Biotech Advisory vs Consultancy with David Cao, Founder of Target2Drug BioAdvisory

Okay, so we covered a lot of ground on this most recent podcast, and I think people are going to be so excited to hear from David Kao. He is a strategic leader in the world of biotech startups, and he has so much good insight into really all the things. But from commercialization to drug discovery to mentoring, to his own incredibly interesting career path.

Absolutely. His career path is exceptional. And I think people who are making the leap into biotech from academia have a lot to learn from this. But I also think that the founders and people growing biotechs are going to be really interested in his perspective on what really matters when choosing a target. So stay tuned and we'll get right into it. All right. Hey, welcome, David. Thanks for coming on the show.

Welcome to Building Biotechs by Recrudomics Consulting. We've helped over 90 biotech, life sciences and venture capital firms strategize and hire thousands of employees to scale companies that impact human health. We speak with those at the forefront of growing biotechs to learn their tactics on building these companies from the ground up. I'm Karina Klingman, founder and principal at Recredomics Consulting. Enjoy the show?

It's my pleasure.

Great.

So we always start with the same question because some of our viewers are kind of entering the workforce and they, you know, don't know what kind of career possibilities are out there. So what did you want to be when you were 7? What are you now? And how did you get there?

So, honestly, it's a very hard question for me personally, because I looked at. Well, I listened to some of your previous podcasts, so I know this question is coming up. But frankly speaking, I actually didn't know what I wanted to be when I was 7. And the reason for that was I grew up. Grew up in China. And When I was 7, I had a single mom trying to, you know, trying her very best to try to raise me. And at that point.

Right.

Having seen how hard she worked just to try to take care of the family, but also working, my only goal at that time is not what I want to grow up to be. It's more of, like, when I can actually grow up and help her out.

That's really sweet. Yeah. When you were sort of, you know, exploring career paths early on, did you end up where you thought you were going to? What did you start out looking at?

I would say that it's pretty much in line with what I was expecting myself to be as early as maybe middle school. That's when I started actually doing some experiments with My stepdad in his chemistry lab. So that was really cool. And at that point I already knew I loved science. But, you know, whether it's going to be physics, chemistry, or biology, I didn't know. But I knew I was going to be a science nerd.

Love that.

Awesome. Can you walk us through your career path? You've had a really, really interesting career. I'd love to kind of dive into that.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I would say, to put it very simply, I think when you look at my career path, I would characterize it as a winding.

Right.

It's really like a lot of unexpected directions. But yeah, I would say, yeah. Because my love of science from very early on, not surprisingly, I chose biochemistry as my major in college. Karina, you have a PhD in science as well. So, you know, having a biochemistry bachelor's degree actually doesn't really get you anywhere. Right. Other than that maybe washing, you know, dishes and flasks in the lab. Right. So at that point, you know, I knew that was going to be the end of my science career. So I decided to come to the US and pursued a PhD degree in molecular biology. And when I was doing that, really at that time, I didn't really think of anything else but the academic career. Just wanted to be a Professor, follow my PhD advisor's footsteps. But as soon as I got into my postdoc at Duke, my world sort of opened up. And because at Duke there was a lot of sort of extracurricular activities and, you know, different sort of conferences or seminars that really opened up my eyes about what the possibilities might be for a PhD trained scientist. So I started actually exploring. So that's one thing I think that environment changed me. But also just internally, I was starting to realize I was not the kind of a person or personality that would like to sit in the dark room and, you know, working on microscope six or seven hours a day, I craved that, you know, people interaction on daily basis. So I started exploring and that's how I actually ended up going to business school or MBA afterwards. And you know, for. For the, for your audiences that are interested in kind of pursuing, you know, careers outside of academia, I would say that's very important to have that kind of exposure.

Right.

But also once you set that direction, you really have to be persistent.

Right.

So, you know, for me, I. Once I decided on that direction, I actually had to take a step backwards. I went back to a different lab, but worked as a research scientist for a small pharmaceutical company for another two years just to actually allow me to get into a good MBA program. But during that time actually it's very interesting because when you go do an mba, I'm not sure how familiar you are with business school, but it really is an opportunity to reset your career. You can do anything you want at that point. Forget about all of you done in the past life.

Right.

