The Bio Report

The rise of antibiotic resistance and the threat of emerging viral pathogens have created global public health threats. Recce Pharmaceuticals is developing a new class of synthetic anti-infectives that it says can overcome the hyper-cellular mutation of bacteria and viruses. What’s more, the company says their potency doesn’t diminish even with repeated use. We spoke to James Graham, CEO of Recce, about its synthetic anti-infectives, how they work, and why they can be used repeatedly against a broad range of bacteria and viruses.

Whether in an operating room or in a trauma situation, the ability to quickly stop bleeding represents a critical need in healthcare. At the end of December, Cresilon filed for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to market its hemostatic gel to rapidly stop bleeding. The filing follows the launch of Vitigel, Cresilon’s hemostatic gel for the animal health market. We spoke to Joe Landolina, co-founder and CEO of Cresilon, about how he developed the plant-derived gel, the significant need he is seeking to address, and how the gel is able to halt bleeding in a matter of seconds.

In cancer, synthetic lethality refers to a state in which two genetic mutations that alone may allow a cancer cell to survive will kill it when they exist simultaneously. Cyteir Therapeutics is seeking to exploit that strategy with what it calls next-generation synthetically lethal therapies to treat a wide range of cancers. We spoke to Markus Renschler, president and CEO of Cyteir therapeutics, about synthetic lethality, Cyteir’s pipeline, and life as a small public biotech in 2022.

AI Dynamics is seeking to make AI accessible. Though its NeoPulse platform can be used across industries, the life sciences is one of the key markets the company is targeting with its technology being used to do everything from target identification for drug development to diagnosing and triaging TB patients by the sounds of their cough. We spoke to Rajeev Dutt, CEO and president of AI Dynamics, about the company’s core AI technology, how it seeks to make AI accessible, and why he believes it can transform drug development and healthcare by moving the needle on costs.

Social anxiety disorder can cause debilitating physical and emotional manifestations when a person is doing such things as meeting new people, speaking in public, or interviewing for a job. It can cause sweating, a rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, and dizziness. The fear of embarrassment and humiliation can lead to depression and even addiction. VistaGen Therapeutics is developing intranasally delivered therapies for CNS disorders that can provide rapid relief at the onset of an episode much like someone with asthma might use a rescue inhaler. We spoke to Shawn Singh, CEO of VistaGen, about social anxiety disorder, the need for innovative approaches to treat that and other CNS conditions, and the potential for rapid onset therapies to treat a range of mental health conditions.

Humacyte’s human acellular vessels are experimental, engineered, off-the-shelf replacement vessels that are being developed for vascular repair, reconstruction, and replacement. The vessels are designed to overcome long-standing limitations in vessel tissue repair and replacement. Though not yet approved, the manufactured vessels are getting a real-world test as the company has been providing them to hospitals in Ukraine to treat wounded civilians and soldiers with vascular injuries. We spoke to Laura Niklason, CEO of Humacyte, about the company’s human acellular vessels, how they are produced, and the potential needs they can address.

The emergence of tyrosine kinase inhibitors represented a major advance in the fight against cancer, but the ability of tumors to mutate and develop resistance to these therapies remains a challenge. Theseus Pharmaceuticals is developing what it calls “pan-variant” kinase inhibitors in the hopes of outsmarting tumors by anticipating the range of kinases that may drive their spread and growth as they change. We spoke to Tim Clackson, president and CEO of Theseus Pharmaceuticals, about its structural-based approach to drug development, how it determines the appropriate targets for its pan-variant kinase inhibitors, and why it believes its next-generation TKIs can overcome the challenge of drug resistance.

The emerging understanding of the role the microbiome plays in wellness and disease is opening up a large number of potential therapeutic targets in the millions of genes that drive the microorganisms that live within the body. Eligo Bioscience is developing a new class of precision medicines that uses gene editing to address the expression of pathogenic genes in the microbiome to treat not only infectious disease, but other conditions such as inflammatory diseases and cancer as well. We spoke to Xavier Duportet, CEO of Eligo Bioscience, about the company’s use of synthetic DNA to target bacterial genes, its platform technology, and the wide range of conditions that can be addressed through this approach.

