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. We're LifeScienceConnect and we're

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here to help . With

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some 20 Life Sciences startups under

0:42

his Triumvira belt , President

0:44

and COO , Rob Williamson

0:46

is the definition of a serial

0:49

biotech entrepreneur . An

0:51

economist by training , he's led companies

0:53

developing virtually every biologic

0:55

modality and cumulatively

0:57

addressing perhaps the broadest range of indications

1:00

I've yet to see . Why

1:03

does he take on the projects he takes on ? How

1:05

do his battle scars , deals won

1:08

and deals lost , inform the decisions

1:10

he's making now ? Why

1:12

does he think he's got a winner in Triumvira ,

1:14

a car T-cell company trying to crack

1:16

the solid tumor nut , and

1:18

with so many new approaches to oncology

1:21

therapeutics , some disparate and some

1:23

complementary , what's gotten most excited

1:25

for the future ? I'm Matt Pillar

1:27

. This is the Business of Biotech , and I

1:29

caught up with Williamson in San Francisco

1:31

to learn about his biotech leadership thought

1:33

process and where he sees cancer

1:35

therapy going next . Let's give it a listen

1:38

. Robert Williamson

1:40

, president and CEO Director of

1:42

Triumvira . I want

1:44

to start with you before we get Triumvira what

1:46

is doing , because you've got to . I always

1:49

, you know , I dig through the LinkedIn profile and

1:51

do an assessment in the CV and

1:53

what jumped out of me is very interesting is the fact

1:55

that you studied economics . You worked for Alan

1:57

Greenspan before dipping your toe into biotech

1:59

back in the early 90s .

2:01

So you're studying economics , you know

2:03

, you're working in the federal government

2:06

.

2:07

Just give me a brief synopsis of

2:09

how you came to be a biotech founder

2:12

, Robert Williamson .

2:13

President and CEO Director Triumvira era . So I was an economist

2:15

. I was supposed to get my PhD in economics

2:18

and I was

2:20

at the heart of monetary policy

2:22

. So when you hear the Fed is raising or lowering

2:24

interest rates , there's a handful of people working

2:26

on that . And I was the junior person in that group

2:28

and my

2:30

bosses all looked at me and said you

2:34

know , you can go get your PhD , you

2:36

can publish , you can go to MIT

2:40

or Stanford graduate school and

2:42

get your . And then I said , well , what do I do

2:44

after that ? So you can come back here and do more

2:46

of this , or you teach and

2:48

you try not to teach because you really need to publish

2:50

. Yeah , I said that just sounds awful

2:52

. And they said we thought you'd

2:55

think that . So we really suggest you get

2:57

a business school because you're really a , you're

2:59

an entrepreneur at heart and you should go do that . So

3:02

I went to business school and I

3:04

got into . I kind of spelled DNA . But I got recruited to a big

3:09

consulting firms and the

3:11

head of the healthcare practice was in

3:14

my two doors down my summer internship

3:17

and he recruited me to the healthcare practice

3:19

and I learned all about

3:21

pharma and devices and fun

3:24

stuff like that . Just learn as you went , Learned as I went . Yeah , yes , and you know , no , no , no , you've

3:26

already ascertained , as we met this morning , that it's already been an active morning for you

3:28

here at the JP Morgan

3:35

show .

3:36

But , but , but apparently

3:39

, look to your CV is embraced

3:41

, because you've been 20 , 20

3:43

life sciences companies that you've either launched

3:46

, led or directed since

3:49

that time when you , when you made that decision

3:51

to come into the space . And

3:54

what keeps a guy like you going , like

3:56

what keeps a guy like you going and just doing

3:58

that over and over again and signing up for it

4:01

? It's a great question because sometimes I ask

4:03

myself and what

4:05

keeps us going ?

