Barry Ticho - Part 1: From Family Medicine to Breakthrough Therapeutics

Intro - 00:00:01: Welcome to The Biotech Startups Podcast by Excedr. Join us as we speak with first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, and experienced investors about the challenges and triumphs of running a biotech startup from pre-seed to IPO with your host, Jon Chee.

Jon - 00:00:22: My guest today is Barry Ticho, founder of Verve Therapeutics and chief medical officer of Stoke Therapeutics, a biotech company addressing the underlying cause of severe diseases by upregulating protein expression with RNA-based medicines. Prior to Stoke, Barry was head of development at Moderna, where he focused on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Before Moderna, he was head of external R&D innovation for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases at Pfizer and was VP of clinical development at Biogen for over a decade. An accomplished academic and physician, Barry obtained his MD-PhD from the University of Chicago, followed by a pediatrics residency at Northwestern. He then joined the pediatric cardiology group at Boston Children's Hospital, where he served as a clinical staff member at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital for nearly 20 years. Barry's insights into clinical development in large and small organizations and for-profit and non-profit settings makes for an incredibly valuable conversation and one that founders don't want to miss. Over the next four episodes, we'll hear about Barry's leadership journey in the life science industry, starting with his upbringing in a family of doctors. We'll hear about a life-changing moment that solidified his career choice, his experience as an academic at the University of Chicago, and his roles at Biogen and Moderna. Finally, we'll explore the story behind the founding of Verve Therapeutics, its mission to revolutionize cardiovascular care through gene editing, and Barry's current role as chief medical officer at Stoke Therapeutics. Today, we'll chat with Barry about his childhood as one of five boys in a family of physicians, how his upbringing sparked a passion for medicine, and how a transformative moment, watching a child regain sight after surgery, galvanized his career path. Barry also shares insights from his academic journey at Haverford College, where he discovered his love for biology, and the MD-PhD program at the University of Chicago, reflecting on how education, critical thinking, and resilience shaped his leadership journey. Without further ado, let's dive into this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast. Barry, it's so good to see you again. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Barry - 00:02:15: True, Jon. Pleasure to be here. I'm looking forward to our discussion.

Jon - 00:02:18: Yeah. And we had our original conversation, you know, actually a while ago. So I've been really excited to finally hit record here. And in the traditional start for The Biotech Starters Podcast, we always like to turn back the hands of time and really see, kind of get a peek, an inside look into your early upbringing and how that may have influenced, one, your leadership style and business philosophy. And then also, what was it that got you into science? So if you can take us back, can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing? 

Barry - 00:02:48: Yeah, sure. I'm one of five boys born to two parents, both of whom were physicians. My parents were actually both Holocaust survivors from Europe and had a very difficult experience during the Holocaust, but that directed them in certain ways for their lives. But the main point for them was actually the importance of education, and that was something that influenced me, certainly when I was growing up and subsequently. But for them, especially because they had most of their belongings taken away from them, and not to mention that there are quite a few family members who were murdered by the Nazis, they grew up realizing that... Education was really the only thing that you can count on and you can take with you. And sometimes my father would even say, they can take everything else, but they can't take your brain. So that really brought home the fact that having a solid education is one of the most important things in life. And we were raised that way from very young. 

 Jon - 00:04:03: Yeah, that's, you know, one, you know, I love what your father is saying, too, and also must have been incredibly, you know. Like you said, difficult to have everything taken away from you and realize that this is the one thing that can't be taken away from you. And so I love that. And as you're growing up with your siblings, was medicine always kind of in the household? Was that obviously to visit to, you know, doctors? I'm sure the conversation, there was a lot of, you know, talk about it, but was it always like an emphasis or did you ever at a point in time, like, hmm, maybe I want to go do something non-medicine? I don't know. I'm going to be an author or something like that.

Barry - 00:04:40: Yeah, I think that we were influenced, I'll say, of the five boys, four of us are physicians.

Jon - 00:04:47: Oh, okay.

Barry - 00:04:49: The one outlier is an accountant. I always get asked, what does he do?