While cancer immunotherapies have been promising, CAR T cell therapies have been costly, effective on less than half of patients, and focused on hematologic cancers. Cytovia Therapeutics is enlisting natural killer cells, part of the innate immune system, to develop off-the-shelf immunotherapies to treat liquid and solid tumors. The company is leveraging a cluster of technologies to produce CAR NK cell therapies, edited NK cells to enhance their targeting, and NK engagers to redirect NK cells toward tumor targets. We spoke to Daniel Teper, co-founder and CEO of Cytovia, about the case for NK immunotherapies, Cytovia’s platform technologies, and the company’s pipeline of therapies in preclinical development.

Neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, and frontotemporal dementia have been difficult conditions for drug developers to target. Coya Therapeutics is approaching these conditions as diseases of immune system dysfunction to address the neuroinflammation that underlies them We spoke to Adrian Hepner, president and chief medical officer of Coya, about the role a hyper immune response plays in the progress of neurodegenerative diseases, how the company’s experimental regulatory T cell therapy works to halt that, and its pipeline in development.

The introduction of precision medicine has revolutionized the treatment of cancer and other diseases, but mental health conditions have not benefitted from the same type of treatment innovation. Alto Neuroscience is working to move psychiatry away from a trial-and-error approach to develop targeted medicines with the use of biomarkers to match the right drug to the right patient. We spoke to Amit Etkin, founder and CEO of Alto Neuroscience, about its efforts to develop precision medicines for mental health disorders, its AI platform for biomarker discovery, and its therapeutic pipeline in development.

The use of protein degraders is a promising area of emerging small molecule therapies. Rather than inhibit disease-causing proteins, degraders use a natural cellular process to break them down. Origami Therapeutics is using its proprietary drug discovery platform to develop novel protein degraders to target neurodegenerative diseases. The approach allows the company to target proteins that are considered undruggable because they lack an identified binding site. We spoke to Beth Hoffman, founder and CEO of Origami, about its platform for developing degraders, its focus on neurodegenerative diseases, and how its looking to potential partners to exploit the full potential of its platform technology.

Cancer immunotherapies have shown great promise, but many tumors can develop resistance as the changing tumor microenvironment can help cancers evade detection and allow cancer cells to proliferate. Teon Therapeutics is developing immno-oncology therapies for difficult to treat cancers that are designed to have the dual effect of restoring immune activity while suppressing cancer cell proliferation. We spoke to Serge Messerlian, CEO of Teon Therapeutics, about what happens when immunotherapies fail, the unique approach Teon is taking, and how the dual activity of its cancer therapies can restore immune activity while suppressing cancer cell proliferation.

Existing anticoagulants can prevent life-threatening blood clots for people with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. The problem is that because of their mechanism of action, they also work to suppress the body’s ability to stop bleeding as it should. As a result, these therapies can be under utilized by patients who need them. Anthos Therapeutics is developing an experimental monoclonal antibody that can suppress coagulation without disrupting hemostasis, the biological process of stopping bleeding. We spoke to John Glasspool, CEO of Anthos, about the problems of existing anticoagulants, the novel target its monoclonal antibody acts on, and how it is able to uncouple the pathways for thrombosis and hemostasis.

Though the search for eternal youth has long been the fodder for myths and legends, science has been pushing us closer toward extending healthy years of life and has set some people off on efforts to defy death altogether. Peter Ward, in his new book The Price of Immortality: The Race to Live Forever, explores a subculture of immortality seekers who have turned to cryonics, as well as efforts to merge man with technology as a way to escape death. The growing understanding of the biology of aging and advances in regenerative medicine, though, are creating the potential to alter notions of human lifespans. We spoke to Ward about his book, distinguishing science fact from science fiction, and the growing understanding of the biology of aging that offers the potential for extending healthy years of life.

About 15 years ago, Harvard Business School professor Gary Pisano took at look at how small entrepreneurial biotechs fared against large and mature pharmaceutical companies and found the two sectors were about the same when it came to R&D productivity. Now, a new book From Breakthrough to Blockbuster: The Business of Biotechnology finds that the biotechnology industry is far more effective at bringing innovative therapies to market than Big Pharma and offers a prescription for large drug companies to decentralize decision-making to improve their ability to innovate. We spoke to venture investor and former biotech executive Don Drakeman, co-author of the book, about its findings, how decentralized decision-making can produce greater innovation, and lessons from COVID-19.

