Global Collaboration and Clinical Trials with Dr. Denis Drygin, Pimera Therapeutics, Inc. Co-Founder

So that was a really interesting conversation and a founder story like we have never really heard before on the show.

Yeah, Dennis really has an interesting background, so came from a strong RNA drug discovery background. He co founded a company called Chimera therapeutics which is 10 years in and was partially bootstrapped at the beginning. Then they found funding. They asked friends and family. They really made this work despite a really challenging funding climate.

Yeah, definitely. Take a listen if you're interested in the various ways that people secure funding, how they get their company going when they are bootstrapping, and just a lot of really cool insights into all sorts of RNA topics and sort of where he sees the industry going.

It's a great episode. Yeah, absolutely. I think another really interesting thing that I learned is maybe leveraging other countries for clinical trials as well, a strategy. So take a listen. It's really interesting. And if you are on the brink of founding a biotech and you're not quite sure where to get funding, this one's for you. Welcome to Building Biotechs by Recredomics 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. All right, Dennis, thank you so much for joining us today. We always start off with the same question, which is what did you want to be when you were 7? What are you now? And how did you get there?

Well, it's nice to be on the podcast. Karina and Allison, thank you so much for your invitation. Appreciate that. It's funny, you know, I don't remember whom I wanted to be when I was seven, but there are three jobs which I aspired to grow up to hold when I was younger, before I ended up on my sort of current situation. I was a quite an avid book reader when I was a kid and I read all these wonderful stories based around archaeology and paleontology. So that was my. When I was probably around 1112 years old, these were my top choices is digging in the ground somewhere. I still sort of carry that hobby which got kind of enhanced when my mom and I, we took a around 100 mile hiking trip through the Euro mountains which has. It's like a preserve but instead of animals, it's a neurological preserve. So you can find some very interesting settlements there like Garnets just laying on the road in front of you. And it's also a very interesting geographical spot because Urals they separate the Europe and Asia. And there's a place there you go on this mountain road, there is a forest on the one end, the mountains on the other end, and there's a line which says Europe, Asia. And you can like stand one leg in one direction and one another. And that kind of prompted me to really wanted to become grow up a geologist. But in the end, you know, as we grow up, my interest change and some other priorities in life setting besides thinking about a career. I just decided to take the easiest route out. Both my parents are camera work chemists, fortunately. But chemistry was something which was very easy for me as a kid. I got kicked out of the last last year of high school from chemistry because of my unwanted unworthy comments to the teacher. And so I went to Moscow State. And in Moscow the higher education is a bit different. You select your specialty up front and it school is just like elementary, middle, high, college, graduate school of six days a week. And you take everything. Basically I had to start like the dozen types of chemistries, but on top of that philosophy, sociology, economy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, which I found to be honestly boring. But still you have to educate yourself. But when I graduated I got a master's in chemistry. I was my work was recognized and I was invited to come to state school scholarship for graduate school. Be mad Sanhurst. And then the catch was that I had to switch to molecular biology at my specialty, which was a little bit challenging because first discovery I made when I came to states I had not understand half of what people are saying despite learning English since I was 8. And the second is that when I first came to the class, out of the half I understand from the cell biology course, I understand only 20% because I never took cell biology before in my life. And it's the cricket course. But so it was kind of an evolution. But in sort of in the big scheme of events I kind of stuck with the RNA as a sort of topic of interest, which I started investigating in 91, first as a chemist and as biologist. And then I did postdoctoral training at Isis Pharmaceuticals, which is the number one antisense company. Arna targeting company been around since 89. And there I did that postdoctoral training, pharmacology and toxicology of rna. And that kind of sealed my faith in a way. I did a lot of different roles within the direct discovery, development, translational research path, both from chemical, biological and Cosmic physiological perspective. And I worked on other programs outside rna but it was kind of unifying theme for me in a way and led to the creation of the company which I co founded, America Repeats.

That is amazing. And that trip you took with your mom sounds so beautiful and just incredible. What an amazing experience to get to go and do that. Can you tell us a little bit about. I want to make sure I'm saying it right. Is it Primera number five?

