a complex platform company, Right. Where we were trying to do so and all the manufacturing issues and all of the, like demonstrating, you know, that there's no variability in product quality attributes and all that kind of stuff. So I was like, oh, my goodness. I understood that this is really interesting data, but also really challenging. [00:38:44] Speaker C: Long ways from there to commercial. [00:38:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And just even when you get to commercial, just I can't see this being deployed everywhere. Right. So it's going to be specialist centers and everything else, but, like, really interesting. And so that kind of got me thinking about the whole, like, CD19B cell to patient space. It was really evident to me that we were only scratching the surface that some of the outcomes that he had achieved in this kind of experiment in these patients really kind of opened the door for a kind of renaissance of some of the B cell depletion stuff that we've kind of known since rituximab. But now I think we know so much more. And so the BUDO had some data that had been studied in a small phase 1b study in PMN. And so I got to see that as part of the kind of coming on board. And I thought, this looks like a drug. [00:39:33] Speaker C: Safety profile looks good. [00:39:34] Speaker A: Safety profile looks good. You know, if we can do. If we can treat and deplete the right B cells with something that's scalable and can be delivered in an infusion center, like a monoclonal low cost of goods. We know how to manufacture these things. They plug into a regular supply, supply chain, scales really well, scales really well and could be good for patients. Right. At the end of the day. [00:39:57] Speaker C: So I want to interrupt you There. One of the things that a couple of CEOs have leaned into on the podcast is the importance of having a commercial model in mind for your drug. Sounds like you were thinking about that from the very beginning. [00:40:09] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Well, you've kind of. You learn something. You accumulate scar tissue. [00:40:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. [00:40:15] Speaker A: As you go through and really thinking like, everybody in this industry puts patients first. Right. Like, I mean, it's hard to. You never meet a CEO who said, yeah, we don't care about. [00:40:22] Speaker C: I don't care much about the patients. [00:40:24] Speaker A: But I think there's this element of kind of pragmatism and realizing that the vast majority of healthcare is not delivered in the Mass General Hospital. There is kind of this element of pragmatically, how is this going to get like that last mile of like, getting to the real patients in need and really thinking about how your product is going to fit into that in the long run? I think it's just super, super important. And so that was a big element to the draw of like, wow. Naked monoclonal, but potential to deplete B cells. And we know from CAR T that this is. If you can do this, there's a path. Get the right dose, there could be a really interesting path. So that kind of got my attention. And then, of course, when I saw this come, I was like, oh, this, this could be cool. And that's where the name climb comes from. Silent B. Oh, yes. Yeah. So we decided, you know, Elium was a very neuroscience branding and everything else, and we made that. I actually didn't want to do the. I was like, elliott's a fine name. We can just change the website. It'll be fine. But no, it was like, no, no, no. You know, you need to pick a new name because, you know, the attorney sent me this long list of the things you need to do when you change the company name. Yeah, I kind of really like Eliam now. I've really decided Eliam's a great name. But, you know, we went through this exercise, which is a ton of fun actually, you know, in retrospect of choosing a new name. And, you know, when we caught on this, I love it. I didn't know that the B cell at the center here. So that was kind of fun. [00:41:58] Speaker C: Okay, where are we now? Where is the story? [00:42:01] Speaker A: So we've rebranded, we've gotten. That was October of 24. And then towards the end of the year, year, we started to think about an additional complementary asset. And we did kind of a search, ended up in licensing an asset that's called 116. It's an April targeted monoclonal. And I think the overarching strategy for the company is really focused on protein biologics for immune mediated diseases where we really think we can make a big difference for patients and making sure that we leverage the really interesting science in this area to benefit as many patients as possible. [00:42:41] Speaker C: And are you thinking when you look at these options, are you considering stuff that's very early as well as stuff that might have been through a trial, some places on the shelf somewhere the full range. [00:42:52] Speaker A: We don't have any research capabilities fair. We deal with a lot of research contract research organizations so we don't have a huge search innovation. VAL team. I think we kind of like to stick to where we kind of diseases and areas of science where we know we look at something from you know, year pre ind we can do all of that piece and we have a great regulatory team who understand how to get these, you know, programs moving. [00:43:19] Speaker D: And. [00:43:19] Speaker A: Then, you know, taking it forward from there. But I don't think we