I AM BIO

A convoluted, confusing, and opaque system for pricing drugs has evolved that distorts the market and often limits patient access to the drugs they need to survive. In this episode, three experts explain how the system works—or doesn’t’—and the consequences of a dysfunctional pricing system.Guests:Dan Durham, Senior Health Policy Advisor, Biotechnology Innovation OrganizationAnna Hyde, Vice President, Advocacy and Access, Arthritis FoundationDr. Vinay Rathi, Resident Physician, Otolaryngology, Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Mass General Brigham

Alzheimer’s disease is a heartbreaking diagnosis and tragically there is no cure. But every day, researchers, scientists and the medical community are working to change that. In this episode, we speak with three guests who are fighting to bend the trajectory of Alzheimer’s disease and, in doing so, offering hope for the millions suffering from this devastating illness.

Last December, a United Airlines’ flight from Chicago to Washington DC was the first ever passenger flight powered with 100% sustainable aviation fuel. The achievement demonstrated the potential for the aviation sector to reduce its carbon footprint. Our guests in this episode each played a key role in in helping the airline reach this exciting milestone.

2021 was the unofficial year of mRNA—and deservedly so. But the science behind the technology is not always easy to understand. In this episode, we will dive into the miracle technology that saved countless lives and talk about what it holds for the future. We also speak to a biotech company about its non-mRNA vaccine technology for COVID and why the healthcare ecosystem will always need multiple options.

More than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is water, and yet water that is safe enough for human consumption remains a finite resource. In this episode we speak to experts about the biggest threats to water—contamination, overuse, and plastic. We also learn how innovative new tools can ensure there is enough water to hydrate us, our plants, and our animals. GuestsAmeen Razavi, Microvi BiotechJoel Cuello, The University of ArizonaScott Tuten, Danimer Scientific

We are on the precipice of a looming crisis. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the evolution of deadly pathogens like bacteria and fungi to resist all current antimicrobial medicines. In this episode, we talk about how the dwindling supply of new antibiotics is fueling this silent pandemic, and why we need a continued pipeline of new antibiotics to avoid this crisis.Guests:Ankit Mahadevia, Spero TherapeuticsHenry Skinner, AMR Action FundMary Dwight, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Not only do we need STEM students, but we also need them from every corner of the population, because innovation thrives through diverse perspectives; through the people who bring both their talents and backgrounds to the work. In this episode, we dig into the importance of kids learning about STEM early in their educations, the impact of the pandemic on students and teachers, and what the future of STEM education looks like. Guests:Barak Balva, SanofiKimberly Bryant, Black Girls CodeJen Colvin, Learning Undefeated Jo Webber, STEMconnector

Today we have two powerful stories. Each one is as different as the disease that it’s about. Yet there is a common thread: patients want and need to be heard. You will hear from a mom who will do whatever it takes to save her son’s life. And you will learn about a young woman who is fighting for herself and her underserved patient community. Guests:Amber Freed, SLC6A1 ConnectMelodie Blackwell, COCCI

Every three minutes in the United States, an allergic reaction to foods sends someone to the emergency room. Today, we explore what life is like when you must avoid certain foods. But we also learn that there is hope for an escape from the food prison. Researchers like Clemson University's Sachin Rustgi are using cutting-edge genetic engineering tools to make foods safer for those living with allergies and food sensitivities. Guests:Sachin Rustgi, Clemson UniversityLisa Gable, FAREEmily Brown, Food Equality Initiative

They are not the household names, but the medications they are researching and developing could be the lifeline patients are waiting for. Today we explore how drug price controls—now making their way through Congress—could have unintended consequences for the small biotechs that are the engine of the drug development ecosystem. And even worse, for the patients who need them most. Guests:Ahmed Mousa, Pieris Pharmaceuticals Daphne Zohar, PureTech HealthPeter Kolchinsky, RA CapitalMichele Oshman, BIOClare Thorpe, Library Services (AU)

For more than a year now, COVID has been society’s focus—and rightly so. But today we turn our attention to another virus—HIV. After 40 years, there is still no cure or a vaccine for the disease. In this episode, we hear from Dr. Anthony Fauci and CEO of innovative company American Gene Technologies, Jeff Galvin, about the past, present, and future of HIV treatments and medications. Is there a cure on the horizon? Guests:Jeffrey Galvin, American Gene Technologies Anthony Fauci, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