Primera, yeah. It has even its name itself has an interesting sort of roots. We found it co founded in 2013 and the reason for that was that the company I worked in the past, Saline Pharmaceuticals was sold and at the time we had three programs. So one was in POL1 transcription, one was a CK2 kinase and both of those were sold. But we also had a PIM kinase program which kind of landed abundant. And my partner, Dr. Mustafa Hadesh, who was a head of medicinal chemistry at Silene, he wanted to do a PIM inhibitor and hence he came up with the name Chimera. And I said well we're not going to do that, we're going to do pol1. And because as I said, I just found this starting much more interesting to work with. And this is technology which I personally with his help discovered and co developed with Professor Hannan who is currently a vice dean at Australian National University in Canberra. And that was my passion and I strongly believe that there is a sort of positive impact we can produce working in this brand. So we kept the name from the original idea, but the company was refocused on the POL1 transcription and divisional Grab some learning.

Very cool. Yeah. And so what's the vision that sort of drives this company? What is your mission?

Well, so a lot of discoveries in sort of. A lot of discoveries in drug development discovery process are quite serendipitous. I'm sure you've heard the story about Viagra, right? That it's blood pressure. Then there is a thalamide which was originally for morning sickness, which caused some horrible birth defects, but in the end started a new revolution in imides, linolidomide, clomiminavide, et cetera, et cetera, which are helping hundreds of thousands of patients with myoma. So in our case, sort of this one idea was born out of a scientific discovery. When I was fired by some pharmaceuticals, they said they had this compound, say 533Corploxin, which was originally designed to target the DNA structure within the promoter of Nick oncogen and suprapis transcription and they were ready to go on the clinic, everything was peachy. The only problem, the did not inhibit me. So I was hired to find out what does it do. And I serendipitously observed drug fluorescent that accumulates a nucleolar nucleoli of cells. And that's the place for ribosome biogenesis. That's where place the ribosome DNA synthesis occurs. So I had an idea, maybe that's how it works. And I did and did. And that gave us an idea of just starting a program looking at the PULM1 inhibitors, independent of their mechanism. And the second, the first true generation, because corfloxacin had some general effects as well. HOL1 inhibitor was born, Pitnarolex 6461, which was sold to some being currently developed in several clinical trials for oncology. And it was a. As a first generation drug, it had its own liabilities. I mean it was an iv, it had a very long half life. There's some other issues which we wanted to address. And with Comphymer we knew exactly what we needed to do in terms of what needs to be approved and et cetera. And we basically found Pimera to address any potential liabilities on that and come up with some other new ideas. And basically we were able to raise some money, not a lot, but because we were lean, mean machine so to speak, relied heavily on consultants, CROs wrote a lot of IOU's in the beginning. And that's kind of one of the advices I can give to people who are starting their company, finds people who will trust you enough to give you credit. Because in the beginning there are certain things which you wouldn't even think about, such as lawyer fees, for example, right up front for all your corporate needs at least that require significant spending. And in our case, our first raise was basically the three of us. There's another gentleman who was. But unfortunately he left the company pretty early. We just put forth $10,000 each and that was our seed round, $30,000, which for some business sample businesses is a lot of money, but not fun trying to discover and develop.

Wow. So this was all getting started. Pimera was getting started In June of 2013, I think. Is that about the right timeline?

Yes, we were technically founded in April, but all the paperwork were filed with State of Delaware in June. So that's official birthday.

So I definitely want to touch on this leveraging consultants and who you bring at the early stages. But just to set the landscape now it's been 10 years. What does the company look like now? How many employees do you have? Are you still leveraging some fractional talent? Can you take us through what that sort of looks like?

Absolutely. So the company never had more than three full time employees. And that was kind of our strength in a way, because second being the fact that Janssen, what used to be Janssen Labs and now JLabs, are so also very kind to us and kept us for many years beyond the original expectations. And right now, company has two people full time. We are in the phase one right now in oncology and we extensively leveraged our contacts with both academic and medical community in Australia and currently is running clinical trial at their number one cancer center, their McAllen Cancer center in Melbourne. And there is another benefit doing a clinical development in Australia is that the government there gives you a significant amount of rebate on every dollar you spend. So despite Palmeira being a small operation, technically we have three offices, San Diego, Houston and Melbourne. So there is a Palmeira Australia.