Jon - 00:04:54: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Barry - 00:04:55: Yeah, of the five of us, four of us are physicians. But I wouldn't say that that was something that was imposed on us. It was more that we just learned from positive example. And for me, it started. Back when I was eight, nine years of age. Well, it first started with my father, he's an ophthalmologist, or was an ophthalmologist, but he used to bring home videos or movies back then of eye surgery. And would run it in the basement and say, why don't you come look at this? And I don't know if you've seen a surgery done, but it's one of the most... Grotesque things to watch. They literally force the eye open, and then you see them stick a knife into the eye. As a kid? As a kid, I would squirm and sometimes hide under the chair, but keep one eye open looking at it. So I got introduced quite young. But my real introduction was my father would go on rounds in the hospital and take me with. And he inevitably had some children who were in the hospital after surgery. Some of them had surgery for crossed eyes. Always around July 4th, there would always be some children who had firecrackers explode in their eyes, which is why we never used fireworks or firecrackers at home.

Jon - 00:06:26: They always say you're going to lose a finger, but it's actually that you might lose an eye.

Barry - 00:06:29: Yeah, an eye is one of the dangers, exactly. But so what my father would do sometimes would be to park me next to one of the children, frequently who had, some of them had both eyes bandaged, or at least one eye bandaged, and I would sit and read with them. And for me, that was my first introduction to patients. But I think one of the most moving things for me was, I still recall it, but there was one child who had both eyes bandaged, and the parents were in the room. And... My father took the bandages off, and the boy looked, and he said, I can see, I can see. And he turned and said, Mom, I can see. And that just, to me, had such an impression to say, this is what the impact of medicine could be. You're actually literally changing the potential for a life. Starting even with a very young child, and to see both the gratification that the family, the parents and the child had, but also it was rewarding for my father. He got a lot of reward from just seeing that happen. So to me, that was the introduction. So it was a very positive. Influence on what medicine can do and why people go into it.

Jon - 00:07:48: That's amazing to hear. And I'm going to imagine, you know, for my, obviously, you've far more experience than, you know, than most. And even just my friends who are kind of early in their career as practitioners of medicine, it's kind of, I know their days can be super busy and there can be some hard days too, really hard days. But like hearing that story is like, it makes it all worth it. You're like, I'm going to pour my like blood, sweat and tears into this. And because you're having, you know, that you're driving this, like such a, you know, moving outcome for your patients. And I can imagine that it just makes it all worth it. And kind of to get through the, you know, it's quite difficult. And so you're now, you know, you've got your first exposure, you've watched the horror movie in the basement. And then you now have, you've seen firsthand what medicine, what type of impact medicine can have. As you are getting, into high school, university, did you always know you're going to go to Haverford? Did, were you looking around elsewhere? Tell me a little bit about that process.

Barry - 00:08:56: Yeah, I think I already knew in high school that I had interest in biology. That was something that... Came more as I was a child that, you know, I was just fascinated with. Human body and we had a chemistry set and a microscope and I remember sitting with the microscope and maybe many people have done this but taking a piece a piece of onion and you look at at the onion under microscope and you see all the cubes together there and realize that those are all individual cells and trying to think about how did that onion form and then going from that to how did a body form. To me, that was already fascinating. So I was taking all sorts of things and looking at them under the microscope, leaves and ants and whatever manner to look and see what does this look like when you can really look at it up very close. So that already got me interested in biology as a high schooler. And then, of course, AP Bio for me was a course where I got to dive deep into it and understand more. Plus my... AP Bio. Teacher was also the swim coach for the team. And I was on the high school team. It was a very high, it was a state ranked, actually state winning high school team. So I had his influence of both in the classroom and out of the classroom. But he was a very inspiring person overall and also inspired a great interest in biology. So that's part of what. Drew me to look for a college where I could have it. A very difficult direct interaction with teachers. And Haverford is a very unique. Institution. I mean, it's really committed to critical inquiry. And that's where... The first roots of how to ask critical questions and determine how to answer those questions came to me. And that combined with the fact that it's a liberal arts education, but it's rooted in Quaker practices, really. And I must admit that when I went to Harvard, I didn't know that much about Quakerism, but the more I learned about it and how it's focused on social justice. But there's also this idea of... Sort of the inner light and wisdom of each student, of each person. And that came through even from my initial visits to Haverford. So I did have a cousin who went there, and that was how I got introduced to it. But the more I learned about the school, the more I just... Fell in love with it.