4:05

and my wife is a biotech CFO and she

4:07

and I were really , really she

4:10

and I were in Hawaii last week and I

4:12

was getting calls at four in the morning for a couple

4:14

of different companies working on things we were

4:17

announcing this week at JPM , and

4:19

she said we're going to keep doing

4:22

this . You know how long are we going to keep doing this ? And

4:24

I joke

4:26

with her , say I just want to be involved with curing one

4:28

more disease and then I can call it quits , just one more

4:30

. And and

4:32

you just when you have success

4:35

, it's so intoxicating the impact

4:37

you have that you want to see it again

4:39

. You may never see it keeps you going , but

4:43

it's just fantastic when you're , when

4:45

you see patients benefit from what you're doing . So

4:47

that's what keeps you going .

4:49

Yes .

4:49

I mean , and obviously , if things work out

4:51

, you do well economically , you do well

4:53

, you have bragging rights with your friends

4:56

and all those you know , things

4:58

that sure give you some surprise

5:00

. But sense of pride and accomplishment . But

5:02

it's really , it's true , you

5:04

hear it , it sounds tried , but when you really impact

5:07

patients it's kind of life

5:09

changing .

5:09

Yeah , yeah , I believe it , your way back

5:12

to a note . You're not sure right now , if you don't want to , but

5:14

I think that she works for . But perhaps I'll have

5:16

Mrs Williamson on the two

5:18

.

5:18

She has a different name , but yes , yes

5:21

, yes , she is a CFO

5:23

and another biotech .

5:24

I'll look her up and hopefully , when I ask her to come on the show

5:26

with me , you'll give her your highest

5:28

recommendation .

5:29

Oh yeah , she's smarter than me .

5:33

The interesting thing about the companies that you've led is

5:35

that I mean , if you kind of tick through

5:38

the boxes , you you've covered

5:40

all . You've led companies that cover

5:42

all sorts of modalities for

5:45

a giant range of indications like

5:47

and to me , like I'm a very

5:49

, I think , very statistically , I think boy

5:51

, if you're stage in life having

5:53

all that experience with multiple

5:56

modalities , multiple indications

5:58

, from recombinant proteins , the antibodies

6:00

, the ADCs and vital genomics

6:02

, like you've covered all , now

6:04

you're the point where I mean the

6:06

world is in terms of what we do next . Yes

6:09

you've got the experience to say , okay , well

6:11

, you know I don't want to do that because I

6:13

don't see that as where things are going , or

6:15

so tell me a little bit about that

6:17

, why you joined

6:19

, just joined , trying to be like what you're

6:22

a little over here , yeah , I

6:25

made that decision with a backlog of incredible

6:28

experience . Why try and Vera

6:30

? More importantly , why right now

6:32

?

6:33

I With

6:36

Triumph Vera , one of the key

6:38

investors . While I was

6:40

friendly , was just said hey , we're seeing

6:42

some interesting data . A

6:44

guy like you could help us out and

6:48

caught me

6:50

in a moment of weakness , whereas willing to take

6:52

a full-time job , and

6:54

so I jumped in on it and

6:58

I do have a very broad set of experience

7:00

. I tend to gravitate towards

7:03

companies that are close to getting in the

7:05

clinic through about phase one

7:07

, phase two . That's sort of my sweet

7:09

spot . When I was

7:11

a consultant I did commercial launches and everything

7:13

like that , but I really I

7:15

liked , and I've started a couple diagnostic

7:18

companies , you

7:21

name it , some tool companies you

7:23

know classic , you know tool companies

7:26

. But I've really gravitated towards

7:28

therapeutics in that range and if

7:30

the clinical data is reading out or

7:32

there's thinking

7:35

to be done on how you sort of optimize

7:37

the product and get it to the patients

7:40

as fast and best you can , that's where I

7:42

get the most excited .

7:44

Why is preclinical through , you

7:47

know , early clinical , new cured phase ?

