Discovery/R&D

  1. TCRs In Personalized Oncology With BlueSphere Bio's Keir LoIacono 3/12/2023

    Among a growing cluster of Pittsburgh biotechs, you'll find BlueSphere Bio, an early-stage company discovering T-cell receptors to leverage against tumor-specific antigens in individual cancer patients. Its leader, CEO Keir LoIacono, Esq., works with a sense of urgency inspired by his own cancer journey. Business of Biotech host Matt Pillar and guest co-host Jon O'Connell, executive editor at Bioprocess Online, toured Bluesphere's state-of-the-art facility perched on the bank of the Monongahela River. Then, we sat down with Loiacono to learn his story and discuss the company's vision for the future of personalized, adoptive cell therapy.

  2. RNA Delivery Business with Liberate's Shawn Davis, Ph.D. & Walter Strapps, Ph.D. 11/8/2023

    Earlier this year, Shawn Davis, Ph.D. left a pretty comfortable position at AstraZeneca (and Amgen before that, and Milliken – and others – before that) to lead Liberate Bio. He brought along another industry notable in Merck/Intellia alumnus Walter Strapps, Ph.D., who serves as CSO at Liberate. Why'd they do it? Because RNA delivery is such a crucial step toward revolutionary genetic medicine, but it's tough science. They think they can change that.

  3. Innate Immunity & Mouse Models With LIfT Biosciences' Alex Blyth 7/11/2022

    Serial inventor and entrepreneur Alex Blyth had long held interests in health and science, but losing his mom to pancreatic cancer was the inflection point that launched LIfT Biosciences in 2016. Now, the preclinical company is on a mission to develop the world's first 'off-the-shelf' cell therapy to destroy all solid tumors, irrespective of strain or mutation, beginning with pancreatic cancer. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Blyth shares the company's scientific approach and progress, and we explore the shortcomings of legacy clinical protocols including the inherent problems and limitations of mouse models.

  4. mRNA Upstarts With Radar Therapeutics' Sophia Lugo and Eerik Kaseniit, Ph.D. 8/25/2024

    Guest co-host Anna Rose Welch of Advancing RNA fame joins us on this week’s Business of Biotech podcast for a conversation with the leaders of RNA upstart Radar Therapeutics. The company’s co-founders, Eerik Kaseniit, Ph.D. (CSO & President) and Sophia Lugo (CEO), are making waves in the mRNA therapeutics space on the heels of the invention of a precision-expressed mRNA technology that laid bare the path to Radar’s inception.

  5. An AI Awakening With Profluent Bio's Hilary Eaton, Ph.D. 9/22/2024

    Hilary Eaton, Ph.D. was a self-described AI skeptic, particularly regarding using the tool in drug discovery. Then, a series of professional and deeply personal life events and medical discoveries put her in a position to confront that skepticism head-on. On Business of Biotech, the Chief Business Officer at ProFluent Bio shares her story and makes a pragmatic case for the transformative value of AI to biotech builders.

  6. A Biopharma Pivot Story With Compugen's Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag 3/15/2021

    Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag transformed her company from a computational biology service provider to a clinical-stage biopharma with multiple cancer immunotherapy candidates, and she did it in a remarkably short period of time. Listen in as she discusses the human resources, financial, and capital strategies she deployed to build a biotech on the back of computational science, and shares her vision for the future of drug discovery.

  7. Real-Time Clinical Analysis With Glympse Bio's Dr. Caroline Loew 6/1/2021

    On this episode of the Business of Biotech, we're going deep with Glympse Bio President & CEO Dr. Caroline Loew to explore the possibilities and implications of the in-vivo, bioengineered, tunable sensors the company is developing for diagnostic and prognostic purposes in protease-mediates diseases. Currently in the clinic with applications for Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis and other fibrotic diseases as well as Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and other solid tumors, Glympse is unlocking an unprecedented view of near-real-time therapeutic response and therapeutic efficacy that could have big implications on the way biologics are developed, refined, and studied in the clinic.

  8. Drug Development: From Bench To Bedside With Allan Shaw 5/10/2021

    CFO to the biopharma stars and frequent Business of Biotech guest Allan Shaw joins us for a candid discussion on the keys to efficiency as you move your candidate from the bench to the bedside. Shaw shares the common perils of insular thinking in biopharma and offers practical advice for avoiding those pitfalls. We discuss the value of being early in the context of the current biopharma market — early to study, early to differentiate, early to kill if necessary, and early to fund your project on its journey to the clinic.

  9. Improving Cardiovascular Outcomes With Immediate Therapeutics' Atul Deshpande, Ph.D. 8/27/2025

    On this week's Business Of Biotech episode, Atul Deshpande, Ph.D., CEO at Immediate Therapeutics, talks about partnering with American cities to conduct clinical trials during ambulance rides to the hospital, with the goal of preserving heart function and reducing mortality related to acute cardiovascular events, including heart attacks.

  10. Epigenomic Programming With Omega Therapeutics' Mahesh Karande 9/21/2022

    Using computational biology to hasten the effort, Omega Therapeutics' plan is to "coopt nature's universal biological operating system for gene control and cell differentiation." On this episode of the Business of Biotech, we dig into exactly what that means. We also explore the company's preclinical ambitions, which are diverse, targeting regenerative, multigenic/immunologic, oncologic, and monogenic indications. Omega is leaning heavily into computational biology along the way, having mapped what CEO Mahesh Karande characterizes as 95% of the IGD landscape. Learn how Karande intends to maintain momentum on this episode of the Business of Biotech.