[music] Welcome to this week's episode of The Read Out Loud, a weekly biotech podcast from STAT. I'm Allison D'Angeles. I'm Anna Forrestine. And I'm Elaine Chun. It's Thursday, April 30th, and on this week's episode, we're talking about hair. More specifically, clinical data presented by Startup Vera Dermix, showing its oral version of the medication Rogane could lead to significant hair growth. And why that's garnering so much attention. That bald was beautiful, but okay. [laughter] Sorry Adam. I think more people should embrace baldness. I agree. I agree. I'm glad you're good with me Elaine. Thank you. On this week's episode, we have also invited survey A pharmaceutical CEO David Lee to discuss his company's acquisition of Day 1 Biopharma and plans in the oncology market. But first, a recap of this week's news and a word from our sponsor. [music] I'm Golly O'Levy, SVP of Development at Kite, a Gilly Uncompanie. At Gilly Un in Kite, our working oncology starts with a very simple question. How do we make progress truly meaningful for patients? Since 2020, our therapy has been used to treat more than 75,000 people worldwide with metastatic, triple negative, and HR positive, her two negative breast cancer. We bring that same patient first mindset to other areas of high unmet need, including CAR-T cell therapy for people with difficulty to treat blood cancers. The date over 34,000 patients around the world have been treated with CAR-T cell therapies from our portfolio. Across oncology, this perspective guides how we design clinical trials and pursue innovation. So patients can access potential advances throughout their treatment journey. Learn more at gillyad.com. So we had another Marty McCarrie press conference this week. He likes these. It's better than his walking and talking videos, which I really do not like. But anyway, Elaine, what is he talking about this week? Yeah, so the FDA announced this week that it'll start reviewing trial data in real time. It's part of an effort by the agency to get drugs on the market faster. The FDA will start with studies conducted by AstraZeneca and Amgen. These are oncology studies. It basically will use a real time data platform built by a company called Paradigm Health. And through the platform, reviewers will be able to view safety signals and clinical endpoints. And this summer, the FDA also plans to launch a broader pilot program for early clinical trials. This pilot aims to explore the potential of using AI to do things like enhance safety monitoring, facilitate dose selection decisions, and help with more decisions on whether an early trial should proceed or not. So obviously, a lot of people in the industry applauded this move. But I also saw some concerns about how this would affect the way we do drug development. Many times, like oncology studies, for example, but for a lot of other types of studies, the interim results don't always translate to the final outcomes that we ultimately want to study. So would we be advancing some programs too quickly, for example, based on interim data? I also just wonder. I think this is one of these things like many other proposals that we hear about from the FDA. They sound really good. They sound promising. They sound like something that could help the industry and help drug development. But the details are really important, like, you know, oncologies. When I think of oncology studies, what do I think about? I think about tumor shrinkage and extending, you know, extending life and, you know, improving overall survival. How you do that in real time? I don't quite understand, but hey, we'll see how it works. I can see the value of something like this for safety, reviewing safety signals. If we can catch early indicators that a patient might be having an adverse response, that works well. I think for everyone, I don't think that anybody would disagree with that. I do understand, Adam, your point about efficacy. I don't know how that would play out. I guess we will have to see. And it may work really well in other kinds of studies, you know, where you can capture real time sort of performance or patient satisfaction, you know, quality of life, muscle performance, those kinds of things. You know, you could see it having applications, you know, important applications there. But again, details. I also do wonder how it's going to affect blinding. I don't know, like, how public this real-time data will be or like, how accessible they would be to researchers. But anyways, moving on. As I lily, this morning reported quarter one earnings. And yet again, they blew past expectations. The company raised its full year revenue guidance from a range of 80 to 83 billion dollars, to a range of 82 to 85 billion dollars. A key question for lily is how its new GLP1 pill found aO will perform on an interview with CNBC CEO Dave Rick said that more than 20,000 people have started taking found aO. And more than 80% of them are new to GLP1. So it seems like they are expanding the market rather than just seeing patients switched to the pill. And of course, the telehealth direct to consumer channel is a big factor here. Lily said that scripts in that DTC channel make up about 35% of their launch volume. For some context, though, NOVO also at the start of this year launched its Wagovie pill and a few weeks into that launch. So far, it seems like the Wagovie pill launch may have been going stronger, but we're still early here. Yeah, this is interesting because there have been some questions about about Funday and its launch and how it seemed to be underperforming the Wagovie pill. It looks like the Wall Street