Business Of Biotech

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Bret Bostwick, M.D., Venture Partner at Breyer Capital, a family office, talks about his path from medical geneticist to CNS drug development and biotech investing. Bret reflects on lessons he learned at Alnylam about the power of genetically validated drug targets and the importance of team culture, why CNS drug development fails so often, and the problem with animal models. He also tal...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Simeon George, M.D., Cofounder and CEO at SR One Capital Management, returns to the show to talk about how SR One evaluates biotech investment targets, and the good and bad signs that emerge during diligence. Simeon also discusses a new report published by SR One on how AI and China are changing the strategy and playbook for new drug creation. Access this and hundreds of epi...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Cyriac Roeding talks about cofounding and leading Earli, a "bioAI" company using synthetic DNA switches and cancer-binding lipid nanoparticles to transform cancer cells into immune therapy-producing factories in vivo. Cyriac also discusses China’s newest five-year plan for biotech (2026 to 2030), why U.S. funding cycles are pushing innovation offshore, and how a U.S. sovereign weal...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Philina Lee, Ph.D., CEO at AdvanCell, explains how lead-based targeted alpha therapies can unlock deeper, more durable cancer responses, and why radiopharmaceutical companies live or die by manufacturing. Philina talks about AdvanCell's recent oversubscribed $315 million Series D raise, the company's vertically integrated manufacturing capability, and future plans for a regional U.S. man...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Alex Aravanis, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of Moonwalk Biosciences, talks about the opportunity in obesity beyond GLP-1s. He describes Moonwalk’s adipose-targeted siRNA strategy, the genetics-driven logic behind its targets, and what it takes to fund and build a clinical-stage company. Alex also discusses Moonwalk's recent $70 million Series B raise, using AI to prioritize targets and improve siRNA...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Independent Board Director and five-time public company CFO Alan Shaw returns to the show for an update on current biotech financing and the strategies needed to secure capital now. Allan explains how biotech investors price risk as the market opens back up, the importance of valuation discipline, and the financing choices that separate “available capital” from “accessible capital.” Alla...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, David Craig, Cofounder, President, and CEO at Sarcomatrix, explains why the old biotech playbook breaks down in today’s funding environment and what it takes to build a lean virtual drug development company without institutional financing. Craig describes practical financing paths, hard truths about costs, and the tradeoffs that make a rare disease program investable through alternative ...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Olivier Litzka, Partner at Andera Partners, talks about what it really takes for biotech companies to attract capital, stay focused, and survive the moments when biology and execution punch back. Olivia also discusses a collaborative effort in Europe to create a stronger public market and investor base, and what the emergence of AI and Chinese biotech means for building tomorrow's biotec...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Omar Khalil, Managing Director at Santé Ventures, describes forming and funding startups and early-stage biotech companies with a focus on clinical data and differentiation as the key value drivers. Omar talks about his interest in 'undruggable targets,' what's happening with the IPO market, an investor shift from biology risk to commercial risk, and building companies through a ve...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Brian Sullivan, CEO at Celcuity, talks about winning the company's first FDA approval for Revtorpyk, a kinase inhibitor for breast cancer patients, and why targeting an “untreated disease mechanism” can beat chasing a single mutation. Brian also discusses the process for licensing a shelved Pfizer asset for development, designing Phase 3 trials that challenge assumptions, the benefits of...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Paul Hastings, Founding CEO and Board Member at Nkarta, an allogeneic cell therapy developer, talks about building off-the-shelf CAR NK cell therapies for autoimmune disease. Paul is candid about problems with clinical trial infrastructure in the U.S., what it will take to fix trial access (biotechs should actively facilitate patient access to trials and work with community health center...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Annette Bakker, Ph.D., CEO at the Children's Tumor Foundation, and Andrew Lo, Ph.D., Finance Professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management and Director of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering, talk about the methods and economics for turning abandoned drug candidates into new therapies for patients. Annette and Andrew share the story of Gomekli, a formerly shelved Pfizer drug candida...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Aris Baras, M.D., SVP, Head of Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC) and Co-Head of Regeneron Genetic Medicines, talks about using large-scale human genetics to find better drug targets based on "superhuman" variants. Aris explains how multi-omics, linked health records, and AI are helping developers move faster in the clinic and reduce the odds of failure, while also pushing biotech toward ea...