Hopkins Biotech Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Roivant Pharma is reinventing the discovery, development, and commercialization of new medicines. Mayukh Sukhatme, M.D. was recently appointed to Roivant's board of directors and has served as Roivant’s President and Chief Investment Officer since January 2021. He is responsible for identifying, performing diligence on, devising development strategies for, and transacting on new therapeutic programs for the company. He also informs Roivant’s view of its existing biopharmaceutical subsidiary companies for capital allocation decisions across the Roivant portfolio. 

Mayukh joined Roivant in 2015 and previously served as President of Roivant Pharma and as Chief Business Officer. Programs that he has in-licensed or acquired for Roivant have produced all 10 of Roivant’s positive Phase 3 studies and have garnered 6 FDA approvals. Before joining Roivant, Mayukh was a healthcare-focused analyst and portfolio manager for several large institutional investment firms, including both public markets and venture capital firms. He earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his B.S. in Biology and B.S. in Literature from MIT.

Hosted by Joe Varriale.

Dr. Ignacio Guerrero-Ros is an immunologist turned scientific communicator and biotech media innovator. Currently, he is an Assistant Vice President at Russo Partners, providing public and investor relations services to clients in the healthcare and technology industries. Originally from Spain, Ignacio earned his PhD in Immunology from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Ignacio embraces the Hopkins Biotech Podcast's mission of the pursuit of alternative careers for PhD holders. 

In this episode, we discuss his ideas for how to find success beyond grad school and how he found a passion for science communication.

Hosted by Joe Varriale.

Adrian is an advisor for several biotech companies in Argentina. Before joining CITES, a venture builder from Argentina, he worked as an advisor for RedCrow VC in San Francisco, and has more than 10 years working in the pharmaceutical industry in companies like Novartis and Merck KGaA. 

In this episode, we discuss his path from academia to big pharma companies and how he made it to the world of Venture Capital and Venture Building. He also shared his thoughts about the role of big pharma in ecosystems like Latin America and the importance of collaboration between local and international institutions.

Finally, Adrian told us how he started his own newsletter in LinkedIn called “BioBusiness” where a growing community of entrepreneurs from all over the world are engaging in meaningful discussions around a variety of topics like the future of Biotech and Healthcare, deep analysis into investment strategies acquisition and exit, strategic partnerships, and more. 

Hosted by Gustavo Carrizo

Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage, biopharmaceutical company, developing innovative cancer medicines based on cell cycle, transcriptional regulation, and mitosis biology with a focus on oncology and hematology indications. Their lead drug candidate, fadraciclib is a dual CDK2/9 inhibitor currently undergoing investigation of dose escalation in a Phase 1/2 trial.

Spiro Rombotis is the founding CEO of Cyclacel. Prior to joining Cyclacel, Spiro served in a number of management positions at public and private biotechs including Centocor, Bristol Myers Squibb, and the Liposome Company. He earned his MBA at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business.

In this episode, we discuss cell cycle dysregulation in cancer, precision targeting of proteins in the drug design process, and unique clinical trial design.

Hosted by Joe Varriale.

Radamés Cordero is the CEO of Melatech and an associate scientist and junior faculty in the department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he studies the biology of fungal melanin.

As a spin-off of his research, Melatech is a biotech company dedicated to the production of melanin at industrial scales and the research and development of melanin-based technologies for a variety of commercial applications like shielding and harvesting radiation on earth and space.

In this episode, we discuss how he co-founded Melatech and became a CEO while running an academic lab. We also discussed what makes melanin so special, the manufacturing challenges and melanin’s multiple applications. 

Finally, he shared his perspective as a scientist coming from Latin America and his dream to make Melatech a place and resource that creates opportunities for young scientists interested in biotech from anywhere in the world!

Hosted by Gustavo Carrizo

 Ratio Therapeutics is a Boston-based pharmaceutical company with the mission to accelerate the development of best-in-class targeted radiotherapeutics for the treatment of cancers. By employing a suite of innovative technologies the company is developing innovative and proprietary Pharmacokinetics (PK) Modulation technology for the construction of improved therapeutic agents and transforming oncology treatment paradigms.