7:48

one your sweet spot , it's

7:51

just my happy place . There's

7:53

a lot of prioritization that needs to be done

7:55

. So if you're a company and you've got most

7:57

, biotechs would really give

8:00

science a lot of opportunities

8:02

, but not all the resources and

8:05

you need to prioritize which opportunity

8:07

you're going to spend most time on and what's

8:09

your second and third . There's a lot of second

8:11

, third and fourth order implications to

8:13

decisions and

8:16

it ends up being incredibly strategic and

8:19

complex and

8:21

, if you get it right , it varies for drilling . So that's why I

8:23

really and I also enjoy

8:26

interpreting clinical data . My

8:28

statistician background from

8:30

being an economist and a statistician

8:32

really looking at the data , thinking

8:35

about hey , is this real or not

8:37

, or what's real , and it can be parsed through

8:39

. It's really . It's what I like to

8:41

do . And

8:44

the flip side is often there's a lot

8:46

of partnering and financing around

8:48

these . This data and

8:51

the dealmaking side is the

8:53

other grades where my portee

8:55

can be and fundraising the dealmaking

8:58

.

8:58

How is that ? That's a segue I

9:00

can't ignore . How is that portee

9:03

been playing out the past two and

9:05

a half years , when dealmaking has been ?

9:07

coming at a premium .

9:08

It's been tough .

9:11

Right when the market was starting to fall apart , I

9:13

snuck in a hundred million crossover

9:16

rounds for a company and got that done and it

9:18

was brutal near the end

9:20

, investors

9:22

pulling out , term sheets being withdrawn

9:25

and just wrapping , everyone's

9:27

getting

9:29

an arm in arm and saying , just do this and get it

9:32

done . It was very brutal and since then it's

9:34

been very tough Not

9:36

going to lie .

9:38

That being said , there are certain spots that have been brighter

9:41

than others .

9:45

Probably for the last 12 months nuclear

9:47

oncology has been incredibly hot

9:49

alpha particles . I'm involved in a public

9:51

company there and

9:55

I've seen a lot

9:57

of interest in cashflow and recent

10:00

dealmaking . Bms just bought a company for

10:02

$4 billion that

10:04

had only recently got public at $1 billion

10:06

. Before that was private at a couple hundred

10:08

million , so just astronomical

10:10

valuations . So there

10:12

are bright spots , but it's been really tough and

10:15

the key there comes back to the previous

10:17

point I was making , which is then you're a company

10:20

, you have X dollars . You need to make the

10:22

wisest choice you can but

10:24

the money you have and make it and invest

10:27

what few precious dollars you have

10:29

in these storms , these nuclear winters

10:31

, as we call them .

10:33

You have to make the right choices and I've been through a couple Do

10:39

you indication and modality

10:41

, especially in a time like this , when

10:43

resources are thinner ? Do

10:45

those play into your calculus ?

10:48

They do .

10:51

But they also anyway don't .

10:53

So everyone got worried about small molecules

10:55

with the IRA act and

10:58

everyone said , oh , we don't want to do small molecules

11:00

because we're in person and stuff . But

11:02

if you look at private investment , small molecules continue

11:05

to dominate the private investment . So

11:08

to some degree , if you

11:10

are , in my mind , addressing

11:13

an unmet need and a need that

11:15

isn't about to be met by everyone else

11:18

, being the 30th CD

11:20

, 19 CAR T companies is

11:24

not exciting . And

11:26

they've all pivoted to saying now we're going to do lupus

11:28

, which has its own issues . So

11:30

I think you want to be differentiated , but you can

11:32

be differentiated in the space . That's maybe

11:35

not sexy right now , but you will

11:37

persevere and ultimately

11:39

be successful . I think it would be your technology

11:41

pants out .

11:42

Yeah , all right . So that's

11:44

another nice segue to talk about the technology . So

11:47

I'm hoping you can spend a little bit of time

11:49

without going too deep into the canned

11:52

JPMorgan pitch , right ? Sure

11:54

, spend a little bit of time

11:56

talking about what trying various working

11:58

on or how it might differ from other piece

12:00

of therapies .

