Finance & Capital Markets

41. Surviving The Microbiome Market with MaaT Pharma's Hervé Affagard 7/20/2023

    MaaT Pharma Founder & CEO Hervé Affagard recently navigated his company through a protracted FDA clinical hold, emerging with a promising Phase 3 candidate in GVHD. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Affagard offers a transparent look at how MaaT is beating the odds with a redundant clinical strategy and scrupulous cash management.

42. Biotech Dealmaking with Regeneron's Nouhad Husseini 11/22/2023

    When it comes to landing and executing strategic partnerships, Regeneron puts on a clinic. Partnerships, acquisitions, licensing agreements, and other deals large and small with Intellia, Decibel Therapeutics, BARDA, Alnylam, and Sonoma Therapeutics are just a sampling of those making news this year alone. The man behind much of that dealmaking is none other than Nouhad Husseini, SVP and Head of Business Development and Corporate Strategy at Regeneron.

43. 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.

44. A $1B AI Bet With Foresite Labs' Vik Bajaj, Ph.D. 12/15/2024

    This past spring, Xaira Therapeutics launched with $1 billion in backing, a who's-who mashup of Silicon Valley and biopharma stars led by Marc Tessier-Lavigne in the C-suite, and a mission to develop AI-generated drugs. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're digging into the company's origin story and its place on the greater techbio landscape with one of the men bearing responsibility for Xaira's launch.

45. 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.

46. Pivoting To RNA With Circio's Dr. Erik Digman Wiklund 9/1/2024

    This week, it’s another “Business of Biotech-meets-Business-of-RNA” takeover with Circio CEO Erik Digman Wiklund, Ph.D. and guest co-host Anna Rose Welch of Advancing RNA. While Circio’s legacy is in cancer immunology (it still boasts a cancer vaccine candidate targeting KRAS driver mutations), the company made a bold pivot, of sorts, when it committed headlong to the circular RNA future. Now, it’s in the throes of fine-tuning a platform for the development of novel circRNA medicines for rare disease, vaccines, and cancer.

47. Anatomy Of A VC Deal With 4BIO's Dima Kuzmin & Ray Therapeutics' Paul Bresge 10/25/2022

    In a particularly candid conversation, 4BIO Managing Partner Dmitry ‘Dima’ Kuzmin and Ray Therapeutics Co-Founder & CEO Paul Bresge share the recipe for a successful relationship between biotech VC firm and startup. Bresge offers insight into VC engagement strategy and pitch, Kuzmin dishes on what investors look for in terms of "fundability" and what throws red flags, such as— perhaps ironically— a CEO like Bresge who has a deep and incredibly personal connection to the indication he's pursuing. The pair also discuss, in real and tangible terms, what constitutes a material, cultural match.

48. How To Be A CFO With Insmed's Sara Bonstein 4/9/2025

    On today's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're speaking with Sara Bonstein, Chief Financial Officer at Insmed, about what it takes to be a successful CFO. Sara provides useful insights on how to lead teams, especially when those teams have deeper subject matter expertise.

49. Investing In The Biostack With Modi Ventures' Sahir Ali, Ph.D. 9/4/2025

    On the Business of Biotech this week, Sahir Ali, Ph.D., founder and general partner at Modi Ventures, a family office investing at the intersection of technology and biology, talks about adapting the Markowitz model to improve returns and balance risk, his concept of the "biostack" for making direct investments into life sciences companies, and the revolutionary potential of scientific super intelligence.

50. Strategic Deals With CinRx's Gavin Samuels, M.D. 3/17/2024

    Gavin Samuels, M.D., found his work as an intensive care physician boring. It wasn't until he left the hospital and entered biopharma that he found his footing. Now, he's Chief Business Officer and General Partner at CinRx Pharma, where a deep pipeline of early- to late-stage candidates keeps him on his dealmaking toes. Dr. Samuels' introspective reflections on biotech dealmaking and negotiations plants this episode firmly on the Business of Biotech podcast highlight reel.