Discovery/R&D

81. Gene Tx For Hearing Loss With Sensorion's Nawal Ouzren 4/12/2023

    We often talk about biotechs taking "big swings." This week's guest is swinging for the fences with a lineup of gene therapies designed to address multiple forms of hearing loss, which affect multiple millions (if not, billions) of people worldwide. Adding to the challenge she's accepted, Sensorion CEO Nawal Ouzren is architecting an approach that seeks to restore hearing that's been lost due to genetic factors, treat sudden hearing disorders, and proactively prevent hearing loss due to common causes such as cisplatin induced ototoxicity or cochlear implantation. Listen in as Ouzren shares her holistic and aggressive plans with the Business of Biotech.

82. Gene Therapy For Chronic Inflammation With Xalud's Howard Rutman, M.D. 12/12/2022

    While many gene therapy development efforts focus on rare disease, Xalud Therapeutics is taking a swing that, measured in addressable patient market terms, is considerably bigger. Osteoarthritis, or OA, is a chronic, progressive joint disease that affects over 30 million people in the United States. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, we catch up with Xalud Chief Medical Officer Howard Rutman, M.D., MBA for a discussion on the company's late-stage plasmid DNA gene therapy that's showing promise in OA and other chronic inflammatory conditions. 

83. 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.

84. Leveraging Lymph Nodes With Elicio's Dr. Peter DeMuth 10/30/2022

    MIT-born startup Elicio Therapeutics' novel Amphiphile Technology Platform is designed to directly engage the lymphatic system in the deployment and delivery of therapeutic payloads. We caught up with Chief Scientific Officer Peter DeMuth, Ph.D. at Elicio HQ in Boston to learn how the platform works, and how it's driving rapid clinical progress for the company's robust pipeline of therapeutic vaccines in oncology, as a cell therapy amplifier in liquid and solid tumor indications, and in prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases like COVID-19. Dr. DeMuth also shares his journey as a young scientific founder, how he's managed the transition from academic scientist to the C-suite, and how he leans into his scientific training to make a killer home brew.

85. Engineering B Cells With Immusoft's Sean Ainsworth 12/5/2025

    On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Sean Ainsworth, CEO and Chairman at Immusoft, talks about transitioning from the research bench to entrepreneurship, his M&A experiences as a biotech founder, and why engineered B cell therapies offer a better, more patient-friendly administration for lysosomal storage diseases currently treated with enzyme replacement therapies.

86. 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.

87. 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.

88. Genetic Testing & Neurodegenerative Disorders With AviadoBio's Lisa Deschamps 8/29/2022

    Lisa Deschamps' story is one of determination and fortitude. She got her start in the life sciences where it begins and ends for many — "carrying the bag" in big pharma sales — then proceeded to crush the odds on her way to the C-suite at Novartis. Today, she's CEO at AviadoBio, a disruptive gene therapy startup prepping an intra-thalamic Frontotemporal Dementia candidate for the clinic with a heavy Series A in its hip pocket. On this episode of the Business of Biotech we get to know Lisa, her company and its therapeutic approach, her advocacy for genetic testing, and how she's applying her determination and fortitude to enabling more women to become life science leaders.

89. Turning The Liver Into A mAb Factory With Homology's Arthur Tzianabos, Ph.D. 11/15/2021

    Homology Medicines' approaches to gene therapy and gene editing have the potential to seriously disrupt both the cell/gene therapy space \_and\_ the mAb manufacturing and administration paradigms as we know them. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Homology President & CEO Arthur Tzianabos, Ph.D. shares the company's approach and supports its rationale for investing in its own development and manufacturing capacity.

90. BoB In South Florida: Anthony Japour, M.D., iTolerance 10/16/2025

    On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Anthony Japour, M.D., CEO at iTolerance, talks about his work as a physician treating infectious diseases, his CEO role in diagnostics at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, what he learned working as a medical director at a large CRO, and iTolerance's work toward a cure for Type 1 diabetes that doesn't require chronic immunosuppression.