would ever, you know, start super early with like a concept or something that's you know, pretty kind of. [00:43:29] Speaker C: That's kind of another great point, isn't it? That like knowing what you're good at, not trying to like not fooling yourself and saying we can do everything instead like picking your lane, building a team that can deliver in that lane. It feels like that's. [00:43:44] Speaker A: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean I had that experience at Synlogic where you know, we had metabolic disease. At one point we were thinking about doing oncology and you really do need, you know, to do any of these things. You need the team who have that experience and you end up then with really high burn when you're building teams in multiple places, areas where you need that expertise and there's lack of fungibility between. So you can't have somebody who's like, you know, spent their life in oncology, say hey, you know, do this thing, you know, that kind of early on that's possible where it's, you know, more about the science. Once you start going into the clinic. [00:44:21] Speaker C: Yeah, forget it. [00:44:22] Speaker A: It becomes really difficult. It really does. And you need to spend so much time close to the prescribers get as you know, in your business getting to know the sites. So having to spread that across, you know, multiple different therapeutic areas and multiple sets of academic conferences, it just becomes very challenging to manage. [00:44:38] Speaker C: Do you think that's a. An accept like a recognized issue? Like it feels like there are. I won't name any names, but it feels like there are a bunch of biotechs that have been maybe overly ambitious in, in the breadth of things that they tackle. I think what you're describing is a pretty focused effort to go after. [00:44:56] Speaker A: I think there's always going to be this tension between focus and optionality and it's not that either one is good or bad. I think there's periods in a company's life cycle where optionality is great. There are periods when you just need to zoom in and be laser focused 100% and then you earn the right to expand and do additional things, things with additional optionality. So you know, it's, I think that tension should be. And it's a healthy thing to constantly be asking yourself as a CEO, like is now the time to zoom in? Is now the time to zoom out? It's not like, you know, it's always focus or it's always, you know, maximum optionality. I think there's time and when you're early in research where, when you don't know what biology is going to play out, like having multiple shots on goal is great. When you get into the clinic and you become a public company, the reality is most investors are just focused on that lead indication. You better choose well because if you don't, everything else coming behind will be judged on your success or failure. And then once you've demonstrated you can create value, I think you earn the right to do additional things. [00:46:03] Speaker C: That's great. So it's not add additional assets or additional therapy areas or whatever to de risk it. It's earn the right to get there by delivering with the focused success. [00:46:13] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean I think we've seen that play out over and over again in terms of how the companies that have been successful versus those who just have burned through hundreds of millions with nothing to show for it. It's this kind of period of time and knowing when to focus in, to get something, move something forward versus spread wider. [00:46:36] Speaker C: Amazing. Okay, advice. Now imagine you are talking to a doc who is thinking about looking at a first CEO job. We talked a little bit about the move kind of into the sort of for profit biotech world. But advice for a first time CEO. What do you wish somebody had said to you or what did someone say to you that might be helpful to someone, somebody who's stepping into that kind of chair. [00:47:02] Speaker A: Yeah. So I mean I have this conversation a lot. [00:47:06] Speaker C: Yes. [00:47:07] Speaker A: The first thing I would say is like there's no one phenotype for CEO. [00:47:12] Speaker C: Amen. [00:47:13] Speaker A: Right. Yes, you kind of. I think there's always this assumption that you have to be this like uber charismatic, extrovert, gray haired, male. [00:47:22] Speaker C: Male. [00:47:22] Speaker A: Tall, dark and tall, handsome. You know, this kind of like we have this vision that's ingrained in us from, from early life. [00:47:28] Speaker C: Probably don't get a lot of short presidents of the United States. [00:47:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. With first names that can't be pronounced correct. Yeah, that was another issue. So I think there's no one archetype. Some people who look like they should be great CEOs are disasters. Some people who just do not look like they're good CEO material or like our traditional concept of CEO. You can be an introverted CEO. You can be so. I mean, I think there's multiple ways to be successful. [00:47:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:58] Speaker A: But you cannot do it where your ego is driving you. I think that is just critical. You have to do it because you want to build a company, do something for patients. You know, grow an organization. If you're driven by something that's going. [00:48:11] Speaker C: To the greater glory of yourself. [00:48:13] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Just