12:01

Yeah , time era is a really

12:05

interesting technology . It's a CAR

12:07

T but with a

12:11

more regulatory built-in regulatory

12:13

mechanism . So CAR-T the T cells that

12:15

are engineered essentially do

12:18

not self-regulate , so they it

12:20

works really well on liquid tumors but

12:23

they exhaust , they're not durable

12:25

. And Tri-Envira

12:27

, adam McMaster in Canada , worked

12:30

on a way of basically trying to mimic

12:32

natural T cell mechanisms with

12:34

the engineered T cells

12:37

that you put back into people and

12:39

there are these regulatory domains on

12:42

the cell surface and inside the cell that they've

12:44

replicated from a natural T cell environment

12:46

and that's keeping it at a super high level

12:48

. So it looks and acts more like a real

12:50

T cell . So you don't get some of

12:52

the liabilities , the toxicologies and

12:55

also the super

12:58

hot and then die that you get

13:00

with a CAR-T traditional

13:03

CAR-T therapies . The

13:05

other thing Tri-Envira is doing that's different than most

13:07

CAR-T companies , or at least historically

13:09

, is going after solid tumors and not liquid

13:11

tumors . That there's pros

13:13

and cons to that .

13:15

Not many people are going after solid tumors . The reason

13:17

is it's hard .

13:19

It's hard to get the T cells to really get into that

13:21

tumor microenvironment and kill the solid

13:24

tumors . I think Tri-Envira has seen some

13:26

very interesting clinical data and we're gonna

13:28

turn a couple more CARs this year and see

13:30

what happens , Okay .

13:33

Can you share it all ? I don't wanna get too

13:35

deep into the science here . You

13:37

share it all . What

13:41

the strategy is to overcome that challenge

13:43

, Is that not being so hard ?

13:45

Yeah , it's . There's

13:47

a couple of things . One is you hope

13:49

that sort of our natural or mimicking

13:52

of a more natural T cell response gives

13:54

you the repeat kill and

13:56

the durability . We also , and

13:59

other companies are doing this as well , but

14:02

we're able to do it more aggressively

14:04

as we can redose with our therapy

14:06

too . So there's you

14:08

have to do one foot depletion and you dose

14:10

, and there's a lot of liabilities with cell

14:12

therapy in terms of toxic , a

14:15

certain traditional curtes of toxicology

14:17

. We don't have that with our abstract

14:19

in our approach , or at least

14:21

most of them , and or if

14:23

we do see , like cytokine

14:26

release , we have very , very low levels

14:28

of it versus really high . So our therapy

14:30

is so safe

14:33

that it can be . Unlike

14:35

other cell therapies , it can be an outpatient

14:37

procedure . You don't have to stay in the hospital

14:40

or in the ER to make sure you don't have an

14:42

adverse reaction . We've had patients get

14:44

in this , mild beers walk out , so

14:48

redo , saying highly

14:50

safe , and the safety allows us to give more

14:53

cells and et cetera and so forth . So

14:55

we'll see how it ends out . We've had some nice

14:57

tumor responses and we're

15:00

currently focusing

15:02

very aggressively on a target called clotting

15:04

18-2 , which is a increasingly

15:08

exciting target in the space

15:10

. There's been some data out there

15:12

with an antibody that's compelling and

15:15

we're really , you

15:17

know the front of the pack , certainly with cell therapies

15:19

going after that target . Yeah , it's all tumors

15:21

.

15:21

And that's because we're gastric and gastroesophageal

15:23

tumors .

15:24

It's a very underserved

15:26

cancer area when

15:28

are you on the clinical continuum

15:31

. We have a phase two with our HER2 program

15:33

and we're at the phase one with the clotting program

15:35

. The clotting program is actually probably becoming

15:37

more of a priority given market

15:40

evolution .

