Discovery/R&D

81. 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.

82. 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. 

83. Functional Ectopic Organs with LyGenesis' Michael Hufford, Ph.D. 4/5/2023

    What sounds like science fiction to some is starting to look like a life changing therapy for millions of liver, kidney, pancreas, and thymus disease sufferers, LyGenesis is developing a pipeline of allogeneic cell therapies using the lymph node as an in vivo bioreactor to grow functioning ectopic organs. The science behind it is being developed not in Boston, not in Philadelphia, nor in San Franciso, but right in the heart of the rust belt in Pittsburgh, PA. This week's episode of the Business of Biotech takes us there for a conversation with LyGenesis CEO Dr. Michael Hufford, Ph.D.

84. Multimodal R&D Management With Incyte's Jim Lee, M.D., Ph.D. 1/18/2024

    Success at multimodal, multi-indication, deep-pipelined Incyte—where commercial operations are as familiar as pre-discovery activity is—begins at the earliest opportunity to achieve research and discovery efficiencies.

85. Accelerating ADCs with Mythic Therapeutics' Brian Fiske, Ph.D. 5/26/2024

    Mythic Therapeutics Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder Brian Fiske, Ph.D. broke some unwritten protocol with his rapid and multifaceted transition from academia to industry. He calls his many, and sometimes concurrent, early experiences as an MIT Ph.D. student, a Flagship Ventures Fellow, a Bain consultant, a hospital researcher, and a biopharma consultant indicative of a young man who didn't want to make decisions.

86. RNA Sandbox with Johns Hopkins RNA Innovation Center's Jeff Coller, Ph.D. and Michelle Kim, Ph.D. 1/12/2025

    In close partnership with Johns Hopkins and TriLink BioTechnologies, Jeff Coller, Ph.D. and Michelle Kim, Ph.D. have built a sandbox for RNA developers and aspirational RNA business builders to play in. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we team up once again with Advancing RNA's Anna Rose Welch to learn about the venture, dubbed the Johns Hopkins University RNA Innovation Center.

87. Leaving The Incubator With Kavitha Iyer Rodrigues 6/28/2020

    A strategic departure from the biotech incubator requires the coordination of moving parts aplenty. Development timelines, seed funding, facilities development, and team dynamics are just a sampling of the critical aspects. It's a move multi-time founder and Zumutor Biologics CEO Kavitha Iyer Rodrigues is well-versed in. Iyer Rodrigues joins us with lessons learned from her time in those trenches.

88. Building A DNA Delivery System With Poseida Tx CEO Eric Ostertag, M.D., Ph.D. 9/27/2021

    Eric Ostertag, M.D., Ph.D., wanted to launch a biotech. When University of Pennsylvania department heads said no to a licensing deal for lack of a CEO, Dr. Ostertag convinced them he could run the company. Many bold moves later, Dr. Ostertag is founder and CEO at Poseida Therapeutics, a company that's doing things never seen before in the field of CAR T-cell and gene therapies for multiple myeloma and prostate cancer. On this week's episode of The Business of Biotech, Dr. Ostertag gives us a tour of the architecture supporting Poseida's unique 3-tiered development and manufacturing platform.

89. 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.

90. Oncology Discovery Advances With AbbVie's Steve Davidsen, Ph.D. 10/25/2022

    AbbVie VP of Oncology Discovery Research Steve Davidsen, Ph.D. is a living, breathing timeline of the company's cancer research and development efforts. He got his start with the company— Abbott at the time— way back in 1986. As such, he's charted the adoption of multiple advanced technologies that have contributed to the realization of dozens of molecular weapons in the fight against cancer. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Dr. Davidsen shares the latest on AbbVie's adoption of computational biology and how it's contributing to discovery and development efficiencies, why he's an AbbVie "lifer," how he manages and motivates a large team of research scientists, and a whole lot more.