doesn't work. And you make stupid decisions for the business because you're putting your ego, you know, you want to build an empire, you're putting. I want to run a billion dollar market cap company. Rather than really looking at the reality of what you have and what you need, what's the best decision for this organization? So there's this concept of level five leader where you have to put the organization before yourself. And even if it means the right decision is to lay yourself off, that I am no longer the leader here. And I think to your earlier point around companies shutting down, if you're a CEO where your only sense of worth comes from that CEO title and you're kind of clinging to this for dear life, it's really hard for you to make the right decision for your shareholders, for patients, for employees. When those tough times come, I'll just. [00:49:02] Speaker C: Interrupt and we'll double click on level five leadership. I think that's from good to great. [00:49:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:09] Speaker C: And he finds Jim Collins, he finds all these businesses that had these unassuming, kind, thoughtful leaders who don't look like they fit that pattern. [00:49:19] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:49:20] Speaker C: So we'll link to that in the notes. [00:49:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The, the pattern of, you know, these people who are kind of unassuming, put the organizations first, I think. And I do think there's truth to it. [00:49:30] Speaker C: I do too, by the way. Especially in life sciences. I think you get a lot of lovely, mission driven people. [00:49:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That I think is Important, but yeah. [00:49:39] Speaker C: And so that's great. So that's, that's kind of the first one is don't rule yourself out. [00:49:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Don't rule yourself out. Don't judge people by, you know, kind of what they look and the phenotype. I think the second thing is making sure it's not, you know, an ego driven decision. It's not validation. You have to separate the job from your own self. Sense of self. [00:50:00] Speaker C: Yes. [00:50:00] Speaker A: And I think that's just a really important kind of resilience thing as well. You know, things it's successful. Great. That doesn't mean that you're necessarily this a company. Right. It's separate from you as an individual. I think the final piece is there's lots of things that you don't necessarily need to be a good leader. But the one thing that's absolutely essential is courage. I think. Courage to make the decision, courage to go out on a limb, take the risk, do the right thing, even when it's difficult, even when it's not necessarily what people. People want to hear. And I think when you see CEOs who've gotten into trouble or been involved in situations that have ended in absolute disaster and taken the industry into disrepute, it's often because they found themselves in a really tough spot and instead of having the courage to face it and tell the truth to the brave thing, ended up taking this kind of slippery slope of the path of least resistance and suddenly earth heronos. So I think that's, you know, that's the really critical thing and people can sense that, you know, your team. It's very difficult to lead a team when you're not a courageous leader. [00:51:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's right. Unpack for me, the second one about separating yourself from the decision about the job. Were there tools or ways or people or how did you manage that to make sure you were kind of. How did you check yourself on that? Does that make sense? [00:51:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the first point. Point was the decision to take on the opportunity to be a CEO for the first time. Because the first thing that comes is like, if this is a failure, it's going to damage me for life and I'll never get another job. And the first thing that happened to my life hopped into my brain was, can I ever go back to be a cmo? Can I reclaim my old career path? Doesn't end well. And I actually think that's when I speak to a lot of particularly females who are interested in Doing it for the first time, they kind of feel like they have zero margin for error. And if you go into it, particularly in this industry where, like, nine out of ten companies, everything fails. [00:51:56] Speaker E: My God. [00:51:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:57] Speaker A: And you can make all the right decisions and do the right thing and it ends in failure. That can be a huge deterrent of taking that step, putting yourself out there, putting yourself on a limb, because for better, for worse, the press loves the personality of the CEO. So when they write a story about Klein bio, nine times out of ten, it's Eva's picture. [00:52:16] Speaker C: Yes. [00:52:16] Speaker A: And you know, when it's. Things are going great, that's great. [00:52:18] Speaker C: Aoife's happy. [00:52:20] Speaker A: When things are not going so great, not so great. Still, that stock image of Aoife smiling in the camera just looks horrible. So, you know, that, I think is really difficult. But people who manage it and do it in a healthy way realize that success and failure. Both imposters, right? [00:52:38] Speaker C: Yes, indeed. Indeed. [00:52:39] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:52:39] Speaker C: You're never. What is the line? You're never as good as your press on your best day or as bad as you are on your worst. Yeah. By the way, maybe you should consider having a sad Aoife picture ready to go so that if there is bad news that you're like, guys, we have. [00:52:52] Speaker A: A picture for you ready to go. Actually, at least I've moved on. It used to be when you work in any kind of microbiome company, it would be like a poop emoji. Of course that's true. When it's bad news, you can show the poop emoji. When it's good news, you can show the smiley picture. [00:53:09] Speaker C: I hadn't thought of that. That's maybe a consideration. [00:53:12] Speaker A: No problem. So I'm glad to have left those days behind. Now we can move on and talk about visas. [00:53:18] Speaker C: All right, we're going to move to the lightning round and just ask for some quick questions. So what's. As an Irish woman, what's the best place in Boston to get a good pint of Guinness? [00:53:26] Speaker A: Oh, I don't drink Guinness. No. The reason I only drink Guinness in Ireland is because you don't drink it here. I will do the sacrilegious thing that like, every Irish person will judge me for. Put black. Number one, I'll have a glass, which is a half pint. Yeah. And number two, I will put black currant cordial in the Guinness to take away some of that bitterness. And that's not something that usually in the. Unless you have an Irish barmaid or a barman, like, they don't get. [00:53:51] Speaker C: They don't even know what that is. [00:53:52] Speaker A: So they don't even have. [00:53:53] Speaker C: That is right. [00:53:53] Speaker A: But Guinness is too heavy, too bitter for me. But, yeah, so that's. That's a tip for people who don't like Guinness. Little bit of black currant cordial. [00:54:01] Speaker C: All right, we'll take that as a win. On the Guinness question. Is there an Irish phrase or expression that sneaks into your language that your team has had to learn? [00:54:10] Speaker A: Yes. I mean, I've tried to adopt Americanism. [00:54:12] Speaker C: Yeah. You've been here a while. [00:54:13] Speaker A: I've been a while. And I'm known for colorful language. Well, again, that crosses the line on occasion, profanity, which anyone who works for me will know that that's valid. But there's a couple where I haven't ever been able to find an American version of race. And the one that is the most problematic is this phrase called dog in a manger. You're being a dog in a manger about that. And people are like, what? What? Dog in a manger. But it's, you know, Irish people are fairly familiar. It's the dog won't get out of the manger, but can't eat the hay and won't let others who will eat the hay into the manger. [00:54:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:49] Speaker A: And it's this phrase that just describes a lot of business scenarios. [00:54:53] Speaker C: Let's agree there are a lot of dogs in mangers. [00:54:55] Speaker A: Or it's like a lot of dog and manger kind of situations. Right. That you use. So that's one that I use a lot in business context. And it's pretty clean. And there's no. [00:55:04] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:55:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So that. That's one that I don't have to. [00:55:07] Speaker C: Worry that somebody's child is in the background. I've had that. I've had that. I've had that happen. [00:55:11] Speaker A: Like skin a cat and it's a cat lover and they, like, go pale. Oh, God. I said, you're a cat lover, aren't you? So dog in a manger is pretty. Pretty applicable. [00:55:21] Speaker C: Fantastic. Is there a first hire that or a key resource you look to if you're doing a company reset? [00:55:29] Speaker A: Yes. I mean, I think the key person is kind of this operational penknife in smaller companies because for most things, you will reach out to experts. Right. You have an expert law firm, you have expert accounting firms where, you know, a specific thing is needed. But these individuals around our industry who have love, company building, love early stage organizations can do anything from find an office space to, you know, hire a CRO for a phase one trial. Everything in between are just so valuable because you can kind of divide and conquer with them then and partner with them to kind of help get things going initially. And it often becomes difficult because at some point they put themselves out of. [00:56:10] Speaker C: A job because you hire, their job becomes filled by several specialists. [00:56:14] Speaker A: Exactly. As you grow, you need a full time CFO or you need a cbo. But in the early days, you know that the value that can be created by having that right partner is really tremendous. [00:56:25] Speaker C: Okay, I love that. And I think important sort of side note there in this ecosystem in Cambridge, lots of people who fit that description. [00:56:33] Speaker A: And who love this early stage of development. [00:56:36] Speaker C: Yeah. Go from company to company. Is there a book or article or podcast that you recommend or multiples that you recommend to people who join your team? [00:56:47] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:56:47] Speaker A: So I kind of had the hang up about graphics and making a good slide and telling a story with data. This is like the complete geek in me. But early on, as I was building teams, I would give everybody, you know, that Edward Tufty book. Still a classic. [00:57:06] Speaker C: Still