Today’s guest on The Long Run podcast is Ankit Mahadevia.
Mahadevia is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Spero Therapeutics. It’s an antibiotic developer. Specifically, it’s focused on new strategies for fighting gram-negative bacterial infections that are increasingly resistant to our existing set of antibiotics.
Ankit Mahadevia, CEO, Spero Therapeutics
Despite persistent warnings from global health authorities about the rise of multi-drug resistant bugs, and the need for new antibiotics to fight them, most major pharma companies have a limited appetite for this area of R&D, or have bailed out. There hasn’t been much money to make.
Mahadevia started thinking differently about the future of antibiotics a few years ago as an entrepreneur in residence at Atlas Venture. The team there came upon some research from Finland into a set of potentiator molecules, which they thought could create an opening on the surface of gram-negative bacteria. This is a pretty clever idea. Essentially, the thought is that these potentiators should allow many of our existing gram-positive directed antibiotics to get inside these hardy bugs and kill them. The science created enough of an opportunity for Spero to raise significant venture capital. I first wrote about the company when it raised its Series A venture capital round in June 2015. The company went public last November.
On this show, Mahadevia talks about a whole set of varied career experiences that led him to this moment in antibiotic R&D, along with some creative ideas being floated now to create new incentives to revitalize this important field. Anyone interested in creative thinking about staving off the post-antibiotic world will find this to be an interesting listen.
Now, join me and Ankit Mahadevia for The Long Run.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
Today’s guest on The Long Run podcast is Chris Garabedian.
Garabedian is best known for his controversial stint as CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Sarepta Therapeutics, the developer of treatments for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Whatever you may think of his tenure there — and the FDA’s decision to approve eteplirsen on a slim reed of clinical trial evidence – there is no denying that Sarepta got into that position because Garabedian saved the company. When he started there in 2011, it was called AVI Biopharma. It was running out of cash and left for dead. I know because that’s when I first interviewed him and wrote about the company.
Chris Garabedian, founder and CEO, Xontogeny
Rather than repeat the history of Sarepta, which has been pretty well-documented, I asked Garabedian in this interview to talk more about his early career coming up on the business side of biotech. He learned the ropes in market research, then joined Abbott, and got serious about biotech in more senior positions at Gilead Sciences and Celgene.
He has developed some interesting beliefs on how the R&D side of the house can work with the business side. Those beliefs culminate in a new entity he started called Xontogeny. It’s sort of like a small venture-capital firm aimed at scientific entrepreneurs who need more oomph than they get from a small “friends and family” financing round, but don’t need a full-blown $50 million Series A round from the likes of the big VC firms.
He calls it “the middle market.” You can hear him describe it. (See previous TR coverage from May 2017).
Now, join me and Chris Garabedian for The Long Run.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
Most of you have heard by now that I reached the summit of Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world, on May 22.
With Everest guide Jangbu Sherpa at Base Camp.
Not only was this a dream come true, it was the culmination of my charity fundraising campaign, the Everest Climb to Fight Cancer. It fetched $339,000 for cancer research at the Fred Hutch, a leading center for immunotherapy. I’m extremely grateful to all who contributed, and overjoyed that it inspired so many others to pursue their own dreams, their own “Everest.”
This two-month odyssey also gave me ample time to think deeply about leadership and successful team dynamics. I will share some of these observations here. I’ll also give a talk with beautiful photos from the mountain at BioPharm America in Boston on Sept. 5. RSVP here, and soon, because space will be limited.
OK, for a few lessons from the mountain, you can read the full, free and shareable article on the Knect365 website.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
Vicki Sato is the latest guest on The Long Run podcast.
Regular listeners may recall I invited Vicki on the show back in March. We had a great conversation, or so I thought. Turns out the audio recording quality was terrible. It was a technical glitch. My fault. I’m sorry you weren’t able to hear her.
Fortunately, Vicki was gracious enough to take some time out of her busy schedule to try again. This time, her voice comes through crystal clear.
For those unfamiliar, Sato is one of the biotech industry’s true leaders.
Sato grew up in Chicago, and is a product of the public schools. She has some interesting reflections on her youth and how she ended up getting into science. At one point, she had the guts to switch fields from plant biology to human biology. She did well enough to end up on the Harvard faculty (after answering a “Help Wanted” ad in Science, believe it or not).
Beginning in the mid-1980s, and for about 20 years, the next phase of her career was as an executive. First she worked at Biogen, then Vertex Pharmaceuticals. She made her name in biotech in those years. Her fingerprints are all over a number of drugs that are linchpins for those companies today.
