BioBiz Buzz

In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, your host Mike Ward explores a critical, but often underappreciated, driver of vision loss in retinal diseases; the breakdown of the blood–retina barrier (BRB). While anti-VEGF therapies have transformed outcomes in diabetic macular oedema (DME) and wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), many patients continue to experience incomplete responses, recurrence, and...

In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, Mike Ward talks to Dr Sam Possemiers, founder and CEO of Belgium-based MRM Health, about what it really takes to turn the human gut microbiome into a bona fide drug modality. They trace the arc from crude faecal microbiota transplants and limited single-strain probiotics to rationally designed consortia of commensal bacteria that function as a single, scalable thera...

Targeted protein degradation has moved from elegant academic concept to one of the most closely watched frontiers in oncology, promising to drug the 80% of disease‑driving proteins that traditional inhibitors and even ADCs still struggle to reach. In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, host Mike Ward sits down with Proxygen founder and scientific advisor Georg Winter and CSO Chiara Conti to unpack how in...

For years, the narrative was simple: if you wanted a multibillion-dollar biotech outcome, you built in Boston or the Bay Area. Gilead’s up to $5 billion acquisition of Munich-based Tubulis just blew that up.  In this episode, Mike Ward and Andera Partners’ Sofia Ioannidou go inside one of Europe’s most important biotech exits to unpack what really drove the deal, and why it wasn’t just about a sin...

Progress in developing safe and effective therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been painfully slow. It is caused by the death of motor neurons in the central nervous system and the spinal cord, which leads to a loss of control over voluntary muscle movement, near-total paralysis and death within two to five years of diagnosis. Most patients have what is called sporadic ALS, which...

What if an annual self-injection could silence your hidden cardiac risk instead of just lowering your LDL? In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, Mike Ward sits down with David Solomon, CEO of Thalia Therapeutics, to unpack how a once-yearly RNA gene-silencing therapy targeting both lipoprotein(a) and PCSK9 could finally tackle the stubborn burden of coronary artery disease, stroke and cardiac arrest tha...

For more than three decades, transcription factors have been the great white whale of oncology drug discovery; tantalising, genetically validated, mechanistically central, and yet stubbornly out of reach. They sit at the heart of cancer biology, driving the gene expression programmes that allow tumors to grow, adapt and resist treatment. And still, despite representing nearly 10% of the human prot...

Multiple myeloma remains the second-largest blood cancer globally with no cure, and despite recent breakthroughs in CAR-T and antibody therapies, patients continue to relapse, often losing the very antigens that therapies target. In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, host Mike Ward speaks with Dr. Chris Baldwin, CEO and Managing Director of HaemaLogiX, an Australian clinical-stage biotech pioneering a d...

In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, your host Mike Ward sits down with Dr. Jared Baeten, Senior Vice President for Clinical Development and Head of the Virology Therapeutic Area at Gilead Sciences, to explore how new data from CROI 2026 could signal the start of a new chapter in HIV treatment and prevention.  During the discussion, they unpack Phase 3 results from the ARTISTRY‑1 and ARTISTRY‑2 trials,...

2025 has been a seismic year for the pharmaceutical industry, a year of extremes where innovation superpowers emerge alongside spectacular collapses. In this special episode, BioBiz Buzz host Jo Shorthouse sits down with Mike Ward, Global Head of Life Sciences and Healthcare Thought Leadership at Clarivate, fresh from his opening keynote at One Nucleus's landmark Genesis conference in London....

Engineered T-cell receptor (TCR) therapies promise to do for solid tumours what chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies have done for haematological malignancies. The two approaches are conceptually similar – each involves the isolation and modification of patients’ T-cells to recognise and kill tumour cells. The main difference lies in the types of antigens they can recognise. Whereas...

The traditional biotech funding model hasn't fundamentally changed in decades: brilliant founders with promising science face an impossible choice; build expensive internal R&D capabilities or negotiate partnerships on terms controlled by Big Pharma. Tom Hopkins, VP and Head of Lilly ExploR&D, is working to flip that script.  In this episode, Tom joins your host Mike Ward to discuss t...