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Matt Winton, Ph.D., Chief Commercial and Business Officer at CervoMed, talks about preparing for the late-stage development of neflamapimod in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and commercial planning for an anticipated launch. Winton talks about CMC and manufacturing scale-up, partnership, communicating with regulators and the benefits of global regulatory alignment on protocols for the P...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On the Business of Biotech this week, industry veteran Dr. Jeremy Levin, Founder, Chairman, and former CEO at Ovid Therapeutics, sits down alongside the 2026 BIO Convention to talk about why public distrust and politicized institutions are putting the scientific enterprise at risk. We dig into what biotech leaders owe patients and the public, how innovation and capital can migrate out of the U.S., and what it takes to build biotech compa...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. This week's episode of the Business of Biotech was recorded at the BIO Convention in San Diego, where guest Maha Radhakrishnan, M.D., Executive Partner, Private Equity, at Sofinnova, spoke about her move from big pharma and biotech to private equity investing, and what makes a late-stage asset deal work. Maha also talks about how China-originated programs are changing development timelines, and where the next wave of CNS and metabolic in...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Al Sandrock, M.D., Ph.D., President and CEO at Voyager Therapeutics, talks about why tau is becoming a central target in Alzheimer’s drug development and how gene therapy delivery across the blood-brain barrier could change what treatment looks like at scale. Sandrock shares his current thinking on the amyloid vs. beta debate (it's likely both) in Alzheimer's disease treatment, the role ...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, William Ho, CEO of IN8bio, explains why gamma delta T cells may have an edge against cancer, including solid tumors like glioblastoma. He also offers up a candid and step-by-step look at what it takes to finance an early clinical-stage cell therapy company through a punishing IPO market and a long cash crunch. Access this and hundreds of episodes of the Business of Biotech videocas...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, William Soliman, Founder and CEO of the Accreditation Council for Medical Affairs (ACMA), and Founder and CIO of White Manna Capital Partners, talks about why biotech drug launches so often miss expectations, and how to build an integrated commercialization plan that holds up with physicians, patients, and payers. William also describes the evolution in medical affairs, why standards and...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Tyler Menichiello, chief editor at Bioprocess Online, host of the Better Biopharma podcast, and my Life Science Connect (LSC) colleague, convenes the broader LSC editorial team once again for a midyear discussion on what's happening now in the life sciences industry, and what's to come in the second half of the year. Topics include AI manufacturing regulations and navigating supply chain...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Jeff Jonas, M.D., CEO of Tortugas Neuroscience, talks about the company's April 2026 launch and how in-licensed development assets were chosen. Jeff explains his strategy of chasing fast proof of safety and efficacy in humans, not animals, and talks about what product differentiation looks like in brain disorders, from adjusting indication targets to conducting head-to-head trials. He al...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Neil McFarlane, CEO at Zevra Therapeutics, talks about transitioning to a focused rare disease company through acquisitions, and building out a commercial organization. Neil explains the importance of working with rare disease patient advocacy groups, using AI to analyze electronic health records and claims data to identify and diagnose patients with Niemann-Pick disease type C, and adap...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Marinna Madrid, Ph.D., Cofounder, Board Member, Chief Product and Regulatory Officer at Cellino, talks about scaling up an automated manufacturing process she co-invented for personalized autologous induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) therapies using laser-activated substrates and AI. Marinna describes her work with industry groups to improve regulatory guidelines, Cellino's partnership...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Wyatt McDonnell, Ph.D., cofounder and CEO at Infinimmune, talks about how single-cell biology and computational rigor led to the formation of Infinimmune, and a new way to discover human-derived antibody drugs. Wyatt explains Infinimmune's 'discovered in humans' antibody discovery platform, how the company was launched and initially funded, and how Infinimmune landed a Merck collaboratio...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Brett Monia, Ph.D., CEO at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, talks about how antisense oligonucleotides (ASO) graduated from a late-1980s lab concept to real RNA-targeting medicines, and why Ionis stuck with a difficult modality despite multiple setbacks. Brett describes the company's shift from a partner-first model to building a wholly-owned pipeline, commercial function, and an expanded manufact...