Vicki Sato
The last decade or so she’s been a teacher and mentor — on the Harvard Business School faculty and as a board member. As a director of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Denali Therapeutics and Vir Biotechnology, she oversees strategic direction of companies working on treatments for cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and infectious disease.
Having been around for this many years, she’s perceptive and wise. She has high standards for herself and others she works with. She’s also a warm person who cares a lot about the next generation of biotech leaders. She stays active because she has a passion for the science, which I think you’ll hear clearly in this interview.
Before diving in, a word of thanks to the sponsors of the show. Harvard Medical School executive education, and Presage Bioscience.
Now join me and Vicki Sato for The Long Run.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
This content is available for subscribers of Timmerman Report.
I’m happy to introduce the latest guest on The Long Run podcast — Tony Coles.
Tony Coles, co-founder and CEO, Yumanity Therapeutics
He is the co-founder and CEO of Yumanity Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Mass.-based company doing drug discovery work against neurodegenerative diseases. That means Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
This is a fascinating time to be focused on neurodegenerative diseases. The biology of these diseases is still in its infancy. The pharmaceutical industry has spent — and continues to spend – a ton of money pursuing a narrow set of hypotheses, particularly with Alzheimer’s disease. It hasn’t worked out well.
This is a time for fresh thinking in R&D. Coles and his team are taking a fresh approach to the science, and to drug development strategy.
There’s also much more to Tony Coles than what he does in his day job at Yumanity.
Coles happens to be an African-American executive in an industry that doesn’t have many African Americans in leadership.
We’ve known each other since 2011. At the time, he was CEO of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, and that company developed a couple of important cancer drugs. I wrote a magazine-style profile about him, asking about everything from his childhood upbringing, to his decision to become a physician, to his various career moves in industry.
His life experience is quite different than mine and most listeners of this show. One example – when he was 8 years old, attending elementary school in Washington DC, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He remembers being sent home from school for his own safety, as officials were fearful of riots. “There was a tremendous sense of loss,” Coles told me in that 2011 interview. “I wondered, how could this happen?”
Coles struck me then – and continues to today — as an exceptionally thoughtful person. He wonders about the how and why of the world. You can see it in the rich variety of boards he chooses to serve on – Johns Hopkins University, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Council on Foreign Relations, and as a member on the Harvard Medical School Advisory Board.
Many people saw his strength as a leader last August. At the time, Merck CEO Ken Frazier, also an African American, resigned from a Presidential panel of business leaders, after the president’s equivocating response to the hate speech and violence that erupted that month in Charlottesville, Virginia. Coles stood up for Frazier, writing in a STAT op-ed about his “moral leadership.” Coles wrote: “There are not “many sides” to what happened in Charlottesville. There are only two: justice and the fact that all men and women are created equal on one side, hatred and bigotry on the other.”
Biotech is an industry with a mission to improve human health. That means everyone’s health. But for biotech to live up to that promise, it’s important to pay attention to underserved groups, and to try to understand what it’s like to walk in another person’s shoes. I tried to take a few steps with Coles in the latter half of this show. I hope it helps encourage others in this industry to keep the conversation going.
Although learning more about the many ways in which one can get an interview and first job in biotech and pharma helps, that’s not where it ends. Everyone I know in biopharma has stories of dealing with co-workers who just didn’t get what the industry is about, in the interview or during those pivotal first years. This despite a system that generally tries to help you succeed once you get in the door.
Kyle Serikawa
Understand: hiring takes a huge amount of time and resources; interviews and evaluations alone can take up dozens of hours of the hiring manager’s and human resources’ time. Opening a position is rarely done lightly. A full time equivalent (FTE) position represents a clear decision that a person is needed for the long term. The team on the company side has a strong interest in helping a new candidate interview well and, if hired, succeed. But still. Mistakes happen.
As I did with useful industry skills, I asked my colleagues about common missteps they had seen, either in the interview process or while a scientist made the transition to industry. Several themes stood out:
| Key problem behaviors when interviewing and starting a job | Number who highlighted (N=26) |
| Not learning and networking | 19 |
| Ignoring the strategic way in which your project fits in the bigger picture with respect to the critical path | 13 |
| Trying to go it alone and ignoring teamwork | 13 |
| Not knowing and learning about the company | 11 |
| Showing inflexibility | 10 |
| Ignoring the nuances of the specific environment you’re in–academia versus industry and big versus little companies | 8 |
| Trying too hard to impress | 6 |
| Wasting growth/change opportunities | 6 |
| Taking the path of least resistance rather than the job you really want | 6 |
| Not presenting your work | 5 |
| Missing out on mentors | 4 |
| Telling people industry is your fallback position | 4 |
| Not keeping your eyes open | 3 |
What a minefield! But fear not, forewarned is forearmed, so here’s a closer look on what people have observed so you can avoid these problems.
