Discovery/R&D

11. Therapeutic Molecules From Moss with eleva's Andreas Schaaf And Björn Cochlovius, Ph.D. 4/20/2023

    We kick this conversation off with the writer Elizabeth Gilbert's take on moss, which she so eloquently dubs a "resurrection engine." Gilbert almost certainly didn't realize the potential of moss to play a resurrectional role in human health, but Eleva Biotech's Andreas Schaaf and Björn Cochlovius do. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, we learn about a company that's developing proteins to fuel its own pipeline — and its partners' — from a most ubiquitous plant that grows virtually everywhere. It grows particularly well in bioreactors outfitted with custom grow lights and presents some significant advantages over CHO cell line development.

12. Next-Gen Nanobodies With MoonLake's Jorge Santos Da Silva, Ph.D. 3/27/2023

    The more we learn about inflammation and the complex cause/contributor/symptom roles it plays in various disease states, the more business activity we see in the inflammation therapeutics space. But to date, commercial pharmaceutical and biologic efforts have fallen short for patients, says Moonlake Immunotherapeutics CEO Jorge Santos Da Silva, Ph.D. What's the problem, and why does he think his camelid-derived nanobody candidates are poised to outperform big-pharma standards from the likes of UCB and Novartis? Find out on this week's episode of the Business of Biotech.

13. Computational Drug Discovery With Gain Therapeutics' Matthias Alder 1/11/2023

    Gain Therapeutics' newly-appointed CEO Matthias Alder offers up a deep, yet abundantly clear explanation of how his company is applying compute power to speed up drug discovery. At Gain, computational models help researchers winnow down not just which molecules might have therapeutic effect, but also how adept those molecules will be at binding—and staying bound—to their target. It's not just theory, either. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Alder shares on how the virtual successes seen on Gain's servers have translated in the wet lab, and how they've contributed to the company's fast-growing preclinical pipeline.

14. BoB@JPM: Gene Writing With Tessera's Michael Severino, M.D. 2/26/2023

    Flagship Pioneering plucked Michael Severino, M.D. away from AbbVie to run point at Tessera, a startup it's backed to pioneer a new category of genetic medicine it calls gene writing. The Business of Biotech caught up with Severino at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last month. We learned what lured him away from leadership positions at Merck, Amgen, and AbbVie, how gene writing differs from gene therapy and gene editing, why the team at Tessera believes its technologies can write and rewrite DNA at the scales necessary to cure most genetic diseases, and where he plans to take the company from here. 

15. Dr. Gaurav Shah: Rocket's Chief Gene Therapist & Virtuoso 8/30/2020

    Rocket Pharmaceuticals CEO Dr. Gaurav Shah shares the parallels between his leadership in the gene therapy space and his successes as a Grammy®-nominated recording artist with the Business of Biotech podcast. This episode is full of actionable insight on the inspiration behind how Dr. Shah manages the science and process side of the business, his employees, financing, and stakeholder expectations by drawing from his passion for—and understanding of—music.

16. CAR T-cells For Ovarian Cancers with Anixa Biosciences' Amit Kumar, Ph.D. 3/8/2022

    While success has been seen in animal models, solid tumors have proved a vexing challenge for CAR T-cell therapies. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're joined by Anixa Biosciences Chairman, President, & CEO Amit Kumar, Ph.D. Dr. Kumar shares on the company's progress with a CAR T-cell therapy that aims to attack both tumor cells and the tumor vasculature, in hopes that it might be the first to destroy solid breast and ovarian cancers.

17. Pragmatic Computational Biology with Andrew Satz 9/20/2023

    This week's guest on the Business of Biotech, EVQLV's Andrew Satz, says AI and ML in biopharma are like sex in high school. "Many of the people who say they're doing it really aren't, and the one who really are aren't talking about it," he says. So, when it comes to the computational biology buzz, what’s real? What’s hype? What’s yielding benefit and what’s merely vaporware?

18. Gynecological Cancer Therapies With Context Therapeutics' Martin Lehr 4/18/2022

    Context Therapeutics Co-Founder & CEO Martin Lehr shares stories from his self-described "recovery from venture capital," the work his company is doing in gynecological cancers, and how his small company manages a modality-agnostic approach and investigator-sponsored trials across multiple clinical candidates, four of which are in phase 2 clinical trials. We also discuss his "extracurricular" work with BioBreak, Life Science Leader, and Life Science Cares, and why those organizations are important to him personally and professionally.

19. How To Hire And Build A Winning Executive Team With Occam Global's Bill Holodnak 8/6/2025

    On this week's Business of Biotech episode, Bill Holodnak, Cofounder and CEO of Occam Global, a life sciences executive recruitment firm (and occasional investor), shares insights from his decades of experience pairing executives with drug development companies, and talks about the psychology of successful biotech leadership.

20. The Business And Science Of Obesity With Roger Cone, Ph.D., Founder Of Courage Therapeutics 7/9/2025

    On this week's episode, Roger Cone, Ph.D., Founder and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board at Courage Therapeutics, talks about discovering obesity-related protein receptors in the brain, how he spun his academic discoveries out into a biotech company developing new obesity drugs, the need for obesity treatments with fewer side effects than currently available GLP-1 therapies, and the value of pairing scientific leadership with a strong business partner as CEO.