15:41

Yeah , okay , yeah , yeah , a lot of

15:43

interesting to watch then . Yeah

15:45

, we'll see where Rah Williamson ends up next

15:47

.

15:47

It's going to be interesting . 12 months We'll see . Yeah

15:51

, you never know . And

15:53

I'm very excited about that company

15:55

and I'm involved with other companies

15:57

too . It's very , for better

16:00

or worse , my the

16:02

companies . I've been helping some

16:05

startups , a public company I'm on the board

16:07

of and trying to be there . They're all

16:09

oncology . So I'm looking at it

16:11

from all these different perspectives cell

16:13

therapy , degraders , radio

16:16

oncology and it's amazing when

16:19

I look at how we're

16:21

all coming at all these companies are coming at

16:23

cancer in different directions , different ways

16:25

, but experiencing a lot

16:28

of similar challenges , and

16:30

the body is incredibly complicated

16:33

.

16:33

Yeah , do you ? I mean I thought

16:35

I'm going to ask you to place

16:38

any public bets , but it's

16:40

a great point . I mean , oncology is being

16:42

cancer

16:44

is being attacked from so many different perspectives and

16:48

obviously trying to be there and any

16:50

other approaches that

16:52

are exciting you Right now .

16:54

I really like the radio oncology space for

16:56

probably couple

16:59

years now and I'm

17:02

on the board of the Public and Mental Perspective Therapeutics

17:04

. We just announced a deal with another

17:06

company today , lampius , with

17:09

a couple of our programs . I

17:12

looked at radio ecology when I was in

17:14

an antibody company in the

17:16

2000s where we had very

17:19

popular areas conjugated

17:23

antibodies , sorry ADCs , antibody

17:25

drug conjugates and we were developing

17:28

ADCs . But we're also looking at conjugating

17:30

nuclear isotopes , not to worry about antibodies

17:32

for delivery . And

17:34

now people are coming back to that again . But now we're using

17:36

them much

17:39

safer or better , tolerated

17:42

nuclear isotopes and people are attaching

17:44

them to different targeting

17:48

mechanisms to go after cancers . And

17:51

so I really do like radio-ecology

17:54

. I think it's gotten very crowded

17:56

and very frothy in the last six months

17:59

, 20 months , but I think

18:01

for certain cancers

18:03

it's going to be a game changer

18:05

in the very near future , which

18:07

is because it's going to be interesting

18:10

to see . So I think a lot

18:13

of patients are going to benefit from it

18:15

.

18:15

It just had here as a

18:17

matter of fact , so it'll be a couple of episodes before

18:19

this one . Airs ratio , therapeutics

18:21

, jackpot . It's an interesting base for me because

18:23

we're rooted in biologics

18:25

, I think in ratio's case together attaching radio

18:28

isotope to a small molecule . But

18:30

the delivery mechanisms

18:33

are .

18:34

You're just trying to get that isotope to the tumor

18:36

and only to the tumor , ideally , and

18:38

then you have a kill and get out of the body

18:40

. There are different

18:42

ways of doing it . The other really interesting

18:45

thing that I love and

18:47

I've seen different companies doing this is it's the

18:49

same concept but a different use

18:53

. You see so much gene editing going on

18:55

and the challenge

18:57

is an in vivo and

18:59

the human body editing . So not ex vivo but

19:01

in vivo editing , and there's an in vivo carti , which

19:03

I think has strengths and weaknesses

19:06

. But the trick

19:08

has been , and continues to be , getting

19:11

that editing mechanism

19:13

to the right part of the body at the right

19:15

time , in fact , not

19:17

only the right organ , but the right cells in the organ

19:19

, ideally , and the

19:22

liver tends to grab things . So you have

19:24

liquid nanoparticles , lmps , and everyone's

19:26

trying to target those . I

19:29

think over

19:31

time we're going to see and a lot

19:33

of people are working on this Over time

19:35

, the real killer app

19:38

is going to be being

19:41

able to deliver that gene editing

19:43

to the right cell and the right organ at the

19:45

right time , ideally . And

19:47

that's evolving . I see

19:49

lots of companies working on it . I

19:51

don't have a clear winner , but I know

19:54

that that is incredibly

19:57

important as we think

19:59

about therapeutic intervention

20:01

going forward , and there are

20:03

people , a lot of people are going after it

20:05

in different ways , but it excites me . When

20:07

I see a company who's got something , I say that's

20:09

really , that's impressive .