Chris Larson
When applying, networking is hugely important. Chris Larson, Vice President of Drug Discovery at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, felt applicants often don’t quite grasp how to apply to industry. “…most people still rely too much on simply applying for ads, and…confuse the ease of online applications with this route being effective. In my career, when I have posted a job ad, I have generally gotten many hundreds of applications, and several times have received more than one thousand. Applicants need to have a strategy for how they are going to get to being among the 10 out of 1000 that are paid attention to.”
“Never be afraid to ask for introductions,” said Sam Blackman, Senior Vice President at Silverback Therapeutics. “New positions are often considered and…internal candidates or referrals are screened first before the positions are publicly posted.” A Senior Scientist at a small private biotech company agrees: “I hate doing it, but networking has helped increase my visibility as an applicant for maybe half of the jobs I’ve held. Even if the referring person is a friend-of-a-friend who doesn’t know you directly, it’s still helpful to some degree.”
Irena Ivanovsca
Irena Ivanovska, Director at Celdara Medical, LLC, suggested a specific approach. “Tap into the network you already have – did any professors, postdocs or grad students from your PhD or postdoc institution transition to industry? Often, departments have ‘alternative’ career symposia when alumni share their experience – those are probably the best people to reach out to.” This approach was echoed by Laura Strong, Founder and CEO of Propagate Health. “People often want to work with people they already know – a known quantity. That means they are often reaching out to recruit colleagues as soon as they know a position might be opening up. Keeping your former classmates up to date on what you are doing and whether you are looking is an important and relatively low intensity way to network.”
Another element is preparation. Strong described it this way. “Getting a job is essentially a research project similar to your thesis. You need to learn about the different kinds of businesses in the biopharma industry and then about the different jobs that exist depending on stage and scale of the company and the products.” Chris Winrow, Senior Principal Investigator at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, had similar thoughts. “It’s actually stunning to see people who come in for an interview with fantastic resumes but don’t know very much about the company or the position for which they’re applying. There have been times where I’ve asked: ‘So, what’s one thing in the pipeline that most excites you’ and they have no idea and may not even be able to name one of the drugs the company manufactures and sells.”
Stewart Lyman, owner and manager of Lyman Biopharma Consulting, also found this perplexing. “When I used to interview job candidates I would ask them if they knew which drugs Immunex made (easy question: we only had one marketed drug). I was shocked at how many people had done what appeared to be zero research on the company and could not answer that question.” Jim Watters, Vice President of Biology at Relay Therapeutics had some additional tips. “The vast majority of applications are more like form letters, where it is clear that the applicant has not taken the time to learn about the company and the opportunity they are applying for. Applicants should take the time to really learn about the company they are applying to — what makes it different? What are the core values? What are some important events that have happened recently? Before the interview, the applicant should take the time to learn about the people they will be interviewing with. Ask questions that are tailored to each person’s background.”
Cathy Thut
One last thing about interviewing: don’t present yourself as looking at industry as a fallback. “A common mistake new scientists coming from straight from a post-doc make is telling interviewers that they are looking for an industry position because they don’t think they’ll be able to find an academic position,” said Cathy Thut, Executive Director BD&L, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.
Once a scientist is in the door, pitfalls still await. Many of the people interviewed for this piece emphasized just what a learning and growth opportunity biotech and pharma can be, and how sometimes new scientists don’t seem to realize this or take advantage of the environment. At my first biopharma job, my supervisor told me within the first week that there were a vast number of opportunities for learning and growth inside and outside of research at the company, and that biotech and pharma companies are somewhat unique in having the ability to transition among and between functions. Joe Wahle, Director of Immunology at Verseau Therapeutics had this to say. “(Biotech and pharma) is so much more than just working at the bench and generating data. The pharma industry is where business and science collide to sometimes hilarious results. (While) this can be seen as an impediment, for those with an entrepreneurial spirit this means there are a wealth of opportunities beyond just the bench. If this is a path you are interested in, explore them all and use your strengths to your advantage.”
Johnna Wesley, Associate Director at Novo Nordisk, also sees the environment as hugely helpful for growth. “(New scientists) still have so very much to learn…the diversity of knowledge and technical skills around you will be extensive. Take advantage of this and learn from your colleagues — listen to their input and ask questions. The technicians you work with will often be some of the best and they can likely do an assay better than you — accept it. Also, there are a lot of excellent scientists that don’t have a Ph.D. in industry. You can learn a lot from them.”