a classic. [00:57:07] Speaker A: In the era of AI, it's become even more important that people are really thoughtful about how to create graphics to tell a story. [00:57:14] Speaker C: Because it's too easy to make something. [00:57:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You put something in ChatGPT, it shows up some kind. I think it's called work slop. Yeah, yeah, it's. But when you're really thoughtful about how to create a really compelling graphic, you only need one or two per presentation. And if you get that right, it can really make or break a conversation, how things go. So I think that's a really important skill set that people from all technical backgrounds really need to nail if they're going to be successful. [00:57:40] Speaker C: That's also a really beautiful book. [00:57:41] Speaker A: Right. If I remember correctly, it's a coffee table book. [00:57:44] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. [00:57:45] Speaker A: Full of content and examples. [00:57:47] Speaker C: I have to rebuy that I don't have a copy of that anymore. I did at one point. [00:57:50] Speaker A: Christmas is coming. [00:57:51] Speaker C: Fantastic. Fantastic. [00:57:53] Speaker A: My Amazon, you know, buy again. [00:57:55] Speaker C: It's on the list. And then finally, is there a lesson from shutdowns or turnarounds that you would suggest CEOs, you know, right onto their monitor in indelible ink. [00:58:09] Speaker A: Yeah. It's kind of like when you get into a black cab in London and what the cabbie tells you. Yeah, cash is king. [00:58:16] Speaker C: Yes, indeed. [00:58:17] Speaker A: It's like you take credit cards now. Cash is king. And, you know, in this industry, cash is king. [00:58:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:58:22] Speaker A: And really being thoughtful. Sometimes it's easy when you know you've got big bank balance to yes, yes, approve, approve, yes. But really understanding the difference between spend and value and what's really creating value commensurate with the dollar. And that can mean saying yes to something, but it often means kind of saying no to something and kind of recognizing that Delta could be really important. Could be an extra quarter of cash or Runway. And having been through various twists and turns, you really take a different look at how you manage companies. [00:58:57] Speaker C: Have you experienced biotech investors to be more like, go, go, go, you gotta go fast or more be, be careful, be frugal or both. [00:59:04] Speaker A: I don't think anyone ever wants you to be frugal because you can save your way out. A pre commercial biotech, that's not how you do. But I think efficient execution is really critical. And you see companies just making such stupid decisions and doing stuff that is not creating value and chasing things that really don't matter, where you can suck up a ton of resources. And it's, you know, as a CEO, when somebody comes to you with a simple decision, should we maintain the entity in the uk? Oh, yeah. And then only two years later, do you realize how much that cost? [00:59:43] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:59:44] Speaker A: Like we're closing books on two companies. Like that's, you know, driving up our auto fees, all this stuff. So really digging in and making sure that you understand those kind of simple decisions and the implications they have. And a cash and value basis I think is really important. [00:59:58] Speaker C: All right, that's fantastic. I think we'll end there. Aoife Brennan, what a pleasure to have you on the podcast. [01:00:03] Speaker A: A lot of fun. [01:00:04] Speaker C: Yeah. More to come. We'll have a deeper dive into some of this Guinness stuff another time. [01:00:08] Speaker A: We have to do it in Dublin. [01:00:09] Speaker C: Fair enough. Fair enough. [01:00:10] Speaker A: Deal. Awesome. Thanks, guys. [01:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome, producer Adam. [01:00:14] Speaker E: Hey, Chris. You know, I've been hearing the name Aoife Brennan for a very long time from you and it was just great to have her on the pod. She was a wonderful guest and just had so many things that were interesting to talk about. [01:00:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I completely agree. [01:00:31] Speaker B: She's really the full package. You get smart people and you get people who are good talkers. It's not always true that you get both and she has a wonderful set of experiences. It was a really fun conversation. [01:00:41] Speaker E: Yeah. I want to start by double clicking on the telling the dancer from the dance. [01:00:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:46] Speaker E: How do you get biotech vision to see the complete picture? [01:00:51] Speaker B: It's a really fair question. I think that most biotech CEOs and investors are. I'm going to say appropriately humble. If you come into this industry thinking like, I'm probably going to step up to the plate and hit a home run every time. The biotech universe has a way of disabusing you of that notion. So I think what we've seen from different CEOs and investors we've had on is trying to get signal as quickly as possible. So you start with a plausible thesis, you do your research, you know, you develop a pathway that you think makes sense, et cetera. And then how can I most quickly get an answer? And we've seen some of our guests do things like trying to buy an asset that's already got a well known safety profile because