Poseida Therapeutics is leveraging its set of platform technologies to develop a range of next-generation cell and gene therapies. By using these technologies, alone or in combination, the company said it’s able to overcome limitations of the current generation of cell and gene therapies. The company’s most advanced candidates in its pipeline include a set of allogenic CAR T therapies. We spoke to Mark Gergen, CEO of Poseida, about the company’s efforts to develop off-the-shelf CAR T therapies, its platform technologies, and why it believes its CAR T cells will provide advantages over competitors’ therapies.

Though structure-based drug discovery has been long been used, technologic advances have given this approach greater power. ShouTi believes its next-generation, computational, structure-based drug discovery platform will allow it to develop small molecule drugs that are superior in safety and efficacy to biologic and peptide therapies its seeking to replace. We spoke to Raymond Stevens, CEO of ShouTi, about the company’s structure-based drug discovery platform, how it works, and why he believes it will be able to produce small molecule drugs that will be superior to biologics.

Virus-like drug conjugates, or VDCs, are a new class of cancer therapies Aura Biosciences is developing to target a broad range of solid tumors. These therapies have a dual mechanism of action. They deliver a toxic payload to cancer cells, but also activate a secondary immune mediated response to kill cancer cells. We spoke to Elisabet de los Pinos, CEO of Aura Biosciences, about the company’s VDCs, how they work, and its pipeline in development.

While the emergence of CAR-T therapies have been promising, these autologous cellular therapies are costly to produce since they require taking T cells from a patient being treated, altering them, and then infusing them back into the patient. Cellectis is among a growing list of companies pursuing off-the-shelf CAR-T therapies. The company’s U-CARTs, or universal chimeric antigen receptor T cells, are allogenic products that can be standardized and carry both time and cost advantages. We spoke to André Choulika, CEO of Cellectis, about the company’s off-the-shelf CAR-T therapies, the platform technology behind them, and its programs in development.

Though it’s been nearly 20 years since the Human Genome Project provided a blueprint for human biology, it still left much work to be done to understand health and disease at a molecular level. The Sweden-based Human Protein Atlas, which is seeking to map human proteins in cells, tissues, and organs, recently published significant updates to the open-access resource. We spoke to Mathias Uhlén, director of the Human Protein Atlas, about how the atlas is changing the diagnosis and treatment of disease, what’s known about the human proteome to date, and how this understanding will be essential to brining about an era of precision medicine.

In 2020, CSL Behring entered into a global license and commercialization agreement with UniQure for the company’s experimental hemophilia B gene therapy. The expected, one-and-done treatment carries the potential to free people with the genetic bleeding disease from reliance on regular infusions of clotting factor IX for which they are deficient. We spoke to Steve Pascoe, senior vice president and head of therapeutic areas and development strategy for R&D at CSL about hemophilia B, how the gene therapy fits into CSL’s broader therapeutic offerings, and the encouraging results from the recent pivotal study.

The promise of data-driven medicine is that it can accelerate the diagnosis of disease, provide patients with the most effective treatments for their particular conditions, and improve drug development. Sophia Genetics is drawing on extensive information from its global, data-sharing network to make data-driven medicine a reality. We spoke to Emily Paul, product director of platform for Sophia Genetics, about Sophia’s vision for data-driven medicine, the challenges of managing vast amounts of data and turning it into actionable information, and how its changing patient care today.

The growing convergence of information technology and biotechnology are creating a compelling new group of companies that live in both these worlds at once. Lux Capital, which has long invested in both sectors, has a growing portfolio of these emerging TechBio companies. We spoke to Adam Goulburn, partner at Lux Capital, about his investment process, how he tempers the promise of technology with management realities and market timelines, and the changing landscape for venture investing.

Cell and gene therapies are among the most promising approaches to treating diseases because they carry the potential to cure chronic and progressive conditions. The problem is that the high cost of producing these therapies, which often need to be tailored to individual patients, limits access to them, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Caring Cross is seeking to change that through its nonprofit model that focuses on enabling hospitals and health systems to manufacture advanced therapies locally and deliver them in a cost-effective manner. We spoke to Boro Dropulić, co-founder of Caring Cross, about how the nonprofit is seeking to lower the cost of these therapies, how it operates, and why its initially focused on HIV and sickle cell disease.