Dr. Jack Hoppin is the co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Ratio Tx. Prior to joining Ratio Tx Jack was the President of Konica-Minolta Precision Medicine and Co-founded InviCRO LLC and Emit Imaging. Jack is a leader in the molecular imaging research and drug development community and brings more than 15 years of experience in the design, development, and commercialization of pre-clinical instrumentation, analytical software, and imaging-based assays.

Dr. John Babich is the co-founder, President, and Chief Scientific Officer of Ratio Tx. Prior to Ratio Tx he co-founded Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ: MIPI) where he served as the CEO and chairman of the board, and Noria Therapeutics- a radiotherapy company developing targeted therapeutic and imaging radiopharmaceuticals  (alpha-emitting)  for use in oncology- acquired by Bayer.

In this episode, we discuss the growing field of targeted radiotherapeutics, company founding from the perspective of serial founders, and strategic partnerships in drug development.

Hosted by Joe Varriale

Dr. Anupam Chakravarty is a researcher whose research interests have straddled the disciplines of biochemistry and genomics with a keen focus on the biology of cancer. Currently, he is a senior scientist developing liquid biopsy assays and products in the precision oncology space at Guardant Health. Prior to joining Guardant Health, he ran his own lab as an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. He obtained his Ph.D. from Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City and was a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation fellow at Stanford University. 

Anupam is motivated by a strong sense of community building and being deeply invested in the graduate education landscape. He is building and managing a global community of graduate students - GradGrid on Linkedin. He lives in the Bay area with his wife and a cat, enjoys the outdoors, and has a strong academic interest in learning about the world through the lens of postage stamps. 

In this episode, we discuss the nuances of leaving a professorship to pursue industry research, the landscape of careers in graduate education, and the benefits of being a part of the GradGrid community.

Hosted by Joe Varriale.

Dr. Tony Russo Ph.D. is the Chairman, CEO, and founder of Russo Partners, a leading public and investor relations firm. He has been a member of the healthcare and technology PR and IR community for more than three decades. As a founder of Noonan/Russo in 1988, he and his colleagues have helped build signature healthcare brands worldwide. A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Tony has published articles and chapters in numerous scientific magazines, medical journals and books. He holds an M.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University.

In this episode, we discuss the formation of the modern biotech industry, the changing landscape we know now, and how communications and investor relations are key to the maintenance of companies of all sizes.

Hosted by Joe Varriale.

Dr. Robert Hollingsworth is the current Chief Scientific Officer of Shoreline Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation cellular immunotherapies based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)- utilizing its proprietary platforms. Dr. Hollingsworth joins Shoreline from Pfizer, where he served as Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Cancer Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics. Prior to Pfizer, he was Senior Director of Oncology Research at MedImmune where he led and advanced a large portfolio of more than twenty programs, including CAR-T programs, and contributed to the approval of durvalumab.  Before that, he held several R&D positions at GSK, Pharmacia, and Upjohn.

In this episode, we discuss Robert’s long career in biopharma, the platform technology being developed at Shoreline, and the role of strategic partnerships in early-stage development.

Hosted by Gustavo Carrizo and Joe Varriale.

Dr. Shelley Ackerman is an Associate Director & Program Team Lead at Bolt Biotherapeutics. Bolt is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering a new class of immuno-oncology agents that combine the targeting precision of antibodies with the power of both the innate and adaptive immune systems. Bolt Biotherapeutics’ proprietary Boltbody™ Immune-stimulating Antibody Conjugates (ISACs) are designed to target tumor cells for elimination by the immune system. BDC-1001 is a HER2-targeting Boltbody ISAC in an ongoing Phase 1/2 clinical trial enrolling patients with HER2-expressing solid tumors. 

Shelley was a Ph.D. student in the lab of Dr. Edgar Engleman at Stanford, directly involved with the development of the technology that led to the foundation of Bolt. Dr. Ackerman finished her degree prior to joining the company. She has received recognition for her achievements, having been named to MIT Technology Reviews 35 Innovators under 35 and STAT News’ Wundekind list. Shelley did her undergraduate work at MIT.

In this episode, we discuss Bolt’s proprietary drug development platform, technology commercialization in graduate school, and finding creative inspiration in the realm of science.

Hosted by Joe Varriale.