Finance & Capital Markets

  1. Biotech M&A Anomalies With Allan Shaw 8/22/2022

    While many clinical-stage biopharmas are contracting or holding the line through the current market slump, Portage Biotech leaders Ian Walters, Allan Shaw, and company are making moves. The company recently acquired Tarus Therapeutics and iOx Therapeutics Ltd., extending its pipeline and positioning itself to meet some aggressive investor expectations. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Shaw dissects the deals, digging into the M&A strategy at Portage and offering advice from the batter's box to leaders of early-stage biotechs.

  2. 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.

  3. Episode 5: Finding Funding In Volatile Times With Ben Zeskind 8/13/2020

    Ben Zeskind launched his biotech, Immuneering, in the throes of the Great Recession. The company earned a $20 million series A round to fund the development of its pipeline at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Along the way, it bootstrapped its way from bioinformatics company to fledgling biopharma. On this episode of The Business Of Biotech, Zeskind shares his experience-based wisdom on finding funding in volatile times.

  4. Financing Biopharma Innovation With Allan Shaw 12/19/2022

    Friend and frequent guest Allan Shaw rejoins the Business of Biotech to reflect on his recent presentation on innovative biotech financing at the BioFuture event in NYC. We also dig into Bruce Booth's "Atlas Venture Year In Review," revisiting and unpacking some quoteworthy material and metrics from both sources. Allan offers up plenty of prognostication and professional insight in a preview of what's to come in 2023, complete with his signature "Allanisms" and colorful analogies. A can't-miss episode as we round the turn to a new year!

  5. Art Of The Pivot With Elevation Oncology's Joe Ferra 1/3/2024

    Relatively new CEO Joseph Ferra has orchestrated some pretty significant change at Elevation Oncology in the two(ish) years since the Business of Biotech last hosted the company. In that short time, Ferra advanced from CFO to CEO, a move that aligned very closely with the company's difficult decision to shelve the late phase 2 anti-HER3 monoclonal antibody candidate it was founded on.

  6. Backpacks And Biotech With Luke Timmerman 11/15/2023

    From his vantage point as an independent biotech journalist, Luke Timmerman has been watching the expansions and retractions of the industry for a couple of decades now. His unique perspective is hard to equal, and that perspective is, despite tough markets and tepid public sentiment, decidedly bullish. Luke's optimism is fed by sound logic gained from a career spent in observation mode, watching the development of purpose-built tools matched to address the fragility of human biology.

  7. Funding Alzheimer's Tx Dev with ADDF's Karen Harris 3/31/2024

    We've really been looking forward to dropping this episode with Karen Harris, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Mission-Related Investing at the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation. While the markets have warmed a bit since we recorded this episode, Karen's thoughtful perspective on the sometimes tumultuous Alzheimer's therapeutics space is valuable to any drug developer working in the cognitive medicines arena.

  8. Veteran Advice From The C-Suite With Citius' Leonard Mazur 10/4/2023

    Leonard Mazur has been in the business of biotech for a long, long time, and he has no intention of stopping now. He’s faced challenges won, lost, and ongoing, and he’s willing to share his experiences—from winning FDA approvals to bootstrapping his current effort at Citius Pharmaceuticals—with the transparent confidence of an industry veteran.

  9. True DEI Value in Biopharma with Arcellx's Rami Elghandour 6/16/2024

    Asked about his company’s rapid rise since taking the helm in 2021, Arcellx CEO Rami Elghandour cites a few critical and risky decisions, the execution of some specific people on his all-star team, and a relentless commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Before you skepticize, let me assure you: the man brings receipts.

  10. Embracing Biotech Chaos With Memo's Erik van den Berg 9/8/2024

    Erik van den Berg is CEO and board member at Memo Therapeutics, and he's a student of biotech chaos. In fact, he's been embracing it with intention for the past 30 years. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, he walks us through the management of that chaos in specific detail.