So I find this so fascinating because we hear a lot, we work with in companies in sort of a venture environment a lot. And so it's very much the traditional fundraise. They go for their seed, their abc. You've just done things a little differently and that is so fascinating. So can you tell us a little bit about the alternative? So the one thing you mentioned already is doing your clinical trials in Australia. That is such an interesting perspective. We actually have not heard anybody talking about other countries for clinical trials on the show. What other things can you say? You know, if you need to be lean and mean and scrappy, how else have you done that?

It's good to have on your team a person who knows how to bargain. And that's my, my partner. He is, he was born with that talent. He allowed us to really adhere to our budget, which was always pretty slipped. But the thing there is one of the main routes to success in drug discovery is you need to eliminate the bad things first. And we knew pretty well what's not gonna play. What's gonna play? Because we had a significant route. We had nine months to think before the physical web work, so to speak, began to plan what exactly will be the screening cascade. What the molecules we're gonna look at, what kind of indications we'll be thinking about bringing on board collaborators with whom we worked in the past. And that's another. I think one of the most crucially contributing factors was our collaboration with Professor Hannan, who was started at Peter McCallum Cancer center and now is at University of Australia, National Australian University. His lab Also specialized in having interest in Poana and Rhapsody on Biogenesis. Had an access to amazing amount of models which otherwise will not be able to secure. Even nowadays, despite the successes of all the CRISPRs in the world, there's still limited number of transgenic mice which can be good representative model of the disease. In particular for oncology because typically oncology is. Is a multigenic disease, not monogenic, some genetic disorders. So having him personally interested it for bloom helping potentially help the patient, but also for advancement of science was a very beneficial sort of symbiotic arrangement where allowed us to succeed.

Yeah. So academic collaboration certainly a big one. We definitely see most founders trying to do a lot of the science in house. So that's a really neat strategy to work with collaborators who have maybe some funding, some graduate students, they're working through things that are, you know, in parallel.

Well, exactly. I mean even if you do find transgenic models and as I said there are some the study will cost you at around quarter million dollars. So one study. So that's something which can really add up eventually on your budget.

Yeah.

Wow. So budgetary constraints aside, when you work with someone who's maybe not an academic partner but a CRO or a consultant, what's really important to you when you're vetting different companies to work with and partner with.

So I think there was a developed sort of rule of thumb agreement that we will only employ CROs for things which do not require inquiry. If it's a pretty straightforward like toxicology study, just follow the protocol, collect all these tissues, run all these analyses, provide us the data, we will look at it. All right. But for something which is more innovative or more requires trying different things that's unfortunately CROs are usually not good at. But again we used capitalized heavily on the globalization work a lot with China who there are some very good vendors there. You can find work for chemistry as well as the pharmacology toxicology from Canadians that is which were done half, almost half, most in China. But we're also working with Australia because they're also working through some. And that's another thing. A lot of bigger university has so called core groups where with whom you can also collaborate at much more reasonable prices than with CROs. But again sometimes they'll ask you like we used to collaborate with core here at San Diego, out at Silent there. You kind of have to go there yourself. But there are instances where they will actually do the whole work for you.

As far as managing those CROs. Do you have somebody on your team who specializes in that? Does everyone sort of do that ad hoc and how much management is there?

Well, it really depends on the study. I mean my partner and I would kind of split that. His was all the chemistry side, mine was all the rest. Oncology, toxicology, pk, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think that also having for example for toxicology we, we were also blessed to find really good expert consultant who is also San Diego Navy Dr. Grace Berman. And she was because with any CROs there are employees score better and there are employees score worse. Not that not naming any names in particular, but having somebody on your team who already had experience working with a particular CRO or talking to your. Not necessarily having on the team, but knowing somebody who can give you advice in terms of for example what study director should you ask for? Is there any potential people which you should look the upfront that this zero is known for. This is. This can be very helpful.

I have to ask on a totally different note, could you tell us a little bit about like what your day to day is like? I mean you are managing communication and contracts and talking to people all over the world. And I imagine you either work 247 or you have really figured out a great way to manage all of the different pieces.