that makes that takes some of the risk out of the equation. Other people are starting from scratch and then they're trying to figure out how do I get a phase one trial trial get into a phase one trial efficiently and how do I get that trial done as quickly and inexpensively as possible to see if I'm really, really onto something here. And I think that's going to continue to be an intense focus from all of the kinds of folks that we talk to. [01:02:00] Speaker E: Agreed. So one of the things that I really liked about this episode was that Aoife offered a personal point of view on what happens when a company is unsuccessful in this industry. It happens, it happens. And so how do you pick up the pieces in this situation? [01:02:17] Speaker B: It's a really, it's a really tough and important topic. And you're right, it doesn't get nearly enough attention, I guess. Taught a couple of classes at Harvard Business School a couple of weeks ago and several of the students made that point that they would like to hear more from unsuccessful alumni coming and talking and telling, or folks from the entrepreneurial world coming and telling their stories. Understandably, if you say, I think to someone, hey, would you like to come to Harvard and tell everybody how awesome you are? You could probably get more easy yeses that way than from people who come and tell a painful story about something that did not work. But we all learn a lot from the failures that we have in life. We all have failures and setbacks. And I think IFA is is refreshingly candid about all of that stuff. Frankly, that comes from a place of having had also a bunch of success. So I think it's easier to talk about your failures when you can also point to I brought this drug to market and I succeeded here and there, et cetera. But still, many talented people don't feel great about telling the, you know, the times that they had setbacks. And I think you're sort of doing a disservice to the community if you don't do that. Because it's easy to look at someone who seems like they've got it all together and think that they've always been like that or the fact that they always are like that. And the truth is that's not what. That's not what almost. And no one that I know has a career or a life that looks like that, where everything just kind of clicks perfectly from one thing to the next. [01:03:46] Speaker E: You know, I really agree with that. And one of the things, if I can get off topic a second, that it really reminds me of is the kind of attention, or lack of attention I should say, that rescue trials get. It really reminds me of the fact that these things are needed and yet it's not something they talk about. And that in relation, of course, to a CEO who learned a valuable lesson in moving forward and no one gets to know about it. [01:04:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great point. Rescue trials, it is often hard for management teams to admit that they've got enough of a problem that they need to consider bringing in some additional help to make a change. And we often, we do talk about rescue, but we'll also talk about providing addition, just providing additional support, adding additional geographic areas, or help with a particular area of a trial that's struggling, whether that's in the data finalization or in the patient recruitment phases. [01:04:45] Speaker E: Yes, that's perfect. So I'm going to get back on track here in terms of her insight into the CEO role. I liked what she said about the dog in the manger and how the importance of self worth and growth and courage. How do you balance all that? [01:05:03] Speaker B: Well, I think everybody does it differently. And I would say one of the things that's unavoidable, especially the first time you're in a CEO chair, but in general is a certain amount, amount of imposter syndrome and questioning of your own, the value that you're bringing, and a lot of self criticism. Right. It is unavoidable to not look back on any time in a tough role and think like, well, gee, I wish I'd made that decision faster or I'd realize that more quickly or whatever the thing might be. And so I think her point was there's this important balance that you have to strike between trying to learn from the things that, that didn't go well, but also not letting that, those, those challenges cripple you so that you can't act effectively as you go forward, because teams want leaders who have a realistically optimistic sense of the future. If they think that you're kooky and you're smoking something, then you lose the support of the troops. But similarly, if you kind of are walking around predicting gloom and doom, that's not really a, that's not really a rallying cry either. So you need to, or find that middle ground. And some of that is again, about incorporating the learning that you have over your career. This is true, I think, for all of us. [01:06:18] Speaker C: Right. [01:06:19] Speaker B: If we're honest. We've all made plenty of mistakes and hopefully we've learned lessons from them. [01:06:27] Speaker E: Agreed. So talking about careers, let's talk about the operational pen knife. These are individuals who can do everything in organization. I don't know if in your past role you have ever done anything like that myself. You know, when you're in a small organization or people are on vacation or things like that, you know, you have to jump in and kind of do everything. But also, I want to ask you about what happens to these