But interestingly, you know, and also not surprisingly that because I, you know, I was a science nerd, I am still a science nerd. Of all the different, you know, kind of banking options, consulting options, I still chose to actually stay in the life science world or biotech world. Except that, you know, I no longer do experiments.

Right.

I decided to, I wanted to really focus on the science side, on the business side of the biotech. So that's how I kind of, you know, went from a management consulting at a life science consulting firm to, you know, a couple of big pharma companies and a couple of startup companies. And until now, you know, now I'm actually a advisor for biotech startup companies.

That's so fascinating. And I think some of our questions, we want to dig into some of the roles you held in some of these companies because I'm personally fascinated. Can you tell us a little bit about that MBA program just in terms of did you leave the workforce and do that or did you do it while you were working? You know, what are the options available to people?

Yeah, so for me I did it full time. I know, you know, there are different options. You can, you can do online program or you know, weekend program, stuff like that. But at that point, because I was really thinking about what are the possible possibilities are when you have an mba. So I wanted to have that full experience, but also I wanted to use the opportunity to actually kind of really open up my network as well and that the only way to do it properly is to actually do the full time program.

Yeah, I've heard that before that you're paying also for the network and as part of that mba.

Yes, exactly.

Interesting.

So now that you are. So you're at Target two Drug bio advisory and can you tell us sort of like the high level view and kind of the nitty gritty of what, what goes on there and what you're.

Doing, you know, by the name of it, you can already tell I'm more of a like right brain kind of guy.

Right.

I don't have the necessary marketing smartness right in the name of my company, so. But it's very straightforward.

Right.

So maybe I'll play backwards starting from the second word of my Company Bio Advisory number one. This is, I'm going to be a biotech advisor. But also I didn't want to call myself or my company a consulting firm necessarily because I think a lot of work I do nowadays is more of an advisory kind of role. Right. I don't really roll up my sleeves to do a lot of nitty gritty kind of research work, although I do that as well. But a lot of my clients come to me just for some very quick advice, just based on my experience. It didn't really require me to do any of substantial kind of research work. So that's a second word, a first word, target to drug. And this is very interesting because I would say over the first maybe 10 years of my industry career I was really focused on the drugs that have already been developed. They were mainly just, you know, being in clinical trials, meaning the molecules have been set. It's just like trying to generate clinical evidence, right. To support any kind of FDA approval. So in that regard, my last four years in the sort of a startup world is very different. I was mainly working with companies that didn't even have a drug.

Right.

They were trying to figure out what kind of protein targets I should focus on and what kind of molecules I need to actually develop in order to enter into clinical trials. So when I think about that whole journey against a kind of backwards journey, right. I kind of started out on more established drugs to very, very early stage before the companies even have drugs. But when I think about the whole journey, it's really going from knowing what your target will be to actually have a drug that's going to be on the market. So that's how the target your drug kind know comes in. That, that name comes in and really reflects my desire to help companies along the entire life cycle of a drug.

Yeah.

So that's really fascinating. I want to ping pong over to what, when should startups bring you in? So you know, when do you normally start working with them, but when do you kind of wish they would bring you into this process?

Usually, you know, startup companies would come in to me when they already kind of decided on a few targets. They already did experiments and trying to identify drugs for those targets.

Right.

But I would say that's not when they actually should contact me or you know, come in for help. Because a lot of times when I, when I actually get brought in at that point I realized, you know, a lot of these companies, they actually haven't put in a lot of thought in selecting the right targets. So I can give you some example, right? Some. Sometimes they already selected a target that had so much competition and they had no clue as to how to actually differentiate from the existing competitors. Sometimes they selected a target that actually had a lot of historical baggage in terms of safety issues and stuff like that, and they don't even have a good answer as to how they can get around that when they develop their own drug. Right. So those are all the things you want to actually think through before you decide on actually, you know, spending, if not hundreds of thousand dollars or, you know, or even millions of dollars sometimes. Right. To do those experiments and later on found out, oh, there's actually no path forward in the clinic.

I asked the question because we have some similar client bases and so I, you know, we have a similar experience, so I figured that that would be your experience as well. Sometimes you're like, oh, if I could have just gotten here a year earlier, this would have been great.

Yeah, precisely.

David, how do a lot of people find you? Is it mainly through your network? Is it through just kind of connections you have or how are you finding clients?

