Jacob Glanville - Centivax - Part 4

Intro - 00:00:01: Welcome to the Biotech Startups podcast by Excedr. Join us as we speak with first-time founders, experienced scientists, serial entrepreneurs, and biotech investors about the challenges and triumphs of running a biotech startup. Gain actionable insight into navigating the life sciences industry in each episode as we explore the business of science from preseed to IPO, with your host Jon Chee.

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Jon - 00:00:33: You mentioned the pitch deck has gone condensed. It's boiled down. Now, instead of like set of product slides that are five slides, it's one. Obviously, you're financing Centivax differently than DB. What has that experience been like? And doing this venture capital route, obviously one of the lessons is focus. It's easier to communicate. Are there other tips, strategies that founders out there who are potentially about to embark on this journey that they should keep in mind when they do it?

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Jake - 00:00:58: Yeah, for sure. A couple. It was a new learning curve because it's a different culture. I was a professional at pitching antibody discovery. I knew exactly all the pain points and the opportunities and I knew how these groups think and what they care about. So I could go speak to that and we could build antibodies and that's great, but it's a different cult of a different set of pain points and interests when you're talking to venture. And so I would say it took me more than six months to kind of burn into get the pitch deck right and figure out the right way to do this. And I was fortunate enough to have some partners in some firms who were able to take some time just to sit with me and give suggestions and stuff, which was really wonderful. So I'd say a find mentors like that, find people, that it'll be nice if they raise from them, but if they don't, it's fine. They're willing to offer you their time. Listen to it. Because those guys are doing what everyone else in your audience is doing, which is they're being overwhelmed with a huge number of incoming proposals.

They have seen a lot of companies succeed and they've seen some fail, and so they kind of know what they care about and they have built in rules and there's almost like a philosophy or an ethos in each one of these firms that can be different between the firms on what they choose to invest in. They call it their investment thesis. And so understanding your potential future partner is really helpful because there's some things they all have in common and I think you want to learn that from them. One is that, yeah, they're busy. So simplicity communicate very clearly what your offer, why it's like the next best thing, how you're going to execute successfully and why it's going to be a massive inflection. If there's other pain points, you want to address those, you want to be aware of them and handle them upfront.

Like, here we've identified the risk factors and here's how we're handling it. You also want to make sure you communicate why this is the amazing selling points. And so find people who are not you and are not your nuclear team to go review your slide deck. Because you're going to have blind spots to some of these things because you talk about them so much, it's almost second nature to you and seems obvious. And so therefore, you're not going to even think to communicate them. Also, most people are just graphically terrible and so have somebody who's good at making well, communicating graphics. And I cannot emphasize this enough because I have people, I swear they're like noseblind to visual cues. Look, I work with brilliant people but sometimes they send me slides and I'm like, this looks like horseshit.

What is it? You're wasting too much time on that. And I'm like, no. I'm like, there's a reason that throughout history people have invested so much time in art as a method of communication of ideas, right? From things like churches to very scary people in World War II, recognize the power of art to go past part of your brain that uses words to speak to the other half of your brain that interprets truth through images and understands the world in nonverbal ways. And effectively communicating what you're doing with imagery helps avoid half of the audience's brain falling asleep and you're convincing them in two separate routes.

To reach part of the mind that detects images is a different way of establishing truth and making things seem real and understanding what they are. And so it's not like you want to do like bullshit propaganda but you definitely do not want to create slides that have a crazy amount of text and they don't have clear images. You want to be able to have an image like in an instant they understand what you're talking about. And so I think that's really important and there are groups that can help you with that. I think you want to do some pitches with your second tier because you're going to be awful the first couple of times and that's okay. And then it's hard but you want to hear their feedback on why they turn you down. And so if you get declined, look, you're going to talk to 60 companies.

