30
May
2023
From Structural Biology to Structuring Companies: Deb Palestrant on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Deb Palestrant. Deb is a partner with 5AM Ventures and the executive chair of the 4:59 Initiative. 5AM invests in early-stage startups working on a variety of novel biological targets and some of the emerging new treatment modalities – gene therapy, gene editing, oligonucleotides. As the name suggests, it’s not afraid to get... Read More
8
May
2023
Creating a New Class of Medicines: John Maraganore on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is John Maraganore. John is best known as the former CEO of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, the RNA interference drug developer. He spent 19 years there as CEO, before stepping down at the end of 2021. Alnylam figured out how to make a new therapeutic modality — gene-silencing with double-stranded oligonucleotide therapies. Alnylam’s technology has now... Read More
24
Apr
2023
Gene Editing Therapies Delivered In Vivo: Ensoma’s Emile Nuwaysir on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Emile Nuwaysir. Emile is the CEO of Boston-based Ensoma. Ensoma is developing gene-editing therapies that can be delivered in a single shot, in vivo, inside the body. The name is derived from the Greek word for ‘in the body.’ The basic idea is to make these gene editing medicines so they can be... Read More
12
Apr
2023
The Frontier of Epigenetic Editing: Chroma CEO Catherine Stehman-Breen
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Catherine Stehman-Breen. Catherine is the CEO of Boston-based Chroma Medicine. Chroma is working on therapies that control gene expression through epigenetic editing. People have heard a lot about editing of the genome with CRISPR, and then subsequent refinements of the technology known as base editing and prime editing. The question at Chroma is... Read More
28
Mar
2023
Treating a Common, Underappreciated Disease: Eric Dobmeier on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Eric Dobmeier. Eric is the CEO of Seattle-based Chinook Therapeutics. Chinook is seeking to develop drugs for kidney diseases. About 10 percent of people on Earth are estimated to have some degree of chronic kidney disease. It ranges from mild forms all the way through end-stage renal disease that requires dialysis. America spends... Read More
14
Mar
2023
The Future of Neuroscience Drug R&D: Ryan Watts on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Ryan Watts. Ryan is the co-founder and CEO of South San Francisco-based Denali Therapeutics. Denali is one of the prominent development-stage biotech companies working on treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. It has a pipeline with seven drug candidates in clinical development. It’s developing small molecules and large molecules against a range of neurodegenerative diseases... Read More
28
Feb
2023
A Life in Biotech & the Cell Therapy Wave: David Hallal on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is David Hallal. David is the CEO of Waltham, Mass.-based ElevateBio. ElevateBio describes itself as a technology-driven company for cell therapies. It has pulled together gene editing tools, induced pluripotent stem cells, and various viral vectors necessary to modify cells to fight cancer or treat other diseases. David co-founded ElevateBio in 2017 with Mitchell... Read More
14
Feb
2023
Engineered B-Cell Therapies for Cancer & Rare Diseases: Joanne Smith-Farrell on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Joanne Smith-Farrell. Joanne is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Be Biopharma. Many listeners of this show are familiar with the explosion of activity in cell therapy. Engineered T cell therapies have delivered extraordinary results for people with certain types of cancer. The success in these personalized T cell therapies, which get modified outside... Read More
1
Feb
2023
A Biotech Journalism Outlet Built to Last: Rick Berke on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Rick Berke. Rick is the co-founder and executive editor of STAT. Just about everyone who listens to The Long Run probably already reads STAT. If you don’t, you should. It’s become a go-to publication for breaking news, features, and in-depth investigative reporting across the world of biotech and healthcare. John Henry, the billionaire... Read More
19
Jan
2023
From Computational Discovery to a New Psoriasis Drug: Jeb Keiper on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Jeb Keiper. Jeb is the CEO of Boston-based Nimbus Therapeutics. Nimbus made news in December 2022 when it sold its experimental Tyk2 inhibitor to Takeda Pharmaceuticals for $4 billion upfront and $2 billion in potential milestones. The drug’s value skyrocketed when it hit the primary endpoint of a Phase 2b clinical trial for... Read More