I'm kind of new in my journey as a advisor to startup companies and honestly it's hard mainly because like I said, I spent a majority of my industry career on the big pharma side. Now my clientele is really on the startup side. Right. So it's a very different world for me. Even though in the last few years I worked in the startup companies, but I really consider my network still kind of underdeveloped in the startup world because it's not like I have unlimited marketing budget to do kind of a large scale campaign. So what I try to focus on is really utilizing, for instance, social media like LinkedIn.

Right.

And really publish good content where people can really learn from my stuff instead of like just bragging about, you know, target to drug bio advisory. But I actually provide content so people can start to notice me and, you know, and pay attention to what I have to say.

That's how I found you.

Thank you, thank you. But secondarily, I also go to conferences as well. But again.

Right.

Conferences, as you know, they're not cheap.

Right.

So I have to be very selective and, you know, try to think about kind of a return on investment.

Absolutely. Well, part of the reason for my asking is because while you say that your business name is not very creative or marketing esque, it's a great SEO name. Anyone who's googling is going to find your company if they are looking for a target to drug bio advisory Anything like that. I mean, that is the best SEO name for a website, so I love it.

Oh great. I lucked out there.

I want to touch on how can can startups best leverage your services? What do you, what do you love doing with startups?

So right now the, the types of engagements I have most common is actually helping companies. And usually all my clients are platform biotech companies, meaning like they have a platform technology that they can pursue a lot of different diseases.

Right.

And oftentimes when I come in, I help them select the right targets that actually matches the differentiators of their technology, but also pursuing something that has a lot of unmet patient needs.

Right.

Because ultimately that's what sells the drug or sells the drug either to patients or to another company at some point later on. So that's what I kind of help the startup companies think through. But what I haven't really done a lot for my clients and I'm hoping that I can expand that into a little bit more, is thinking about the target product profile and their commercial strategy. And you know, I'm hoping the target product profile is not a very hard to understand term because, you know, this can be applied anywhere, like in the tech world, right? We are building a product. You need to have a target. You know what this product is going to look like, how it's going to deliver value to your customers.

Right?

Same thing with drugs, except the customers here are physicians and patients and payers as well. But you know, this is very, very important. But I think oftentimes kind of overlooked by a lot of startup companies because they're thinking, oh no, I haven't even selected the target. Why do I have to worry about what my product or drug would look like? But that really is a kind of guidepost, right, for what you are trying to do. But if you don't know where you are going, then oftentimes you end up going to a very different direction.

Yeah, that's a great point.

So I love that point. I love that guidance. And I guess another question I have on the heels of that is how do you leverage data to help biotechs and biotech founders and all of your clients make better decisions and you know, feel more confident in the direction they're going. Do you have any great stories you want to tell us or any tips and tricks for everyone who's listening that they should be taking note of?

I love to use data to speak.

Right.

And even though I'm an advisor, a lot of times, you know, people come to me to look for my Advice. But when I do substantive work for my clients, I do do a lot of research. And so there's one great example where, you know, one of my clients actually came to me and said, hey, so they're also like a platform company and you know, they make large molecules, large molecule drugs. But they already selected their primary target when they came to me. And the initial ask was actually to have me help them develop a few slides so they can actually present to VC investors.

Right.

And they can actually raise more money. So they ask us, hey, can you actually help us build a very nice and robust story for this particular target? Why, you know, why it's important, what disease can we cure with this drug and how is it going to be differentiated? But literally I spent maybe two hours doing some research and very quickly found there's another drug already approved but actually pulled from the market years ago because of the safety issues.

Right.

So I stopped doing everything else and said, wait a second, right. Can you explain to me how your technology would help you actually circumvent this huge safety issue? And the answer is actually we don't think we can. I'm like, well maybe we should stop the work right now. Because I don't think unless you can answer this question, there's no use to build out the rest of the story. Yeah, so this is actually pretty common. Like, you know, they often come in with one specific ask, but very, very quickly I can tell them actually we're on the wrong path, this is the wrong question to ask. Right, but you should ask, you should be asking a different question. Is there a better target I should actually focus on?

Yeah, that is fascinating. Think about how much time you save them from going down the wrong path.

And yeah, time at the money.

