The Business Of Biotech Podcast

1. High-Throughput Discovery With BIOPTIC's Andrey Dobry 1/19/2025

   Andrey "Dobry" Doronichev, the innovator who made YouTube mobile, is now revolutionizing biotech with his startup, BIOPTIC. In this episode of The Business of Biotech, Dobry explains how AI and advanced screening are reshaping drug discovery. Learn more about BIOPTIC’s bold vision, the challenges of data access, and overcoming skepticism in the biotech industry.

2. 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.

3. Biotech Story Time With Tal Zaks, M.D. (Part 2) 1/5/2025

   Dr. Tal Zaks joins the Business of Biotech for the second part of "Story Time With Tal," discussing his transition from Moderna's CMO during the COVID-19 pandemic to co-founding Exsilio Therapeutics, an mRNA startup. The episode explores Exsilio's foundation, scientific focus, team recruitment, and its $82 million Series A funding led by Novartis Venture Fund and Delos Capital, with support from prominent investors like OrbiMed, CRISPR Therapeutics, and J.P. Morgan Life Sciences Private Capital.

4. Risk Mitigation With MeiraGTx's Zandy Forbes, Ph.D. 12/30/2024

   Zandy Forbes, Ph.D., combines science and finance expertise to manage biotech risk. With a Ph.D. from Oxford, a postdoc fellowship, and over a decade as a Wall Street healthcare investor, she now leads Meira GTx as President & CEO. On Business of Biotech, she discusses how her investment experience informs her approach to biotech leadership.

5. Biotech Story Time With Tal Zaks, M.D. (Part 1) 12/22/2024

   Tal Zaks, M.D. was Chief Medical Officer at Moderna before, during, and immediately following the company's headline role during the COVID pandemic. If that doesn't pique your interest about the stories he can tell, this episode of the Business of Biotech surely will. Tune in to the first installment of this two-part episode for insight from the early days of mRNA that you probably haven't heard before.

6. A $1B AI Bet With Foresite Labs' Vik Bajaj, Ph.D. 12/15/2024

   This past spring, Xaira Therapeutics launched with $1 billion in backing, a who's-who mashup of Silicon Valley and biopharma stars led by Marc Tessier-Lavigne in the C-suite, and a mission to develop AI-generated drugs. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're digging into the company's origin story and its place on the greater techbio landscape with one of the men bearing responsibility for Xaira's launch.

7. Manufacturing Partnership With Life Biosciences Jerry McLaughlin and Forge Biologics' John Maslowski 12/8/2024

   On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Jerry McLaughlin, CEO and President at Life Biosciences returns for a visit, and he brought a friend in John Maslowski, newly appointed CEO at Forge Biologics. We revisit progress at Life Biosciences, followed by a deep look into the gears that make the company's contract development and manufacturing relationship with Forge Biologics go.

8. Novel Peptide Delivery With Revolo's Woody Bryan, Ph.D. 12/1/2024

   Revolo Biotherapeutics President and CEO Woody Bryan, Ph.D. is pushing the boundaries of peptide therapeutic delivery. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, we dig into Dr. Bryan’s transition to the CEO chair at the company and how that coincided with an aggressive strategic decision to alter the course of administration of its peptide candidates in allergic and autoimmune diseases.

9. Biopolitics With Allan Shaw 11/24/2024

   The notion that political influence has no place in biology appears poised for a test it hasn’t studied for. Trump administration nominations, from RFK, Jr. to HHS and Vivek Ramaswamy to the newly-proposed DOGE, are driving speculation over the implications for biotech and other life sciences industries. How should biotech builders be obviating? On the Business of Biotech, we’re joined for some reflection by none other than Allan Shaw.

10. T-Cells For The Win With Adaptimmune's Adrian Rawcliffe 11/17/2024

    In August of this year, the first TCR cell therapy to be approved for use in the U.S. was greenlighted by the FDA for patients with unresectable or metastatic synovial sarcoma who have previously received chemotherapy. It marked the first new treatment for those patients in more than a decade; a win for those patients, and a win for Adrian Rawcliffe, who’s had a hand on the wheel at Adaptimmune, the therapy’s developer and manufacturer, since he joined the company as CFO in 2015.