KeifeRx is developing a pipeline of orally delivered tyrosine kinase inhibitors to treat neurodegenerative diseases. It has a portfolio of these drugs that it has optimized to penetrate the brain, clear damaged cells, and treat these conditions through the bulk disposal of disease-causing toxic proteins. It believes its approach offers the potential to significantly improve on current treatments, which it calls primarily palliative because they fail to adequately eliminate the toxic proteins at the root of these deadly diseases. We spoke to KeifeRx CEO Chris Hoyt and co-founder and head of the company’s scientific advisory board Charbel Moussa, about how it has repurposed and optimized a cancer therapy to treat neurodegenerative diseases, and why it may have broad applications across these conditions.

When AzurRX BioPharma merged with First Wave Bio last year it renamed itself First Wave BioPharma. The company is developing targeted, non-systemic therapies for gastrointestinal diseases with its lead candidate niclosamide, an approved therapy to treat tapeworms that it believes has anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. The company is developing niclosamide in six GI-indications including COVID-19 related GI disease, Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor-associated colitis and diarrhea in advanced oncology patients, ulcerative proctitis/ proctosigmoiditis, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s disease. We spoke to James Sapirstein, CEO of First Wave BioPharma, about the merger, niclosamide, and its potential to treat a range of gastrointestinal disorders.

HCW Biologics is developing immunotherapies to target chronic inflammation associated with aging. The company’s therapeutics are designed to disrupt the link between chronic, low-grade inflammation and age-related disorders. The company believes this type of inflammation is a significant contributing factor to cancer and several chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, and autoimmune disease. We spoke to Hing Wong, CEO of HCW Biologics, about the link between chronic inflammation and diseases of aging, the company’s immunotherapies, and its platform for developing therapies that target this unwanted inflammation to treat cancer and other diseases.

As 2021 fades into the history books, it will be remembered as one with exuberant IPOs, punishing aftermarkets, and a lingering pandemic that once again is turning the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference into a virtual event. We continue our annual tradition of sitting down with STAT Senior Writer Adam Feuerstein to discuss the year that was in biotech, the best and worst CEOs of 2021, and what’s ahead in the new year.

The p53 protein is known as the “guardian of the genome.” It plays an essential role in suppressing tumors. Rain Therapeutics is targeting a regulator of p53 that is overexpressed in certain cancer and can inactivate it, allowing certain cancers to grow and progress. We spoke to Avanish Vellanki, chairman and CEO of Rain Therapeutics, about the company’s experimental precision therapy milademetan, how it works, and its potential to treat a range of cancers.

Though HIV has fallen out of the headlines, the virus continues to represent a significant public health threat. American Gene Technologies is developing an experimental cell therapy that it says is potentially curative for HIV. We spoke to Jeff Galvin, CEO and founder of American Gene Technologies, about the state of HIV, the company’s experimental cell therapy for HIV, and why the one-time treatment has the potential to free patients from chronic use of antiviral therapies.

The COVID pandemic has called attention to the United States’ reliance on a supply chain that makes access to critical medicines dependent on the ability to make them overseas and ship them in a timely manner. At the same time, harnessing new ways of making biologics, is making it possible to gain significant savings over traditional manufacturing approaches. rBIO is betting it will be able to cost-effectively produce biologics in the United States and its starting with insulin to prove its point. We spoke to Cameron Owen, co-founder of rBIO, about the how the company is engineering different organism to increase the efficiency of biomanufacturing, why it is starting with insulin, and why reshoring biomanufacturing should be viewed as a critical issue for the United States.

The use of smartphones, low-cost sensors, and ubiquitous connectivity is changing the way researchers think about recruiting, monitoring, and interacting with participants in biomedical research. The use of evolving technology is not just eliminating geographic barriers to participation, but also enabling the collection of new types of data. The Scripps Research Digital Trials Center is pioneering the use of digital health technologies to re-engineer the way studies are conducted. We spoke to Edward Ramos, director of digital clinical trials for Scripps Research Digital Trials Center, about how digital health technology is transforming biomedical research, how it is changing what is possible, and some of the ongoing research projects the center is conducting.

The body has a natural cellular recycling machinery known as the ubiquitin proteasome system that breaks down unwanted proteins. Kymera Therapeutics has developed a drug discovery platform that exploits this natural biologic process to target disease-causing proteins that had been previously considered undruggable using small molecule therapies. We spoke to Nello Mainolfi, co-founder, president, and CEO of Kymera, about the company’s discovery platform, how it exploits a natural housecleaning mechanism within the body, and why this approach could enable the targeting of proteins that previously had been considered beyond the reach of small molecule therapies.

