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On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're speaking with Thomas von Erlach, Ph.D., Cofounder and CEO at Vivtex, a company spun out of the Langer Lab at MIT that's focused on developing orally available biologics. The company announced a deal in late February '26 with Novo Nordisk for up to $2.1 billion to develop next-gen oral drugs for obesity and diabetes, bringing the total number of Vivtex's partnerships to 10. Thomas shares his experiences working in the lab with Dr. Robert Langer, Ph.D., starting up Vivtex around his co-invention (a "GI tract on a chip"), building trust externally and securing the right partnerships, and using a strategic stealth period to refine Vivtex's platform technology before scaling it out.

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On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech we speak with Monika Sumra, Ph.D., about how leadership, culture, and performance emerge from the environment and conditions inside an organization. Dr. Sumra, Founder and Managing Partner at Bunka, Inc., a management consulting firm and advisor to manufacturing-based organizations globally, explains how anthropology, CPIs, and rapid ethnography make culture measurable and operations faster, safer, and more reliable. Deploying a unique lens built on biosocial anthropology, she offers guidance on creating environments for sustainable performance in the complex life sciences industry.

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On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Jared Bauer, Cofounder and CEO at Seek Labs, talks about his adventures in company turnarounds, and setting up Seek Labs to improve patient diagnoses and to discover and develop new treatments for infectious diseases. Jared explains the technology convergence that was needed to build Seek Labs' AI diagnostic and CRISPR-based therapeutics platform, an African Swine Fever proof-of-concept study that reduced viremia in pigs, mapping pathogens for rapid target design, and engaging with the FDA and global regulatory agencies.

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On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're speaking with Cindy Perettie, Executive Vice President and Global Head at Kite Pharma, a Gilead-owned company focused on curing cancer with cell therapies. Perettie talks about scaling cell therapies in the community setting, global manufacturing strategy, preparing for the launch of late-stage development programs in lymphoma and multiple myeloma, and working with partners like Arcellx. She also discusses cell therapy funding cycles and big pharma, the autologous versus allogeneic divide, why in vivo CAR-T therapies could be a game changer, what the FDA's focus on cell and gene therapies could mean for U.S. competition, and more.

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On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Brian Hilberdink, President of U.S. Human Pharma at Boehringer Ingelheim, returns to the show during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, and following his departure from LEO Pharma (see episode 164). Brian talks about new opportunities in obesity, the benefits of private ownership in funding early science, Boehringer's deal strategy, using AI to improve commercialization efforts, and the FDA's selection of zongertinib (in patients with HER2-mutant NSCLC) for the Commissioner's National Priority Voucher program.

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On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech -- on location at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference -- we're speaking with Ron Cooper, CEO and Board Member at enGene, to unpack how he scaled Albireo from a small research shop to a global commercial company, and why he’s now betting on nonviral gene therapy at enGene to help patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer keep their bladders. Cooper talks about the importance of keeping development, financing, and hiring in sync as biotech companies grow, his experiences surviving near-death cash deficits, the importance of investing early in CMC, and what to expect in 2026.

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The Business of Biotech was back in San Francisco for the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (January 12 - 15) and this week we sit down with Marc Salzberg, M.D., CEO, CMO, and Board Chair at Airway Therapeutics, a company developing a recombinant version of human surfactant protein D for several respiratory, inflammatory, and infectious diseases including bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), which is currently in Phase 2b/3 trials. Brian talks about why he selected BPD as a lead clinical indication (a disease primarily affecting preterm infants), what he learned through founding and selling a CRO, how a private biotech funds a pivotal trial across continents, and offers an industry outlook for 2026.

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On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we're speaking with Kenneth Galbraith, CEO and Board Chair at Zymeworks, a biotech developing multispecific therapies internally and through partnerships with companies including Jazz Pharmaceuticals and BeOne Medicines (formerly BeiGene), J&J, Merck, Daiichi Sankyo, and GSK. Ken talks about Zymeworks' shift to a royalty model for development funding and value creation, lessons learned from platform deals and cross-border R&D, the benefits of strong royalty agreements and backloaded milestone payments over headline upfronts, and industry dynamics for the coming year. Ken also shares insights from his deep experiences as a biotech investor and corporate director, and explains why scientific primacy should always drive biotech business decisions.

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Get in touch with guest and topic suggestions: ben.comer@lifescienceleader.com

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