Beyond Biotech - the podcast from Labiotech

Ros Deegan is an industry leader and the CEO of OMass Therapeutics, an Oxford-based biotechnology company discovering medicines against highly-validated target ecosystems, such as membrane proteins or intracellular complexes.   OMass’s MC2 program targeting Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, or CAH, is set to enter the clinic this year and in our interview today she walks me through how the company i...

The World Health Organization reports that more than 600 million people suffer from lower back pain globally, making it the leading cause of disability worldwide.   Chronic lower back pain – where the pain persists for more than 3 months – develops in between 5 and 10% of all lower back pain cases, with life-altering impacts for patients. And that’s where today’s guest, Steve Ruston, of Persica Ph...

Trauma surgeons in Ukraine operating theaters saved lives and limbs thanks to the innovative lab-grown blood vessels from US biotech, Humacyte . Humacyte is pioneering a platform that enables the investigation, development, and manufacture of bioengineered human tissues and organs that are designed to be universally implantable, off-the-shelf, and regenerative, with the goal of treating a wide var...

Much of the attention of the biotech industry has been focused on the city of Boston this week as the annual BIO International Convention hit town.  BIO is the world’s largest partnering conference for the biopharma industry and thousands of innovators, out-licensors, venture capitalists, top pharma dealmakers, thought leaders and more than a few politicians gathered for three days of meetings, pr...

What are the most interesting questions in biotech, and is it even possible to find answers to those questions? Alex Telford is the co-founder of Convoke and a biotech blogger from the San Francisco Bay Area. His blog post, ' Some questions about biotech that I find interesting ' provoked conversations online as readers engaged with questions about topics as diverse as the impacts of reg...

When biotechs start fundraising they regularly turn to the venture capital market seeking investment. The pool of VC money can be large, and part of that pool is corporate venture capital. Backed by firms keen to identify the next big thing in biotechnology, corporate VC money can be an attractive way for biotechs to raise funds privately while benefiting from the support and expertise of corporat...

Biotechnology has always been a dynamic domain, but the world of finance that provides the fuel for the fire is just as vibrant. Trying to predict where the market for biotech investment is heading is always risky but for experts like Baker McKenzie’s Roel Meers, understanding where the market is moving is where he eats. I spoke to Roel this week to unpack just where biotech funding stands in Q2 2...

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is already changing how people research, communicate, and interact, but its biggest impacts on biotech are still to come. Cradle is a Dutch-Swiss biotech startup founded in 2021 that has developed a web-based software platform leveraging GenAI to accelerate protein design and optimization, aiding scientists in biotechnology R&D. Cradle’s technology in...

There are cell therapies, gene therapies, and biologics – and then there is Immusoft.  Immusoft sits at the nexus point of some of the most innovative approaches in biopharma, and their Immune System Programming platform is unique in its capacity to address the rare disease, MPS I.  This week we talk with Immusoft CEO Sean Ainsworth to learn more about his journey in biotechnology, the work that I...

Flagship Pioneering doesn't go out to find the next big thing in biotech when investing their billions in fund capital - instead, they take a different route. Flagship Pioneering has founded more than 100 companies in the life sciences worth in total an estimated $75 billion. With a proven model for biotech startup success and a culture designed to surface new and interesting ideas, Flagship...

Are TCR-NK treatments the next big thing in cell therapies for cancer patients? As biotechs and pharma companies continue to innovate to address patient needs in oncology, T-cell receptor therapies, or TCR-Ts, are attracting significant interest and investment. There are already some promising results for TCR-Ts tackling solid tumors – but one Norwegian biotech is taking a slightly different track...

AI is driving innovation across industries, including biotech, but where is its influence felt most and what opportunities for future impact are emerging? David del Bourgo is the co-founder and CEO of WhiteLab Genomics, an innovative biotech that is leveraging the power of AI to accelerate drug discovery and development from its Paris, Boston, and Montreal bases. In this episode he explains how Wh...

From llamas and camels to humans worldwide. Nanobodies are enjoying success in the clinic and experts are hailing these camelid-derived biologics as one of the next big things in immunotherapy. Kristian Reich is co-founder and CSO of MoonLake Immunotherapeutics. After a long and distinguished career as a clinician and researcher, Kristian helped to launch MoonLake in 2021 and quickly helped move t...

