Discovery/R&D

31. 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?

32. Gene Tx For Renal Disease With Purespring CEO Richard Francis 5/2/2022

    Purespring Therapeutics launched in 2020 on the back of IP developed by renowned kidney researcher Prof. Moin Saleem, who spent decades working on podocytes when podocytes weren’t cool. Just two years later, the company boasts three gene therapy assets and a platform developed expressly to identify new therapeutic targets to address kidney disease. 

33. IDO Target Perseverence With IO Biotech's Mai-Britt Zocca, Ph.D. 9/13/2022

    Under the leadership of Mai-Britt Zocca, Ph.D., IO Biotech is advancing novel, immune-modulating cancer therapies targeting IDO (indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase). Though promising, the target fell out of favor after some high-profile misses – most notably Merck's Phase 3 failure with pembrolizumab in 2018. But Immunome's dual mechanism of action is renewing interest in the target, and Dr. Zocca is gaining confidence as the company's data grows. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, she shares the approach, how it differs from previous attempts, and how her company is working to advance its programs in the wake of IDO's fall from grace.

34. Commensal Viral Vectors With Ring Therapeutics' Tuyen Ong, M.D. 4/12/2022

    When Tuyen Ong was a child, he and his family escaped Vietnam by boat in the dead of the night, bound for an Indonesian refugee camp. They spent a year in that camp before emigrating to the U.K., where Ong’s underprivileged adolescence found him growing up in the projects of London. Against the odds, Ong worked his way to UCL for an education that culminated with an M.D. Today, he’s CEO of Ring Therapeutics, a promising emerging biotech backed by Flagship Pioneering, the kingmaker behind the rise of Moderna. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Ong shares on his challenging formative years, the unspoken love between a father and son, facing down racism as a poor Chinese kid in Vietnam and London, and how those experiences shape his leadership at Ring. Oh, and we talk about some pretty cool science, too.

35. Emerging From Stealth With Vima Therapeutics' Bernard Ravina, M.D. 10/31/2025

    On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're speaking with Bernard Ravina, M.D., CEO at Vima Therapeutics, a company that emerged from stealth in May with $60 million Series A financing to develop an oral candidate for dystonia, a movement disorder.

36. 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.

37. First AI Antibody In Humans with Aulos' Aron Knickerbocker 7/14/2024

    Data drives decision-making at Aulos Bioscience. It's also driven the career trajectory of its CEO. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech podcast, we get an introspective walk through Aron Knickerbocker's strategically-orchestrated career path, from his early days in the labs at Bristol-Myers Squibb and Genentech to his leadership of Aulos Bioscience, a company that boasts the first AI-generated antibody in human clinical trials.

38. Maximizing mRNA With Precision Nanosystems' James Taylor, Ph.D. 11/8/2021

    Dr. James Taylor believes that genomic medicine will prove the most revolutionary thing the life sciences industries have ever seen, and that it will ultimately become the largest therapeutic class. Dr. Taylor is president and CEO at Precision Nanosystems. He chalks up the genomic nature of biology, the fact that genomes are information-based, the breadth and validation of the genomic medicine toolbox, and the democratization of genomic medicine development as reasons to be bullish. Join Dr. Taylor and me for a conversation on why RNA and DNA delivery are game-changers, and what Precision Nanosystems is doing to push the ball downfield.

39. BoB Live At BIO: Amber Salzman, Ph.D., Epicrispr Biotechnologies 7/2/2025

    This week's episode is one from the road, recorded in front of a live audience in Boston's Seaport neighborhood during the BIO conference (special thanks to MasterControl for making it happen). Amber Salzman, Ph.D., CEO of Epicrispr Biotechnologies (aka 'Epic Bio') explains how epigenetic editing is revolutionizing genetic medicine by controlling gene expression, without cutting DNA like traditional CRISPR technologies.

40. Dye Drug Conjugates For Cancer With Lahjavida's Lyle Small 9/11/2025

    On this week's Business Of Biotech episode, Lyle Small, Founder and CEO at Lahjavida, a dye drug conjugate start-up, talks about creating the famous color-changing technology that turned the mountains blue on cold Coors Light beer cans, to launching a dye-drug conjugate startup developing targeted cancer therapies.