Jon - 00:11:56: That's amazing. There's two things that stood out to me. And the first one was the impact your AP biology teacher had. That's where it clicked for me. I think I was probably trying to brute force math for a long time. I was like, my dad's a strong-willed engineer. So it was like a very, you know, obviously math and physics driven kind of way he thinks about problem solving. And I was like, I think I can do this. And then I got to Berkeley. I was like, I don't think I can do this. But once I had the AP bio class and really was able to kind of tap into more of that visual learning part of my brain, wherever that may be. It really started to click. And it was not only just like, did it start to click? But I was like, oh, this could be fun versus just trying to like grit through like calculus. Oh, this is so hard. And then it became only harder when getting to university. I love that too, about just how Haverford had this emphasis or has this emphasis on kind of just asking those critical questions and making you really think long and hard and really think from first principles. So that's awesome to hear. And when you got there. Did you have an undergraduate lab experience or was that something that the lab experience come later on for you?

Barry - 00:13:17: Well, the lab experience came relatively early, partially because it's a requirement.

Jon - 00:13:22: Oh, wow.

Barry - 00:13:23: For Haberford to have a lab training. So Haberford's unique in that way also in that there are different dimensions that are required. So even if I had intended to go there and just be pre-med and take only science, it wasn't allowed. So that helps because it forced me to take an art history class and a psychology and a philosophy class and really broaden myself. And that's part of Haberford's philosophy is to really develop students who have a broad knowledge and have a very broad liberal arts education. So that was the start, but the lab was a requirement early on. So in biology already, I was in the lab. Working with fruit flies and trying to track the fruit flies, their eye color and their wing shape, and in these little plastic bottles with bananas in the bottom. So that started out very early. And then after that, that's when I declared that I wanted to do a major in biology. So I majored in biology at Haverford, which of course then puts me on the track to do the more advanced classes.

Jon - 00:14:43: Very cool. And then Berkeley actually did this similar thing where they required you, at least for a few years, to get that breadth of exposure to everything. And I can always look back to that experience as kind of like being really, really formative for me. Because without it, I probably would have just zeroed in and just never decided to take a philosophy class. And I think even to this day, I still carry with me the way rhetoric and philosophy and logic, like thinking, into even just company building. And I never thought it would be because I thought it was like, back in the day, I was like, oh, this is just a distraction from biology. But in actuality, I was like, oh, this is actually very complimentary. But I just never would have thought to connect the dots. So I'm like a big fan of curriculums that emphasize like the kind of more well-rounded education. Because I think you can find inspiration, honestly, from anywhere and all walks of life and all disciplines. So that's really, really cool to hear.

Barry - 00:15:47: You don't want to be a unidimensional person, so it definitely helps fill that out. And for me, it forced me also to take French. So I studied German in high school, so I knew German pretty well. Then I took French and other languages. So it really does force one to get out of that sort of blinded track that is possible once one really gets into a subject in college.

Jon - 00:16:17: Yeah. And it's, it's almost like, not even just like as a student, but you just become like a more well-rounded human being, which is like, you can be more of like a contributing citizen by kind of know, like getting in touch with other ass, like life is so there's like, there's so much to life than just, like you said, unidimensional kind of focus. So I love to hear that.

Barry - 00:16:41: Yeah, and it helps make connections with other people as well. I mean, if you have that broader understanding, then you can listen to people and understand people and make connections with them that you might not have otherwise if you didn't. I mean, if I didn't know art history, it would be much more difficult for me to have a conversation with an artist, for instance. 

 Jon - 00:17:02: Absolutely, absolutely. My wife was an English literature major, and that's how it was via just like these kind of breadth of classes that I actually met my wife. So also that too. So you meet like different people from different walks of life. And I think it's important even in like business too, I think. You know, businesses are... Comprised of like many different stakeholders. And I think it's like important to be able to under, well, one, understand how different stakeholders communicate, how they think, and being able to kind of like make sure, that you are appealing to those aspects, versus just kind of like brute force and you're just like my way or the highway I'm a bio guy, you're gonna do it all my way, versus you know, kind of taking a more kind of delicate or kind of like customized approach to it, so. As you were approaching senior year at Haverford, did you know that you were going to go to UChicago for your MD, PhD? And one, I guess. Can you talk a little about the decision to get your MD, PhD, and maybe not just like, you know, just an MD or just the PhD. Can you talk a little about how you're thinking about it?