20:13

Yeah , another hand-thick where Rob will go .

20:15

He might be going . I see those things

20:17

and I get very excited . I get . And

20:20

if there's a startup and they say oh , we've

20:22

got this , but we can't raise money . I'm like here's

20:25

, go this way , go there and go do this and go

20:27

do that yeah .

20:29

And the time we have left . I know you're on a tight

20:31

timeframe here and I don't blame you . This is the place

20:33

to be busy . It's crazy . Yeah

20:35

, I just want to touch on a few more things regarding

20:38

your , I guess , strategic and

20:40

financial objectives . So

20:42

in your role , you're charged with strategic

20:44

partnering , financing and future IPO

20:47

efforts for Triumph Vira

20:49

, so I guess just

20:51

share with us a little bit about your

20:53

strategies in each of those

20:55

like starting with partnering .

20:57

So partnering it's

20:59

great . I Tell

21:02

my teams this , and I've been saying

21:04

this for so many years now it gets

21:06

around . I say you can't , you

21:09

won't get a partnership or an acquisition

21:12

until you don't want one where you love

21:14

what you have so much you might keep it for yourself . The

21:16

partners come running in . And where

21:18

the acquisitions come running in , I say you because

21:20

it's low . Yeah , I know they say

21:22

as well yes , I wonder why when I

21:24

, early in my career , when I was a junior

21:27

Consultant , and their senior

21:29

partners , that , rob , you got to be confident

21:31

because the clients can smell fear and

21:33

I think in partnering they can smell

21:35

success . You know people , we , you

21:39

know the in a room . It's not

21:41

what said , it's what's exuded

21:43

by body language , by tone

21:45

, by attitude

21:48

, and so much

21:50

when you have something that you know is great

21:52

, it comes across incredibly

21:54

well and and and

21:56

so in .

21:57

that's even more under the microscope

21:59

and In a top market

22:01

like this .

22:02

Yes , it is , and and it's a

22:04

big farm I have been calling their own pipelines

22:06

. They've been reductions . It's changing

22:08

right now where I think I feel the pendulum swinging

22:10

, but no

22:12

one in the last two years would take a risk

22:15

on an unproven technology and even

22:17

try and bear . We talk to people . They say we

22:19

want to do deal with you as soon as you have unequivocal

22:22

data , efficacy data in your phase two

22:24

. You know , sure , yeah

22:26

, and I say when we have that we're

22:28

gonna go public . Yeah

22:30

, right , right , so , uh , thanks , you

22:32

know , if you want to partner now , you maybe you

22:34

can get , you can get it . You know

22:36

a piece of that piece of that .

22:38

Yeah , so it's it's Partnering

22:41

is .

22:42

Generally happens when you don't want a partner

22:45

or you don't need to partner .

22:47

Mm-hmm .

22:48

And that's how I've always looked at it and

22:50

that's generally in the in the market . Recently

22:52

it's been having , I call

22:55

it , virtually unequivocal efficacy

22:57

data in the clinic , which we haven't had yet . We had a phase

23:00

one with some hints of efficacy . That was exciting

23:02

, yeah , and really other other

23:04

data points that were pointing in a good

23:07

direction and and

23:09

it's probably gonna stay that way . But

23:11

I do feel it shifting a bit where people may

23:13

and in fact the deal we announced

23:15

today for my nuclear ecology

23:17

company , the partnership , was

23:20

around assets that are relatively unproven

23:22

but they were willing to Make

23:24

some investments to have a first dibs on

23:27

it as it as those assets mature . Mm-hmm

23:29

, I think you can see that happen more broadly

23:31

, as people are willing to take a little more risk

23:33

and you have to structure it as a win-win

23:36

for both parties . Sure , absolutely

23:38

. You need to sit there and say , well , we get upside , you

23:40

get upside . I mean , let's figure that out and

23:42

that win-win change

23:44

like the .

