16
Apr
2024
New Tools & Techniques for Biology: David Liu on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is David Liu. David is a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, and a core institute member at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. In biotech industry world, he’s a founder or co-founder of a long list of companies, including Beam Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Editas Medicine, Chroma Medicine, and Exo... Read More
6
Mar
2024
Early Detection, and Treatment, for Alzheimer’s: Valerie Daggett on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Valerie Daggett. Valerie is the founder and CEO of Seattle-based AltPep. This company is working on an unusual diagnostic-and-therapeutic strategy against Alzheimer’s disease. I wrote about the company in June 2023 when it raised $53 million in a Series B financing that included Section32, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, and Eli Lilly among others.... Read More
9
Feb
2024
CRISPR to Protect the Bone Marrow & Attack Cancer: Robert Ang on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Robert Ang. Robert is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Vor Bio. The company is working on what I think you could call an elegant application of CRISPR gene editing for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia. The idea here takes some explaining but is pretty simple. Patients with acute myeloid leukemia typically get... Read More
22
Jan
2024
Gene Expression In Therapeutic R&D: Rick Young on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Richard A. Young. Rick is a professor of biology at MIT and a core member of the Whitehead Institute dating back to its founding in the 1980s. Rick’s long and prolific research career has been dedicated to studying gene expression. He’s won a number of awards, and is a member of the National... Read More
9
Jan
2024
Investing in Healthy Aging: Jens Eckstein on The Long Run
Jens Eckstein is today’s guest on The Long Run. He’s an investment partner at Hevolution Foundation. It’s a Saudi Arabia-backed fund that supports basic research in healthy aging and invests in startups with partners to translate that science into interventions that help people live healthier, longer lives. These efforts are sometimes branded as increasing “healthspan” if not necessarily “lifespan.” Jens... Read More
26
Dec
2023
Bispecific Antibodies for Cancer: Shelley Force Aldred and Nathan Trinklein on The Long Run
Today, I have a dynamic duo of scientific entrepreneurs on the show – Shelley Force Aldred and Nathan Trinklein. They are the co-founders of San Francisco-based Rondo Therapeutics. The company raised $67 million in a Series A financing announced in March 2022. Shelley is the CEO and Nathan is the chief scientific officer. Rondo is developing bispecific T-cell engaging antibodies... Read More
13
Dec
2023
The Small Molecule Drug Discovery Renaissance: Jeff Jonker on The Long Run
Today’s guest is on The Long Run is Jeff Jonker. He’s the CEO of San Diego-based Belharra Therapeutics. It’s a startup that came out of stealth mode in January 2023 with a $50 million Series A financing from Versant Ventures, and a partnership with Genentech. I wrote about it at the time on TimmermanReport.com and am providing a link for... Read More
29
Nov
2023
The Final Frontier of Brain Science: Nancy Stagliano on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Nancy Stagliano. She’s the CEO of South San Francisco-based Neuron23. The company is privately held and was started in late 2018. The idea, like we’ve seen in oncology, is to develop targeted therapies for molecularly-defined subgroups of patients with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other common neurodegenerative diseases. Nancy is a neuroscientist by training. She... Read More
13
Nov
2023
Leading the Fight Against Infectious Disease: Diana Brainard on The Long Run
Today’s guest is Diana Brainard. She’s the CEO of Waltham, Mass.-based AlloVir. AlloVir is developing off-the-shelf T cell therapies to fight common viruses. The company is developing these T cells, from donors, and modifying them so they can be given to patients with weakened immune systems. The company’s lead T-cell therapy candidate is made to fight six common viruses, including... Read More
1
Nov
2023
Investing in the Future of Medicine: Reid Huber on The Long Run
Today’s guest on the The Long Run is Reid Huber. He’s a partner at Third Rock Ventures in Boston. Third Rock is known in biotech as one of the venture firms that creates new companies that seek to turn groundbreaking science into new medicines. Since its founding in 2007, Third Rock has put together a portfolio of 62 companies that... Read More
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... Read More
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... Read More
19
Sep
2023
Turning the Tables: Rob Perez Interviews Me on The Long Run
This episode is unusual. Many listeners know of Rob Perez. He’s an operating partner at General Atlantic, the former CEO of Cubist Pharmaceuticals, and the founder of Life Science Cares. Rob and I have gotten to know each other better the past couple years through our shared passion for mobilizing the biotech community to fight poverty. The Timmerman Traverse for... Read More
6
Sep
2023
Freeing the Biotech Founders: Zach Weinberg and Alexis Borisy on The Long Run
Today there are two guests on The Long Run: Zach Weinberg and Alexis Borisy. They are co-founders of Curie.Bio. Curie is a venture capital fund with $520 million, mostly for seed investments and Series A rounds in biotech startups. It also is also building up in-house R&D expertise which it uses to help the entrepreneurs it backs. Curie pitches itself... Read More
24
Aug
2023
How ‘Living Medicine’ Came to Be: Fred Appelbaum on The Long Run
Today’s guest is Fred Appelbaum. Fred is a physician, scientist, and administrator. He’s an executive vice president at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. He’s also the author of a new book, “Living Medicine: Don Thomas, Marrow Transplantation and the Cell Therapy Revolution” published by Mayo Clinic Press. It’s excellent. Fred knows a lot of this story from firsthand... Read More
8
Aug
2023
Digging into Data, Finding New Drug Targets: Colin Hill on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Colin Hill. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Aitia (pronounced Ay-tee-ah). The company was founded in 2000, and previously known as GNS Healthcare. The GNS part was short for Gene Network Sciences, which gives you some sense of what it was about. Aitia is a new name to reflect a new strategy. The... Read More
24
Jul
2023
Betting on Bold and Brave Ideas for Cancer: Yung Lie on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Yung Lie. Yung is the president and CEO of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. The New York-based foundation supports some of the best young scientists around the US and gives them funds to pursue their bold and brave ideas. To give just one example, it bet on cancer immunotherapy research when it... Read More
10
Jul
2023
Detecting Cancer Early When It’s Most Treatable: Kevin Conroy on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Kevin Conroy. Kevin is the chairman and CEO of Madison, Wis.-based Exact Sciences. Exact Sciences has grown over the past decade into a success story for cancer screening and diagnosis. It’s best known for marketing the noninvasive Cologuard test that screens people for colorectal cancer. It also markets the Oncotype DX test that’s... Read More
27
Jun
2023
Becoming a Biotech CEO: Jodie Morrison on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Jodie Morrison. Jodie is the acting CEO at Waltham, Mass.-based Q32 Bio. It’s a company developing treatments for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. It has an antibody in development with Horizon Therapeutics aimed at IL-7 receptor alpha, in Phase II for the treatment of atopic dermatitis. It also has wholly-owned programs aimed at the... Read More
14
Jun
2023
Immunotherapies for Cancer and More: Aaron Ring on The Long Run
Aaron Ring is today’s guest on The Long Run. Aaron is an associate professor of immunobiology at Yale University for a little while longer. He’s moving his lab to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle in the summer of 2023. Early in his scientific career, Aaron has done some fascinating work in protein engineering and immunology. He has founded... Read More