I'm still human and I need to sleep right now because I left as a full time employee of Primera. I don't, I'm not involved there right now as much. But when I still was there the biggest challenge was in a way that we worked across the globe. So sometimes you know, the meetings have to be taken not in the middle of the night but later, later in the evening or early, early in the morning. So 7am was not completely unheard of for sometimes 6am so and that's just part of the deal. But again in our case there you have to sort of always maintain contact with those areas and naturally your collaborators as well because that's one thing the academics can get a little bit sometimes drip off because something which is maybe very interesting from scientific perspective does not necessarily add anything to the drug development. That's sort of where you need to start communicating with them and making sure that goals are aligned. But a lot of time is actually it's just reading because there's so much an explosion of new information every day that staying on top of it does require reading quite a few hours a day pretty much. I usually when I wake up I'll open and start looking for authority announcement from the East coast, for example, wake up at 6 that's already 9 there.

Do you have any AI tools that you use to help you gather information or help triage that process?

Well, my brain your brain not a But I At least you have eye.

Tools I love that. Yeah I'm exploring different tools to the information has always been a challenge. You know there's so much to consume to stay on top of.

I mean in my mind between PubMed, Google and Google patents you can find all information you need. The issue is you need to know what question to ask all of them. The information is out there. That's the challenging part is know what you're looking for and works for me so far. I'm not going to knock on AI and I'm not going to say never I mean for a lot of things especially right now in the field of RNA for harm discovery for example looking at the different regulatory elements throughout the sequences or establishing the connection for signaling to a type polymer physics into potential pathology it cannot be done by wahai without a so that's where this comes very handy and that's what we use in the work often but for searches still do the old fashioned way.

What excites you? What are you seeing in the news right now or coming through that you're like oh wow, that's super cool and I can't wait to see this get done.

That's all information you need. The issue is you need to know what question to ask Part is know what? I'm not going to knock on AI and I'm not going to say never. I mean and for a lot of things, especially right now in the field of RNA for target discovery for example and looking at the different publishing the connection for potential pathology it cannot be done by Y without a so that's where this comes very handy and that's what we use in the work often but for searches still do the old fashioned way.

To stay on top.

Google and Google 1989 but there was no enthusiasm because I think that there was no recognition of the potential. You know the antibodies were stealing everything with obviously great result from the oncology et cetera But RNA was sort of this orphan child which was usually neglected until 2020 pretty much and at this stage although there were other companies on this long island et cetera but since then there has been an explosion of different modalities and I think that the sort of there's three main paths that nuclear based therapeutics are currently advancing in and one is discovery of different modalities. It started with angie sense and RNA, then MRNA and now there is God knows, there's circular RNA, soft replicating circular RNAs, there is non coding RNA based therapeutics, there is an alterna which they're trying to make, a TRNA for nonsense suppression and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that's very exciting that the amount of sort of possibilities is opening up. Second, and that's where the AI sort of stands in, comes in is the use of computational methods which allow you to analyze the data which has been produced. Because by now there is already so much genomics, neuronomics data which just sits there from human sequencing which needs to be properly analyzed to be understood of how certain changes, genetic, epigenetic, et cetera, are connected to pathology and which of them are causative, which are not correlative and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that's where computers come really, really handy. And the third, it's a little bit on the slower pace, but there's some interesting developments in there is its chemistry. It's a chemistry which improves your drugs, especially in the biggest challenge of organic therapeutics, pretty much which is delivery. Right now the liver is kind of discovered after a traditional gulnac, the CNS and I, because you can inject directly in those spaces, maybe skin to a degree. But this is definitely not everything. Right. I mean there's new work going on in muscle, in lung and in kidneys. Regulus, for example. The company I work for is have some very interesting technology for the kidney disease. And I think that we live in a wonderful time for that or the expansion of the field.

Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of computational chemistry roles being posted suddenly, which I feel like. So I'm an RNA biochemist by training. Moderna was my first client and this was back when they were working on that RNA vaccine idea and everyone was started to talk about how they were maybe a unicorn that wasn't actually going to do anything but make vaccines. And there was like, like that was a derogatory thing. And then, you know, Covid hit and they were like.