We are on summer break as we work to bring you another exciting season this fall. So, for the next few weeks we’re sharing some of our favorite sessions from the June 2021 BIO Digital. Today, check out our session Breaking Barriers in Trade: A Conversation with Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General, World Trade Organization.Speaker:Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Trade Organization

We are on summer break as we work to bring you another exciting season this fall. So, for the next few weeks we’re sharing some of our favorite sessions from the June 2021 BIO Digital. Today, check out our session Breaking Barriers in Science featuring Dr. Jennifer Doudna, Nobel Laureate and CRISPR Pioneer. This session is sponsored by Johnson & Johnson. Speakers:Seema Kumar, Vice President of Innovation, Global Health and Policy CommunicationDr. Jennifer Doudna, Nobel Laureate and CRISPR Pioneer

We are on summer break as we work to bring you another exciting season this fall. So, for the next few weeks we’re sharing some of our favorite sessions from the June 2021 BIO Digital. Today, check out our session Growing LGBTQ Leadership in Biotech. Speakers:Paul Hastings, BIO Chair and CEO at Nkarta TherapeuticsMatthew Fust, Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc.Todd Sears, Out LeadershipDenice Torres, The Ignited Company

We are on summer break as we work to bring you another exciting season this fall. So, for the next few weeks we’re sharing some of our favorite sessions from the June 2021 BIO Digital. Today, check out our session Fighting the Climate Crisis Through Supply Chain Sustainability. Speakers:Dr. Michelle McMurry-HeathLord David Prior, National Health Service EnglandRohin Mahtre, BiogenVictor Dzau, MD, National Academy of Medicine

The banana is an interesting case study. It is the world’s most popular fruit, yet it could very soon go missing from our store shelves due to a disease we’ve seen once before—leaving a large nutritional and economic hole in our society. The banana helps tell the story of how biotech is a key tool in strengthening our food systems to make our favorite foods more resilient, more sustainable, and more accessible. Featuring interviews with:Anna Rath, President & CEO and Director of VestaronDan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the WorldBetsy Booren, SVP of Regulatory and Technical Affairs at the Consumer Brands AssociationTom Vilsack, Secretary of United States Department of Agriculture

Science—particularly biotechnology—helped change the course of COVID with the development of effective vaccines and therapeutics. However, it is also true that COVID has changed biotechnology. This I AM BIO podcast will look at the way biotech addressed the crisis and explores how the crisis, in turn, changed the biotech industry—its reputation, its exposure to a broader audience and its willingness to adopt lessons learned from the pandemic. This episode is sponsored by FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies. Dr. William Karesh, EcoHealth AllianceDr. Cartier Esham, BIOAaron Sato, TWIST Biosciences Dr. Ron Faucheux, Certus Insights

This is the I am BIO Uncut Series where we bring you a full interview from Monday’s podcast complete and unfiltered. In this episode, we’re joined by Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations or CEPI, a global vaccine procurement initiative. Check out Monday's episode here: https://iambio.simplecast.com/episodes/we-can-and-must-share-vaccines-with-the-globeLearn more about CEPI

As the good news about the decline of COVID infections in the US continues to reverberate, the threat of the pandemic still looms globally. “Nobody is safe until everybody is safe.” Sharing life-saving vaccines around the world as quickly as possible defies a simple solution. This episode explores the recommendations and best solutions to address global distribution challenges and questions a simplistic proposal offered by some countries to the World Health Organization: waiving Intellectual Property rights for the vaccines. Will the waiver of these protections threaten to undermine the very system that produced life-saving science in the first place?

This is the I Am BIO Uncut Series, where we bring you a full interview from Monday's episode complete and unfiltered. In this Uncut episode, we share the conversation we had with Gerren Wilson, Head of Inclusion & Partnering in the Chief Diversity Office at Genentech, the pharmaceutical biotech company. Check out the full episode here: https://iambio.simplecast.com/episodes/solving-an-unfashionable-problem

The COVID crisis has laid bare the inequities faced by certain populations in our health care system. It has become increasingly clear that the drug development process for a whole host of diseases often leaves these same populations behind through their absence or underrepresentation in clinical trials. This episode evaluates the problem and looks for ways to improve the process so that medicines and vaccines work for everyone who takes them. Hosted by Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath with interviews from Gerren Wilson, Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick, and RADM Richardae Araojo, Pharm.D., MS

