Ep. 96 – From Pharma Partnering to Biotech CEO: Sophie Kornowski on Boston Pharma’s Playbook
It took Sophie Kornowski under four years as CEO of Boston Pharma to bring it from a pipeline full of in-licensed assets to an acquisition by GSK for about $2 billion in total deal value for a single MASH program. Though her first gig as a biotech CEO, Kornowski’s success was built on her years of experience as head of partnering at Roche. She discussed that pivot and the value of rolling your sleeves up on the latest episode of The BioCentury Show.View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/657446#BiotechLeadership #DrugDevelopment #PharmaDeals #BiotechCEO #StartupSuccess #LifeSciences #MetabolicDisease #PharmaInnovation00:00 - Introduction01:15 - Becoming a Biotech CEO11:40 - MASH18:15 - First v. Best in Class24:10 - GSK Deal
--------
32:17
--------
32:17
Ep. 95 - Kymera CEO Nello Mainolfi: Matching Degrader Chemistry to the Problem
Kymera Therapeutics has a clear mission: to transform immunology with targeted protein degraders that enable “oral drugs with biologics-like activity,” CEO Nello Mainolfi told The BioCentury Show. A pioneer in one of biopharma’s most closely watched new therapeutic modalities, Kymera is now over nine years into its story, with multiple pharma partnerships and a wholly owned pipeline, including a STAT6 degrader that produced promising data in June.In conversation with BioCentury’s Selina Koch, Mainolfi discusses the appeal of degraders, the rationale for choosing glues or heterobifunctional degraders and how to prove a new modality on a new target without incurring biology risk.View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/657297#ProteinDegradation #DrugDiscovery #MolecularGlues #HeterobifunctionalDegraders #Immunology #RationalDrugDesign #BiotechInnovation00:00 - Introduction01:07 - Degraders' Appeal07:22 - Glue vs. Heterobifunctional16:12 - Translating a New Modality24:14 - Partnerships
--------
31:33
--------
31:33
Ep. 94 - Frazier's James Li on China’s Rapidly Evolving Biotech Deal Landscape
The frenzy among Western companies to access China’s biotechnology innovation is remaking the landscape for cross-border dealmaking, with assets becoming more expensive and partnerships earlier and broader than ever before. That’s being driven by exceptional capital efficiency, access to patients and speed of development, said Frazier Life Sciences’ James Li on The BioCentury Show podcast.Among multinational companies, “every company has an army on the ground hunting for assets,” said Li, who has more than 30 years of biotech experience, as an investor, company builder and executive at an MNC and a biotech.View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/657156#ChinaBiotech #Biopharma #CrossBorderDeals #LifeSciences #DrugDevelopment #HealthcareInnovation #BiotechInvesting00:00 - Introduction 02:18 - Evolution of an Ecosystem 04:31 - NewCo Deals 10:30 - Japan, Korea 15:30 - Dealmaking
--------
29:45
--------
29:45
Ep. 93 – BIO’s Fritz Bittenbender on Trump 2.0, MFN Threats & Pharma’s Concessions
President Donald Trump’s demands for “most favored nation” drug pricing presents the biopharma industry with an immense public policy challenge. Drug companies are convinced that meeting the president’s demand to reduce U.S. prices to levels below those of other industrialized countries would decimate the industry. On this episode of The BioCentury Show, Fritz Bittenbender, SVP of Roche's Genentech unit and chairman of BIO, discusses the industry’s responses to the MFN challenge, and some of the under-appreciated nuances of policy options. He notes that reducing or eliminating payments to PBMs would lead to higher insurance premiums. While drug companies are scrambling to meet Trump’s Sept. 29 deadline to make voluntary pricing concessions, Bittenbender says a more comprehensive deal should be made that reduces out-of-pocket costs, preserves patient access and supports biomedical innovation. The interview touches on other hot button public policy issues, presenting the biotech industry’s views on reforming the Medicare drug pricing negotiation program, tariffs, and prospects for reviving the Biosecure Act.View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/657021#DrugPricing #HealthPolicy #MFN #BIO #DrugPolicy #MedicarePartD #MedicarePartB #PBMs #Tariffs #InnovationVsAccess00:00 - Introduction00:48 - MFN Drug Pricing11:06 - Tariffs18:27 - China Policy23:58 - Vaccines27:03 - IRA
--------
34:03
--------
34:03
Ep. 92 - Reimagining FDA: Steve Usdin on Designing the Drug Regulator of the Future
If you could redesign FDA from the ground up, what would it look like? That’s the fundamental question underlying the 2025 BioCentury Back to School essay, authored by BioCentury Washington Editor Steve Usdin, who has been a leading voice on regulation and policy for over two decades. The topic is especially meaningful in this era of FDA turmoil, when regulatory risk has piled on top of the market pullback, making biotech appear an unusually hazardous domain for investors. But while the current landscape has underscored the need, FDA reform has been on the table long before this administration came into power. On this edition of The BioCentury Show, Usdin and Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn discuss the key arguments, and some specific concepts, within Back To School, which reimagines the U.S. drugs regulator.View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/656928#FDA #DrugRegulation #Biopharma #LifeSciences #Biotech #PublicTrust00:00 - Introduction02:38 - Restructuring FDA18:04 - A Learning Regulatory Agency27:48 - Global View31:04 - Talent32:54 - User Fees
Tune in to BioCentury’s in-depth conversations with global leaders who are advancing the future of medicine.Join our Senior Editors in face-to-face discussions with scientific KOLs, top executives, VCs, and key policymakers, dissecting the most urgent public health issues.The BioCentury Show is THE only place where BioCentury’s experts join top innovators and global influencers to show how science is being turned into medicine.Don't miss this event, every two weeks, now available as a video webcast or audio podcast.
Listen to The BioCentury Show, The Happy Saver Podcast - Personal Finance in New Zealand and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app
New Zealand