Oncolytic virus company Theolytics has emerged ready to raise a series A round and get its preclinical assets into human trials by 2021. CEO Charlotte Casebourne talks to In Vivo about the challenge of standing out from the crowd in oncology, how viruses have evolved as a treatment approach in cancer, and how oncolytic viruses might be able to answer the cancer drug pricing conundrum.

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.

IXICO has been developing medical image analysis and digital health data analytics to help pharma companies better understand how to develop so-far largely elusive therapies for neurological diseases. It is a game of skill, patience and long-term application, but also an environment with short-term opportunities, as IXICO’s Alison Howie explains.

Information is the lifeblood that sustains drug development – but the ability to disperse, differentiate and make sense of it is what delivers success in the marketplace. Bausch Health Companies has decided to make global alignment through the strategic application of IT the centerpiece of its effort to shed the legacy of its acquisitive predecessor Valeant Pharmaceuticals. 

There is no single path toward becoming a CEO. The job requires many different skills, often concurrently: sharp analytical capabilities, strategic thinking, clear communication with multiple audiences, curiosity and perseverance. It demands strong leadership but also humility, and a willingness to acknowledge mistakes and knowledge gaps.

Founder-CEOs do not typically remain at the helm as biotechs mature. Exceptions to that rule are multiplying, though, especially in Europe as companies aim directly for Nasdaq.

Christophe Bancel, CEO of French medtech innovator TISSIUM, has made a career in various parts of the health care products industry, identifying business opportunities, founding, directing and leading ventures, and planning for contingencies. The ex-Serono and UCB executive, who has had many other postings, is now testing his adaptability and leadership qualities by bringing a versatile class III synthetic polymer device into key markets.

Frank Mathias, CEO of Rentschler Biopharma, a contract development and manufacturing organization, talks to In Vivo about the company’s new corporate strategy and why he allowed 18 months to prepare that plan for delivery.

It is a cliché to say that pharma science loves to collaborate – the hard thing is that leaky decision framework by which good ideas do not get executed.

Bayer's novel 2016 joint venture with the venture capital group Versant Ventures has spawned something like a big pharma, new science start-up, with an open mandate to disrupt drug development through generous endowments in the scarce commodities of freedom, time and patience.

Casebia Therapeutics, a three-year old start-up in the hotly contested gene therapy space, is the product of a remarkably relaxed joint venture between the German multinational giant Bayer and CRISPR Therapeutics, a leader in conducting the first clinical trial involving the CRISPR-Cas9 editing platform. 

Neuroscience data specialist IXICO has broad ambitions to partner with pharmas large and small, helping them develop better-targeted clinical trials using imaging and digital biomarker data. A business review in late 2017 by CEO Giulio Cerroni refined the company’s value proposition, while keeping the headline elements in place: scale the business and diversify within neuroscience.

ImmunoGen CEO Mark Enyedy, a leading proponent of targeted ADC oncologics, explains to In Vivo how high risk – and dogged resilience – are central features of a challenging innovative landscape in cancer today. Despite some recent setbacks on the road to commercialization, science will continue to transform, bolstered by the industry's financial commitments; revolutionary new data sources, validated by patient-centered outcomes; and that persistent human intangible called hope. 

Luciano Rossetti, head of global research and development at Merck KGaA, believes the mid-sized pharma is well on its way to becoming a global immuno-oncology specialist. He discusses in-house innovation, the company’s recent IO alliance with GSK and the next wave of success that is beginning to swell across the cancer drug development community.

Simon Moroney has led the German antibody technology biotech MorphoSys since 1992. Having taken the decision to retire just as the firm is entering the next phase in its evolution, he explains to In Vivo why the time is right.