Discovery/R&D

1. Leading A tRNA Startup With Alltrna's Michelle Werner 5/14/2025

   On this week's Business of Biotech, Michelle Werner, CEO at Alltrna, talks transfer RNA (tRNA) therapy with host Ben Comer and guest co-host Anna Rose Welch, editorial and community director at Advancing RNA. Werner explains why a single engineered tRNA therapy has the potential to treat "hundreds, if not thousands," of rare genetic diseases, and how her own child's rare disease diagnosis shaped her career and approach to drug development. Werner also discusses Alltrna's use of AI and machine learning for drug optimization, the company's planned use of basket trials, and more.

2. 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.

3. Pioneering Antiviral Conjugates With Cidara's Dr. Jeff Stein 3/1/2021

   Cidara Therapeutics President and CEO Dr. Jeff Stein joins the Business of Biotech to discuss his career mission to battle microbial organisms and his company's development of a novel approach to producing immunotherapeutic antivirals that couple potent antivirals to a human antibody fragment. We discuss the company's manufacturing approach, which Dr. Stein anticipates yielding a low-cost alternative to standards of care in multiple antiviral indications.

4. The Business And Science Of Obesity With Roger Cone, Ph.D., Founder Of Courage Therapeutics 7/9/2025

   On this week's episode, Roger Cone, Ph.D., Founder and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board at Courage Therapeutics, talks about discovering obesity-related protein receptors in the brain, how he spun his academic discoveries out into a biotech company developing new obesity drugs, the need for obesity treatments with fewer side effects than currently available GLP-1 therapies, and the value of pairing scientific leadership with a strong business partner as CEO.

5. AI-Driven Biologics With Fountain Therapeutics' William Greene, M.D 2/28/2022

   With its hypothesis-free, target-free, AI-driven drug discovery platform, Fountain Therapeutics is turning the traditional drug discovery pathway on its ear to address a variety of age-related disease. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Fountain CEO William Greene, M.D. joins us to discuss the approach, its rationale, and how the company is applying substantial support from the likes of Eli Lilly, Alexandria Venture Investments, R42 Group, Khosla Ventures, and Nan Fung Life Sciences.

6. Building Cell Therapy Companies With Kenai Therapeutics' Nick Manusos 12/22/2025

   On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Nick Manusos, CEO at Kenai Therapeutics, talks about his experiences building cell therapy spinouts from FujiFilm Cellular Dynamics, learning from big pharma decision-making processes, and dosing the first patient with Kenai's allogeneic neuron replacement cell therapy for Parkinson's disease.

7. Fibroblasts In Regenerative Medicine With FibroBiologics' Pete O'Heeron & Dr. Hamid Khoja 6/21/2022

   FibroBiologics Chairman, CEO, & Founder Pete O'Heeron shares the journey that led him from clinical care to biopharma entrepreneurship, and he's joined by Chief Scientific Officer Hamid Khoja, Ph.D., who explains the manufacturing technology that's driving the company's exploitation of fibroblasts to develop regenerative therapies for indications ranging from degenerative disk disease and multiple sclerosis to cancer immunotherapies and therapeutics.

8. Precision Drug Delivery with Ampersand Biomedicines' Jason Gardner, Ph.D. 4/10/2024

   Ampersand Biomedicines CEO Jason Gardner, Ph.D. first took the leap from a global pharmaceutical giant to a startup at the forefront of transplant medicine innovation. Since that time, he's seen most of the ups and the downs that come with biotech leadership, and in his latest venture with the Flagship Pioneering-backed Ampersand, he's putting all those hard-fought lessons to good use.

9. RNA-Based Therapeutics With Nutcracker Therapeutics' Dr. Geoff Nosrati 11/21/2022

   Nutcracker Therapeutics is a preclinical biopharma company developing multimodal RNA-based therapeutics for HPV-driven tumors, T-cell lymphoma, and Genitourinary tumors. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Chief Business Officer Geoff Nosrati, Ph.D. offers a comprehensive view of the RNA-based therapeutics landscape and sheds light on what he perceives as an advantageous position at Nutcracker — the capacity to manufacture RNA in-house. If you're curious about the expanding science behind RNA-based therapeutics and their application in biotech, this conversation with a scientist-turned-chief business officer (Nosrati earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) is a can't-miss episode.

10. Digital Transformation In Cell Therapy with Organicell Drs. Mari Mitrani & Michael Bellio 5/3/2021

    Drs. Mari Mitrani, CSO and Michael Bellio, Laboratory Director are young pioneers in the study of the therapeutic potential of exosomes. Their research leans heavily into the digital realm, leveraging computational biology, bioinformatics, large-scale sequencing, proteomics, and mass spectrometry to analyze perinatal tissue-secreted exosomes and their impact on a host of indications the company is exploring. On this episode of The Business Of Biotech, Drs. Mitrani and Bellio offer insight into the digital discovery and manufacturing automation technologies in use at Organicell.