A bunch of them are going to say, no, you're not a fit for strategic reasons, or there's something you're doing that's dumb, or you fail to communicate the cool thing about your technology, and it's hard to hear someone tell you why your baby's ugly. But that is a gift. Because that is a moment where they are giving you absolute honesty. And what you do is you take those notes and figure out, okay, I know my baby is beautiful. How did I fail to present it in a way that is beautiful for them to understand? And so you want to capture that information and make sure you act on it. You don't want the tail wagging the dog, but you want to understand where did they fail to see what I see. And some of this I had a pretty renowned CEO, took like an hour and a half of her time to be able to share a bunch of her strategy with me, which I deeply appreciate. And it was really helpful. It was like a master's class on this process, which I found very helpful. So I think that's important. I think whining and arguing is not going to help you. This is dating, first off, totally. So do not badger them.

That is like being a needy high schooler boy. You're going to annoy them. Be friendly upon rejection. Like, be a gentleman. Just be like, okay, I see it's not a fit. Thank you very much. Life is long. You're not going to change their mind by nagging them. You're just going to make them hate you. And these people know each other, I think. So you just go, okay, I see it's not a fit. I appreciate it. Do you have any advice for me? I think you ask that question and ask them to give you some feedback. They usually will, and that will arm you for better success. So I think those are key pieces of advice. I think, again, like dating, you don't want to go in with too much pressure and you want to have some options. Options. Talk to a number of people, and this may seem obvious, but I think if not, do not lie. You want to show why you're awesome, but if you go extend beyond the truth, I think there's a group of people that believe that that's the way to do it and in this industry, and I think some of them actually are successful. So maybe that works for some I think it is a terrible idea in pharmaceutical science. And I think if you thought you were going to get away with that, I think this lady from theranos has closed that door real hard in your face. So I think you need to establish your credibility. So if they're saying something that's incorrect, find a friendly way to correct them. Because if you don't correct them, they think you don't know what you're talking about or say, look, here's why I think this is different.

But you also need to admit when you don't know something, because they're also judging whether you have the capacity to be able to take on ideas and whether they even want to deal with you. Am I going to want to be in bed with this person for the next three years? Are they going to annoy me the whole time? Really? Listen, take notes and answer the questions they have follow up. Like if you said you're going to do it and they like, fast turnaround. First off, you're a scientist. Just expect they're assuming you're terrible at your job and it's on you to prove them wrong, that you are actually the tour de force that can be executor as well as science. And I think for partially good reasons, that a lot of scientist training is not naturally conducive towards leadership and execution and gathering team members in a way to be strict and have people still like you and focus on business important things as opposed to being distracted by the cool little side quests.

And so that's part of what they're judging you on. They're judging on whether you're going to be able to listen to them and answer whether you're tough as nails but flexible and friendly. So it is an interview of you personally because ultimately they want to judge the technology, they want to understand how it fits in their thesis of companies that can go really big and are the things they want to invest in. But also it's whether they think you can execute and whether they want to be around dealing with you for the next four years and I think all that comes up in those meetings. And so you want to take that into account and treat it like dating. You're optimistic, you're confident, you'd like to work with them, but you do not need them and you're not going to be clingy.

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Jon - 00:07:16: I think that's the right structure, amazing insights into this process because I think it's very opaque and very black box and it can be daunting. Like when you don't know anything about the process, you just opt to spray and pray and you're like, I'm going to email blast as many people as possible. But I think that's invaluable advice for those who are to be kind of more concerted and specific and precise about the approach and that kind of like how do you get a venture capitalist interested now? I guess I'll flip it. How did you choose them and how did you decide what the right amount was? Because obviously we're talking before there's like all kinds of bootstrap companies, VC companies, the size of how much you raise, two is very important and how did you land on the right VC for you and the right amount?

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Jake - 00:07:58: Sure. So this gets back kind of the heart of negotiation. And again, I feel like an area where zoo to wheel negotiation has helped me and where I feel that some people get this process pretty wrong. And I think partially it's because we're in a culture where people don't negotiate all the time and so they feel awkward about negotiation or they think it's some sort of fight and it doesn't have to be. So in terms of deciding who to work with. A VC is not just a source of money, they are a network of other VCs and they have a network to the industry potentially to give you high level contacts that could arrange conversations that are relevant for investment banks as you go through an IPO, they could be acquisition offers. They could be contacts at the high end of the industry.

