The Future of Pharma

My guest in this episode is Rene Marcotte. Rene is Senior Vice President Life Sciences at RCM Technologies. Rene has nearly 40 years of experience as a data architect across multiple industries, including Life Sciences for the past 20 years. He has helped to lead and build over 40 data warehouses and analytic solutions, including for some of the largest and smallest pharmaceuticals.  In this discussion, Rene and I talk about data aka the digital gold. Some of the topics we discussed are - The evolution of data over last few decades - Change in data hardware size and capabilities - How cloud has democratized the field for small and big companies - Necessity for an early data plan (pay now or pay much more later) - How end users use data to make better decisions and  - What someone needs to work in data analytics. Data is a dry subject but Rene can make it interesting as he did in this interview.  I hope you find it interesting too. Here's Rene Marcotte.  

My guest in this episode is Dr. Mohit Jain, founder and CSO of Sapient.   Dr. Jain is a physician-scientist with more than 20 years of expertise in physiology, computational biology, and mass spectrometry-based bioanalytics. He formed the Jain Laboratory at UCSD, where he led his team to develop next-generation mass spectrometry systems to probe the non-genetic landscape of disease across large-scale human studies. He founded Sapient in 2021 as a spinout of the Jain Laboratory to expand upon this mission, providing bespoke services multi-omics biomarker discovery. In this wide ranging yet focused interview, we discuss  - Biomarkers and how their role has changed - The predictor for a clinical trial success - Precision guided medicine - The change in disease classification over last 20 years - Genetic vs non-genetic reasons for disease - Next generation mass spectrometry and - Different disease expression in different people I enjoyed my chat with Dr. Jain, particularly his ability to simplify complex problems the pharma industry is facing and what should be done about it. Hope you do too. Here's Dr. Mohit Jain.

My guest in this episode is Scott Chetham.  Scott is an experienced healthcare entrepreneur who is currently the CEO and co-founder of Faro Health.  Scott leads the strategy for the Faro Health platform, which is designed to power clinical development by connecting data to decision making in a fundamentally new way. Previously, he was the Head of Clinical Research Operations and Data Management at Verily Life Sciences, formerly known as Google Life Sciences. His role involved leading the clinical strategy, clinical teams, process development and operations for all clinical  projects of the company, including Google and Google[x].  Scott has also served as a Venture Partner at Versant Ventures, CTO and Co-founder of Intersection Medical (sold to ImpediMed), and VP Clinical Affairs (ImpediMed). In these latter two roles he was responsible for clinical research strategy and operations.   In this deep dive discussion, Scott and I talk about surgical robots, patient recruitment difficulties for clinical trials, why he co-founded Faro Health, the current inefficiencies in clinical trials, how he and his colleagues are working to make it better and how they are using AI to do that, what the future clinical trails will look like, and the lessons he's learned as a tech and healthcare leader.  I found my discussion with Scott very informative and timely. I hope you do too.  Here's Scott Chetham.

My guest today is Ron Gutman. Ron is an inventor, an investor, a serial technology and healthcare entrepreneur and a Stanford University adjunct Professor.  Ron has built and invested in technology and healthcare companies that have served hundreds of millions of people and saved countless lives worldwide. He's an inventor holding a series of patents in healthcare technology and Artificial Intelligence and won the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer award.  Ron's articles have been published in respected media such as The Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune Magazine, CNN, and TechCrunch. He also wrote a best-selling TED Book SMILE: The Astonishing Power of a Simple Act, and gave a popular TED talk about smiling that was translated to 51 languages and viewed by millions everywhere. Ron has also presented in leading technology and healthcare conferences, including The World Economic Forum, TED, and Fortune Brainstorm Tech. In this discussion, we talk about the impact of technology, particularly AI, on healthcare, how the pharma industry is adapting to the new technology platforms and the role he is playing in it. But my favorite segment is when we talk about his research, book and the TED talk on smile and how a simple smile can transcend cultural barriers and overcome any inner turmoil. It was a refreshing conversation. I hope you enjoy it too. Here's Ron Gutman.

My guest in this episode is Nathan Clark. Nathan is the Co-Founder of Ganymede.bio, one of the fastest-growing software startups in biotech. Ganymede is the modern, data platform for life sciences companies, and its focused on integrating physical lab instruments with digital workflows. Prior to Ganymede, Nathan was the product manager at Benchling for Machine Learning and Insights Analytics. He also has a background in financial technology and trading, and notably launched affirm.com/savings.  In this informative talk, Nathan and I talked about  - His journey from being a bond trader to a life science data entrepreneur, - Difference between Fintech and life science tech - How Genymede is doing it differently than the other companies - How to be 10% faster to the market with new drugs - Growing with a remote working team - Why he got into a life science start up - His fondness for MIT Open Courseware You can reach out to him by email, his website or LinkedIn. I enjoyed my chat with Nathan. Hope you do too.

