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8
Nov
2023

Architects and Gardeners, a Captivating Developmental Biology Book, & an Inspiring Immigrant Story

Architects and Gardeners Most leadership offsites I’ve attended have included some flavor of personality assessment – not so much to formally classify us, but rather to make the point that different people have different styles, and to emphasize that you can’t assume everyone you work with approaches the world the same way you do.  In this spirit, I wanted to...
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6
Nov
2023

Think Clinical Trials Are Working OK? Ask a Cancer Patient

I can’t stop thinking about a recent series of poignant blog posts, written by an emergency room physician affiliated with the Mayo Clinic. Her husband has been battling a terrible cancer – recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.  Given what she does for a living, the author, Dr. Bess Stillman, is about as well-positioned to be a savvy patient...
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16
Oct
2023

Catching Cancer Early, Investing in Data and AI: Jeff Huber on The Long Run

Today’s guest on The Long Run is Jeff Huber. He’s the co-founder and general partner at Triatomic Capital. It’s a relatively new venture fund that seeks to back “century-defining” businesses in Engineered Biology, New Materials, Next Gen Compute, New Energy, & Automated Economy. Jeff and his fellow partners are looking at startups that collect and analyze data to address big...
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5
Oct
2023

Fulfilling the Promise of Sickle Cell Gene Therapy

Two gene therapies for sickle cell disease, CRISPR/Vertex’s exa-cel and Bluebird Bio’s lovo-cel, are being reviewed by the FDA and are likely to win US approval for sale by the end of the year. While it will take more time to fully establish long-term safety and efficacy of these therapies, they offer a glimmer of hope for a cure. This...
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3
Oct
2023

Targeted Radiation for Cancer: Lori Lyons-Williams on The Long Run

Today’s guest on The Long Run is Lori Lyons-Williams. She’s the CEO of Menlo Park, Calif. and Vancouver, BC-based Abdera Therapeutics. Abdera is a startup developing targeted antibody drugs loaded with potent microdoses of radiation to give them extra tumor-killing punch. This type of treatment modality has been around for decades. Targeted radiation hasn’t lived up to the full potential...
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11
Sep
2023

Sterile Information: Early Forecasting Not The Answer To R&D Productivity Woes

Two recent Wall Street Journal deep-dives nicely bookend a critical, and unresolved, tension faced by large pharmaceutical companies: how can their R&D organizations discover, develop, and deliver the new medicines patients await, and the growth and return on investment that shareholders demand? Early this year, I discussed an April 2023 profile of Lilly by journalist Peter Loftus, who described how the company, led by a physician-scientist...
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