23:46

Are you feeling any pressure around terms

23:49

Deals right now

23:51

related to maybe what you were experiencing

23:54

four or five years ago ?

23:55

Yeah , yeah , sure it's , it's . I

23:57

think we've gone and again I think we went

23:59

. The nadir has passed , I hope at

24:02

this point my

24:04

suspicion is that . But

24:07

again I , with investors

24:09

and the partners , I try to put myself squarely

24:11

in their shoes , understand what they're thinking

24:13

about and understand what risks I

24:15

would be willing to take if I were in their shoes . And it's

24:17

certainly a year ago there

24:20

was an enlarger farmer . There was no risk taking

24:22

it off , it was on

24:25

all the deals you saw . The few deals you saw were

24:27

True plug-and-plays

24:30

into a commercial pipeline , direct

24:32

plug-and-plays where there was a clear

24:34

commercial path

24:36

. The zap are developed , you know

24:38

well , into phase two data

24:40

. You know , get not in phase three if

24:42

not a launch post-launch , and then say , okay

24:44

, we see your launch , we see the traction

24:47

, we're gonna buy that . So but

24:49

I do think it's the , it's pivoting back

24:51

and I Hope

24:54

it gets . I don't want it to get too

24:56

frothy , I don't . I think there's was an overabundance

24:59

of biotech funding and and the

25:01

like , but it would be good to see it be . Certainly

25:05

not a desert , yeah , as it was in the last

25:07

year , right , all right .

25:09

So , before I let you go , give us your

25:12

, your best pithy , wisdom

25:16

or advice , folks who are

25:18

in your shoes . 20 companies ago and

25:20

getting into Biotech

25:23

foundations for the first time Sure

25:25

, sure but

25:28

I was just talking to my one of my colleagues

25:30

.

25:32

We were talking about regrets on the walk over here . No

25:34

, really Career regrets , things

25:37

we wish we'd done .

25:38

We'll do an episode on that down the road when

25:40

you've got more time for it . Yeah , and his

25:42

was interesting , his was .

25:43

he wished he had stood up to fight

25:45

a deal that he thought ended up tanking the company

25:48

he was at , but his CEO told

25:50

him he thought his CEO was about to fire him

25:52

so he didn't speak out for any further . My

25:55

first biotech I went to

25:57

. I left my high-paying consulting

25:59

job , made partner and I left . No one

26:01

ever makes part of it , so I'm out of here . Yeah

26:03

, I was the first to do it , apparently

26:05

, and forever , and it started

26:07

a trend . For a while I

26:10

went to the company and

26:12

it was one of the first companies to coding

26:15

the human genome .

26:18

Insight .

26:19

Solera and a

26:21

couple other companies are out there Within

26:24

eight months . I helped

26:26

raise a bunch of money . I'm

26:30

not bragging , just saying it was that kind of environment

26:32

. Then Insight came in and put a trend sheet down

26:34

for $415 million to buy us

26:36

. I thought , done

26:39

this is easy . Yeah , do it . I

26:44

was going to make a lot of money , have an exit , have a win

26:46

. One of the board members said

26:48

I'm going to say who they

26:50

were . I want double that because

26:52

my partners and my firm are tech

26:55

partners and they're getting really big returns

26:57

. So I want to try to match

27:00

A long story short

27:02

. That deal went away . The next offer we had

27:04

was half that and then the board said can you get back

27:06

to the first offer we had ? Then there's

27:08

Andrew and Charlie on my board . Just the downward

27:10

spiral of valuation and ultimately

27:13

just selling it for parts .