About 70 percent of daily deaths are caused by aging or age-related diseases. The newly formed Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, or A4LI, is an independent nonprofit advocating for greater investment in scientific research, new measures to recognize the value of extending healthy life expectancy, and steps to expedite the development gerotherapies and regenerative medicines. We spoke to Sonia Arrison, chair of the Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, about the need the new organization is seeking to address, its agenda, and how therapeutic advances may be able to alter our notions of longevity.

As concerns about the use of animals to test drugs, scientist have sought new ways to analyze the efficacy and toxicity of their products. Genoskin is seeking to enable better, faster, and safer drug development through the use of its proprietary ex vivo human skin platforms for preclinical drug testing. The company provides natural human skin obtained from patients that it maintains in a living and functional state. We spoke to Pascal Descargues, founder and CEO of Genoskin, about the company’s ex vivo human skin models, how they provide an alternative to animal experiments, and how they can accelerate the generation of reliable human data in drug development.

While cell therapies have been advancing rapidly, therapies that rely on taking a patient’s own cells, altering them, and reinfusing them back into a patient are costly. Part of the reason why is that the process for doing this is labor intensive. Cellino has developed a platform for producing personalized autologous cell therapies in an automated and scalable fashion. We spoke to Marinna Madrid, co-founder and vice president of product, for Cellino, about the company’s platform technology for cell-based therapies, how it works, and why it may help enable a new era of personalized regenerative therapies.

Integrins are a diverse family of proteins that play an essential role in many cellular biological processes. They also have been implicated a number of autoimmune, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases, as well as fibrosis and cancer. While a number of biologics have come to market that target integrins, drug developers have been stymied in efforts to develop oral therapies that can target these proteins. Morphic Therapeutic is developing a new generation of oral integrin drugs it believes can transform the treatment model for a range of serious medical conditions. We spoke to Praveen Tipirneni, president and CEO of Morphic Therapeutic, about intgerins, the challenges of using small molecule therapies to target them, and why this can have a dramatic effect on how patients with a range of conditions get treated.

As the treatment of cancers has moved toward an increasing emphasis on the role the immune system can play in fighting tumors, a range of new ways to enlist and train the immune system have emerged. Candel Therapeutics is developing oncolytic viral immunotherapies, which it says combines anti-tumor activity while also stimulating the immune system. We spoke to Paul Peter Tak, president and CEO of Candel Therapeutics, oncolytic viral immunotherapies, how they work, and why they may be able to bring benefits to the treatment of a range of solid tumors.

The discovery and cell line development of biotherapeutics has been traditionally a distinct process. Absci is taking what it describes as a more wholistic approach by collapsing the process down and addressing the functionality and manufacturability of therapeutic candidates simultaneously. We spoke to Sean McClain, founder and CEO of AbSci, about how it is using AI and synthetic biology to reinvent the discovery process, how this is expanding the therapeutic potential of proteins, and how it translates into time and cost benefits.

While CAR-T cell therapies have been a promising new area of cancer treatments, they are costly to produce, have had limited success in treating solid tumors, and can carry sometimes serious side effects. Shoreline Biosciences is developing off-the-shelf natural killer and macrophage cellular immunotherapies derived from induced pluripotent stem cells for cancer, inflammatory, and genetic diseases. The company programs these cells to target and kill tumors, as well as repair tissue homeostasis. The company said its approach allows for the creation of a streamlined, affordable, and scalable manufacturing process that can deliver cell therapy treatments to patients in a faster and more cost-effective manner. We spoke to Kleanthis Xanthopoulos, co-founder and CEO of Shoreline Biosciences, about the company’s off-the-shelf cell therapies, its focus on the innate immune system, and how it’s leveraging its technology through recent partnerships with BeiGene and Kite Pharma.

The ability to discover new drugs can be limited by the tools and technologies small companies can access. Alloy Therapeutics says it democratizing access to a set of technologies and capabilities that are foundational for discovering and developing biologics. We spoke to Errik Anderson, CEO of Alloy Therapeutics, discusses the challenges of drug discovery the company is seeking to address, its business model, and the dealmaking it has done to build beyond platform technologies to become involved in the discovery and development of therapeutic candidates.