Barry - 00:18:16: I had a good idea when I was at Haverford already that I wanted to go to medical school. And again, that was partially based on why I decided to major in biology, again, with the fascination with human biology. And the focus on biology at that point was more that I understood that the principles that we were learning, especially in molecular and cellular biology, were very powerful. And ultimately could lead me to understand some of the great mysteries of the human body and the nature of human being in general. So that's really what drove me there. Of course, that was a requirement for medical school as well, getting into medical school. But at the time, I wasn't sure where I would go to medical school. I did end up over the summers during college working in. A laboratory at the University of Chicago. Oh, cool. So that got me the introduction there. And then that ended up ultimately being the lab that I would do my PhD in as well. Cool. And so that started it out. It came from. Mostly from my, that started from my interest in RNA, actually, way back then. It started really with the fact that When I was at Haverford and learning biology, that's when the understanding about... Introns and exons first came out, Phil Sharp's work especially, and the fact that DNA is not continuous and even RNA is not continuous and that there's quite a bit of splicing, RNA splicing that goes on. That to me was actually quite fascinating because, you know, we had always learned that RNA basically was supposed to be just like a Xerox machine. You take what's in the DNA, you make a Xerox machine, and that goes into protein. And now all of a sudden there is this wrinkle. And it's partially just the fact that we didn't understand what was going on. It was actually pretty confusing. It reminds me of the saying, you know, if you're confused, then you're wise. The fact that we didn't really know what was going on actually showed that there is some wisdom. We didn't really know all the answers at that point. But that interest in RNA is what got me interested in the lab. The University of Chicago because they were doing work on RNA polymerase, and especially RNA polymerase from yeast mitochondria, which can go into why yeast mitochondria. But this was a muscle lab focused on RNA transcription and energy control through RNA transcription in muscle. So that's how I ended up knowing about the University of Chicago, and ultimately that's why I ended up applying there as well as a few other places. 

 Jon - 00:21:24: Very cool. And I'm always curious, like about those like first kind of like formative lab, like lab experiences. How did that opportunity come about to work the summers at UChicago?

Barry - 00:21:35: Well, it's one of these fortuitous things that happens. We had a family friend who was a PhD, he was actually an MD-PhD student in Chicago. And one, I think it was a Thanksgiving, he started telling me about the work he was doing. And I thought, wow, that's really cool. And then he said, well, why don't you come by the lab? So I came by the lab at some point and just saw everyone working there. And he said, well, you know, I need a technician for the summer. And that's where I was. I was technician washing, well, actually, mostly I was pouring acrylamide gels, which back then I was doing by mouth pipetting. Don't tell anybody.

Jon - 00:22:11: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No longer. It doesn't, yeah, no longer. I love that because I always think about it, too, about how. Those, there's kind of like these inflection points on one's journey. And sometimes it just like, can be like peer serendipity that will just like change the trajectory. I think you wouldn't know. It's just like, oh, you're having a Thanksgiving dinner here. It's like, that's really rad. And then it kind of puts you down that path where you're looking into, you know, you're kind of, I'm going to imagine it's kind of like that spark for, you know, kind of this further investigation. So you're now at UChicago and you're in this lab. Can you talk a little bit about, we'll start on the kind of your lab experience first. What was that graduate lab experience like? I'm going to imagine you weren't just doing gels anymore. You're doing far more than that. Can you talk a little bit about the work that you were doing and maybe just talk about the lab culture? What was that like? 

Barry - 00:23:07: Yeah, so just for context, so I was accepted into an MD-PhD program. And so I did my first two years of... Of medical school, which was preclinical work, but it was all work in the classroom and in the pathology lab when we did autopsy. So I did all of those classes first, and some of those qualified for my degree in biochemistry and molecular biology as well, so there was that synergy there. But that had been, I had done four years of undergrad and then two years of medical school. And I got the grad score into the lab, and all of a sudden it was like freedom. So for me, it was almost like a little bit of a vacation, or at least doing a gap year. And I think my fellow PhD students, the other grad students, didn't understand when I said, oh, this is actually not a bad lifestyle. I had control of my own schedule, and I worked many, many, many hours in the lab, but it was under my own direction, and I wasn't being told when to show up for class and when to show up for lab and when to take exams and all of that. So for me, my grad school years were among my... Best years. 

 Jon - 00:24:35: Awesome.