27:18

I guess my lesson is if you have a deal

27:20

, that looks pretty good , just take it .

27:22

I don't second guess it . The other one is when you have

27:24

money , don't think you're going to

27:26

get anymore , treat it like

27:28

it's your last

27:30

raise . But , even more importantly , think

27:32

about how you're going to create

27:36

compelling , if not game-changing

27:38

, data with the money you've just raised . Make

27:40

sure and you have buffer for failure

27:43

. Many biotechs

27:45

we say this all

27:47

the time , but most people

27:49

, some companies raise

27:51

, they get these crazy raises and

27:53

brought the environment and then they just hire

27:55

up and they get really dopey

27:58

and they become effectively

28:01

I don't want to say it too negatively they

28:03

become the problem that they're solving

28:05

, they're saluting . They become big pharma like

28:07

as a small biotech . They're not nimble

28:09

, they're not making the key decisions on

28:12

rationing and prioritization

28:15

. My advice is

28:18

always act like it's the

28:20

scarcity principle . I had

28:23

an investor slash strategic investor

28:25

group probably seven years ago

28:27

. Make me buy the book Scarcity and say read

28:29

this , this is how we want our

28:31

partners to act . It's a little brutal

28:33

at times , but it makes a lot of sense

28:36

. And

28:38

then , frothing times , bank the money for something

28:41

not working , if not the

28:43

financial market , your science , your technology

28:45

, so you can live to fight another day .

28:47

You pick up on that ? Any positive

28:50

indicators here for the ?

28:51

coming . I was on

28:53

a panel in the December

28:57

timeframe and someone asked me what's next ?

28:58

you're going to be like .

28:59

Rob is it going ? to get better than

29:01

this year and I

29:03

said two things . I said why don't you feel the M&A is

29:05

picking up and it has exploded ? And I said

29:08

I feel like it's going to start picking . I said

29:10

the key for biotech

29:12

is interest racing to come down . We

29:14

need to not have another war . That

29:17

night I'm awesome , I made it Israel . So

29:20

everyone on the panel is texting me the next morning

29:22

saying I guess we're going to have another war . And I

29:24

said gee , I really hope it doesn't go global . But

29:28

I think , despite the

29:30

global issues that we see

29:32

and

29:34

hopefully they stay no worse

29:36

than they are now certainly Asia

29:39

, we don't have conflict over Taiwan or something I

29:42

think we will biotech

29:44

feeling a whole lot better this

29:46

year than it did last year in my

29:48

opinion . I think a lot of it has to do with the willingness

29:51

of people to take a little more risk . Do

29:53

you deals ? People are just . There's more

29:55

movement . I can feel the gears moving . I

29:58

think in bathrooms we're getting exits that they need

30:00

to redeploy capital . So

30:02

I think we're going to have . It won't be I

30:04

hope not probably but I think it

30:07

will be an environment that will sustain great

30:09

science Excellent .

30:10

Well , here's the 2024 .

30:12

Here's to you for joining me , I know it's very busy . I

30:14

appreciate it . No , I appreciate it . Thank you for your time

30:16

and it's been a tough morning

30:18

, just with a couple of things .

30:20

I know . No , we met . We

30:22

planned some Seeds for Future episodes . Perfect

30:25

, I'll have Mrs Jacoby on . Maybe

30:27

you can come on together . That will be a really cool

30:29

episode , though , absolutely . That's

30:32

a really nice dinner time conversations between

30:34

two we had a lot to talk .

30:36

Yeah , yeah , well , it was fantastic , so

30:38

you'd love her . Yeah , we'll do it

30:40

. Well , thank you , I appreciate it .

30:43

I'm Matt Pillar and you just listened to the Business of Biotech

30:45

, the weekly podcast dedicated to

30:48

the builders of biotech . We

30:50

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31:17

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