obviously tracks these scripts on a weekly and a monthly basis and everyone every Friday, the numbers come out and people look at them and it may be looking like the data, the prescription services that track data. They may be undercounting the Funday O prescriptions that are coming through. That seemed to be what Dave Rick was suggesting in his comments to CNBC and obviously those numbers, the new numbers will come out tomorrow on Friday. But it's, yeah, so that's the big focus, though, Elaine, isn't it? Isn't just how well these pills are performing against each other? Yeah, I think a lot of these services like IQVF or similar services don't have full data capturing the direct to consumer prescriptions. So I think that's a limitation there. And yeah, I think that still, it seems like the NOVO pill is maybe doing better than people were expecting. I think they did really have a good advantage to be able to launch their pill at a really low or relatively low price and capture a lot of the patients and get ahead before, before lily launched. The amount of patients that they are bringing in that are new to GLP ones is fascinating. And I'm really curious to see how that continues over the coming months of the launch period. I really would have assumed that close to half, if not more, of the patients that would be interested in a pill would be patients who were already taking the injectable and want something that had better ease of access and a lower price. The fact that we're talking about 80% of people being new to GLP ones really goes to show how much of the obesity market there is to still tap into, which is a question I mean covering the startup world that I ask myself again and again as you see more and more companies say like, well, we're going to do a new, we've got a new thing we're launching, we want to explore in the obesity market. So I guess blue skies ahead for obesity. Well, I do wonder going back to what we've been talking about last week is they're making such aggressive push on the telehealth DTC channel that I think there's a question of how many of the people that are starting the pill, which is relatively cheaper than the injections, how many of them are actually getting the right medication appropriately. I think that's a great question and I know you're going to continue to track it. And lastly, we should note the sad passing of Craig Venter, scientist, entrepreneur and probably best known as one of the key scientists behind the decoding of the human genome back in 2000. His death was announced on Thursday morning by the J Craig Venter Institute. He was 79 years old, so much of what we talk about on this podcast, so much of what we write about when it comes to biotechnology really owes a big credit to the work, the pioneering work of, you know, peering into the genome, unlocking DNA that Venter and other scientists did back in the mid 90s all the way through 2000 with the race to what became known as kind of the human genome project. And so again, we should take note of his passing today. So we're dying.
Moving into a new topic on the readout loud this week, HairLoss. That's because on Monday, startup VeraDermix announced that its lead drug succeeded in spurring hair growth. It was big news for the company, which went public through an IPO in February. VeraDermix stock is up more than 40% since the news was announced. And it's not just Wall Street that's interested in hair loss. Private market investors are also interested in the field. VeraDermix CEO Reed Waltman joins us to discuss his company's data. And why exactly, HairLoss is a trendy topic right now in biotech. Reed, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for having me and I look forward to diving into what I think is one of the most exciting topics in dermatology. Hmm, okay. Well, we're going to get into the dermatology segment a little bit further. But first, let's focus on this data that VeraDermix presented this week, which was assessing a pill that the company has developed in two ways. One of which was measuring how many hairs grew within a square centimeter of the scalp on average. Over the course of six months, men either took VeraDermix's drug once or twice a day. And they grew between 30 and 33 more hairs per square centimeter of the scalp compared to about seven for men in the placebo group. I have to ask, 30 doesn't sound like a lot. Reed, what do these results mean? Yeah. So it's a great question. And I think many people are not familiar with the endpoint of non-vellis hair count. But as you mentioned, we're looking at the number of hairs that are given in a given square centimeter. So right, it's an area that is roughly the size of a pencil eraser. And we're seeing 30 to 33 new hairs that are greater than 30 microns in diameter or what we call non-vellis hairs. And really, the purpose of this endpoint is to objectively and quantifiably assess, is their new hair. I think in terms of contextualizing what does this mean to a patient or what does this mean to the physician, I think our other co-primary endpoint, the patient reported outcome, gives a stronger look at global impression of change, and that the patient actually reviews their photographs from baseline and follow up visit, and then grades their own hair coverage. And in the study, we saw nearly 80% of patients in our once daily arm, nearly 90% of patients in our twice daily arm report improvement. And for the higher bar of improved or much improved, which is where we set our responder analysis, it's about half of patients in the QD group, nearly two thirds in the BID group. So those 30 hairs translated into