Evaluating Biopharma – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of Evaluating Biopharma, host Ben Locwin and Scott Endicott, executive leader of Healthcare Solutions Integration, talk about data governance and data provenance—why they matter and how the industry can achieve them. With 30 years of experience, Endicott has a deep understanding of training AI and ML models, particularly when patient data is included, and offers advice on how to navigate the challenges of data governance and provenance in the near-term future. 

Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma 
Black Diamond Networks 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.

In this month’s episode of Evaluating Biopharma, host Ben Locwin and Chris Major, founder and partner of BioProcess360 Partners, discuss the best ways to start a company to address technology gaps, why it is beneficial to collaborate with competitors (instead of going against each other), and the challenges encountered when planning to de-risk portfolios in advance. Major also talks about how he approaches funding, the best practices and lessons he learned about time-to-exit strategies, and how his organization is paying it forward to the industry.

Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma 
Black Diamond Networks 
BioProcess360 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.

In this episode of Evaluating Biopharma, host Ben Locwin speaks with Santoshkumar Khatwani, Director – Analytical Development, Late-Stage CMC Analytical Team Lead at Sangamo Therapeutics, about impurities in gene therapy processes and the ways to identify them. Khatwani discusses how to determine if these impurities are from the product, the process, or the host cell. He also talks about using multiple different analytical methods to help understand how good your process is or isn’t, what to look out for when prioritizing by phase, and how to choose the best approach to measure process attributes. Finally, he shares his thoughts on leveraging data to its fullest potential to improve processes and how data can provide a more holistic view of how the process is performing.  

Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma 
Black Diamond Networks
Sangamo Therapeutics 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.

What are some strategies that companies can use to get to IND filing quickly? In this brand new conversation, Evaluating Biopharma podcast host Ben Locwin discusses the risks and rewards of speed-to-IND strategies with Susan Jones, Chief Technology Officer at Tourmaline Bio. Susan delves into her 30 years of experience in the biotech industry, how quality by design impacts IND filing, and the pitfalls of using platform approaches to accelerate early development. Finally, she shares some case studies where accelerated timelines led to unexpected outcomes, as well as advice on knowing your situation and risks, and spending time understanding your molecule first.

Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma 
Black Diamond Networks
Tourmaline Bio 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.

In this episode of Evaluating Biopharma, host Ben Locwin, Vice President of Project Solutions at Black Diamond Networks, speaks with Jonathan Tsang, Senior Director, Manufacturing Sciences & Technology at Kite Pharma, who shares his experiences and provides advice on how autologous cell therapy companies can better prepare for commercial manufacturing, including: addressing the challenge of variability of patient cell behavior, process development characterization using healthy donor vs. patient cells, volume and logistical complexity of personalized therapy, and planning and implementing fast and efficient business systems to support scale-out. He also discusses critical quality attributes he looks for during process development and his thoughts on developing processes that can cope with variability in reagents, media, and more. 

Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma 
Black Diamond Networks 
Kite Pharma 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.

In this episode of Evaluating Biopharma, Mike Kelly, Senior Vice President at Atsena Therapeutics, shares his experiences and provides his advice on how your company can make proper CMC investments to reduce risk and maximize ROI, including: the make or buy decision, ensuring CMC investment to provide regulators what they need, scalability considerations, identifying technologies and assays to support your strategy, controlling COGS, and building a commercially feasible program profile. He also discusses factors that smaller businesses need to consider when choosing who to work with, such as fully understanding your needs and the compatibility between the sponsor and service provider in terms of technical capability, operational capability, management experience, and problem-solving tactics. 

Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma 
Black Diamond Networks 
Atsena Therapeutics 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.

In this episode of Evaluating Biopharma, Ben Locwin, Vice President of Project Solutions at Black Diamond Networks, speaks with Susan D'Costa, Chief Technology Officer at Alcyone Therapeutics, who shares her experiences and provides advice on how your company can identify and overcome CMC challenges in gene therapy, including: understanding and monitoring DNA constructs, identifying starting material challenges, prioritizing potency assays, and the impact of viral vector delivery and development of capsid tropism. D'Costa also talks about her hopes for the future of gene therapies and building better CMCs, processes, and characterization tools that will provide more accessible treatment for patients. 

Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma 
Black Diamond Networks
Alycone Therapeutics 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.

Joseph Shultz, VP and technical head of biologics and vaccines at Resilience, and John Bonham-Carter, board member and VP of business development and product management at Erbi Biosystems, discuss the financial considerations biopharma companies face when implementing a continuous strategy. Shultz talks about the mindset of the senior leadership at Amgen—and then Novartis—that lead to the eventual adoption of a new bioprocessing system and how their strategies benefit multiple teams within a single organization. He also discusses the importance of setting key milestones to track successes and failures, the business parameters best suited for continuous bioprocessing, and the real and imagined hurdles associated with continuous over batch processing. 

Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma
Resilience 
Erbi Biosystems 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.

Marty Giedlin, vice president and head of technology operations at Senti Bio, speaks with moderator Ben Locwin, vice president of project solutions at Black Diamond Networks, to share his experiences and provide advice on how allogeneic cell therapy companies can implement better manufacturing strategies. He discusses understanding and managing manufacturing expectations, letting biology drive strategic operations, and why data must drive chemistry, manufacturing, and controls. Giedlin also outlines how to best characterize starting materials, why a one-size-fits-all approach to process manufacturing is unrealistic, his predictions for the industry over the next five years, and his work developing NK-CAR treatments for various cancer cells. 

Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma
Senti Biosciences 
Black Diamond Networks 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.

Arthi Narayanan, innovation team leader of pharma technical operations at Genentech, and John Bonham-Carter, board member and VP of business development and product management at Erbi Biosystems, discuss how process analytical technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning support intensified bioprocessing and improve inefficiencies. Narayanan talks about the expected outcomes predictive modeling will likely produce in the coming years, why data is the “power” of bioprocessing, and how to leverage predictive modeling to accelerate tech transfer. She also discusses the importance of accepting and trusting new technologies, the mindset surrounding data and employee acquisition that often leads to success, and how to manage workforce integration.
 
Links from this episode:  
Evaluating Biopharma
Genentech 
Erbi Biosystems 

Evaluating Biopharma boiler: Evaluating Biopharma taps into the insight and experience of biopharmaceutical leaders so today’s decision makers can leverage their knowledge, learn from their successes, and avoid repeating similar mistakes. This series offers a new guest and moderator with each episode and aims to equip executives and science leaders with the necessary information to make better business and process decisions. The Evaluating Biopharma podcast is a reproduction of content originally presented at recent Evaluating Biopharma digital and educational networking events.