Claim OwnershipBeyond Biotech - the podcast from Labiotech
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© 2026 Beyond Biotech - the podcast from Labiotech
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Welcome to the official Labiotech.eu podcast - Beyond Biotech! Each week, we talk about what's happening in the world of biotech, with news and interviews with experts from companies around the world. Join us as we cover the latest news, breakthroughs and innovations shaping the life sciences industry.A new podcast episode is available every Friday. The host is Dylan Kissane.
186 Episodes
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Our guest is Sergey Jakimov, the Founding and Managing Partner of LongeVC, a venture capital firm dedicated to backing early-stage biotech and longevity startups. A serial entrepreneur, Sergey has co-founded ventures like Longenesis, a medical tech startup unlocking biomedical data for drug discovery, and the Longevity Science Foundation, a non-profit advancing healthy human lifespan. He’s been named to Forbes Latvia's 30 Under 30 in technology and healthcare, and via LongeVC, he invests in i...
Today, we're joined by Professor Matthew Wood, a leading figure in neuroscience and RNA-based therapeutics. He is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, Deputy Head of the Medical Sciences Division, and Director of both the MDUK Oxford Neuromuscular Centre and the Oxford-Harrington Rare Disease Centre, a groundbreaking partnership between the University of Oxford and Harrington Discovery Institute dedicated to accelerating therapies for rare genetic diseases affecting millions...
As we mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we welcome Avital Sharir-Ivry, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of ProPhet, an innovative Israeli startup launched in late 2024 from the AION Labs venture studio. With a PhD in computational biology and drug research, Avital brings deep expertise in structural biology, enzyme design, and evolutionary bioinformatics to her role leading ProPhet's scientific efforts. ProPhet itself is changing small molecule drug discovery by...
Today, we're joined by Thomas Hopkins, Vice President and Head of ExploR&D at Eli Lilly. With a background as a physician-scientist in oncology, Thomas has spent his career bridging bold discovery science with rigorous development, first in academia and clinical practice, then at Lilly since 2015. Lilly ExploR&D represents new thinking in the pharma-biotech collaboration model: a shared-risk, deep scientific partnership designed specifically for early-stage biotechs. It provides full-...
Today, my guest is Dr. Clare Wareing, Founder and CEO of Cumulus Oncology, who joins us from Edinburgh. With over 25 years of expertise in oncology drug development, Clare has built a remarkable career translating scientific breakthroughs into life-changing therapies. Cumulus Oncology is curating a risk-adjusted portfolio of preclinical assets focused on high unmet needs in oncology. Their platform-agnostic, approach prioritizes patient subgroups and precision medicine to boost success ...
Today, we're thrilled to have Tim Opler, a leading voice in biotech investment banking. Tim's career spans academia, Credit Suisse, and co-founding Torreya Partners, which Stifel acquired in 2023. As Managing Director in Stifel's Global Healthcare Group, he's advised on over 150 deals totaling more than $100 billion, shaping major M&A, licensing, and financings in life sciences. Tim is renowned for his insightful Biopharma Market Updates, and in this episode, we'll dive into his December ...
Today I’m joined by not one, not two, but three guests with their takes on the biotech year ahead. In December we tasked Labiotech journalists Jules Adam, Roohi Peter, and Willow Shah-Neville with the task of identifying the five biotech players that they thought would be the ones to watch in 2026. Now you can read that article at Labiotech-dot-EU, and we’ve linked it in the show notes here in your podcast player, too, but on today’s episode I’m joined by Jules, Roohi, and Willow who explain ...
Welcome to our first episode for 2026. Today, we're joined by Hakan Goker, Managing Director at M Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA. With over two decades in biotech investing, Hakan has driven transformative deals in oncology, autoimmune diseases, and beyond, including standout 2025 investments like FoRx Therapeutics and portfolio milestones such as Artios' FDA Fast Track designation. As we kick off 2026 at Beyond Biotech, Hakan shares insights on corp...
Welcome to our final episode for 2025. We’re taking a little break for the holidays but we’ll be back again on Friday 9th of January to kick off our year with the Managing Director of Merck KGaA’s M Ventures, Hakan Goker. Today, though, I’m joined by Ester in t’Groen of Johnson & Johnson. Fresh off the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in Orlando, where J&J presented over 60 abstracts, Ester shares insights into the company's portfolio and the advances that the compa...