visibly noticeable regrowth for many patients in the study. Read, can I follow up to ask, I mean, dermatology is one of these fields in the drug industry where you can actually see results. What did the results you were seeing from this trial look like? One of the things that was so encouraging to me personally is the consistency of what we saw across the spectrum of type response, where again, the vast majority of people almost eight out of 10 in the once daily, almost nine out of 10 in the twice daily, could actually see new hair growth on their scalp when they looked, and that that was further consistent with when the investigators separately reviewed photos, how they graded those photos. So you're seeing visible hair growth. And to me, I think the importance of this is that right now in dermatology, we're trained to spend a large portion of hair loss visits, counseling patients that our goal is to keep the hair they have, right, the stabilization is success. I'm hopeful that these results could suggest that that conversation can change, and then instead of focusing on stabilization, we can focus on regrowth with the operant question being how much. David Veradermer's treatment is a reformulated version of what many listeners may know of the topical drug Rogane. What were you hoping to get by reformulating it? Was it just about ease of use? No, so this is a really good question. So Rogane obviously or topical monoxide was validated biology for hair and that it's FDA approved for both males and females with pattern hair loss, and it's the only FDA approved treatment for female pattern hair loss. As you all are likely also aware, it also exists as an oral blood pressure medication that is commonly prescribed off label for hair loss. And that blood pressure medication is an immediate release medication. Now that drug does exactly what you would expect, a drug that was designed or intended to rapidly lower your blood pressure to do when you take it, right? It spikes in the plasma quickly within two hours the majority is gone, within four hours almost all of it's gone. And those spikes are responsible for the cardiac effects of monoxide or ethysemodynamic effects, and they're not necessary for hair growth as they don't provide consistent and durable exposure to the follicle. So our hope really was to answer the question, why is the best drug in the dermatologist toolbox, a 40 year old blood pressure medication that no one's revisited and aimed to optimize to maximize hair growth and minimize cardiac risk by providing consistent and durable exposures throughout the day while blunting those peaks associated with cardiac effects. And I think that study 302 really serves as a strong initial proof point that the pharmacokinetic optimization that we've undertook can result in a clinically differentiated profile. And right, is this how you're going to compete against companies like, you know, we've all seen the ads on TV from HIMS and ROW selling hair loss medications. We've got compounded pharmacies out there selling versions of these drugs. I mean, what we'll set verdicts apart from these sort of more consumer facing companies. Yeah, so Adam, I think it's a great question. And I'm going to unpack it in two ways. One, you know, what do we believe is clinically differentiated about the profile and then two, you know, telehealth, friend or foe because I think they're both important and distinct questions in terms of clinical differentiation. We believe there's a profile that is fast. We saw visible results in statistical significant differentiation from placebo as early as two months that's consistent with the aforementioned high rates of visible hair growth judged by both patients and physicians that was intense with strong objective hair count responses while maintaining strong tolerability with overall a e-rate similar to placebo, a e-related discontinuation rates similar to placebo and the convenience of an oral pill. So from a clinical perspective, right, we believe this is a position to be a potential best in indication treatment. Now from a telehealth perspective, I think that's a very important question. We get asked this often, you know, is telehealth a friend or foe and we do believe that these direct channels are a channel for the drug, not the channel for the drug. And, you know, I think what you're probably, you know, kind of intimating is it's obvious what would be in it for us as the company to partner with one of those players, right, given the idea that it provides enhanced access for patients, things like that. You know, so I think it raises the question, well, what's in it for them? And I think as we can all imagine, one of the challenges to selling generic drugs on the internet, which is the status quo for hair loss telehealth today is that there's not a competitive barrier to other people doing it. And so we've seen two dynamics in that market. One, there's been a race to the bottom on price, right? And then two, there's been simultaneous cement buying increase in customer acquisition cost because there's multiple players. And so there's been a squeeze of margins. Whereas if you introduce a mass premium product that has its own gravitational pull, it has a more favorable economic element. The final part to this is that if you think about the motivation of the telehealth player, their goal is not to sell hair loss drugs. It's to sell hair loss drugs and weight loss drugs and ED drugs. And to do that, right, they have to build the strongest patient population possible. And to do that, they have to have drugs that have their own gravitational pull. And we've