They can be a think tank. They have considerable expertise and contacts in your industry space, and they could be particularly in areas where you might need more strength. So thinking about the commercialization capacity and opportunities considering downstream, like just timing, they've seen a lot of companies, and they also know for company building, like, where are those pain points? Like, you're going to need a CFO at this point. Those sorts of questions now, you don't need them to invest with you to get that answer. You could talk to the people who declined and they probably will give you some advice too. I call all them. I call them all to thank them after I fundraise and just say, look, I'm actually just looking for some advice now. I want to make sure I nail this. Like, you've seen a lot of companies. Tell me the stupid things that companies do you see happen over and over again. Tell me the opportunities that are missed. What would you do in my shoes? And those were like, amazing conversations. But the person who's invested in you is invested in you.

So they're going to be more likely when you call them to go, oh, yeah, I won't just give you some advice. I'll also pick up the phone and call a couple of people and put you in touch with them. Right? So strategics are great because they have domain expertise. I always worry about the blind spots, and I try to do everything I can to mitigate. I don't want holes in my ship. But there's no such thing as too much expertise. If you can synthesize, then there's no such thing as too much expertise. I'd rather hear more options and choose the path. So that's really important. There's like, basic fit things. It needs to fit, like some investment. Theses, they range from like, oh, we only invest in precede, to we only do like, Series B. I had one person who was like, oh, it's too much. I really only invest for $100,000 for 20% of the company. And I was like, well, that's definitely not me. And I had another group was like, oh God, you guys are way too early.

We don't like, get out of bed for a check less than 100 million, right? I was like, Cool, let's stay in touch. I think also just to be respectful of their time, because that's the other part about dating. It's really just being like, respectful of the other person's time and interests and not wasting everybody's time or being annoying is you want to figure out pretty quickly, let them know what you're about and where you're at so that they can decide whether you're not a fit. Figure out on the first five minutes you can give them their meeting back, right, not waste time. And at that point, you can chat a bit and make some friends. But make sure it's a fit that you're aligned in terms of where you're going. So I think those are the key things. I think reputation also matters. So I make a point of knowing the people I'm about to talk to and I don't try to do cold calls. So again, there's a tendency of I'll find all their emails and I'll email them all.

That is the dating equivalent of just texting you up to 30 people at the same time. And that is not how to line up an effective conversation. Get someone you know to provide you an introduction, ideally to one of the partners you want to talk to the people, the decision makers at the top, if you have them in your network, absolutely. That's the conversation. And have a hot contact so they know who you are. And then you can have a really productive conversation. And I just open to be like, look, here's what we're working on. Is this the kind of thing you invest in? Because that way I save them. I don't want to keep it secret and think that I'm going to change their mind on a call. I've seen people do that. It's disrespectful the other guy's time. And if it is potentially interesting, then you have a conversation. And so I think that's part of it. And I know the reputation, I contact the people they've invested in and I know what was it like working with them? Did you all make out right? Which then gets to the negotiation over how much this is worth.

And I think this is an area where I've seen errors on both sides. I've seen companies get taken advantage of. But I've also seen like a lot of people have this paranoia and maybe I used to have it some too. They're like, oh, the VC is really out there to get you. It's like, no, the VC is just like you. They're a business that needs to make money and everyone on the table should win. Right? You don't want to get radically unfair terms for either party. But I think people spend a lot of time really trying to game the system to get like an extra two or three points and it's like figure out a fair and reasonable relationship. And so what I do is I go, what's the minimum amount I need to succeed? And I look at market comparators. There's a whole bunch of precedent transactions you can look up to understand what is typically market. And then you click the market, you go around, you ask a couple of people how much they're going to charge for their mangoes and get a sense of what the market is and then figure out how good the mangoes look and whether you want to keep working with that person again.