So I'm so curious, did they, were they able to pivot? Do they, could they salvage that research?

I mean, this is a nice thing I have to say about all the clients I've had so far. They are so open minded.

Right.

Nobody was like, no, I'm just gonna block out this noise, continue my own path.

Yeah, that's great. So you mentioned a moment ago commercialization and I have to say a lot of startup founders don't understand commercialization because, you know, they're close to the science. And I can tell you, when I finished my PhD, I had no idea how the drug was made and how it got into consumers hands. So can you tell us a little bit about the commercialization side of the business? I know you have some great experience there.

I would say to answer a Question about the drug commercialization. This really should start years before the drug is actually approved by the FDA or other regulatory agencies around the world. But the reason for that is kind of goes back to my point about developing a target product profile very early on, right? Because from the very early stage you have to like the commercial team. Even though at that stage you are not commercializing the drug, but you are actually setting the stage for the commercialization many, many years down the road by providing the necessary input into the clinical development or even pre clinical drug development plan. So in terms of what my drug should look like, I give you very simple example. If you are trying to treat a chronic inflammatory disease, well, you know what, three times a day treatment for the rest of the life, probably not ideal. Especially when you have a competitor that has, you know, once daily oral treatment, right. That you are kind of, you know, unless you, your efficacy is spectacular, right. That you are not going to be very competitive. These kind of things where you can only gather from doing patient and physician research from very early on and feedback into the development group and say, hey guys, before we even select a molecule, make sure that the PKPD profile of this molecule would reflect a one stated drug. Otherwise I can't sell this drug for you. That would be one example why it's important to think commercial so early on, but maybe just to kind of round up the whole journey. But then, you know, as the drug goes through phase one, phase two, phase three trial, you know, the commercial organization or commercial folks continue to provide input in terms of like how you should design your clinical trial, what patient population you should target as well. Because all of those things are very important as well, right? Otherwise if you are focused on a an nth clinical trial endpoint that actually doesn't really resonate with patients or physicians, you can't really promote the drug very effectively right then until the approval then pretty much at that point it's all kind of all the marketing and sales tactics and equally important, but at that point probably has less to do with science at that point and more about traditional commercial acumen.

Hey there, just a quick break. I wanted to let you know that if you're listening to this podcast because you are exploring careers in biotech, which it turns out quite a few of our listeners actually are, you might be interested in the Biotech Career Coach podcast. It is brought to you by our sister company, the Collaboratory Career Hub, which is our career development community. If you would like actionable tips on job seeking and career development, that is the place for You. It is a companion podcast to our Career Coach column that we write monthly in Biospace. But we go a little more in depth and sometimes we have special workshops and all of that good stuff. So if that sounds interesting, click the link in the show notes or search for the Biotech Career Coach on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts back to the show.

I mean, that's fascinating. And I think that you're probably going to have some people reaching out to you with some questions and I'm going to get out ahead of one of them. If someone is. So say there's a PhD scientist who's hearing this and they're like, wow, that sounds really cool. And I really want to get into the commercial side. What do you have any advice for them?

To put it very simply, right. I think it's really about the mindset, right. I think before you do anything else, really have to adjust your mindset because if you want to go to commercial, you have to be able to be a little bit left brain thinking.

Right.

You can be right brain thinking all the time if you want to do commercial. Because a lot of times I'll give you a very good example. When I was in business school, right. I heard this term for the first time in my life as a scientist. Perception is reality. At that point I was like, I always speak to data. Data is data. What do you mean? Perception is reality. But you know, in marketing, that's real. Perception is reality, Right. I had the privilege of two years of adjusting my mindset in business school, right. But if you are a PhD scientist and you want to switch to commercial to put it in a very more concrete way, I think there are multiple ways or multiple roads to roam. One, hey, you can follow my path and go get an MBA and you know, and slowly adjust, but also really have that opportunity to experience different things as an intern or whatever, then I think there's. This is a probably a more certain way to get you to the commercial side. But then there are people who also, you know, maybe go straight to like a big pharma as a research scientist, but over time they can slowly move towards commercial. There really isn't a written path on paper you can follow, but you kind of have to be, I think the mindset has to be. You have to be very proactive and try to shape your own career path because.

Right.

It's not written down for you in a big pharma.

Yeah, that's great. Thank you.