In this episode we sit down with Martin Beck, Senior Vice President and Head of the Inflammation Business Unit at Boehringer Ingelheim. Martin grew up just down the road from the company’s headquarters in Germany, joined as a scholarship student more than 20 years ago, and never really left – and you’ll hear why he still loves it. We spend most of the episode focused on a disease that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: idiopathic and progressive pulmonary fibrosis. These are rare, fatal lun...
Cancer is one of the biggest health challenges worldwide. While progress has been made, millions of patients are still in need of new treatment options that better address the complexities of their disease. BeOne Medicines is creating the world’s next-generation cancer treatments with relentless innovation, aiming to deliver therapies to more people around the globe. This week, I'm sitting down with Mark Lanasa, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Solid Tumors, at BeOne Medicines...
Daiichi Sankyo has been pioneering ADCs since 2010, with a pipeline targeting over 30 indications and potentially reaching 400,000 patients. In today’s episode I’m joined by Dr. Markus Kosch, Head of the EU Oncology Business Division at Daiichi Sankyo. A physician by training with a deep academic background in oncology, Markus has spent over two decades advancing cancer care, from clinical practice to leadership roles shaping strategy across Europe and Canada. Since joining Daiichi Sankyo in ...
Two weeks ago, the biopharma industry gathered in Vienna, Austria, for BIO-Europe. Tens of thousands of one-on-one meetings were organized between innovators and out-licensors with top pharma companies and venture capitalists eager to partner and invest. For the large pharma firms, it’s a chance to learn about new science and keep tabs on evolving assets. For smaller biotechs, though, it can be three-days of high-pressure networking where a lot is riding on making the right pitch to the...
Last week saw more than 5,900 people from 3,200 companies gather in Vienna, Austria, for the continent’s largest biopharma partnering conference, BIO-Europe. Over three days the world’s top pharma companies, most innovative biotechs, and life science professionals from 60 countries took more than 32,000 one-on-one meetings, made the connections, and sealed deals that will drive the industry forward into 2026 and beyond. Among the highlights of BIO-Europe this year was the Startup Spotlight co...
Urinary Tract infections, or UTIs, affect millions worldwide, driving sepsis, antibiotic overuse, and microbial resistance. Current diagnostics rely on either slow lab cultures or unreliable dipsticks, and often lead to delayed or unnecessary treatment. Llusern’s Lodestar DX changes that: a point-of-care test that detects 96% of key UTI pathogens in just 35 minutes, no lab required. In this episode I’m joined by Emma Hayhurst who shares her journey into diagnostics, Llusern’s mission, and the...
Today, I’m joined by Héctor García Martín, a Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A pioneer in metabolic engineering and computational biology, Héctor has spent over a decade decoding microbial systems, everything from termite guts to genome-scale flux models, to unlock sustainable biomanufacturing. Now, he’s leading the charge in self-driving labs: AI-powered, robotic systems that automate experiments, predict biological behavior, and accelerate the design of microbes th...
Today we’re diving into the world of expression systems with Iskandar Dib, of Validogen and we’ll explore the remarkable potential of Pichia pastoris, a methylotrophic yeast that’s revolutionizing pharmaceutical protein production and beyond. From industrial enzymes to biomaterials, food, feed, and diagnostics, Pichia offers a reliable, scalable, and cost-efficient platform for recombinant protein expression. Iskandar explains how biotechs can unlock Pichia’s full potential throug...
In today's episode, we welcome Clarke Futch, Chairman and CEO of HealthCare Royalty Partners, or HCRx. HCRx are pioneers in royalty-based financing, with a thirty year track record in biopharma investing. Clarke has led more than 60 royalty acquisitions totaling nearly $4 billion and raised over $8 billion across various vehicles, executing more than 165 transactions that have fueled breakthroughs in life sciences. In this interview we examine the evolution of alternative funding models, the ...
When it comes to contraception, most of the innovation in the last century has focused on providing contraceptive alternatives for women. The contraceptive pill was approved by the FDA in 1960, the first IUD approved in 1968, and the female condom in 1993. For men, however, there has been little advancement since the invention of the rubber condom in 1855 and the first vasectomies in humans around the turn of the 20th century. Contraline is a biotechnology company that is aiming to change tha...
Raising money in the gene therapy space can be tough right now but, for the right company and with the right team, there is still cash to be found. But how do you connect with investors, how do you get your science in front of the right people, and how do you move from ‘I’m interested’ to ‘I’m signing on the dotted line’? This week I talk with Gerard Caelles, Chief Business Office of Splice Bio, a company that just closed a $135 million series B fundraising round. I quiz him on the practical ...
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