Episode 26: A Between the Biotech Waves conversation with Drew Weissman

Welcome back to Between the Biotech Waves. I am sorry for the lack of episodes over the past few months, unfortunately life threw me a curve ball that I have been taking care of but now back and ready to go!Today it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mike Curtis, President and CEO of eGenesis. You may recall seeing eGenesis on the front cover of the New York Times recently following the first successful xenotransplantation of a genetically modified porcine kidney. This followed years of work within eGenesis to develop porcine donors for human tissue transplant.Mike has a 25 year plus history in biotech from Infinity to Cadent where he played a critical role in the merger of Ataxion Therapeutics with Luc to Catabasis where he led product development and regulatory affairs to his current role as CEO and President at eGenesis. Mike earned his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University.His story is fascinating. Please join me in welcoming Mike Curtis.

Today I am talking to Eliot Forster xCEO of F-star Therapeutics.Eliot was at helm of the company as they reversed merged into Springbank Pharmaceuticals & through the recently announced acquisition by Sino Biopharma, a transaction that generated a lot of interest given the very public interactions with CFIUS.Prior to F-star, Eliot was CEO of Immunocore, Creabilis and Solace Pharmaceuticals following his multiple roles at Pfizer which included head of development and operations, European Union. He was the founding chair of Medcity and is an honorary visiting professor of molecular and clinical cancer medicine at the University of Liverpool, to name just a few roles he has had. Eliot is a member of the board of directors of Immatics and is chair of the boards of Ochre Biosciences and Avacta.

Today we have an unusual (& long) podcast where we talk to key members of the Triplet Therapeutics management team. Triplet was founded to develop antisense oligonucleotides targeting the DNA damage response pathway that has been implicated in driving repeat disorders including Huntington's disease - the lead indication for Triplet. The team discusses the challenges in building the company and what ultimately led to it's demise. 

Today we are talking to Tim Yu. Tim is attending physician at the division of genetics and genomics at Boston Children’s Hospital and assoc prof of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. The scope of work that Tim does is well beyond what can be covered in this intro however I have gotten to know Tim through his leading the emerging filed of N of 1 plus drugs. Tim worked with Julia Vitarello to develop Milasen leading the way in truly personalized therapeutics. Please join me in welcoming Tim to the podcast. 

Today we are talking to Barry Greene, CEO of Sage Therapeutics. Barry has had an amazing career spanning over 30 years in the biotech industry. Prior to Sage Barry was President of Alnylam shepherding it with John through its evolution from basic science through commercial product launch. Prior to ALNY Barry was general manager of Oncology at Millennium where he was directly involved in the approval and launch of Velcade. He is currently a member of the board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. 

Today we are talking to Joel Marcus. He has shaped the life sciences industry through ARE from the buildings we use to venture and fund investing. His impact can be directly seen in major cities across the US from Boston to NY to San Francisco with over 22million sq ft of space. Beyond Alexandria he is a philanthropist who supports veterans and their families, and through his initiatives people suffering from the opioid crisis, homelessness and mental illness. Please join me in welcoming Joel.

Today we are talking to Rachel Meyers. Rachel was most recently the CSO of Faze Medicines a company she launched with TRV to focus on the regulation of biomolecular condensates to treat disease. Prior to Faze she was an EIR at TRV prior to which she spent nearly 2 decades at Alnylam. I have had the pleasure of working with Rachel getting an appreciation not only of her as a scientist, entrepreneur and operator but also her pure love of science, focus on company culture and her passion for diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Today we are talking to Aofie Brennan, president and CEO of Synlogic. Aoife was trained as a doctor at Trinity College Dublin following which she moved to the US. After completing her postdoctoral research at Beth Israel Aofie joined TolerX focused on developing autoimmune therapies for type I diabetes. Following which Aoife spent 6 years at Biogen ultimately becoming head of Rare Disease Innovation, she was involved in the development of Spinraza, Alprolix and Eloctate. Aoife moved from Biogen to Synlogic where she initially took the CMO role ultimately being elected as CEO and President of the company. She has led Synlogic since 2018. Beyond Synlogic Aoife is on the BoD of Cerevance and Fibrogen having also served on the board of RA Pharma through its acquisition by UCB.We discuss Aoife’s career trajectory, her experiences at Biogen and decision to join Synlogic. Navigating the failure of their lead program in 2020 as a public company and building a deep pipeline today. In addition we discuss diversity and inclusion in our biotech industry today and ways this could be more impactful.Please join me in welcoming Aoife. 

Today we are talking to Drew Weissman. Drew is the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at Perelman School of Medicine and Director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania. Drew has spent his career working on RNA biology and vaccine development. He, along with his colleague Katalin Kariko, have been pivotal in the development of mRNA vaccines most notably the COVID-19 vaccines developed by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna. Drew received his MD/PhD from Boston University in 1987, following which he did a residency at Beth Israel and followship at the NIH under Anthony Fauci. He has received numerous awards including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award and Rosenstiel Award.Today we discuss Drew’s career trajectory, mRNA biology and vaccine development.

Today we are talking to Rodolphe Barrangou. Rodolphe is the Todd R Klaenhammer Distinguished Professor at NC State University. He is a scientist entrepreneur who has co-founded a multitude of biotech companies around CRISPR based approaches including CRISPR Biotechnologies, Ancilia Biosciences, TreeCo and Intellia Therapeutics. He is one of the pioneers in CRISPR-Cas9 dating back to his time as R&D director of genomics at DuPont. In 2007 Rodolphe was the lead author on a Science paper demonstrating proof of the immune function of CRISPR in bacteria.