individuals, you know, afterwards. [01:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's, I love that, that example. And she talked about how there's a bunch of people in the Boston ecosystem. I'm sure it's true in San Francisco as well. Anywhere where there's a biotech cluster who have made their careers out of being kind of employee number two, you know, so they follow, follow that CEO, they're one of the early hires and their. [01:07:15] Speaker C: Their job is solve all of the. [01:07:17] Speaker B: Problems of the day. And as, as Aoife said, that's everything from, you know, hey, we're out of copy paper, copier paper to like go negotiate a lease for us or figure out what our benefits package should, should be. So a mix of high and low projects. And so the people who succeed at that have an ability both to really roll up their sleeves, low ego, willing to jump in to figure things out when they don't have direct experience or past experience. Very good problem solvers and cheerful in the face of adversity, I would say. And I have, yeah, I've encountered a bunch of folks like that. I think they are incredibly valuable and they're value. Value is highest in small and early stage organizations where you haven't moved to the point of specialization yet. I think that was very much her point. As you get bigger, you know, you get finance professionals, you get operations executives, you get HR professionals, et cetera, you bring all these people in and they are meant to be and generally are much better in their specific domain than this generalist is, but this generalist is, is cheap and ready to go and wears half a dozen of these hats in the early stages when it wouldn't make sense to hire a bunch of specialists. So highly valuable and I think really interesting work. You asked though, like, what happens to these people? One of two things. Sometimes they pick a lane and they decide, you know what, I'm actually quite interested in this particular functional expertise. I've got a mentor. I found something that I want to do, and they step out of that kind of role and become a specialist. I guess there's three paths. Path two is they go and do that someplace else. So they see themselves as, I'm the early, early stage guy or gal. My job is to get us up and running. And then once we have, I'm going to go find another organization that needs help with that. And frankly, the fact that I've now done it two, three, four times increases my effectiveness and makes me attractive to the next company that wants to do that. That's also a, a viable path. And the third one is if the organization grows quickly, that person can develop into a chief of staff who's playing, you know, a sort of a version of an operating role, helping to coordinate as things get more complicated and complex across the organization. So I think those are, those are the three ways folks do it. And the main thing is just to come into it with your eyes open about which of those path, paths, maybe plural, are options for you and then to make those decisions so you're not caught by surprise. I think when this ends poorly is when someone thinks, oh, I'm going to be able to play this generalist role forever. [01:09:53] Speaker C: And if the company is succeeding, that's. [01:09:55] Speaker B: Probably not the right answer. [01:09:57] Speaker E: It's an excellent answer. I think that's a good point of view on that. So my last thing is this was, I think our first episode that we were actually able. You were actually able to be in the office face to face with IFA while you were doing the recording. Can you discuss, you know, that setup and what the. How the benefits versus talking to people, you know, through wi fi? [01:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so mostly it's benefit. There's. There's a different kind of chemistry, as we all know, when you're live with people, and I really enjoy that. I think we're going to try and do more of those. And, and in fact, Boston is a rich hunting ground for us, for example, Cambridge. So it would make sense when I'm up there for us to get, maybe we'll record a couple of these in a row, do something like that. I definitely would like to see us do more of that. The only downside is you don't have access to your screen. So the nice thing, when I'm talking to somebody, as you know, we do a fair amount of prep, and I've got a set of questions I want to ask, and I can, without breaking eye contact or parent eye contact with the person I can see. [01:11:04] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:11:04] Speaker B: Here's the next thing that I wanted to ask. So in this case, you have to become more adept at managing your physical notes, but that's a. That seems to be a reasonable price to pay for a live conversation. [01:11:15] Speaker E: True. I will tell you, when I used to do interviews, the thing that I found the most difficult about face to face was the lighting. I felt like it was just burning on me the entire time. You're getting these. We're getting great content out of these hospital administrators. And yet at the same time, I'm. [01:11:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:11:35] Speaker E: So I'm glad, again, it was a great episode. And like you said, I hope we have a chance to do more face to Face podcast episodes. [01:11:45] Speaker B: Totally agree. [01:11:46] Speaker C: Really, really fun. [01:11:47] Speaker B: Thanks, Adam. [01:11:48] Speaker E: All right, thanks, Chris. [01:11:55] Speaker A: Sam.