Yeah, I think, I think that these folks that are transitioning from academia into industry, have a lot of questions about, you know, how, what career paths are. When we speak with the candidates and we have roles that are not like a discovery scientist, we pretty much have to explain how all of the other roles even fit into the process. So are there any roles that you've come across, maybe not in commercialization, but things that you've come across that you've thought, wow, I didn't realize a PhD could go into that. Like, what are some fun roles that people should research? After this podcast, I think one of.

The roles that came to my mind was partnership role. So I'll explain what that means. But until I actually joined my previous employer called Adam Wise a few years ago, I didn't realize a PhD scientist could be doing that kind of role. But what it does is for a lot of us, more biotech companies, they are always trying to strike a partnership with big pharma. And I saw a lot of my colleagues, they, they were previously just either a PhD student or like a postdoc, and they kind of came over and started doing this role. But I think it's actually a very. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense for them to do because a lot of times these roles are not necessarily like striking those big deals that appear on the COVID news for endpoints.

Right?

Not necessarily big deals, but these people tend to actually work with research universities, like tech transfer offices, and just, you know, with academic labs directly and doing those kind of, you know, collaborations. And that's actually right up in the alley of these PhD scientists. Right? Because at the end of the day, they're talking about how to kind of collaborate on certain experiments, stuff like that. I think it's a very nice transition for them into the industry.

Awesome. Well, this is actually our question kind of towards the end, but I want to ask it because I'm so curious. You obviously see a lot of new things coming to market. You have your finger on the pulse. What are you excited about that's coming down the pipe in biotech? What do you think is really cool and what's happening right now that gets you excited in the industry?

One of the things, and this is probably related to my previous experience at a AI drug discovery company, I think, you know, AI is going to be huge, not just for drug discovery, but for a lot of things in the whole value chain of pharmaceutical industry, including diagnostics, treatments. Whether it's large molecules or small molecules, there are a lot of things you can leverage AI for. Another thing is also, for instance, for Diseases like neurodegeneration, which is my passion. There's so much we don't know about the underlying biology, a lot of those diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and I think having AI sift through all the experimental data, genomics, proteomics, all those omics data, and try to identify the right targets to work on, that's super important because over the last few decades we've been working on just one or two targets in Alzheimer's disease that hasn't produced a whole lot, to be frank. We need more biologically validated targets for diseases like Alzheimer's disease. I think that's one thing the AI. The second thing I would say is just like I see a lot of innovation in terms of different modalities and different delivery systems because as you know, right now we have a lot of advanced therapies like cell therapies and gene therapies. But I think delivery has been a huge bottleneck for a lot of these advanced therapies. So I'm really, really hopeful that the delivery technology would also adv quickly to match what we can do on the actual medicine side.

So, you know, aside from some of the commercialization aspects of drug development, what are some other things that you've noticed that, you know, startup founders maybe don't understand when they're really close to the science and where can you add value there?

I think the answer is very simple, right? Always put the patient needs first.

Right.

Because I think that really should be the North Star for any drug developer. If you are developing a drug that's going to address a major patient unmet need, usually you will be successful commercially and financially. So that's the most important thing. But what happens with a lot of startup founders is that because usually they come from the technology or science background, but pure science background, they don't really think about the context of diseases.

Right.

They think about it from a very scientific or technologically nerdy perspective.

Right.

It's like this thing is so hard to drug. And I've got this piece of technology that can finally drug this thing, meaning I can finally find a piece of molecule that can fit into whatever drug pocket of this particular target. That's great. You find a binder. Now what. Why should people care about this other than your colleagues at your company? So that's something that they have to really, really think about. That's number one thing. The second thing is, I think people often forget is the differentiation. It's hard to pick the right target because a lot of times when you are picking a target that nobody else has studied before. You really need a deep bench of scientists to help unravel the biology behind that target. In certain disease contexts, that's hard, but equally hard is you pick a target that everybody is interested in and everybody is putting something into the pipeline and trying to develop a drug. And at that point you really have to be honest with yourself and asking yourself why my molecule will be different, why my technology will allow me to develop something that's going to be differentiate and have that honest conversation within your team and even with yourself, unless you can actually have a satisfactory answer or at least a hypothesis, I wouldn't recommend just dive in and start doing experiments.