Barry - 00:24:37: And I also used that time to, well, I had met my wife-to-be in college. So she was at Bryn Mawr College, which was the sister school of Haverford. So I actually took the time during grad school to get married because that was the only break that I foresaw I was going to have. So I used the time well in my life.

 Jon - 00:25:00: Yeah, I'll make a break for it. 

Barry - 00:25:02: Exactly, exactly. But in the lab, I mean, that's as close as I think that we could have to having mates that were like in a war, say, you know, the trench buddy. And it's, of course, nothing like being in a war. But there are colleagues there who we worked side by side. We went through a lot of trials and tribulations together and spent many, many, many hours together. And so for me, that was an opportunity to really. To develop some very close friendships. But on the other hand, it's also... Working a lot independently. And so I got used to working in that environment where I really had to use my own judgment a lot. You have the freedom there not to depend just on others. For our own thinking. And you can select your own problem there and try to come up with your own solutions. But it does force one really to become quite an independent thinker. And to me, it was a very important step in developing intellect. It really allowed me to become myself. But in grad school, that's where I really credit with having learned the scientific method. Having to formulate a question based on certain observations, and then design an experiment to test those hypotheses. And then the next step, of course, is examining the data and coming up to draw conclusions. That's where I learned that the most. And frankly, in medical school, we don't really learn that. But those are skills that I've used throughout my whole career. I can now look at experiments that people bring me, and I know how to evaluate the data. I know how to look. It was the proper control down there. What were the biases that were part of that experiment that you have to take into account when the results come? How is it skewed? So all of that came from my graduate student education. And I'll say that my medical school classmates don't always have that way. Of looking at the data and understanding, knowing how to to find the nuances in the data to help interpret it. So that was very important. But it even helps me just read a research paper. I can now skim a paper and I can find the key pieces of data that I need to find in there. And instead of having to spend half an hour reading a paper, I can spend five minutes and glean what I need to from that. And all that I credit to my graduate school education.

Jon - 00:27:45: That's amazing because I feel the same exact way. The lab that I was in at Berkeley, it was just like exactly that. It was just like grinded into me, like the scientific method. And just like, honestly, like one of my BIs was just like... Yeah, like all these papers, like just assume, like you have to take a critical eye to every single thing here. And really just think from first principles and just like basically tear it down every single time. And that kind of like thinking too, I found, I'm not at the bench anymore, but I find applications even outside of like traditional science, even in marketing. Like, you know, when we're doing like marketing and we're making like marketing investments, we're always trying to implement kind of like this, the learning from the scientific method and just like test it. And you can, and you get in the nice thing about marketing is that you'll, you'll get rapid feedback, like pretty quick. I know when I was, when I was at the bench, the feedback loops were way longer. So you don't need to, you know, you're like, well, I just spent like a couple months on this. Let's see what the data comes back. Whereas like when you're on the internet and you're doing like kind of like marketing experiment, you're like, oh, like I just got immediate feedback. This is either, you know, working or not working for X, Y, Z reasons or like, so I just want to like highlight it. Thinking scientifically or like. Using the scientific method has broad applications beyond just the bench. At least that's what I see in my, in my lived experience. And so I'm curious about it. Also, you talked about like the independence that grad school afforded you. It sounds like your PI was kind of like this. Choose your own adventure versus a kind of more kind of like hands-on approach. Would that be accurate?

Barry - 00:29:27: I think he was, uh, so then by my thesis advisor, his name was Murray Rabinowitz. He was very well. Regarded in the muscle biology field. When I was in lab, he was relatively senior. And so I did have several of the graduate students, the older ones, who sort of took me under their wing and helped direct me. But Murray himself was quite hands-off. And we had weekly lab meeting, and I had to present there. But even then, he didn't go into really the details of each experiment. He really tried to force me. Every time I presented, he said, what is the goal of this experiment? What were you trying to prove? And now you have these results. What have you learned from them? And always tried to pick it up into the big picture rather than, well, did you use trisphosphate or which buffer did you use here? He was really trying to force me to think very broadly about my experiments. Unfortunately, he also... Had muscular dystrophy. That's part of why he went into learning about muscle biology. He was actually trying to learn more about his own disease. So one of the tragedies of my graduate school career was that he unfortunately passed away just a year after I had joined the lab. So that was quite a challenge for me. But I was lucky to be able to join another lab and continue the same work. But his determination... He came into the lab into the office until his very last moments. And at one point, he was actually... Unable to breathe on his own, so he had a handheld ventilator that he had to use. But his drive and determination and his curiosity at the very end, but also just the stamina that even somebody that ill could have, that for me was a driver to say, well, if he can do it, I can get up in the morning and get into the lab. If Murray is able to get in the lab, I'm damn well going to get into the lab myself as well.