And so I think those things kind of all add up. I think there's also, I don't know, I read a bunch of books about you got to time in it to get like, eight different bids all at the same time. I'm like, honestly, I wonder how often that actually happens. I think it sounds someone wrote a book to be like, oh, this would be really sweet. But I think, honestly, just given time frame of how many different legitimate bids are you going to line up all at the same time, and how much of a discount are you actually going to drive from that? I think sometimes you'll run into a situation like that, maybe like ChatGPT probably had a bunch of different bids coming in and they had like a feeding frenzy for the technology. I think my feeling was I wanted to have enough options that I could choose to say no to a couple and pick ones that I think made the most sense. And so that happened. I think for me, what was great about NFX and GHIC was that I knew people at NFX, so I knew Omri.

He's a fantastic guy. He was actually selling his company to Twist when I was working with Twist with Distributed Bio, and then Emily is associated with their firm as well. Emily was the person that was the CEO who gave me the amazing advice. Yeah. So I knew them both over there really well, and I was like, cool. These are people, they're known entities, and I know what's up. We all want to make some money. Let's line this up. And they've seen my work, so they kind of knew I had credibility because they're like, okay, we know that Jacob works his ass off. He knows how to organize his teams, and he knows how to execute, and he delivers real things. And so I think that helps.

And then GHIC is the Global Health Investment Corporations. These guys are like, fucking awesome because their job is kind of like BARDA Ventures. They want to make a return, obviously, but their goal is to enable global health security. And so universal vaccines are, like, right in their wheelhouse. They have a real deep network and expertise in my space. So these are people who came from Gates Foundation, Cross, back and forth, people from industry. They're thinking about this problem. They've been thinking about it for a long time. And they have an amazing network on how to solve the problem of protecting us from all getting hit with the zombie apocalypse. And so I think that was super attractive to me to have that network available and that expertise, and also to be tapped in to those networks. Like, I already had relationships and stuff there, but more is better. I also was just very impressed in the conversations we had. Their questions were, like, detailed and very expert. And I think that strategy is born fruit. I think what we've been talking internally is some of our tactics we've been developing were based on advice from those guys that I thought about after the conversation, I was like, God, that was sharp.

Let's go make this happen. And so I've been really happy with that relationship. And so I think that's an important part of the decision is what are they bringing beyond the money? Because the money is helpful but they can actually bring a lot more to that table. These are also going to be people you're going to think the same thing. Do I want to be hanging out with this person in a boardroom for the next few years? If you think, oh, I don't really like, they sound really annoying, but I need the money. That's a stupid, that's dumb money. You should have people where you're like, oh God, this is exciting to think about having that person's perspective in this room. And I want to be able to call them up and pick their brain and they care. So I think that's kind of the optimal consideration. I think don't get played. I think also if you give them two good of a deal, if I was the VC, I'd be like, I don't know if this person is going to be a good CEO.

They seem like they just rolled over. Are they going to be a good guardian of my funds? But on the other hand, if you're trying to be such a hard ass, you're trying to weasel making it unfair for them or you're just going to be so difficult. I think if I was the VC, I'd be concerned about your capacity to focus on what's essential and execute also. And so I think it's an interview of you in this process and you should keep that in mind and you should really ask yourself, like, in our space, it's either not going to work, in which case, who cares? Biotech right? Or it's going to be so phenomenally successful that you're not going to feel the difference of a couple of points if you're a founder. And so I think that's a useful thing to keep in mind after all of this haggling and all this conversation, you're going to do this like this amount, this amount of dilution and all that. I'm like, are you still going to get an amazing deal then quit screwing around. I think the difference is not between a couple of points. The difference between amazing success or nothing thing gets done.

And so that's kind of my attitude on the final negotiations. I can go into way more detail on this, like the specific terms and stuff that I think are a good idea. But I think the overarching attitude is look to see what's usual in market. Get a good lawyer who can counsel you on this because they've done a lot of these contracts. Your job is to hear your lawyers but also to rein them in because your lawyer's job is to ferociously defend your interests. On the other side, the VC's lawyers got that same role and then there's going to be a partner in you who are really going to be making the decisions about what matters and what doesn't. And you can kind of find a way to come together and rain both okay, I hear you guys. Thank you for protecting me. But I want you to chill out a little bit. Yeah. And then a deal gets worn.