So I think we're touching on this a little bit. But when someone comes to you and they're a founder, what is it about founders that like, when you know that like you're going to succeed, you're going to go far, what are the green flags for you? Where it's like this is just going to work? Is it an attribute that the founder has? Is it the science? Is it all together? What do you look for?

I go back to the mentality again, the attitude.

Right.

I think drug development is ultimate team sport.

Right.

Nobody can do it alone. And no matter how brilliant your idea is, you need a team to execute. So what I like, Well, I can't say I have a good track record just because my track record is only eight months. So it's not long enough in the pharmaceutical industry to really test the winners against the losers. But with that said, I would say I typically found people tend to succeed a little bit more when they have an open mind. When they hear something that they didn't necessarily like or agree, they still take the time to digest information.

Right.

And take the advice. If it's like actually making sense to them versus people who, you know, just hire people into their company sometimes not only just hire consultants, but they sometimes hire full time employees into the companies, but they don't actually listen.

Right.

You hire them for a specific purpose because you want to leverage their experience, but then you don't listen to them, then what's the point?

So it's ego. Someone comes in with huge ego, that's going to be a huge problem.

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes they hire people for window dressing, for instance.

Right.

But they don't actually leverage them.

Yeah, we couldn't agree more. We've been thinking a lot about, you know, success stories over the years and those really successful founders, whether, I'll say, whether the, you know, the drug or the therapy itself was a success. But, you know, the, the people who built amazing teams and, you know, built a company that was functional were the open minded. You know, they, they loved getting the feedback and they hired people in to complement their experience, not to overshadow or not to be overshadowed. You know, there wasn't an ego there. Yep, absolutely.

Yeah. I'm sure you guys have a lot more examples than this working in the HR space.

We've had some fantastic clients in the past. We've had some that have been more difficult to work with. And yeah, it really does come down to the mindset. You're 100% right. David, where do you see yourself in the next phase of your career? I know you just launched this company, but, you know, where is this going for you?

I hope you don't find my answer very surprising given what I've said in the last 40 minutes. I really enjoy what I do and I enjoy the lifestyle as well. You know, being your own boss and being flexible.

Right.

With your time, how you want to allocate your time during the day. But at the same time, I also don't keep my doors shut as well.

Right.

And one of the reasons actually I wanted to do this bio advisory company is that I get to work with so many companies and being a nerd deep inside my heart.

Right.

I can totally see myself actually at some point, when I see something really, really exciting from the science or technology point of view, but also amazing team that are actually supporting the launch of this technology, then, you know, I could potentially consider joining this team as well down the road. So I don't really shut door one way or the other.

What pivotal piece of advice would you offer to someone who is on the cusp of launching their own biotech venture?

I would say be courageous and passionate about your technology or science, but also surround yourself with people you trust and respect and rely on them.

Okay, David, this is, as everyone who listens now knows, my absolute favorite question. What is your favorite nonfiction or fiction book you have read recently or ever and why?

I just recently read a book called Living Inspiration from a Father with Cancer by Jeff Stewart. So this is not just a random book or random author. Jeff Stewart is actually my manager at a former consulting firm I worked at. And so he was actually just about a year ago he was diagnosed with a GI cancer and he actually wrote this book. Thank God he's doing well right now. But at the time you know, this particular type of cancer, Right. Until you actually find out more, your prognosis could be very poor or very good, but he didn't know. So he wanted to actually write this book and, you know, kind of share all his wisdom with his kids before anything bad happened to him. He's a great manager, a very, very kind person as well. So I respected him very much. So when I heard about it, I got an autographed book from him and read the whole thing over just one day. But what I really loved about this book is that when you put yourself in that kind of situation, right, when you don't know how much longer you can live, I think you kind of naturally come out with a lot of wisdom or inspirations for your kids. So there are 100 of them in that book, and I find each one of them so useful for me. I know I still have a lot of years to live now. I can actually make a lot smarter decisions down the road.

Amazing. I'd love to read it. I mean, I'm sure I'll cry. I'm a big crier. I cry a lot. I cry very easily. I'll probably cry reading it, but it sounds incredible and really inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I think you'll enjoy it.