seen this play out with the glips where Rowan, in particular, has had a meteoric rise through its partnership with Pharma as it's given access to these branded drugs that patients actively seek out. I do want to follow up on that read because I wonder what's to stop your average consumer from seeing this data that Viridormics presented this week. Potentially the follow up trial that you guys are already working on that I think is expected to read out by the end of the year, right? Or at least initial data by the end of the year. Correct. Okay. I mean, what's to stop a consumer from like seeing this clinical validation and then kind of in their Google searching realizing, oh wait, I can just get compounded monocytal right now. Same thing, right? And that's just Viridormics kind of being bypassed or the benefit really trickling down to some of these compounders over your company. Yeah. And we asked patients this question actually directly because we shared the curiosity of patient journey. And so for those who listened to our top line data call, one of the things that we had done is that the weekend prior to publicly releasing the data, we undertook a large quantitative market research survey in which we surveyed nearly 200 patients with our actual phase to three data profile. And in that survey, right, we saw that from a positive differentiation perspective, more than 90% of patients believe it to be positively differentiated from a willingness to use their significant. And also asked the specific question you're asking, Allison, which is, you know, if you're taking what's say, you know, the immediate release or monocytal today, or you're taking topical monocytal today, would you switch? And it's an overwhelming majority of patients, you know, would switch. And so I think it supports the idea that for patients, you know, as mentioned, you know, they view this as being a positively differentiated profile and that in hair, this is a motivated group of patients that are actively treated.
seeking and actively information seeking for whom we're bringing the first potential FDA-approved world treatment in approximately 30 years. So, Reed Vera Dermix is not the only biotech company working on new therapies for hair loss. Biotech VCs are even putting money to work here. What's driving the sudden interest? Yeah, I think it's always hard to speak on behalf of others as to why they're doing what they're doing. But I think there is a lot of reason to be excited about the hair loss market. It is the single most prevalent chronic dermatologic condition, right to the effects 80 million people. That makes it 10 times more prevalent than psoriasis, 2 times more prevalent than ex-month psoriasis combined. And obviously both of those markets had heralded numerous blockbuster products in over the last two decades. And that's a time period in which we've had no new prescription drugs for pattern hair loss. Similarly, we've seen a clear proof point that consumer directed cash pay markets can be very successful based on the weight loss market. And I think our chief commercial officer would tell you that five years ago, he would never look at the cash pay line for drugs. Now we're looking at the GLP1s where large portion of those are cash pay markets. I think the final tailwind is as a society where becoming more wellness focused, more aesthetic focused, and that that creates enthusiasm. Whether it's social media, whether it's in the media, there's constant dialogue about hair. There's constant dialogue about wellness. And so I think that the average consumer is spending a lot more time thinking about hair loss and ways to treat it than they were maybe 30 years ago when finasteride was launched. Yeah, read, you are a dermatologist by practice before becoming Vera Dermix CEO. Let's look at, I'm curious about the transition, the influence of cash pay and the influence of people getting prescriptions online for things like hair loss. Because that's, I'm assuming your practice has historically been about seeing patients in person. Yeah, so I never did telehealth as a dermatologist. My entire practice was in office and interestingly enough, I was seeing patients in private practice until December. So I would say my experiences is that the patients who go on the internet to buy prescription drugs or a non-overlapping or distinct bucket from the patients who go to a dermatologist. And so it was not super frequent for me whether it was an acne or whether it was an hair to have a patient come in and say, oh, I tried this thing on telehealth. And then came and saw you, the more common patient journey that we would see in particular and hair, is that the patient had tried an OTC option? Maybe they bought a supplement. Maybe they tried Rogaine prior to coming into the clinic. So Reed, when I think of aesthetics businesses, I think of companies that get acquired. It seems like we've got some few very large players in the field and so the opiate comers get gallbled up by them. Is that the end game for Dermix? Are you guys willing and able to commercialize on your own? Yes. So our mantra internally is that we'll operate the business like we're going to own it forever. And we are actively building a credible and independent commercial organization that is prepared to launch this job. And actually just last night, late last night, we announced a successful completion of a follow-on financing that is primarily intended to support commercial launch efforts and that was an upsized transaction for which we were extremely pleased with the outcome. And is the plan then to build out your own telehealth platform? You