PETRI DISH PERSPECTIVES

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Petri Dish Perspectives, we explore Revolution Medicines, the precision oncology company that spent over a decade trying to drug one of cancer’s most notorious targets: RAS. With mutations present in roughly 30% of all new cancer diagnoses, including pancreatic, lung, and colorectal cancers, RAS has long been considered undruggable. Revolution bet their entire company on proving that wrong. We break down the science behind their tricomplex inhibitor platfor...

Send us Fan Mail After training as a physician, earning an MBA from Wharton, and co-founding Sonara Health, a digital health company that raised over $10 million from the NIH, VCs, Dr. Avinash Jayaraman could have gone in almost any direction. He chose to focus on one of the most urgent and underserved crises in adolescent health: the mental health epidemic driven by technology overuse. In this episode, Dr. Jayaraman unpacks why screen time and social media have become a clinical problem, not...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to your essential overview of the global biotech and pharmaceutical landscape for September 2026! This month was defined by blockbuster dealmaking, historic FDA approvals, and a growing recognition that pharmaceutical innovation is shifting east. AstraZeneca made a $2 billion strategic bet on Summit Therapeutics and its ivonescimab program, Novo Nordisk paid up to $2.6 billion for a once-weekly oral GLP-1 from China's Hengrui, and Eli Lilly continued its relentless de...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Petri Dish Perspectives, we explore Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, the Chinese pharma giant that started as a state-owned generic drug factory in 1970 and quietly became one of the most important drug companies in the world. Over $15 billion in deals with GSK and Novo Nordisk. The world's top clinical trial sponsor. One of the top five drug pipelines globally. All from a city most people can't find on a map. We break down how Hengrui made the pivot from g...

Send us Fan Mail After years of running a school on the rigid rhythm of bells, Dr. John Murphy walked away from K-12 education and into something he never trained for: performing history at bars. In this episode, John unpacks how a credentialed academic builds an audience outside the walls of a traditional institution, why humor and analogies are the secret weapons of great storytelling, and what it actually takes to turn expertise into something people will pay a bar tab to hear. Quick note:...