This is the I am BIO uncut series, where we bring you a full interview from Monday's episode complete and unfiltered. In this uncut episode, we share the conversation we had with Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, the company using carbon recycling to turn it into ethanol and other important tools and materials. Check out the full episode here: https://iambio.simplecast.com/episodes/solving-an-unfashionable-problem

The fashion industry is notoriously wasteful. As the climate crisis becomes more of everyone’s problem, scientists and designers are combining efforts to make fashion more sustainable. From using greenhouse gasses to create new materials to developing totally biodegradable clothing and accessories, big fashion houses are trying to produce sustainable materials and make fashion look good and feel great. This episode features conversations with:Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTechAlejandra Espinosa, head of content at Luxiders MagazineBridgett Artise, sustainable fashion designer and professor at the Fashion Institute of TechnologyDoris de Guzman, biotech journalistEmilie Burfeind, creator of Sneature and teacher at the University of Art and Design at Offenbach at the Institute for Material Design

This is the I Am BIO uncut series, where we bring you a full interview from Monday's episode complete and unfiltered. In this uncut episode, we share the conversation we had with Dr. Reed Tuckson, founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID-19. Check out the full episode Voices of Vaccine Hesitancy here: https://iambio.simplecast.com/episodes/voices-of-vaccine-hesitancy

Dr. Reed Tuckson is the founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID-19. Learn more here: https://blackcoalitionagainstcovid.org/Learn more about the vaccines: https://www.covidvaccinefacts.org/

The I AM BIO podcast has gone on a brief hiatus while we reimagine the format, dream up interesting topics, and dive deep with riveting guests. Listen for a sneak preview into the new season.

Trailing in the polls this fall, President Trump dusted off the 2016 campaign playbook and went after the drug companies again. But channeling anger at the companies the whole world is depending on to end the pandemic was always dicey politics. Post-election, the Trump administration hastily issued a final rule setting Medicare Part B reimbursement rates at the lowest levels charged by counties in the developed world, which ration medicines and leave the sick untreated. BIO took the administration to court, and we won when a federal court issued an injunction blocking the rule.

The diversity of our adaptive immune system is why people are reacting so differently to the novel coronavirus. No two people present the virus the exact same way to their immune systems. We’ve evolved in this way as humans to ensure no virus can eradicate our species. Hosted by Jim Greenwood.

Millions of travelers ignored public health warnings and packed into airports over the holidays to see their loved ones. As a result, U.S. hospitals are bracing for the deadliest COVID surge yet this month. Meanwhile, Sherlock Biosciences, which has already made history once with CRISPR, seeks to do so again with an inexpensive, accurate home test that could be a global game-changer.

One day before 16-year-old Izzy Thorpe-Wall takes her first dose of Vertex’s stunning Cystic Fibrosis breakthrough, Thorpe and her mother, Clare, open up about their emotional journey and one brave girl’s determination to stay healthy long enough to meet this day of her dreams. Hosted by Jim Greenwood.

Historic distrust of government institutions, a growing partisan disdain for peer-reviewed science, Russian bots, physical threats against public health officials, and an open spigot of online misinformation and disinformation raise the troubling specter that tens of millions of Americans will forgo COVID vaccination and forestall herd immunity in the United States. Learn how believers in science are uniting to fight back.

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, which take its name from the center and brightest star in Orion’s Belt, is working on an RNAi therapy to destroy the genome of the novel coronavirus — and with it, its ability to replicate and kill. Hosted by Jim Greenwood.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier leads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s work to safely vaccinate the country. Whether the question is who to vaccine first, how to restore trust, or how to administer two doses of a vaccine stored at -70 degrees to a nation of 328 million people, she’s got the answers.

Covid threatens those whose immune systems can’t make enough neutralizing antibodies to fight off the viral invaders. But what if scientists could make super-potent antibodies in the lab and infuse them into newly infected patients? That’s exactly what the first FDA-authorized coronavirus antibody treatment has achieved. Its maker, Eli Lilly, has generated clinical evidence that their therapy can significantly reduce COVID hospitalization rates when taken early.