 Jon - 00:31:36: Absolutely. Like I have no excuses now. I got zero excuses. And I love that too. Cause like, and I've always. Thought that it's important to be able to think in the micro and then zoom out and go into the macro. And we were talking about like, it kind of like to go back to like the Habiford mindset, it's like the ability to go deep, but also the ability to go wide is critically important and not lose sight of like, why exactly are we doing this in the first place? Because I think when you get stuck in the weeds, you can easily start to forget. You're doing the motions and you're, and it feels like you're making progress or it feels like you're moving in the right direction, but you're just like spinning. You're kind of like spinning in the same place. 

Barry - 00:32:16: And that's an important lesson that a leader has to have. And that's, even as a leader right now, that I see as one of my most important responsibilities is to help keep the team focused. And that's part of what, you know, it's so easy in graduate school to get diverted onto something else. You know, you read the latest nature paper and say, I'm going to go do this. And so, that's part of the important role of a thesis advisor. But any leader is to help keep that focus and say, yeah, I understand you're interested in that. And maybe you can explore that at this point, but get the answer to this question right now and make sure that you're staying on track. And that's something that happens throughout life that a leader has to do is to help the teams not get distracted by either a shiny object or, or what seems to be an attractable problem and keep the team or the individual is moving forward towards their goal.

Jon - 00:33:18: Absolutely. And yeah, I see it all the time. And everyone, there's like inertia. It's easy. It's very easy. I find myself even sometimes having to check myself. So I'm like, okay, I feel like I'm just moving in this direction because I'm already in motion here and really just having to short circuit it and just zoom out for a little bit. And I always think too, there are moments where it is important to go deep too, where you roll up your sleeves and really check the assumption. You're like... I don't know where, who, who coined it, but it was like, sometimes I realized that with, with data, you can get a false sense of like, confidence just because there is data to measure. But sometimes there's like anecdotes or just feelings or intuition that kind of oppose or like, you know, they're like not what is seen in the data. And sometimes I feel like when I tap into, like, I'm like, I look at like when the team brings back data. That's like not what I've experienced or via just like years and years of doing this thing. Let's like, let's peel this back. And, and that's when we go from like this like breadth to like, all right, we're going deep now. Roll up your sleeves. And then you just realize sometimes you're like, oh, we were measuring the wrong things to begin with, but we had a wealth of data. But we were just measuring the wrong thing to begin with. So maybe we need to, let's revamp it. So it's kind of this moment where you're kind of like, you're almost like panning in and out. And not trying, and it almost like oscillates. Like, I don't think. Should ever be static you kind of, kind of have to do both as a leader, um, at least I'm speaking for myself.

Barry - 00:35:01: Well, but that's where skill and experience comes in as well, because... You call it intuition, but it is something that has to get cultivated to know when you see a piece of data to say either... There's something wrong here. That's just not right. Or the flip side of that is, wow, that's really unexpected. We should find out what that's all about. That may be real. And to know that difference, because you can go down a rabbit hole either way. Of course, where you come out from that rabbit hole can be very different.

 Jon - 00:35:32: Yeah, that's exactly it. You could just go to just like an absolute dead end if you let it happen.

Outro - 00:35:40: That's all for this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast. We hope you enjoyed our discussion with Barry Ticho. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave us a review and share it with your friends. Thanks for listening and we look forward to having you join us again for part two of our conversation with Barry. The Biotech Startups Podcast is produced by Excedr. Don't want to miss an episode? Search for The Biotech Startups Podcast wherever you get your podcasts and click subscribe. Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. To learn more, visit our website www.excedr.com. On behalf of the team here at Excedr, thanks for listening. The Biotech Startups Podcast provides general insights into the life science sector through the experiences of its guests. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from the podcast is at the user's own risk. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not the views of Excedr or sponsors. No reference to any product, service or company in the podcast is an endorsement by Excedr or its guests.