“Seek to understand all the types of science conducted in biopharma,” advised Bill Arthur, Director of Target Validation, Research & Development at Seattle Genetics. “Many (new scientists) focus on opportunities in the early pipeline or discovery research. However, there are many fulfilling and impactful career paths in translational sciences, process development, and other functional areas.”
Another pitfall for new scientists is the tendency to view their work through an individual lens and not taking a team-based approach. Chris Ramsborg, Vice President of Technology Strategy & Innovation at Juno Therapeutics, see this firsthand. “In my current role, I am building teams to develop very complex biological products. These products are beyond the ability of single person or department to fully understand. In this environment, overconfidence in one’s narrow area of expertise can lead to suboptimal decision making and team dynamics.” Wesley added, “(you should not have) the belief that you are solely responsible for the success/failure of a project. You’re not a post-doc anymore, you’re part of a team and multiple people are responsible for the project success or closure. You depend on many and many depend on you.”
“I’ve seen scientists transitioning to industry from academia struggle with the teamwork mentality,” said Jennifer Cox, Assistant Director of Biology at Inception Biosciences. “I am currently on a project team where we make decisions together, we have successes together, and we have failures together. There has never once been blame for making a wrong decision because we are all accountable on the team.”
And, possibly more than in academia, flexibility is valuable. Science as a business is fast-moving and initiatives can change quickly, even if the science is going well. “It is…helpful to demonstrate flexibility in the types of research you can perform and/or are interested in performing because you don’t have as much control over the selection of projects you will work on as you do in academia,” commented Thut.
On a practical level, “don’t be afraid of job insecurity – yes, restructurings will happen, projects/departments/sites will close, and the first one (or few) will be painful, but you’ll get over it,” said Ivanovska.
Related to this is that industry focuses on results and the critical path to a product, something that can be jarring to academic scientists accustomed to following where the science leads. “One of the things that distinguishes a good industry scientist from one struggling to make the change is that good industry scientists (clinical or research) are problem/solution oriented,” said Blackman.
“It’s easy as a scientist to fall into the trap of answering questions for science’s sake,” agreed Wahle. “Although that is a noble and fun pursuit, companies need to make drugs, and those drugs need to make a real difference in people’s lives. Figuring out how to drive towards that while still employing deep scientific rigor will take a person far.”
And once you’re there—relax. Trying too hard to impress can sometimes backfire. “Everyone in industry has been in academia – so don’t get overwhelmed about making the transition to industry – it has been done many times before,” said Ivanovska. Sonya Franklin, Director of Global Regulatory Sciences at Monsanto, recalled her response when new scientists want to move to a level for which they’re not quite ready. “When someone comes to me and says, ‘Give me a team and I’ll lead,’ I respond, ‘No, lead, and I’ll give you a team.’” In her experience at times new scientists can try to do too much before understanding the lay of the land.
New tools can help with learning, making connections, and getting your name out there.
Ethan Perlstein, CEO and Founder of Perlara PBC favors Twitter. “Hands down the most effective (and enjoyable) networking I do is on Twitter. I usually engage with folks online in a targeted manner first and then we meet in person to reinforce our mutual interests, or to explore potential collaborations or business opportunities. Without Twitter I don’t see how Perlara would have ever progressed beyond the idea stage.”
Jeffrey Reid
Jeff Reid, Executive Director of Genome Informatics at the Regeneron Genome Center, agrees. “Use Twitter as a platform for science communication and collaboration. In some ways Twitter is the ideal network-building tool for young scientists because it is a great equalizer in that it enables anyone to participate in the key scientific discussions that are propelling the field forward.”
Industry newsletters can help. “I have been advised to ‘follow the money’ – i.e. if you read (in FierceBiotech [or the Timmerman Report! Ed.], for example) that a company just closed a multi-million dollar financing, they are like to be hiring in the near future,” said Ivanoska. Cox agreed: “Anyone interested in a career in biopharma should be reading the industry headlines daily.”
Last, whether in your initial job or as you learn more about the industry, know yourself and keep working toward the job that fits best for you. “Develop a vision for what you want to do. It’s ok if it changes over time, but start with a goal in mind and try and steer your work, in any way you can, to prepare for that,” said Jared Odegaard, Senior Research Scientist at Gilead Sciences. Stewart Lyman, a consultant, agreed: “Be open to many possibilities, and take the job you want, not the job that others think you should take. Remember, if you take a job because someone else thinks you should, that person will not be taking your place if it doesn’t work out. It’s your life and your decision; you must find your own path.”