mentioned earlier that the potential for partnering with organizations like HIMS, like Rowan and what we've already seen that do in the marketplace for things like GLP ones. What's the commercial strategy? So I think that there are really three foundational pillars to the go to market. By one is your traditional HCP market and access. What we do is direct a consumer activation and then three is patient access. But when we talk about patient access in this category, we're not talking about market access like insurance reimbursement. We're talking about a distribution and channel strategy that is meant to be where the patients will want us. From an HCP perspective, right, this is a dermatology focused launch. When we look at prescribing data for for monocsidil today, 11,000 prescribers make up 80% of all prescriptions, the majority whom are Durham. So you can think of this as being a traditional, germ sized field force among the consumers. This is as I mentioned, an information seeking group of people. And so we do believe a very focused digital strategy can be effective. And importantly, I think many people don't know this. The company has fairly robust experience with direct to consumer advertising and hair in that the majority of the subjects in the 302 study, we just top lined, but also in 304 and 306 came from our digital marketing efforts. And to date, I believe we've had more than 100,000 people go to our trial website, phlstudy.com, submit and successfully pass the online screener and then pass on to our phone room. So I think there's a lot of demand. In terms of your specific question about channel strategy, I think we're evaluating a mix of both emerge, traditional and emerging channels. I think in terms of the specific approach to some of these emerging channels like telehealth, it's too early to say, put those items that are certainly being dug into. >> Reid, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate the time on the podcast and look forward to talking again soon. [MUSIC] >> The French pharma company, Survee, closed last week on its $2.5 billion acquisition of day one bio pharmaceuticals. The centerpiece of the deal is a drug called Ojema, which treats pediatric low grade glioma, the most common form of childhood brain cancer. Joining us to talk about Survee's reasons for buying day one and how it fits into the company's somewhat unique focus on medicines for rare cancers is David Lee, CEO of Survee pharma, the US arm of its French parent. David, welcome to the readout loud. >> Thank you Adam, it's great to be here. I'm very excited. >> David will get to day one in just a moment, but tell our listeners a bit more about Survee. It's a French company that's privately held and it's run by a nonprofit foundation. >> That's right online. So, it is still the second largest French pharmaceutical company. So, and we've been that way for a while. It's called Survee Group. That is owned by a nonprofit foundation. So, what that means is it's not a family, it's not up, it's private, but it is owned by a nonprofit foundation. The purpose of a foundation is to really kind of ensure number one independence. Said the long term sustainability group is there. Number two, that we continue to really invest in innovation. So, there's really big focus on science, on a new upcoming innovation, both internally and externally. And number three, that is so, so the profits don't go to investors, it doesn't go to any group of people or family. It really goes to patients. So, helping patients, making sure that they have access to the right medications and then for even our employees, right, that the company is there to support our employees and we continue to grow this company. So, it's a very different model. We started Survee Pharmaceuticals, as he said, the US arm. I started that eight years ago and it's grown fast. David, why focus on rare oncology therapies? And what exactly does that mean in the eyes of Survee, what kinds of medicines are you most interested in? Yeah, to maybe go back to where I just left off, right? So, Survee as a group was very much in the cardiovascular space, it was a very large player in cardiovascular. What we said tied in with kind of that foundation is that we really want to serve more patients, different types of patients, especially ones with very high ummm medical need. And so for us, that meant going into oncology, stuff's the decision that we made ten years ago. And as we went into that area, we very much said, you know, the ways that we can be differentiated compared to other companies. So, really, if we want to serve a medical needs, let's go to areas that are highly targeted, precision oncology areas, areas that can potentially be biomarker driven, and then also patient populations that are harder to treat, right? So to us, that's different types of cancer indications, tumor types, or even patient populations. For example, one of our first drugs that we had, we still have is Ocaspar and then we launched Asparlas in the cute lymphoblacid leukemia space. These are generally children, and that's how we got into the pediatric space. So, definitely, we operate in spaces, a lot of other companies either would not invest them or find way too risky. So David, let's talk about day one and the acquisition that just closed. What attracted CIRRI-A to acquire day one? As I said, I think CIRRI-A has grown quickly. We started off with one product, 50 people out of a wee work. And a lot of our growth has been both organic and in the organic. So, a lot of acquiring of other biotech companies, the largest one was the Agios oncology acquisition.
that we did in 2021. And so since then we've been really looking at areas that we really can unlock additional, address additional unmetrical needs for patients directly. And so we operate in this pediatric oncology space through acute lymphoblast leukemia, this is the most prevalent childhood cancer out there. More recently, so about a year and a half ago, we launched more needle and brain cancer space, this is IDH1, IDH2 inhibitor. Going into the space, we really enjoyed getting into the brain cancer space. Launching vornego was the first approved medication in that space in 25 years. So it's very significant. We really got to know this patient population. We really got to know the physicians, the key opinion leaders in the space. And so as part of that journey, both in pediatric and brain cancer, we start to get to know day one. We had had previous conversations. We really liked a lot of what we shared in terms of values, the mission. Very much like us, they're very patient-centric. Day one was founded also at year school, similar to when we found a survey pharmaceuticals. And they also really wanted to go into areas like pediatric cancers where other companies would not take the risk or would not be willing to go. And so we really liked that. And then we, you know, OJEM does now been launched for almost two years now. And so we've basically brought vornego to the market around the same time that OJEM does came to the market. And so we kind of watched them grow in this pediatric low-grade glioma space and while we operated across the entire low-grade glioma space. And to us, it made a lot of sense, right? We were already in pediatric cancers. We were in brain cancer and that were spaces that we really loved and that was the space that they operated in. And they also, they had just done the Marseona acquisition. So that was really around the Emily asset, which we thought was also quite neat. And they also, day three or one, which is the earlier stage of massive. But the Marseona platform was also quite interesting for us. So I think taking the account all these different pieces led us to the discussions that eventually led to the signing in the closer day one. David, so it's obvious that cancer is of extremely high interest to the bio-farmal world. From an M&A perspective, how to serve you a compete against larger pharma companies like Merck, like AstraZeneca, when you're searching for potential deal targets. Are you potentially looking where others might not be? How do you compete against those other pharma companies? Yeah, I mean, so we've done three major M&A deals. And then we've done a bunch of earlier stage partnerships. Very similar to day one. I think we really look at companies that operate in spaces that we enjoy, that we like operating in. So areas that are not as competitive or some big players do not either are looking at or don't want to play in. But if you look at the deals that we've done, all of them happen competitive. So we generally do have quite a few other competitors that are looking at similar types of deals. So they are competitive. But I do think when we look at deals, it's really, can we, we do think we have often someone better understanding of science. We have over a thousand PhD scientists at survey group. And so really going deep on the science, really looking at how do we address some of the real unmetical needs that are out there for patients. And whether some of these targets that we're looking at really address a lot of that. And so that's kind of in our focus. You know, it's I think when we compare to a lot of our competitors, we are deeper into the science. We are deeper into patients, understanding what the patient's really need. And I do think we're competitive financially. I'm curious David, as we've mentioned, you know, survey is a nonprofit. How does that change the paradigm if at all when you're looking at deal making? You know, are there certain things that are just no goes for survey because of the way that the company is structured as a corporation and how you work with that, you know, nonprofit foundation at the top? Yeah, yeah. I think there's some advantages to being a nonprofits and there's also kind of times when it may not be as competitive to be very honest. So on the more beneficial side, I think when we play in the therapeutic area like oncology, you can really think long term, right? So all my previous companies that have worked for have been public companies. This is my first private company. And what's been quite different for me is the fact that you really can't have a much more long term thinking. And I think that's very advantageous when it comes to oncology. And oncology, we often talk about the fact that I see no law, right? The phase two, but especially phase three, especially if it's a little bit more of a mass market indication, you talk about hundreds of millions