In Vivo Podcasts

In this episode of Strategic Intent, Maria Alfaiate, Executive Vice President for Corporate Portfolio and Product Strategy at Lundbeck, discusses neuroscience's growing resurgence in pharmaceutical investment alongside other challenges faced in central nervous system dealmaking decisions.

"The money is back in RNA. In recent weeks, Merck KGaA agreed to pay about $1.1 billion for Silence Therapeutics, Novartis signed a deal worth up to $7.8 billion with Abogen Biosciences, and Roche paid more than $1 billion for an RNAi obesity drug from Rona Therapeutics. Meanwhile, Merck and Moderna’s personalized melanoma vaccine cut the risk of recurrence or death by 42% in a Phase 3 trial. So, is RNA now a durable drug modality, and what still separates today’s headlines from routine medicine?   In this episode of Proof of Concept, In Vivo's David Wild speaks with Dr. John Cooke, cardiologist, founder and president of the Society for RNA Therapeutics, and founding director of the Center for RNA Therapeutics at Houston Methodist. Cooke discusses his team’s first-in-human personalized mRNA vaccine for osteosarcoma relapse, the vision of 'RNA in a box' deployable manufacturing units at hospitals, the misconceptions that still dog RNA therapeutics, and why delivery remains the field’s biggest hurdle. He also compares mRNA, circular RNA, self-amplifying RNA, and RNAi, and looks at in vivo CAR-T and extrahepatic targets."  Proof of Concept is the monthly innovation-focused podcast from the teams at In Vivo, Scrip, and MedTech Insight.

Most biotech companies spend their time creating value. Far fewer have to figure out how to rebuild it. Erik Wiklund, CEO of Norwegian biotech Circio, has done both. Three and a half years ago, Circio ended its legacy oncolytic virus and cancer vaccine programs and pivoted to circular RNA, while it still had the resources to do so. The share price fell about 98%, the team shrank to eight people, and the company survived on convertible notes. Today it has a valuation of roughly $350 million, a funded collaboration with a top-five pharma company, and cash to last four to five years. In this episode, Wiklund joins David Wild, senior reporter at In Vivo, to discuss: Why circular RNA is drawing big investment and acquisitions, and how Circio’s vector-based approach differs from the field How to decide when to abandon legacy assets, and why timing matters Lessons on investor relations, retail shareholders and news flow for listed biotechs Why Circio is exploring China’s IIT pathway for first-in-human data Why platform companies may fit public markets better than VC-backed, asset-centric models Strategic Intent is the flagship podcast from the teams at Scrip, In Vivo and Medtech Insight.

In this episode of Strategic Intent, Partner at Sofinnova Partners, David Evans discusses his transition from Roche Venture Fund, different investments strategies, general market analysis across Europe and US, as well as growing therapeutics area trends within biotech.

Disease-modifying Alzheimer’s treatments have arrived, but diagnosing the right patients at scale is still a major bottleneck. In this episode of Strategic Intent, Marion Webb (MedTech Insight) speaks with Dr. Soeren Mattke, research professor of economics at USC, director of the Brain Health Observatory, and member of the scientific advisory board of ALZpath, about how FDA-cleared blood tests are changing the picture. They cover why amyloid PET scans and spinal taps struggle to scale, how p-tau217 blood tests work and who makes them, and how primary care doctors can use them to prioritize patients and better prepare referrals to overstretched neurologists. They also discuss test limitations, including false positives and the potential of misdiagnosis when patients have other diseases like kidney disease and obesity, why screening people without symptoms isn’t recommended yet, and the economics: roughly $5,000 for a PET scan versus about $125 for a Medicare-reimbursed blood test. Follow the In Vivo podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to stay ahead of what’s shaping life sciences next.