Finance & Capital Markets
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iNK T-Cell Immuno-oncology For Solid Tumors With Dr. Ian Walters
8/30/2021
Dr. Ian Walters' company, Portage Biotech, is focused on addressing the 75% of cancer patients who show no, or limited, response to existing therapies such as checkpoint inhibitors. Leading that charge are the company's invariant natural killer T cell agonists, designed to activate the innate and adaptive immune system, as well as a growing portfolio of proteins, antibodies, and small molecules. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Dr. Walters shares what's fueling the company's progress, including its unique financing strategy and its approach to de-risking platform development for novel immuno-oncology therapies.
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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.
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Clinical Leadership with Cue Biopharma's Anish Suri, Ph.D. & Dan Passeri, J.D.
10/20/2023
On a road trip to Boston, the Business of Biotech caught up with podcast alum Dan Passeri, J.D., CEO at Cue Biopharma, and enjoyed a two-for-one with CSO and President Anish Suri, Ph.D. at Cue's headquarters just feet below the Auerbach Center. Among other things, we discussed the duo's complementary leadership approach as the company takes multiple candidates into the clinic, why Passeri leans into his biotech legal background almost every day he's at work, why Cue's discretely targeted IL-2 approach eliminates the absurdity of early IL-2 failures, and a whole lot more.
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BoB@JPM: Peter Anastasiou, Capsida Biotherapeutics
2/9/2025
From the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, Peter Anastasiou, CEO of Capsida Biotherapeutics, discusses his journey from big pharma to biotech and the challenges he faces on the leading edge of first-generation gene therapies.
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Building A Cancer Pipeline In A Molecule With Actuate Therapeutics' Dan Schmitt
11/26/2025
On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Dan Schmitt, President and CEO at Actuate Therapeutics, talks about building a company around elraglusib, a GSK-3β inhibitor for cancer.
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Managing Mergers With Sail's Guillaume Pfefer, Ph.D
2/15/2024
You might be aware that Sail Biomedicines was just formed up in Q4 of last year, the product of Flagship Pioneering’s decision to merge Senda Biosciences and Laronde, two of its programmable medicine platform companies. What you likely haven’t heard is the inside story on how the merger was executed, how the two companies are integrating their talent, IP, and resources, and what Sail Biomedicines CEO Dr. Guillaume Pfefer and team are currently doing to take the fruits of the company’s platform into the clinic.
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Fed Funding: Creative Capital Generation With James Thomas Coates, Ph.D.
8/1/2022
As biotech capital markets continue to restrict access to funding for emerging biopharmas, you might be surprised by how many federal dollars get left on the negotiating table. To that end, James Thomas Coates, Ph.D. and his team at Decisive Point have carved out a niche in the venture capital space.
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Venture Philanthropy For Type 1 Diabetes With T1D Fund's Katie Ellias
1/19/2022
The JDRF's T1D Fund is exemplary of an indication-specific advocacy group's aggressive pursuit of a cure through venture philanthropy. Put simply, unlike traditional VC firms who entertain myriad and often diverse pitches from biotech startups, the T1D fund creates financial and advisory incentives for the biotechs in its portfolio to pursue candidates and formalize programs around Type 1 Diabetes therapies.
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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.
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Fiscal Turnarounds With Protalix's Eyal Rubin
8/30/2023
Within about five minutes of conversation with Protalix CFO Eyal Rubin, I learned that he doesn’t bite his tongue about the rigors of biotech business and finance management, which is precisely why I’m eager to talk with him on today’s episode of the podcast. From commercialization deals with big pharma to being about $50 million underwater to swatting away the day trading armchair quarterbacks on Stocktwits, Rubin’s seen a few things and he’s developed more than a few opinions.