3
Jan
2023
From Musician to Tech to Biotech Investor: D.A. Wallach on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is D.A. Wallach. D.A. is the founder and general partner of Time BioVentures. Time BioVentures is a relative newcomer to the biotech world, investing out of a $100 million inaugural fund. The strategy is to invest in companies seeking to make a big impact in therapeutics, diagnostics, research tools, and healthcare delivery models. D.A.... Read More
19
Dec
2022
A New Way to Treat Depression: Barry Greene on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Barry Greene. Barry is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Sage Therapeutics. Sage is developing a new medicine for the treatment of major depressive disorder and postpartum depression. Sage, and its partner, Biogen, recently completed a New Drug Application to the FDA for permission to start marketing zuranolone. The drug is a once-daily oral... Read More
7
Nov
2022
Delivery of Genetic Medicines: Shehnaaz Suliman on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Shehnaaz Suliman. Shehnaaz is the CEO of Menlo Park, California-based ReCode Therapeutics. Recode is working on lipid nanoparticles to improve the delivery of genetic medicines. These little packages have made it possible to deliver billions of mRNA COVID vaccines in people’s arms, saving millions of lives. It’s been two decades of hard work.... Read More
26
Oct
2022
Single-Cell Analysis for Precision Medicine: Tariq Kassum on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Tariq Kassum. Tariq is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Celsius Therapeutics. Celsius emerged on the scene in May 2018 with a $65 million Series A led by Third Rock Ventures. It was built on the conviction that single cell analysis will shed light on new targets for the treatment of cancer, autoimmunity and... Read More
11
Oct
2022
Protein Degraders For Outside the Cell: Aetna Wun Trombley on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Aetna Wun Trombley. Aetna is the CEO of South San Francisco-based Lycia Therapeutics. Many in biotech know about targeted protein degraders. Arvinas and Kymera Therapeutics are a couple of the well-known companies that make these drugs which work to inhibit intracellular proteins. This approach has drawn a lot of excitement because it can... Read More
26
Sep
2022
Going Upstream Against Inflammation: Samantha Truex on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Samantha Truex. Samantha is the CEO of Waltham, Mass.-based Upstream Bio. Upstream came out of stealth mode with a $200 million Series A financing in June. It’s a big investment in an antibody aimed at the TSLP receptor. It’s a cytokine – an inflammatory protein – that sits at the top of what... Read More
7
Sep
2022
Designing Gene Circuits For Cell Therapies: Tim Lu on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Tim Lu. Tim is the co-founder and CEO of South San Francisco-based Senti Biosciences. Senti is working to develop gene circuits for cell therapies. This is about reprogramming cell therapies with precise genetic instructions on what to do in certain circumstances. The code essentially can tell the cell to kill tumor cells with... Read More
22
Aug
2022
A Life in Autoimmune Drug Discovery: Jo Viney on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Jo Viney. She is the CEO of Watertown, Mass.-based Seismic Therapeutic. Seismic is working to discover biologic drugs for autoimmune disease. It aims to speed up the process by using machine learning on key aspects – starting with structural biology and including engineering of the protein drugs themselves. Jo has a long track... Read More
8
Aug
2022
Assembling Accurate Genomes and Interactomes: Ivan Liachko on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Ivan Liachko. Ivan the founder and CEO of Seattle-based Phase Genomics. First off, Ivan is originally from Kiev, Ukraine. He came with his family to the US at the age of 11, around the time of the fall of the old Soviet Union. When Russia invaded Ukraine back in February, he spoke up... Read More
11
Jul
2022
Restoring Eyesight in the Developing World: Dr. Sanduk Ruit on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Dr. Sanduk Ruit. He is an ophthalmologist and the founder and executive director of the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology. The institute is in Kathmandu, Nepal. Dr. Ruit has restored the eyesight of more than 130,000 people in Asia and Africa. He’s the pioneer of a small-incision form of cataract surgery. Not only was... Read More