As the vaccine race enters the homestretch, Pfizer and Moderna both announced that their mRNA vaccines was 95 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 during Phase 3 clinical trials. Emergency use authorization could be just weeks away. The National Academy of Sciences released an influential report about who gets vaccinated first while companies scale up vaccine production. The Academy makes a compelling case that prioritizing those with risky healthy conditions and risky, essential jobs is the surest way to mitigate death, serious disease, rising case counts and growing socioeconomic crises in vulnerable communities across the country.

While Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has kindled a global dialogue about the ravages of climate change and the role of airline emissions, a Colorado biotech is putting forward a jaw-dropping alternative to flight shaming: actual jet fuel with no carbon footprint. Hosted by Jim Greenwood.

Joe Biden’s election as 46th President of the United States is a chance to soothe our bitter body politic so we can unite to defeat an enemy that infects and kills without regard to partisan affiliation.

The 2020 election will be held both during and about a global pandemic. Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf and Republican Rai Downs preview the stakes for the biotech industry and what the outcome will mean for America’s COVID response.

The first clinical study dedicated to preventing Alzheimer’s disease is now in its late stages. The participants are 300 members of the same Colombian family with a rare gene mutation that gives them a 100 percent chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Armed with this new data, could neuroscientists be closing in on an elusive breakthrough to defeat neurodegeneration?

As the pandemic lays bare the links between human and environmental health, neuroscience leader Biogen lays out the most aggressive fossil fuel elimination plan of any Fortune 500 company while doubling down on efforts to lead on clinical trial diversity and racial equity.

Biotechnology investors, armed with troves of data and “misfit” minds, have become key-decision makers in everything from when to open up the states to which medicines can turn the tide in this pandemic the quickest. As the BIO Investor Forum kicks off virtually today, a biomedical renaissance has Wall Street bullish on biotech’s future.

Overcrowded hospitals during the pandemic can pose treatment challenges for patients with other serious illnesses. As Kite Pharma CEO Christi Shaw says, “Cancer doesn’t stop in a crisis.” Neither do her company’s employees, who go to extraordinary lengths to get personalized CAR-T treatments to patients around the world. Hosted by Jim Greenwood.

The ability to produce COVID vaccines in record time only scratches the surface of what synthetic biology can do. Gingko Bioworks out of Boston is now 3-D printing millions of letters of DNA code and then using CRISPR to insert them into living cells, transforming what’s scientifically possible.

Two potentially deadly respiratory viruses — the coronavirus and the influenza virus — will test our health care system and American common sense this fall. As millions return to school, campus and work this fall, the 2020 flu season is shaping up to be something of a pandemic pressure test for our nation. Vaccinations, social distancing and mask-wearing will be the key to containing both flu and COVID and saving countless lives. Guest hosted by Phyllis Arthur.

Need a dose of inspiration in a time of national tragedy? A remarkable biotech breakthrough from Global Blood Therapeutics offers fresh hope to patients living with sickle-cell disease.

For years, leaders on the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense told Congress and the White House that it wasn’t a matter of if, but when, a pandemic would happen. Exploring the panel’s unheeded recommendations can give the United States a blueprint for what to do going forward to protect us from the coronavirus and future threats.

The pandemic has unleashed overwhelming levels of fear, isolation, anxiety and loss in our society. A CDC mental health survey this summer found that 1 in 10 people had “seriously considered” suicide within the last month. As America comes to grips with the severity of our ongoing mental health crisis, telepsychiatry has emerged as a virtual lifeline to help patients access treatment from home.

The engine powering Maryland vaccine maker Novavax is a recombinant nanoparticle platform that is impressing vaccinologists as well as government and nonprofit funders. Learn about the innovative biotech generating big buzz in the global covid vaccine race.

Patients with autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis have been forced to ration or skip doses of hydroxychloroquine during the pandemic due to shortages caused by off-label prescribing. Yet despite multiple FDA clinical studies that concluded the drug offers no clinical benefit against covid and may increase dangerous side effects; President Trump continues to use the bully pulpit to suggest otherwise. It's not like autoimmune patients — at greater risk of serious COVID disease, stress-induced flare-ups and vaccine complications — didn’t have enough to worry about already.

As Moderna breaks the record for speed in starting the final stage of human testing for its covid vaccine, new BIO CEO Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath tackles the thorny issue of how to best structure the historic Phase 3 clinical trial. The Boston biotech’s Chief Medical Officer reveals the strategy to test vaccine efficacy on communities of color and others hardest hit by the coronavirus. Hosted by Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath