Beyond Biotech - the podcast from Labiotech – Details, episodes & analysis

Urinary Tract infections, or UTIs, affect millions worldwide, driving sepsis, antibiotic overuse, and microbial resistance. Current diagnostics rely on either slow lab cultures or unreliable dipsticks, and often lead to delayed or unnecessary treatment. Llusern’s Lodestar DX changes that: a point-of-care test that detects 96% of key UTI pathogens in just 35 minutes, no lab required.

In this episode I’m joined by Emma Hayhurst who shares her journey into diagnostics, Llusern’s mission, and the emergence of Wales as a biotech hub with a growing life sciences sector fueling local innovation. We discuss UTI prevalence, diagnostic gaps, and how rapid, accurate testing can transform patient care and antimicrobial stewardship. 

02:14               Meet Emma Hayhurst

04:37               Introducing Llusern Scientific

07:21               Collaboration between Llusern and the academy

08:50               The life science ecosystem in Wales

12:10               Urinary tract infections (UTIs)

15:45               UTI patient demographics

16:54               Health impacts of UTIs: sepsis, antibiotic resistance, and more

19:01               Existing UTI diagnostic options and their shortcomings

24:41               Llusern’s Lodestar DX

29:03               A point-of-care test, not a lab test

31:44               Applications beyond UTIs

36:03               Looking forward at Llusern

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To dive deeper into the topic: 

• Life sciences in Wales: biotechs in the scene in 2025
• Fighting Antimicrobial Resistance with Fast Molecular Diagnostics
• Ultra-Fast Diagnostics Could Transform Sexual Health

Today, I’m joined by Héctor García Martín, a Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A pioneer in metabolic engineering and computational biology, Héctor has spent over a decade decoding microbial systems, everything from termite guts to genome-scale flux models, to unlock sustainable biomanufacturing.

Now, he’s leading the charge in self-driving labs: AI-powered, robotic systems that automate experiments, predict biological behavior, and accelerate the design of microbes that produce fuels, medicines, and materials.

In this episode, we’ll dive into why biology has traditionally proven so hard to engineer, how AI and robotics are changing that, and where this revolution is headed next. I hope you enjoy my discussion with Hector Garcia Martin.

01:12              Meet Hector Garcia Martin

12:47              Introduction to the Berkeley National Laboratory

14:42              Challenges in synthetic biology

17:21              How unpredictability complicates biomanufacturing

19:30              Self-driving labs at the nexus of AI, robotics, and biomanufacturing

22:23               How is AI integrated into optimize enzyme expression

28:01               Where is the market for self-driving labs?

28:47               The future of synthetic biology

32:24               The most exciting trends in AI-driven biomanufacturing

34:10               The expected impacts of self-driving labs on everyday life

35:28               Advice for aspiring scientists

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To dive deeper into the topic: 

• Synthetic Biology @ Labiotech
• European biotech: trends to watch in 2025
• The coming of age of European synthetic biology

Parkinsons disease impacts some 10 million people worldwide and current approaches to treating the condition almost exclusively focus on addressing symptoms – there is, as of yet, no cure. One Finnish biotech, however, is not focused on alleviating symptoms but on modifying the course of the disease itself. Their hope is to be able to stop and even reverseneurodegenerative diseases like Parkinsons, and they have the backing of significant players, such as the Michael J Fox Foundation, to do just that.

This week I spoke to Antti Vuolanto, CEO of Herantis Pharma, about the work his company is doing, the science behind their approach, and the advantages and challenges of working in biotech in the Nordics.

01:10               Meet Antti Vuolanto

05:10               The biotech landscape in the Nordics

07:07               Herantis Pharma and its mission

09:38               Treating symptoms versus disease modification

13:31               Herantis in relation to other Parkinson’s disease companies

15:47               HER-096

26:24               The global burden of Parkinson’s disease and the unmet need

28:56               The role of patient and advocacy groups

30:11               The future of Parkinson’s disease treatment

31:52               How the Nordics can develop and expand their biotech sector

36:33               Stay up to date on Herantis and their work

Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here! 

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To dive deeper into the topic: 

• Finland: Pushing biotech forward in the land of a thousand lakes
• Parkinson’s disease: biotech’s pursuit for more therapies 
• The stem cell race for Parkinson’s disease: Recent studies show significant promise

On today’s podcast, Jean-Philip Piquemal, the chief scientific officer and co-founder of Qubit Pharmaceuticals, explains how the company’s Atlas platform is leading the way to more effective and safer drugs.

00:54-01:52: The history of Qubit Pharmaceuticals

01:52-04:04: What is the Atlas software?

04:04-05:18: Failing quickly is the key

05:19-06:53: What are digital twins?

06:54-09:00: Improving safety, reducing costs, and boosting drug discovery

09:00-10:44: Areas of interest

10:44-13:21: Recent successes

13:23-14:57: Preparing for future pandemics

14:58-17:03: Staying ahead of other companies

17:04-18:29: Enough diseases to go around

18:30-20:11: Upgrading Atlas software

20:13-21:59: How Qubit works with pharma companies

21:59-24:41: The Quantum for Bio program

24:42-27:58: Looking to the future, and helping patients
 

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This week, our guest on the podcast is Jason C. Foster, CEO of Ori Biotech.

Ori is a London, U.K. and New Jersey, U.S. based manufacturing technology company pioneering flexible process discovery with translation and scalable commercialization of cell and gene therapies (CGT). 

Ori has developed a proprietary, full stack manufacturing platform that closes, automates and standardizes CGT manufacturing allowing therapeutics developers to develop and bring their products to market at commercial scale. 

The promise of the Ori platform is to fully automate CGT manufacturing to increase throughput, improve quality and decrease costs by combining proprietary hardware, software, data and analytics.

Ori was founded in 2015 by Dr Farlan Veraitch from University College London.

The company also produces a monthly report on its website, which covers the latest in CGT approvals, regulations, trials and industry news.

This week, our guest on the podcast is Mark Kotter, founder of newly-created company clock.bio.

clock.bio, a sister company to bit.bio, which Kotter also founded and is the CEO of, aims to extend and improve quality of life by reversing the harmful effects of time in our cells, harnessing the regenerative capabilities of human pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs).

These hiPSCs have the ability not only to stay young but also to rejuvenate when forced to age.

Clock.bio’s approach is to harness this power of ‘resetting the clock’ in hiPSCs to identify new approaches to treating age-related diseases. It has developed an aging model that ‘force ages’ hiPSCs and triggers their self-rejuvenation mechanism. Unbiased CRISPR screens on large samples of these cells allows for the identification of gene candidates that are causally relevant for cell rejuvenation.

This enables a decoding of rejuvenation biology and corresponding IP; the resulting knowledge will be used to create novel treatment approaches.

The company’s mission is to extend health span by 20 years based on biomarkers of aging in a phase 3 trial by the end of this decade. 

Clock.bio recently published a white paper for rejuvenation therapies and a blueprint for clock.bio.

This week, we speak to Artiva Biotherapeutics’ CEO, Fred Aslan, M.D.

The company has demonstrated the potential for efficacy and safety with natural killer (NK) cells in two cancer clinical trials. In August, the company announced FDA clearance for an IND for lupus – marking a first for an allogeneic, off-the-shelf NK or CAR-T cell therapy in autoimmune disease.

AlloNK (also known as AB-101) is a non-genetically modified, cord blood-derived, allogeneic, cryopreserved, ADCC-enhancing NK cell therapy candidate for use in combination with monoclonal antibodies or innate-cell engagers in the out-patient setting. 

Artiva is investigating AlloNK in a phase 1/2 multicenter clinical trial to assess the safety and clinical activity of AlloNK alone and in combination with the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody, rituximab, in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell-non-Hodgkin lymphoma (B-NHL). Artiva is also investigating the safety and clinical activity of AlloNK in combination with rituximab in patients with lupus nephritis. 

In addition, Artiva is collaborating with Affimed in a phase 2, open-label, multi-center, multi-cohort study, testing a combination therapy, comprised of AlloNK and the innate cell engager AFM13, for the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory CD30-positive lymphomas. Artiva selects cord blood units with the high affinity variant of the CD16 receptor and a KIR-B haplotype for enhanced product activity. 

Using the company’s cell therapy manufacturing platform, Artiva can generate thousands of doses of pure, cryopreserved, infusion-ready NK cells from a single umbilical cord blood unit while retaining the high and consistent expression of CD16 and other activating NK receptors, without the need for engineering. AlloNK is being administered in the outpatient setting over multiple doses and multiple cycles.

Artiva’s pipeline also includes AB-201, an anti-HER2 CAR-NK cell therapy candidate for the treatment of HER2-overexpressing tumors, such as breast, gastric, and bladder cancers, and for which an IND has been allowed by FDA, and a pipeline of CAR-NK candidates targeting both solid and hematopoietic cancers. Artiva has also entered into therapeutic NK cell collaborations with Merck Sharp & Dohme. 

Compared to the smallest mRNA molecule, which is 300 nucleotides long, the largest transfer RNAs (tRNA) is less than a third of the size at 76 nucleotides. 

Scientists at Alltrna are harnessing the unique biology of tRNAs to engineer a single tRNA medicine that could treat thousands of rare diseases that share the same genetic mutation. This year, Alltrna presented at ASGCT the first demonstration that an engineered, modified tRNA could recognize and correct, in vivo, a flawed mRNA instruction no matter where it occurred in the genome.

Alltrna, which was founded in 2018 by Flagship Pioneering, recently announced it had raised $109 million in a Series B financing to advance the company’s platform and first drug candidates towards the clinic for a first indication in Stop Codon Disease.  

Stop Codon Disease encompasses ​​thousands of rare and common diseases that arise from premature termination codons (PTC), also known as nonsense mutations, where the code for an amino acid has been mutated into a premature “stop” codon. This results in a truncated or shortened protein product with no or altered biological activity that causes disease. Approximately 10% of all people with a genetic disease have Stop Codon Disease, representing approximately 30 million people worldwide. Alltrna’s tRNA medicines can read these PTC mutations and deliver the desired amino acid, thereby restoring the production of the full-length protein.

The company’s platform incorporates artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to ‘learn’ the tRNA language and deliver diverse, programmable molecules with broad therapeutic potential. 

This week, our conversation is with Alltrna CEO, Michelle Werner.

To learn more about the topic, we invite you to read the following article:  Will tRNA therapy be the next big thing in genetic disease treatment?

Disease X, a concept shrouded in mystery, represents the unknown pathogens that could unleash future epidemics or pandemics. 

In the wake of recent global health crises, our understanding of the profound impact of those pandemics has deepened. 

On this week’s podcast, we have a conversation with Hamilton Bennett, who led Moderna’s mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine development program team to the authorized use and approval of one of the earliest and most effective vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Bennett is Moderna’s senior director of vaccine access and partnerships, and has unparalleled insights into the world of infectious diseases. 

In this in-depth discussion, Bennett talks about the origins of Disease X, the role of mRNA technology in tackling pandemics, and the importance of preparedness.

Disease X was intended to be a placeholder name; it was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2018 on their shortlist of blueprint priority diseases to represent a hypothetical, unknown pathogen that could cause a future epidemic.

Despite the huge commercial success of PD-1 inhibitors and widespread use of checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-PD-1 or anti-CTLA4, 70 to 80% of patients still experience limited or no response to existing therapies.  

In response to this critical challenge, Portage Biotech is on a mission to expand the number of patients who derive long-term benefits from immunotherapies.  

Portage Biotech is advancing a portfolio of novel precision immuno-oncology therapies, including invariant natural killer T-cell (iNKT) engagers, designed to correct the tumor microenvironment and enable the body to recognize and attack tumors, and next-generation adenosine inhibitors for a variety of cancers, with better potency, selectivity and durability. 

Heading this pioneering endeavor is Dr. Ian Walters, Portage's CEO, who brings decades of experience in the immuno-oncology space. With a unique background as a physician with a business degree, Dr. Walters has been deeply involved in academia and large pharmaceutical companies. He played a pivotal role in the development of some of the first checkpoint inhibitors and has supported the approval of five oncology drugs.  

In this conversation, Walters tells Labiotech about Portage's unique approach to targeting known checkpoint resistant pathways and the company's strategy to revolutionize immunotherapy research and drug development.