Reviving Targeted Radiopharmaceuticals for Cancer: Ken Song on The Long Run

Today’s guest on The Long Run is Ken Song.

Ken is the CEO of San Diego-based RayzeBio.

At RayzeBio, Ken discovered new opportunity in an area cancer R&D that had been long ago abandoned. It’s about creating targeted cancer therapies loaded with radioactive isotopes to give them extra tumor-killing punch. These aren’t the same thing as antibody-drug conjugates, in which a targeted antibody aims for tumors, and unloads a toxic chemical compound to kill the tumor.

This is targeted radiation, for short.

Scientists have been working on this type of treatment for decades, and have been stymied by failures of many kinds. Ken was surprised and excited to learn recently that some things have happened to change that narrative. He’s busy putting the pieces together to make not just one radiopharmaceutical for cancer, but to put together a platform for making many of them.

It’s a fascinating story, which I first discussed with Ken in October 2020.

This is a conversation with a very sharp scientific entrepreneur, thinking hard about how to create potent new tools in the toolbox against cancer.

Now, before we get started, a word from the sponsor of The Long Run – Answerthink.

Today’s sponsor, Answerthink, has been consistently recognized by SAP, one of the largest enterprise software companies, as a top business partner for delivering and implementing SAP solutions for small and midsized life science companies. Their SAP certified solutions designed for the Life Science Industry are preconfigured, rapidly deployable and address fundamental business and IT challenges such as:

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Explore how Answerthink can streamline your business processes to ensure growth.

Visit Answerthink.com/timmerman and get a copy of their e-book- “Top Three Barriers to Growth for Life Science Organizations.“

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Absci is all about creating new possibilities in the realm of protein-based therapeutics. What does this mean?

Absci has a fundamentally different approach to drug discovery. It designs and develops next-gen biologics of any modality, from antibodies to T-cell engagers to completely novel protein scaffolds, including a futuristic format it calls “Bionic Proteins.”

Because Absci conducts its screens in its scalable production cell line, it collapses several steps of biologics discovery into one integrated, efficient process. Absci also has a unique computational antibody and antigen discovery approach for isolating fully-human antibodies from disease tissues and using these antibodies to identify novel drug targets.

Absci does all this with a powerful combination of deep learning AI and synthetic biology technologies. Absci is already helping some of the best partners in biopharma translate their ideas into drugs. Check them out at absci.com and absci.ai.

Now, please join me and Ken Song on The Long Run.