Fantastic recommendation. I want to follow the mentorship line a little bit there because you touched on, you know, this boss that was a really great mentor to you. And, you know, part of. Part of this is building, you know, building biotechs, and a big part of that is bringing people up through the ranks and mentoring them into leadership positions. Do you have any stories you want to share about either a great mentor that you had or somebody that you mentored that has made a great career shift or done really well?

Yeah. I have to say, I have been very lucky in my career in the last 20 years. I've had a number of very good mentors in my life, but maybe one person I'll pick out from that group is my first manager at AstraZeneca, back in when I joined them in 2014. But why I picked her out, out of all of these amazing mentors I've had in the past was really just not only she's very good at what she does. And, you know, of course, as a result of that, she's very good at what I did as well. Right. Because she can easily do my job as well. But on top of just teaching me how to do my job properly and more effectively, she's also constantly helping me think about, you know, kind of planning for the long career.

Right.

And what boxes I need to check what skill sets I need to develop both, you know, hard skills, but also soft skills as well.

Right.

And so that has been tremendous for me. And I remember one example where when I joined her team only for, I think about less than a year, and a different job opened up, and that was the function I wanted to get into.

Right.

But I had a conversation with her, and she was very honest with me. She said, of course, selfishly, she didn't want me to leave because I was a high performer on her team. But. But she said that the reason she wouldn't recommend me to take that job at that moment in time was because there's still a lot I needed to learn on this job in order for me to do a better job in my next job. At that time, I was a little bit conflicted because I just didn't know when another job would actually open up in that department if I didn't take it at that time.

So.

But I took her advice just because I trusted her. But later on, actually not me, but a different kind of, you know, person faced the same opportunity, but that person took it right. Prematurely, and it didn't end very well. So retrospectively, I just, you know, respected her even more. Now I see what that consequence might look like if you didn't, you know, heed her advice.

That was such a great story, and what a. What a really inspiring story it is.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that.

I think that that really touches on something, though. You know, I think when we think of mentors, you do always think of them as pushing you forward. Right. And I think there is real value to the people who want to push you forward, but also will hold you back. I mean, it takes a lot of. It takes courage to tell someone, like, you're good, but you're not quite good enough yet. But. But I think that is so critical, and I don't think we talk about that enough that it's not all being a cheerleader. Sometimes you do have to be like the. Sometimes you have to be the person who kind of disappoints others and says, yeah, you're great, but, like, there's room for improvement. So I think that's a great story to. It does.

Very, very hard to hear. Right.

It kind of goes to the whole kind versus nice scenario. And it's. Sometimes you. When. When you have. When you think back on your very best mentors, they often weren't the nicest people. Not that they weren't nice, but they didn't always put your feelings first. Sometimes they had A kind conversation. And those kind conversations can be a little bit hard, but they're the ones that you remember as pivotal in your career.

Yeah. I love how you put it, Karina. Like, you know, people talk about the difference between nice and kind all the time, but in the career context. Right. That's the first time I heard it, but made so much sense.

Oh, well, you can thank Radical Candor for that, which is one of my favorite books.

Oh, I read that same book, too.

Someone once told me, you know, we were talking about this concept and they were like, yeah, I didn't really get it until I started thinking about being a student. And you never really learned anything from the teachers who just gave away the A's. You know, if it was that easy to get 100, you were probably just skirting by. But the teachers who would really come back and they'd red ink your whole paper and hand it back to you. You learn from them and they care.

Yeah, I love it.

Push you. Yeah, that's great. Love that example. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think we covered a lot of ground. This was really, really good. Is there anything else you want to touch on?

Yeah, no. For me, you know, I think I came on this show just to, you know, to actually share some of my experiences.

Right.

How do you go from being a PhD scientist to something different? So hopefully your audience will find this con.

Oh, I think they definitely will. So, David, where can our audience best connect with you? And we'll be sure to link anything into the show notes.

Sure. Yeah, so they can definitely find me from my LinkedIn profile. But I also. My company also has a website called t2d.BioAdvisory.com. so T2D means, you know, just means target your drug.

Perfect. We'll link those into the show notes so anyone can reach right out to you. Thank you so much for coming on and talking to us. This was fascinating. And, yeah, we can't wait to have another conversation maybe a year from now when you've, you know, your company's a little more mature and you've done all the things.

Yeah, I would love to come back at some point. Thank you.

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