But I felt that there was a serious interest in oncology in the beginning as well.

Oh yeah, definitely. But the thing that they were able to gain traction on and monetize or that looked like it was going to be monetized was the RNA vaccine unit.

Well, $100 billion from United States government did not hurt, I assume.

No, no, I'm sure it did not. But I just remember that sort of souring around that RNA field.

Yes. And it's specifically in Oncology simply because the delivery could not be achieved. When I was at Isis no ionis they had a leading program compound called Aphinitac which is a protein kinase C inhibitor and they put it in lung cancer trial and it failed two phase threes which was heavy toll on the company. And one of the potential reasons in my mind is that they simply the oligo wouldn't go to the tumors in the immediate concentration and there are a lot of new strategies which are currently being developed for specifically tumor targeting. I'm really looking forward to see what can be achieved.

Yeah, same. That's really exciting. 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 Biotech Career Coach on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts back to the show. So what have you loved and what have you hated about being a founder? Give us the top 5% and the bottom 5%.

I think that when you start the company, if you're not in the position where you can retire already, it's going to hurt. There's a significant financial component where you're missing. For example, for first 18 months of Palmera, it was me and my business partner who put money in it, not vice versa. Only after we got entire initial and not even first or second initial investment were we able to pay just token salary for ourselves. But the most exciting thing is where you understand that you can do it. You know that the idea is working and that you do know enough that you have people working with who can help you enough to make this idea into reality and to go into the clinic and hopefully help patients in need.

The mission. Yeah, I think that mission is what we hear a lot in the the hopeful, the hope that we can help humanity and see that come to fruition. I love that.

Well, I mean, we can talk about like for example, potential pitfalls about taking new technology from academia and trying to develop it. Like in our case, we have. And this is sort of, I feel it's my strength. Some people may say it's not, but I have never worked in the academia. My first job was already in the industry. I've met a lot of people who switched and one of the biggest challenges which they face is they get attached to. And that's so true for academia, you know, because this is your project, right? You're working at five years and in the year three, something stops working. You're not abandoning it because you already dedicated three years to it. In industry it's completely different. It doesn't matter how much time you dedicated to something, if you see that it's not working, you need to immediately abandon it because that sort of throwing good money up the bed is a lot sort of instances and all of instances this led to downfall where they were not nimble enough to switch to something which works. And that's why like in the beginning we did not completely discard, for example PIM idea. It was this, the P1 is not taking off or cannot make inhibitors, but we completely new chemistry which we came up with at the time when we were thinking about company. Then we will switch to something else. But we were lucky. That compound number 12. No, I think, yeah, number 12, which we made out of all our library in the end turned out TMR116 in the end turned out to be the, the lead which is currently, you know, in a clinical trial.

That's really interesting. I was speaking to someone the other day about. It's a little bit of the elephant in the room, right? Like how far do you take something before you just say like this isn't going to work? And you know, I'm curious, did you have like a set timeframe to where you were like, if our initial idea doesn't work, we pivot. And how. What was that discussion like? Because we do talk to a lot of founders and the question always becomes how long do you chase the dream before you think it's either a pivot or it's just not going to happen right now?