In a fundraising environment marked by cautious institutional investors, tightening belts, and widespread scepticism about early-stage venture capital, Sofinnova Partners has just closed its flagship Capital XI fund at €650 million, significantly exceeding its initial target of €500 million. What does this signal about the state of healthcare innovation funding in 2025? In this episode of BioBiz B...

This episode of BioBiz Buzz explores AL-S Pharma's pioneering approach to treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis through AP-101, a first-in-class monoclonal antibody targeting misfolded SOD1 protein. Host Mike Ward speaks with Dr. Michael Salzmann, CEO of AL-S Pharma and COO of Neurimmune, and Professor Angela Genge, CMO of AL-S Pharma and Professor of Neurology at McGill University. The conv...

GLP-1s are transforming the lives of people with diabetes and obesity by improving blood glucose control and promoting substantial weight loss. However, medication adherence is a significant challenge.  US-based Vivani Medical, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, is developing miniature implants which are designed to solve this problem. Once inserted, patients and caregivers can be confide...

Targeted protein degradation (TPD) represents one of the most transformative advances in drug discovery, with the global market projected to expand from USD 641 million in 2025 to as much as USD 9.85 billion by 2035.  This rapidly evolving field enables researchers to eliminate disease-causing proteins rather than merely inhibiting their function, offering unprecedented opportunities to tackle pre...

Breast cancer affects women of all ages after puberty in every country. In 2022, the disease struck an estimated 2.3 million women and claimed 670 000 lives globally, according to the World Health Organization. The Global Breast Cancer Initiative (GBCI), is working to reduce breast cancer deaths by 2.5% each year, preventing 2.5 million deaths by 2040. Early accurate diagnosis and effective treatm...

AI-based software solutions are increasingly being used as a second pair of eyes to help clinicians with the early diagnosis of diseases. With skin cancer seeing increasing rates of incidence and mortality, software solutions hold the key to helping clinicians with timely diagnosis. In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, your host Shani Alexander sits down with Christoffer Ekström, CEO of AI Medical Tech...

In a disease where hope has been scarce for decades, Belgian biotech Bioxodes is rewriting the rules of stroke treatment. Join your host Mike Ward in conversation with CEO Marc Dechamps as he reveals how his team transformed an unlikely discovery from tick saliva into BIOX-101, a first-in-class candidate therapeutic that could revolutionize care for intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) patients. With no...

The radioligand therapy market will be worth $42 billion by 2032. However, beneath the headline-grabbing acquisitions lies a complex web of technical and commercial challenges that threaten to limit patient access to these revolutionary cancer treatments. The path to successful radioligand development is fraught with obstacles, from the "melting ice cube" logistics of short-lived radiois...

By 2040, the World Health Organization predicts that one in two people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Yet the traditional pharmaceutical industry remains trapped in a devastating cycle: developing next-generation cancer drugs typically takes years, costs up to $2.5 billion, and often fails to deliver effective treatments to desperate patients. But what if there was a revolutionar...

ReproNovo demonstrated continued investor interest in the area of reproductive medicine by closing a $65 million Series A round earlier this year. In this episode, ReproNovo’s CEO and co-founder Jean Duvall joins your host, Cormac Sheridan, to discuss the company’s development strategy and how it put together the financing deal. ReproNovo is not a typical Series A company. It has secured rights to...

In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, your host Shani Alexander is joined by Werner Lanthaler, founder and CEO of WLan Holding, to chart the seismic transformation underway in medical technology. Discover how the convergence of multi-omic diagnostics, AI-driven sensors, and smart implants is creating unprecedented value, from AI-enhanced stethoscopes that detect early heart murmurs to wearable devices t...

As the opioid crisis continues to devastate communities worldwide, millions suffering from chronic and neuropathic pain face a critical dilemma: enduring debilitating pain or risking addiction with traditional opioid medications. In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, host Mike Ward explores one of modern medicine's most pressing challenges with Per von Mentzer, CEO of PharmNovo, a pioneering Swedis...

In 2024, despite a challenging global financial climate, Switzerland’s biotech sector showed remarkable resilience, maintaining steady revenues of CHF 7.2 billion while achieving a 22% increase in capital investment. In this episode of BioBiz Buzz, host Mike Ward interviews Michael Altorfer, CEO of the Swiss Biotech Association, to discuss the findings and implications of the Swiss Biotech Report...