Former Amgen R&D lead Sean Harper talks exclusively to In Vivo about his new role as a venture capitalist, joining veteran industry investor Beth Seidenberg as co-founder of Los Angeles-based Westlake Village BioPartners.

Rgenix, a New York-based start-up co-founded by three prominent physician researchers, is taking aim at what it contends is the future of cancer treatment:  finding drugs that shut off the biological chain reaction called tumor metastasis – the colonization of malignant cells throughout the body that ends up killing the majority of cancer patients.

Applied Therapeutics has a business model that defies the conventional wisdom about start-up success: reviving science abandoned by big pharma; financing from a narrow group of investors, dependent on the goodwill of a single academic institution; all in pursuit of a small molecule solution to one of the biggest, diversely complex and cost-defying challenges in chronic disease – the complications of diabetes. 

Applied Therapeutics has a specific entry point to an underserved disease of grinding, irrevocable decline:  diabetic cardiomyopathy as a cause of chronic heart failure (CHF).

Trialtrove’s annual review of clinical trials initiated by industry sponsors is a useful gauge of the diversity and innovative potential of biopharma’s investments in R&D. This year’s report reveals that, while there are patterns of consistency in many aspects of the trial landscape, changes are in the wind – particularly as companies outside the pharma top 20 now contribute more completed trials than any other type of sponsor.

The complexity of producing viable drug candidates is increasing as an abundance of new science keeps extending the range of possible targets and fragmenting disease subtypes. Proximity to novel exploratory research is a driver of pipeline productivity – so can physical location within a communal geography of well-resourced intellectual firepower raise the odds for R&D success? In Vivo sits down with eight key leaders in academia, VC, commercial real estate and groundbreaking biotech to discuss how Los Angeles – the “out there” city of out-sized ambitions – is positioning itself for global leadership in the curative technologies of the future.