Discovery/R&D

1. Bioengineering Human Tissue With Humacyte's Dr. Heather Prichard 1/5/2022

   Humacyte COO Dr. Heather Prichard joins the Business of Biotech for a discussion on the company's pipeline of candidates for the repair, replacement, and reconstruction of human vascular vessels. The company recently scaled the production of its implantable bioengineered human tissues from 10 to 200 per day to meet Phase 3 vascular trauma and arteriovenous access trials. On today's episode, Dr. Prichard shares the company's scale-up story and the science and engineering behind a unique approach to regenerative medicine using human tissue.

2. New Apps For AI in mRNA With Anima Biotech's Yochi Slonim 5/5/2024

   From San Francisco’s Silicon Valley to Tel Aviv’s Silicon Wadi, software business entrepreneur Yochi Slonim made a name for himself in tech hubs around the globe. Notably, he was co-founder of billion-dollar Mercury Interactive, which HP acquired for $4.5 billion, and previous to that a leader at Tecnomatix, which sold to UGS and was acquired by Siemens. Those big deals that came on the heels of several other Yochi Slonim software startups. But Slonim's not in software development anymore.

3. Maximizing mRNA With Precision Nanosystems' James Taylor, Ph.D. 11/8/2021

   Dr. James Taylor believes that genomic medicine will prove the most revolutionary thing the life sciences industries have ever seen, and that it will ultimately become the largest therapeutic class. Dr. Taylor is president and CEO at Precision Nanosystems. He chalks up the genomic nature of biology, the fact that genomes are information-based, the breadth and validation of the genomic medicine toolbox, and the democratization of genomic medicine development as reasons to be bullish. Join Dr. Taylor and me for a conversation on why RNA and DNA delivery are game-changers, and what Precision Nanosystems is doing to push the ball downfield.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. Therapeutic Molecules From Moss with eleva's Andreas Schaaf And Björn Cochlovius, Ph.D. 4/20/2023

   We kick this conversation off with the writer Elizabeth Gilbert's take on moss, which she so eloquently dubs a "resurrection engine." Gilbert almost certainly didn't realize the potential of moss to play a resurrectional role in human health, but Eleva Biotech's Andreas Schaaf and Björn Cochlovius do. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, we learn about a company that's developing proteins to fuel its own pipeline — and its partners' — from a most ubiquitous plant that grows virtually everywhere. It grows particularly well in bioreactors outfitted with custom grow lights and presents some significant advantages over CHO cell line development.

7. ML-Enabled Drug Discovery With LabGenius' James Field, Ph.D. 7/6/2023

   We explore the intersection of tech and bio with Dr. James Field, founder and CEO of LabGenius. If you're concerned with what ML will do to — or for — your biopharma business, don't miss this episode

8. CAR T-cells For Ovarian Cancers with Anixa Biosciences' Amit Kumar, Ph.D. 3/8/2022

   While success has been seen in animal models, solid tumors have proved a vexing challenge for CAR T-cell therapies. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're joined by Anixa Biosciences Chairman, President, & CEO Amit Kumar, Ph.D. Dr. Kumar shares on the company's progress with a CAR T-cell therapy that aims to attack both tumor cells and the tumor vasculature, in hopes that it might be the first to destroy solid breast and ovarian cancers.

9. The AI Impact with Generate:Biomedicines' Mike Nally 3/24/2024

   Few drug discovery and development concepts are as hyped, and as such, draw as much polarity from drug developers, as machine learning and artificial intelligence. One company on the bullish end of the spectrum is Flagship Pioneering's Generate: Biomedicines, which bills itself at the "intersection of machine learning, biological engineering, and medicine."

10. Physician + Biotech Builder with Tome Biosciences' Rahul Kakkar, M.D. 4/21/2024

    Novel technologies aren’t interesting to Rahul Kakkar, M.D. unless they help patients. Sounds rational, but it’s actually a unique perspective in a platform-crazed biotech industry. Dr. Kakkar’s worldview is shaped by his work as a physician—work he continues at Brigham and Women’s Hospital even as he builds Tome Biosciences, where he serves as President & CEO.