I have two guests in today's episode, something I rarely do. My guests are Kyle Felmet and Jennifer Lospinoso. Kyle Felmet serves as the Vice President of Specialty Commercialization at Two  Labs, an Envision Pharma Company, where he plays a pivotal role in ensuring that specialty drug manufacturers have the necessary distribution channel strategy infrastructure and pre-launch workstreams in place to facilitate a successful product launch with the appropriate wrap-around patient/prescriber services tailored to each unique product. His expertise spans across key therapeutic areas including oncology, rare diseases, and cell and gene therapies. Over the past decade, Kyle has been instrumental in supporting clients and vendors within these sectors, leading several successful product launches. Jennifer Lospinoso is the Managing Director & Consulting Lead at Riparian. Jennifer brings 20 years of leadership experience in various areas of government and commercial program operations and compliance. Jennifer has extensive experience leading and delivering projects focused on U.S. government program regulatory compliance, gross-to-net forecasting and operational excellence. In this wide-ranging talk, Kyle, Jennifer and I talk about - Cell and gene therapy (CGT) pricing in the absence of insufficient historical data - The challenges to set a price for CGT by the government and insurance companies  - Justification for high prices for CGT - Outcome based reimbursements - Expensive distribution logistics for CGT - Why the product launch preparation starts 24-36 months before the actual launch date - What start ups can do during the early phase to make product launch efficient and cost effective and - Their favorite books and topics for their potential TedTalks. This was an interesting discussion for me because we talked about where the science ends and the commercialization begins, something I haven't done. I enjoyed my chat with Kyle and Jenn. Hope you do to.  Here's Kyle Felmet and Jennifer Lospinoso.

My guest today is Dr. Ben Coverdale.  Ben is an experienced Global Account Director of Patsnap with a demonstrated history of working in the life sciences and innovation intelligence industries. Patsnap is Powered by advanced AI, where they help IP and R&D teams collaborate and accelerate the entire innovation lifecycle. He has a strong research professional background with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) focused in Biomedical Materials from The University of Manchester. He developed 3D scaffold fabrication methods for the regeneration of bone tissue, gaining insight in product development and the patent landscape in the medical device and biotechnology industries. Following 4 years at StemCell Technologies, supporting big pharma and key academic institutions to optimize their R&D workflows, he now supports innovative and disruptive life science companies to protect their IP portfolios, understand competitor movements, and innovate faster in rapidly developing markets. In this interview, we talk about connecting the dots in drug development, what makes Patsnap different than other AI tools and gives more targeted results, his favorite author Stephen Hawking, favorite books "The brief history of time" and "Sapiens", and what the topic of his potential TedTalk would be. I thoroughly enjoyed my chat with Ben. Hope you do too. Here's Dr. Ben Coverdale. 

My guest in this episode is Dr. Samuel Ewing. He is the Global Head of Pharmaceutical Partnerships at Doccla. Before joining Doccla, Dr. Ewing led the development of a connected auto-injector system for Roche’s Alzheimer’s disease program at Capgemini Engineering. He also led the development of Biofourmis’s wearable vital sign monitoring platform. At Roche, he managed remote patient monitoring across various diseases, including Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis, and others. As Chief Neuroscience Officer at NeuroPro, he developed a wearable brain monitoring device for epilepsy. Dr. Ewing's extensive experience in digital health and medical research drives his commitment to advancing treatment for challenging diseases. He believes that the scarcity of data from patients in the real world hinders progress, something he is committed to overcoming. In this fascinating chat, we talk about our current hospital systems, and capacity, and how patients can get the hospital care in the comfort of their home in a digital hospital.   Here’s my guest Dr. Samuel Ewing.

My guest in this episode is Greg Kunst, CEO of Aurion Biotech. At Aurion, Greg and his colleagues are working on a regenerative treatment (corneal endothelial cell therapy) for millions of people who have partial or complete vision loss. Greg joined Aurion Biotech with deep and varied experience in ophthalmic medical devices, drug delivery systems, diagnostics, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical products. His expertise spans global corporate development, strategy, health policy, marketing, commercialization, business development, market access and medical affairs. Before Aurion Biotech, Greg spent 6 years at Glaukos Corporation (NYSE: GKOS) in numerous roles of increasing responsibility, most recently as vice president of global marketing. Before Glaukos, Greg worked at Alcon, a Novartis company, as global franchise director over the Alcon glaucoma surgery and retina pharmaceutical businesses.  Greg is a board member of Pr3vent. He received an MBA from Vanderbilt University and a BS in Economics from Brigham Young University. In this interview, Greg talks about why he decided to dedicate his life to eye therapies, the origin of Aurion (Dr. Shigeru Kinoshita's research in Corneal Endothelial Cell Therapy), how he remains positive in spite of being a self-proclaimed news junkie, and his unequivocal commitment to making Aurion therapies affordable for everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed my chat with Greg. Hope you do too.