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we talk with NervGen leaders Adam Rogers, M.D., and Rich Macary about NVG-291, a daily neuroreparative peptide designed to restore function in patients with spinal cord injuries. Adam talks about his strategy for the company after becoming CEO last July, including moving company trading from Canada's TSX Venture Exchange to the NASDAQ for better visibility, and making key hires for growt...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, five-time public company CFO and seven-time public company board member Allan Shaw talks about why FDA decision-making feels less predictable, and how that uncertainty is reshaping clinical trial strategy, investor behavior, and the innovation ecosystem. We talk about FDA politicization concerns, modernization efforts like AI initiatives, and what biotech leaders can do to manage risk in...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we speak with Dr. Sarfaraz Niazi, Ph.D., about how biosimilar regulations have taken shape, from early FDA uncertainty to citizen petitions, lawsuits, and guideline changes. Dr. Niazi offers a behind the scene look at the way FDA policy gets made, and unmade, and his own role in key regulatory changes, and legislation such as the Biologics Price Competition and Innovations Act (BPCIA), a...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Thijs Spoor, CEO at Perspective Therapeutics, a company developing Pb 212 (lead)-based therapeutics, talks about why radiopharmaceuticals are surging again and why biodistribution is the make-or-break variable when your payload is a radioactive isotope. Thijs discusses the reasons behind Perspective's investment in a proprietary generator for therapeutic production, manufacturing a...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Dan McHugh, head of the investment team at Yosemite, explains the San Francisco VC group's approach to investing in early-stage cancer therapeutics and funding academic research through unrestricted grants. Founded by Reed Jobs, son of Steve Jobs and Laurene Powell Jobs, Yosemite invests across drug modalities and supporting technologies in the oncology space. Dan talks about his path fr...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech we're speaking with Alan Bash, President, Carvykti, at Legend Biotech, about how Carvykti became a blockbuster, category-leading CAR T therapy for multiple myeloma. Alan talks about manufacturing and delivering an autologous cell therapy at commercial scale, Legend Biotech's partnership with Johnson & Johnson, lessons he learned at Bristol Myers Squibb, Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, and ...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech we speak with Dr. Marc Hedrick, M.D., President and CEO at Plus Therapeutics, about the company's pivot from cell therapy to radiotherapeutics for brain cancers, and what's behind the choice of Rhenium-186 as the radioisotope for its lead development candidate, Reyobiq. We'll talk about Plus Therapeutics' diagnostic subsidiary, CNSide, and hear from Marc about recent FDA meetings and the ...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech we speak with Rahul Aras, Ph.D., President and CEO at Iterion Therapeutics, about capital efficient drug development in oncology and progressing a novel therapeutic with relatively small funding amounts. Iterion is a clinical stage company developing cancer therapeutics targeting the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, a known signaling target in oncology, but one that has confounded drug development ...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're speaking with Thomas von Erlach, Ph.D., Cofounder and CEO at Vivtex, a company spun out of the Langer Lab at MIT that's focused on developing orally available biologics. The company announced a deal in late February '26 with Novo Nordisk for up to $2.1 billion to develop next-gen oral drugs for obesity and diabetes, bringing the total number of Vivtex's partnerships to 10. Thomas s...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech we speak with Monika Sumra, Ph.D., about how leadership, culture, and performance emerge from the environment and conditions inside an organization. Dr. Sumra, Founder and Managing Partner at Bunka, Inc., a management consulting firm and advisor to manufacturing-based organizations globally, explains how anthropology, CPIs, and rapid ethnography make culture measurable and operations fast...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Jared Bauer, Cofounder and CEO at Seek Labs, talks about his adventures in company turnarounds, and setting up Seek Labs to improve patient diagnoses and to discover and develop new treatments for infectious diseases. Jared explains the technology convergence that was needed to build Seek Labs' AI diagnostic and CRISPR-based therapeutics platform, an African Swine Fever proof-of-concept ...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're speaking with Cindy Perettie, Executive Vice President and Global Head at Kite Pharma, a Gilead-owned company focused on curing cancer with cell therapies. Perettie talks about scaling cell therapies in the community setting, global manufacturing strategy, preparing for the launch of late-stage development programs in lymphoma and multiple myeloma, and working with partners like Ar...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Brian Hilberdink, President of U.S. Human Pharma at Boehringer Ingelheim, returns to the show during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, and following his departure from LEO Pharma (see episode 164). Brian talks about new opportunities in obesity, the benefits of private ownership in funding early science, Boehringer's deal strategy, using AI to improve commercialization efforts, and ...