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Jon - 00:16:26: No, I feel the exact same way. It just always comes back. Leave a little for everyone. Let's find a win-win here. And I think in 2021, there's a kind of like one approach where you just absolutely go, like, I don't need any advice. I'm just going to get a boatload of money to get a boatload of money. And that's one style to do it too. But I think at least my personal preference is to kind of have the relationship right. Because again, I want to be able to call someone when things get tough and they have the experience and the network to give you real support.

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Jake - 00:16:57: Yeah, it's the network and it's also the polishing engine. You cannot underestimate the value of that. So, like, NFX, they’re our other investors. They are a dynamite network, and they're really sharp about connecting all their leadership. So the CEOs and the sea levels from all other organizations are all on common chats, and we share communication with each other. We know things about people, but they're also amazing at taking a company. And then they have this like, you're going to get a makeover polishing system of being like, let's make sure all the things are good and awesome because we know what's going to be expected next. And so as a biotech, if you're doing a startup and let's say you're coming out of academia, you're kind of like Cinderella. Maybe you have some inherent beauty, but you're wearing a garbage fucking dress like you got a mouse scrolling around in your ear.

And so they can basically act like the fairy godmother is like, okay, we're going to make you a nice carriage. We're going to get you those shoes like this thing. We're going to polish you up for where you're expected because you're about to go to a place you've never been before, which is these next level of raising and consideration. And we want to make sure you're dressed for the ball. And so I think those guys are really good at that. They have good media connections. I think when we did our press release on the funding, they also did this media blitz where there was multiple articles that came out in parallel about it.

We ended up on the news. It was like a deal that happened recently. And that's awesome, especially for us. And 2022 was like a pretty awful year for fundraising. And so a lot of people were like, oh wow, you guys managed to raise during that year. You must be really great. And so I think that awareness engine that they fuel. I mean, it matters, right? It's like how people hear about the company you want people they're going to invest next to have heard about you a few times. So they're like, oh, that's interfax. That sounds really familiar. And they walk in the room and they're excited to talk to you. And I think that's another thing you get from the VCs. And NFX has been great at that.

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Jon - 00:18:33: Yeah, that's funny because internally at Excedr, we talk about how do we live rent free in people's minds? How do we do that? And for us, it's like we're working with our people. It's the scientific community. So we're not just trying to live rent free in randoms.

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Jake - 00:18:46: Right?

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Jon - 00:18:46: Because similar to you, there are very scrappy days for Excedr, too. And there's leasing is an old business. Every bank does it. There's tons of leasing companies. How do I get a little bit of mind share and after over time, polishing that and honing it over time, how do we make a name for ourselves? It's still, like, kind of I pinch myself when someone's like, oh, I've heard of you before. And I'm like, whoa, because I'm just so used to the trenches where nobody gave a crap about us. And they're like, oh, you're like a Wells Fargo. And it was like I mean, scientific. Wells Fargo. You're trying to describe it differently, just like, trying to figure out how do I create a name?

So I completely empathize with that, too. Thank you for all the tips. That's, like, invaluable I think any founder that is going to listen to this is going to have a wealth of information. It's almost like a playbook of sorts to really consider rather than just like, spray and pray. It's going to be like, okay, how do I think about this? So I guess a couple more questions. First, what's in store for Centivax in the next year?

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Jake - 00:19:43: Yeah, so we fundraise, like I mentioned, during that interesting period. And it's kind of awesome because it means we're actually set. We have very nice runway to go get all the things we need done in an unusual period where we're actually calm and just able to execute, which has had some interesting side effects. There's a lot of talent if you're hiring right now, there's a lot of remarkable talent that's looking around. So there's like a couple of opportunities in that space. For us, what we're focusing on is getting our first universal vaccine into people. And so what we raised with those guys gives us the resources to do ind enabling studies.