My guest in this episode of The Future of Pharma is Nikhil Bhojwani.  Nikhil is an entrepreneur, investor, strategist, and TedTalk speaker. He is a Managing Partner at Recon Strategy, a boutique consulting firm that he founded in 2010. At Recon Strategy, Nikhil works with executives and boards on strategy at the portfolio and business-unit levels for payers, hospitals, life science, and digital health companies.  Nikhil stays close to the startup community as an investor, board member, and advisor to several companies. These have included CIC Health, a national leader in COVID testing and vaccinations, which was founded based on a blueprint set out in an HBR article Nikhil co-authored with Dr. Atul Gawande.  Nikhil was the 2023 Dorothy R. Eisenberg Visiting Professor at Harvard Medical School/ Brigham and Women's Hospital, where for the 50th anniversary lecture of this series, he presented a lecture on the future of AI in healthcare.  He has also lectured at Harvard Business School and the Harvard School of Public Health and is a member of the Massachusetts Governor's AI task force healthcare working group. In this wide ranging talk, we discuss about - What AI can do that humans can't - How Moderna is using AI to respond to regulatory queries (among other things) - AI in pharma competitive landscape (and it's not just technology) - Where multiple big companies need to collaborate due to the scale - His tedtalk ("Unlock potential of Generative AI by Conquering the Spooky Mountain") - Responsible use of AI - Rational and irrational fears about AI - Why AI's growth seems scarier than other historical technological advances - Real impact in the pharmaceutical industry (and on the regulatory agencies) - And instead of writing a book, what he would do with the existing knowledge. Hope you enjoy this informative talk with Nikhil Bhojwani.

My guest in this episode is Dr. Harsha Rajasimha, CEO/founder of Jeeva Clinical Trials. We talked about the pharmaceutical industry's blackbox - clinical trials. Personal tragedy inspired him to dedicate his life to make technology more efficient for healthcare solutions including AI and generative AI. We discussed the complexities of clinical trials, its patient recruitment, and data unavailability challenges, and why we must make them more efficient He is also the founder of a non-profit, IndoUSRare, which as the name implies bridges the rare disease treatment and awareness gap between the US and Indian diaspora.  We also discussed the people and companies with the similar inspiring stories such as John Crowley from Amicus Therapeutics, and Terry Pirovolakis from Elpida Therapeutics. Listen to Harsha's interview if you're looking for a doze of inspiration and motivation.

My guest today is Hon. Prof. Dr. Tom Chittenden, but he prefers to go by Tom. He is the Chief Scientific Officer and President of R&D at BioAI Company and leads scientific research operations and ongoing development and implementation of the BioAI Health PREDICT-X Drug Discovery and Development platform. Tom Chittenden is an Honorary Professor of AI in Biomedicine at Queen Mary University of London. His research has been published in top-tier scientific journals, including Nature and Science. Tom is regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on causal AI in the biomedical sciences. Over the past decade, he has directed commercially successful computational teams in several globally relevant areas, including multimodal AI/ML strategies for cardio vascular disease, cancer, COVID-19, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s diseases. In 2019, he was named among the top 100 Pioneers in Drug Discovery and Advanced Healthcare by Forbes Magazine.  As a professor, he has taught at Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and MIT. He holds multiple Doctorates in Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology and Computational Statistics.  In this fascinating talk, Tom and I discuss the real potential and challenges in the AI space, how it's going to affect the future of the Pharmaceutical industry, and what you can do about it. Here's Honorary Professor Tom Chittenden.

My guests today are the dynamic husband-wife duo of Alpesh and Jigisha Gandhi who jointly run Ami Polymer Pvt. Ltd. which is a leading manufacturer of silicon tubing something we use a lot in the life science industry. Starting with Alpesh and later with Jigisha, Ami Polymer is a leading silicon tubing manufacturing company in India and played an important role in COVID vaccine manufacturing. Alpesh Gandhi did his engineering in Rubber Technology from L. D. College of Engineering, Ahmedabad, India. The same college where I did my Chemical Engineering. Then he did his MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies. He co-founded Ami Polymer Pvt. Ltd. in the late 90s.  Jigisha Gandhi studied commerce at the University of Mumbai and is the director of Ami Polymer Pvt. Ltd. She's been bestowed with numerous awards by Universities, magazines, and the government for her achievements in the business world, including being profiled in a book "Eves Against the Odds" featuring the most powerful women entrepreneurs in India. Here are Alpesh and Jigisha Gandhi sharing their fascinating journey from humble beginnings to running a global company and what they think the future holds for the pharma industry.

My guest in this episode is Gareth Shaw. Gareth Shaw is the President, the UK & Europe of Doceree, the first global network of physician-only platforms for programmatic messaging. Prior to joining Doceree, Gareth was the General Manager, Global Programmatic, of PulsePoint where he led the programmatic and operations divisions. Previously, he has held roles at Yahoo! and Experian.  Throughout his career, Gareth has gained vast experience in sales and operations across the digital media and advertising technology sectors. He has a well-regarded background in building high-performance teams and implementing strategic plans to facilitate the growth of his organizations.   

My guest in this episode is Lyndsee Manna. Lyndsee is an EVP at Arria NLG, where along with her colleagues, she helps businesses derive actionable intelligence from data to make better decisions. That's the simplistic version and we go into a lot more details. In this wide-ranging episode, we talk about math, words, language, writing, technology, data analytics, success, failure, and personal choices. A standout quote from her is, "There are no failures. There are only lessons." I had a great time talking to Lyndsee, discussing the future possibilities, and learning about AI.