Cell therapies are at the cutting edge of personalized medicine but as demand for these therapies grows, how will the industry scale manufacturing to meet patient needs? Fabian Gerlinghaus is co-founder and CEO of Cellares. He and his team have developed the Cell Shuttle, an advanced cell manufacturing technology that is already demonstrating the potential to 10x cell yields while halving costs fo...

Spinal cord injuries impact millions of people worldwide and, unlike many chronic injuries, they usually arrive with no forewarning, impacting the young and old alike. Brian Culley is CEO of Lineage Cell Therapeutics and his company is now in the clinic with a stem cell therapy for spinal cord injuries. Learn why stem cells could be promising for these devastating injuries and how Brian and his te...

Mitochondria are famously the powerhouse of the cell, but will mitochondrial therapeutics power the next big mainstream medical breakthrough? Klaus Dugi is CEO of Vandria, a biotech that develops mitophagy inducers that rejuvenate cells to treat age-related and chronic diseases. He joins 'Beyond Biotech' to talk cell mitophagy, biotech agility, and innovation in tackling neurodegenerativ...

Regeneration Biomedical has developed a new technique to address neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's using stem cell therapy. Dr. Christopher Duma, has long been an innovator in neurosurgery using a gamma knife radiosurgery to treat glioblastoma. Now with Regeneration Biomedical, Duma is taking on neurodegenerative diseases with a first-in-human clinical trial where a patient's o...

We’re taking a short break this week and, while we’re away, we invite you to enjoy one of our favorite episodes. We will return with a brand-new episode next week! Immunai is mapping the immune system at unprecedented scale and granularity. The map, paired with machine learning, looks at how the immune system will respond to drug targets, offering an affordable way to prevent expensive drug failur...

Sweden's fastest growing private biotech, Anocca, is making plans for clinical trials in pancreatic cancer, with the TCR-T cell therapy trials called VIDAR-1. The CEO, Reagan Jarvis, when a researcher, pitched the company idea to a leading Swedish industrialist, who became co-founder, and provided the initial financing.  The company has raised more than €100m to date. On the podcast this week...

Resalis Therapeutics is pursuing a groundbreaking approach to obesity treatment. Unlike current therapies that primarily focus on appetite suppression, Resalis’ lead program, RES-010, is a non-coding RNA drug candidate that targets underlying biological pathways to promote sustainable weight loss.  By enhancing energy expenditure through white-to-brown adipose tissue conversion while preserving mu...

CatalYm is preparing to initiate its broad phase 2b clinical development program for visugromab to tackle multiple solid tumor indications.  Visugromab is a monoclonal antibody that neutralizes the tumor-derived growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15), a locally acting immunosuppressant fostering immunotherapy resistance.  Neutralizing GDF-15 with visugromab reverses key cancer resistance mechan...

In the fall of 2024, Haya Therapeutics, based in Switzerland and San Diego, landed a $1bn deal with Eli Lilly to apply its long non-coding RNA (ncRNA) technology to obesity. The company’s lead candidate, HTX-001, is making progress towards the clinic in cardiomyopathy. CEO Samir is one of the first researchers to publish on lncRNA – which is also known as the Dark Genome This week, our podcast gue...

Solid tumors present a big challenge for current treatments. However, a new approach might provide the answers - Tumor Activated Therapy.  By targeting specific proteins common in all solid tumor micro-environments, Seekyo scientists think this can induce self-destruction of the tumor itself. Seekyo’s lead therapy, SKY01, can only be activated within the tumor, making it a highly-targeted solution...

This week, we take a look at some of the highlights from the 43rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, which took place in San Francisco recently. While there weren’t necessarily many financial blockbusters, there were plenty of announcements and discussions on everything from artificial intelligence to the rising influence of Chinese companies and research, to the potential ramifications of...

Jessica Owens and Iana Dimkova are co-founders of Initiate Ventures—a female-led venture capital firm and studio that launched recently with a $45 million debut fund. Initiate Ventures is shaking up the traditional venture capital model by blending investments in healthcare, life sciences, and technology with a company creation platform. The company is tackling some of the most pressing challenges...