Well, in our case we also had a benefit of the first gen being already in the clinic and clinical data being released publicly while we're doing all that. And there were some promising results there and we had access to exactly the same models. We tested the first gen drug on continuing collaboration in Australia. So we had a pretty good idea that we can do as well as the first gen or better. Right. And our drug is oral, which is a benefit instead of IV injections And if we can't, we can. So the progress continued. We saw activity pretty early in the models which was superior to first gen. We saw that tolerability is clearly much better. And that gave us confidence. And there. I'm not saying that there are problems which you. That's the first sign of trouble. You should abandon ship now that like for example, if you're going into already clinical trial and you have problems scaling up, I wouldn't abandon the program. I'll start working on how to scale up. Right. But if your science or idea does not work in the beginning or even in the middle like for example with sometimes you can pivot. It happened to me in my career once we had. So when we discovered about the pole one and when we switched the company Silent Pharmaceuticals whose CEO Bill Rice he was a very receptive idea and actually he helped me made it happen. And we switched to two different programs looking for pull one inhibitor. And we chosen very different paths. One was a shotgun where you do. You don't care what your molecular target is. You have a functional screen and you put the library of compounds through it and then you take it from that and go from there. And another was approach was selected to select a target from the literature and then work towards molecules inhibiting that target and then connect it to your pharmacological response. So I was in charge of discovery of the first program and my colleague Dr. PTJ Adam was in charge of the second. And when in the end the two compounds came out. So 5461 or 4945. 5461. We had no idea how it worked in the beginning, but we knew that it's a selective and potent inhibitor PRO1. And with 4945 we knew that it's a very selective inhibitor of CK2. And it did it pretty well. It had no impact on transcription. So at this stage we had already a molecule which was a lot of invested in but which did not work through the proposed mechanism. And instead of dropping it again, we pivoted. We start looking putting a charge of translational research project which start looking another potential applications of this drug. I'm not saying you have to throw everything away. It's just you have to be very careful not try to make CK2 inhibitors inhibit Pol1 because apparently that's not going to happen. But see what else can you do. And we were lucky. Working with Adam, we discovered several potential combinations like CK2 for example regulates DNA damage repair. And that's what is in the clinic right now in combination with two DNA damaging agents. So phase two, it's just you have to be ready to follow the data disperse of your original notions if they're not working out.

Yeah.

You have to be adaptable.

Yes, adaptability.

You strike me as somebody who's very business minded and I think that that probably is a result of not like you said, not having an academic career or a lengthy academic career, both business minded and also very tenacious. So to have followed something through on a shoestring budget for as long as you did to push it into the clinic, this is. That's a lot of tenacity. It's a lot. Can you tell the other founders that might be listening, you know, kind of a little bit about that journey and what did keep you going when things got a little bit tough?

Well, I think that it's very important to understand that starting your own venture is an investment. You find people to give you money and that's the money. But you are investing your time. Years primarily. I stayed full time with my mayor for seven years until we went clinic basically and just be ready for that. Don't look at the time sort of where you could have been making money. Yes. There's hopefully payout down the road and it'll be much more sweeter because you will know that all of it is your work and just chase your dreams, I guess.

Yeah. It is a long process to bring a drug all the way through.

It is. I mean we had some unfortunate snafu which delayed us past couple years. Nothing to do with us, but five years of work basically was put out from the idea into the clinic. And that is on the sort of considered to be on the shorter side usually because it can take up to 10 years sometimes. Although nowadays a lot of new programs I added the consulting I talked to everybody wants to be. So that's, that's the new rule. We'll see how, how it will work. I mean for some therapeutics it is obviously easier, especially for oligos, you know, because chemistry there, man, you already. If you know your sequence, you know what your sequence of your compound is going to be when you don't have any chemical start on some smaller molecule problems that can take a lot of time.

So what are you doing now? You said that you're not with Chimera full time. So are you doing some consulting? Are you kind of just taking a breather?

Well, in a way I do a bit of consulting. Not a lot, but I'm just thinking about what's new.

What do you want to be doing?

I don't want to abandon my passion just yet. I want to stay in the RNA field. There's a lot of, as I mentioned, there are a lot of new interesting modalities coming around. So I'm looking what would be the best place to apply to myself to?

Yeah, if you're talking about doing some consulting, what is the consulting model that you're thinking about and what types of companies are you working with it?

So there are different opportunities, FCDA clients. Unfortunately I can't talk to the names, but there are some actually I recommend There are certain CROs who what they do is they connect clients to the specialists and working with them can can be quite beneficial. They serve as a bridge between the need and the provider. It's not a full time gig but there sometimes where they need a specific specialist advice and that's where I can come handy.

That's really good advice though to share out with people who maybe don't know that that's an avenue that they could look at and connect through. Maybe there's some opportunity there for other people to weigh in and offer some expertise.

Of course, I mean this is more. And that's another benefit from COVID the globalization and remote work, so to speak. Hybrid work has become a norm. Right. So it just makes more sense if you have a question to ask somebody whom you don't need 23 other hours out of the day.