of dollars that are invested, right? Potentially sometimes low and properly successful for some of these assets. And so you really have to have high tolerance for risk and you also need to have a ability to kind of really think long term. You know, where companies sometimes fail on oncology is that they change their strategy, they change their focus even within oncology or sometimes they jump around to different TAs, depending on what's hot right now. And so the real long-term ability to kind of project yourself into where a future in oncology can be and where success can really look like in oncology, I think that's really helped us, right? So we don't have the investors, we don't have quarterly earnings that put a lot of pressure on sometimes making some of these near-term decisions, or even some of these near-term deals that to fill in gaps or to tell a story. We can really think about what it really means from a strategic standpoint long-term. Luckily, I think sometimes it can be hard when it's a nonprofit foundation. Sometimes due to the capital, due to ability to be more leveraged, one thing that we take very seriously is that to be sustainable in long-term, we don't like to take on as much debt as probably some of the more public companies, which means that when it financially, it can be sometimes tougher for us to compete with other companies. - So yeah, one of your previous roles was at Shire, which was bought by Ticada. Ticada notoriously took on quite a bit of debt to work through that acquisition, which it's still digesting today. I mean, as you look back and retrospect, is that a wise decision in the bio-farm industry? - Yeah, and it's same thing with Shire, right? So we also took on a huge amount of debt, a shy to acquire back salt, and then we also did a diax, we did an MPS. And so I do think living through a lot of that, we struggled, right? I was a global head of rare diseases at Shire. For us to grow there, we really need to grow in organically, so when we really went into heritanger demon, a lot of that was through external deals that we did. And so when you have that much debt, it's harder to continue to increase your debt load to do more deals. And that, honestly, that was what I was facing and as Shire at that time, right? Either we were the world's largest rare disease company, but to retain that, we need to do more deals. And it was getting harder for us to do that. But to your point, I think that's a lot of what Takeda is dealing with, right? They took out a lot. Let's do a Shire deal, and now they have to deal with some of those consequences. - So David, what is next for survey in oncology? And are you looking at other disease areas for growth as well? - Yeah, absolutely Adam. So at Servia today, we like the areas that we operate in oncology, there's three key ones. So I mentioned we launched for NIGO almost two years ago, and that's in the brain cancer space. And I think during the day one, Bio Pharmaceutical Deal helps us get deeper and really retain a leadership in that brain cancer space compared to all of their companies. We are the largest player brain cancer today. It also allows us to stay in the pediatric cancer space, but also in the pediatric cancer space, we're in acute lymphoblastylchemium. We also have AML drugs, we have MDS drugs. So hemon is another big focus for us. And then we have a product in Clanchocarcinoma in the US, but outside the US, we're much deeper in the GI cancer space. So we have colorectal cancer, gastrocancer, pancreatic cancer, outside the US. And so GI cancers is another area that we're deeply committed to. Alceta Mokolaji, we actually announced publicly that we are very interested in neurology.
So really kind of rare movement disorders, neuromuscular disorders, refactory epilepsy. So very similar to kind of how we went into oncology, areas that probably are harder to treat, where you really do need deeper scientific knowledge. There's higher unmetrical need. Those are kind of areas that we're focusing going into neurology. - David, thank you so much for joining us. - Thank you, thank you for having me. (soft music) - That does it for then the episode of The Readout Loud. - Thank you to Hyacinth and Banato for producing this week's episode. - Our senior producer is Alissa Ambrose. Our executive producer is Rick Burke, and our theme music is by Brian Joel. - And we'd love to hear from you. Tell us what you like about this week's episode, what you didn't like, and whether you're having a good hair day. You can do all that by sending us an email at
[email protected]. - Adam always has a good hair day. - Always. - It's so easy when you don't have any. - And if you like what we do, leave a review or rating on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you use to get your podcasts. See you next week. (upbeat music)
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