One of the consequences of the proliferation of genetic sequencing has been a shortage of genetic counselors. It’s left existing counselors to manage a heavy load as its increased the demands on onboarding patients, consenting them, educating them and interpreting results. The digital health company Igentify is helping providers and genetic counselors scale their services with its AI-based platform that extends through the entire genetic testing process. We spoke to Doron Behar, co-founder and CEO of Igentify, about its platform technology, how it works, and why it will allow genetic counselors to handle a much larger volume of patients.

While CAR-T cell therapies have emerged as promising anti-cancer agents, their success have been focused on hematologic cancers. ArsenalBio is working to develop more robust cell therapies capable to treating a broader range of cancers by using synthetic biology to make them programable. We spoke to Ken Drazen, CEO of ArsenalBio, about the company’s next-generation T cell therapies, how it is able to program functions into these cells to overcome solid tumor defenses, and the company’s collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb announced at the start of the year.

Liquid biopsies have become associated with the area of oncology as they hold the promise of using fragments of DNA circulating in the blood that have been shed by tumors to provide early indications of recurrence and customize treatment strategies. The same approach, though, can be used for infectious diseases. Karius has developed a liquid biopsy test to provide rapid and non-invasive detections of more than 1000 pathogens from a single blood draw. The Karius test helps clinicians avoid invasive, low-yield, and sequential diagnostic tests that can delay treatment for the most vulnerable hospitalized patients. We spoke to Alec Ford, CEO of Karius, about the company’s liquid biopsy test, how it works, and how it can change the treatment of immunocompromised patients.

The World Health Organization estimates that 270 million people worldwide suffer from chronic hepatitis B virus infections, making it a global epidemic that affects more than twice the number of people with hepatitis C and HIV combined. HBV is a leading cause of chronic liver disease and the need for liver transplantation, with up to 1 million people worldwide dying from HBV-related causes each year. While current treatments reduce the viral load, they don’t eliminate it. Assembly Bio is developing a pipeline of therapies aimed at curing HBV. We spoke to John McHutchison, president and CEO of Assembly Bio, about HBV, the company’s efforts to develop a new class of drugs to treat the condition, and what he’s learned from his work at Gilead successfully developing and commercializing therapies for HCV. A note to listeners: As we were publishing this episode Assembly Bio announced plans to discontinue development of its phase 2 candidate ABI-H2158 because safety concerns. The company said it will focus on advancing ongoing triple combination studies and earlier pipeline candidates.

Psychedelics have become an area of increasing investment and drug development activities as an emerging group of companies is working to develop these compounds as treatments for neurologic and psychiatric conditions. That’s because of the ability of these drugs to target serotonin, which plays a critical role in the regulation of cognitive function, emotions, memory, and the sleep-wake cycle. Bright Minds Biosciences is developing a pipeline of psychedelics as the next generation of serotonin modulators to treat neuropsychiatric, seizure, and pain disorders by restoring serotonin activity to normal levels. We spoke to Gideon Shapiro, vice president of discovery at Bright Minds Biosciences, about the role serotonin plays in the health of the brain, why psychedelics have emerged as compelling therapeutics for a range of conditions, and the company’s pipeline of drugs in development.

Type 2 diabetes affects nearly 500 million people worldwide and more than 34 million people in the United States. The disease carries an elevated risks of heart attack, stroke, and other serious complications. Fractyl Health believes the approach to treating diabetes by controlling blood sugar levels and other symptoms has been faulty. Research has implicated a critical role the first section of intestine, known as the duodenum, plays in the condition and the company has developed a minimally invasive endoscopic procedure that it believes can correct the problem. We spoke to Harith Rajagopalan, CEO of Fractyl Health, about the company’s experimental procedural therapy to target the root cause of diabetes, how it works, and the path forward to commercialization.

The efforts to develop drugs for neurologic and psychiatric conditions has been plagued with failure. Herophilus is combining organoids derived from patient stem cells along with machine learning to gain new insight into the biology underlying these diseases and discover and develop more effective drugs. We spoke to Saul Kato, co-founder and CEO of Herophilus, about the drug development challenges for these diseases, how his company is using organoids and machine learning to better understand how to target them, and its growing pipeline therapeutic candidates.

While the class of immunotherapies known as checkpoint inhibitors has brought a promising new approach to treating cancer, the development of resistance to these therapies limits the number of patients they benefit. Portage Biotech is building a set of platform technologies and a pipeline of immuno-oncology therapeutic candidates to address this problem. We spoke to Ian Walters, CEO of Portage about the problem of resistance, the company’s pipeline of candidates, and its portfolio-based business model.