Yeah, I sort of think about at the beginning we were talking about your model where you have folks spread out all over the world. You are working with CROs in China, you're doing your clinical trials in Australia. That is still a little bit novel. But I bet if somebody were to listen to this podcast a few years from now they would think, well, of course everybody's doing that. That's just normal. So I do think we're moving in that direction because I hear more and more people. Of course this year I was in China. We have been using know a lot of CROs in China for years. But clinical trials or teams in other countries that are doing meaningful research that is somewhat new.

It is in a way but and again this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather the core of it is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day.

How does that affect the approval process or patents in the us I am.

So glad you asked that because I was just thinking as the non scientist, I was like I'm going to take one for all of the people out there who are operations people and who have no idea how this would work. I figured that was standard knowledge. So in a way, please tell us that. I'm so curious.

Rather than the core of it is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day. It is, in a way, but then again, this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather than the core of it, is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day.

Now, did you know that when you were, you know, kind of starting to work with Australia, it was one of those things where the opportunity presented itself because of the network. So then you're like, oh, great, look at all this other great stuff that.

Also can correct and will actually translate.

Did you kind of build that knowledge as you were deep in the process, or was Australia a target prior knowing that?

It is, in a way. But then again, this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather than the core of it, is that their patients learn new.

Things every day by people and by going down these paths. But I imagine that when you're actually in the thick of it, sometimes you have to kind of learn what other countries do, what other clinical trials, scaffolds there are. Tell me about your thoughts around a company at this stage, because I see this a lot where it's phase one trials and then the hope is to license it to your point, to maybe a pharma company to finish the development. What are your thoughts around that?

It is, in a way, but then again, this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather the core of it, is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day, Sam. It is, in a way, but then again, this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather than the core of it, is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day.

Now that's fascinating.

So with.

Is that the end goal, do you think, to license this, or do you want to see this all the way through?

It is, in a way, but then again, this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather than the core of it, is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day.

Yeah, definitely not some of our clients. Increasingly there's been a model and I actually think, I wonder if we're going to see this change. But for a while there was a model where you mentioned the sort of three year target to clinic. That very much. That very much is the plan for many companies that are spinning out of some of the larger VCs and they're putting into place in year one. They're putting into place the folks that are going to be on those, you know, on that clinical, the regulatory side, because it takes a long time to spin that up. It's not a simple, it's not like, okay, we're ready to go to a child. And again, so much has to be.

Done depending on what your goal is from college year. In a way that the beauty of it, or rather the core of it, is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day.

Yeah, that's the other missing piece of that, is that those, these companies, they do have a strong lead when they're spun out of these VCs. It's typically that they've partnered deeply with an academic who's come in.

It is that way.

But yeah, and again, definitely it's a different model and it's a different mindset.

In a way where we have rather than the floor.

This is something which is, you know, at the right stages and then hoping that the outcome is a licensure because that really is a nice outcome.

It is, in a way. But then again, this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather the core of it, is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day. Sam. It is, in a way. But then again, this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather the core of it, is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day.

Yeah, no, that sounds great. Jlab sounds really interesting.

It is, in a way, but then again, this is sort of depending what your goal is.

I am so interested in your answer to my favorite question, which is is.

That their patient Your favorite everybody should read.

Oh, great. We'll take all 13 recommendations.

It is in a way that. And again, this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather the core of it, is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is ours out of the day.

Yeah, I agree with that. It's really funny. I'm also a big fan person and my husband and I have both read all of the books of Wheel of Time and we were really excited when the show came out. Right, of course. And it's very different and true to tv, they made it very racy, which is not at all in the books. So they've. They've taken some liberties. We'll say, well, I've never read it.

And so it's going on my reading list. So thank you both. Sounds like a great read.

And so we are going to link your LinkedIn into our show notes, but where else can folks get in touch with you if they want to learn more?

It is, in a way, but then again, this is sort of depending what your goal is for oncology in a way that the beauty of it, or rather the core of it, is that there are patients everywhere. This is something which is hours out of the day. Yeah.

Amazing. Well, we'll send people over there if they want to get in touch. Thank you so much. This was really informative. Yeah.

Yeah, dad. So it was a pleasure chatting with you.

Thank you so much, ladies. It's such a pleasure to chat with you again. I will. Karina.

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