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech -- on location at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference -- we're speaking with Ron Cooper, CEO and Board Member at enGene, to unpack how he scaled Albireo from a small research shop to a global commercial company, and why he’s now betting on nonviral gene therapy at enGene to help patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer keep their bladders. Cooper talks about the importance of ke...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. The Business of Biotech was back in San Francisco for the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (January 12 - 15) and this week we sit down with Marc Salzberg, M.D., CEO, CMO, and Board Chair at Airway Therapeutics, a company developing a recombinant version of human surfactant protein D for several respiratory, inflammatory, and infectious diseases including bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), which is currently in Phase 2b/3 trials. Brian ta...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're speaking with Kenneth Galbraith, CEO and Board Chair at Zymeworks, a biotech developing multispecific therapies internally and through partnerships with companies including Jazz Pharmaceuticals and BeOne Medicines (formerly BeiGene), J&J, Merck, Daiichi Sankyo, and GSK. Ken talks about Zymeworks' shift to a royalty model for development funding and value creation, lessons learn...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. This week's special holiday episode of the Business of Biotech brings seven chief editors from the Life Science Connect family together to talk about the life sciences industry topics, trips, and reporting that mattered most in 2025, and what each editor has planned for 2026. From the RNA, cell, and gene therapy space to small molecule manufacturing, bioprocessing, drug discovery, and outsourcing, the editors weigh in on key industry tre...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Nick Manusos, CEO at Kenai Therapeutics, talks about his experiences building cell therapy spinouts from FujiFilm Cellular Dynamics, learning from big pharma decision-making processes, and dosing the first patient with Kenai's allogeneic neuron replacement cell therapy for Parkinson's disease. Nick also talks about funding an early-stage cell therapy company and forging key manufacturing...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Jennifer Sheller, SVP and Head of Global Clinical Trial Operations at Merck talks about simplifying trial protocols and what she likes about Merck's hybrid functional service provider model for conducting trials in over 60 countries. Jennifer shares her experiences integrating Merck's acquisitions without breaking studies or losing people, using new technology to improve trial operations...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Bruce Culleton, M.D., CEO at ProKidney, talks about moving from academic research to industry and the role a key mentor played in his career path. Bruce discusses his experiences as a first-time CEO at ProKidney, a late-stage autologous cell therapy biotech focused on pioneering new treatments for chronic kidney disease (CKD), the benefits of FDA's Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy ...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Sean Ainsworth, CEO and Chairman at Immusoft, talks about transitioning from the research bench to entrepreneurship, his M&A experiences as a biotech founder, and why engineered B cell therapies offer a better, more patient-friendly administration for lysosomal storage diseases currently treated with enzyme replacement therapies. Sean also discusses FDA pathways, incentives, and agen...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Dan Schmitt, President and CEO at Actuate Therapeutics, talks about building a company around elraglusib, a GSK-3β inhibitor for cancer. Dan describes his fast-fail approach to early product testing and development, using basket trials to evaluate chemotherapy combinations, and choosing pancreatic cancer as a lead program. He also talks about surviving an IPO during a brutal funding cycl...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode, Cyril Konto, M.D., president, executive director, and CEO at Ichnos Glenmark Innovation (IGI) talks about the promise of multi-specific antibodies, funding the company during the 'biotech winter,' closing a $700 million upfront licensing deal with AbbVie, the impact of China's rising biotech sector, and the keys to successful collaboration. Cyril also discusses IGI's focus on developing innovative therapies for em...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. Allan Shaw, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer at Create Medicines, is back on the Business of Biotech this week, with a temperature check on biotech funding and the IPO market. We discuss the implications of recent blockbuster acquisitions, strategies for managing the current funding environment for biotech, what to look for in the IPO market in the coming months, alternative financing opportunities, and what besides low...

We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Mardi Dier, CFO at Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, talks about building relationships in investment banking and investor relations before moving into business development and becoming a chief financial officer. Mardi describes how drug companies transition from an R&D focus to commercializing products, how to read IPO windows and manage expectations, pricing new drugs, and balancing commer...