So part of that data package and then the other thing that's happened is for the first few years, my first few years since 2014, the universal vaccine technology, I had been developing with protein antigens. So we're common in protein and an adjuvant. The thing that has happened in the last couple of years from the pandemic is this massive. Derisking of the RNA LMP technology and billions of people have taken it and it's by and large safe and effective. So it's like super de risked in terms of a platform and it has a number of huge advantages. It's much cheaper to manufacture, much much faster to manufacture, really good built in immune stimulation and some other advantages. It's the simplicity of manufacturer is really the huge advantage and our technology appears to be very compatible with it or at least this is something we're going to be validating over the next few months.

And if that's the case, we're certainly switching over to doing RNA delivery, LMP delivery of our universal vaccines. And that enabled us to get into clinic like almost ten months faster, which means we will be completed with our phase one studies in 2024 as opposed to really 2025. That's huge for a startup. So gearing up the preclinical package. The other advantage is that the process of research grade material and then advancing into manufacturing, there are now these CROs which are able to go do that and there's very little changes in that process from when you do the research grade and by very little, almost none to GMP grade, even commercial grade. Basically it's the same process. It's a simple process of purifying RNA. You want to qualify things to make sure you're producing what you think you are and then the packaging is pretty quick. And so that has been very exciting.

That has been one of the areas that I think a lot of pharmas are enthusiastic about and government frankly is as well because it means we can deploy our technologies and we're stoked about too because we're going all in on testing this on our lead influenza program. We're doing in vivo work right now with our broad spectrum HIV and broad spectrum coronavirus programs and we will likely pivot those into RNA as well depending on the results of the flu program which basically makes us a universal vaccine company on top of a next gen delivery technology. And so I think that's just been good timing brought about by the pandemic to enable the de risking plus the commoditization of being able to use these technologies. So that's our focus area.

We are completing a whole bunch of experiments, major sets of milestones that complete by May essentially with some stuff that goes on longer. And we're going to be doing a big series A, so we're aiming to close that around October and that's what's going to cover us to go and to run clinical in 2024. And so that's big for us. Obviously going human, there's nothing quite like it in terms of a massive inflection point for the company and a validation of a novel technology platform. And it's pretty sexy. Like a normal phase one, you pretty much get safety, right? But for a vaccine you can go give it to people and then I can take the serum from those people. And I can test the same questions I've done with pigs and ferrets and mice, which is is the serum of the people who receive my vaccine.

Can it now neutralize viruses over a century back to 1918 and out to future viruses that came out after the manufacturing process, which is what we've seen protection twelve years into the future from this components in the vaccine, as far into the future as we can test. So probably much longer than that and we can go run those same sets of experiments with the human. So it's a platform validation and there's a very well established correlative protection of a one to 40 dilution for hai titer, which is what the FDA cares about. And our technology elicits ultra broad hai responses. So that's kind of what we're up to. Flu has been our lead program, I worked on the longest. But like the de risking means that the other programs are coming in faster. So we have broad spectrum coronavirus vaccine that's currently in animals.

We're evaluating our HIV broad spectrum vaccine and then those ones are in animals. And we're looking to malaria into a number of other pathogens next. But again, to the focus thing, we're using the same process and it can move pretty quickly. And if we go RNA, it's actually really fast to go cook up another batch of a new pathogen and test it in vivo in animals. But right now we're focusing on those first three to go move those forward to clinic and we have some other pathogens to work on afterwards. So that's where we're at. And the whole company is organized towards that purpose. I just hired a crystallographer in to help us gain additional crystals with these bNAbs. We're pulling out ferrets and pigs and mice. We'll be doing rats and rabbits soon. This whole zoo of universal bNAb generation is sort of we're going to be pumping out papers on these topics. That's what we're up to.

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Jon - 00:24:31: I'm super stoked. Like every time we chat I'm just fired up. And so I'm super excited. I'm also super excited I get to play like a tiny little part and work with you guys. For me, you guys are the true rock stars and badasses. But just like I tell my parents, I'm just like, you see that company? Yeah, I get to work with them a little bit. Just a little bit. Because my parents are not scientists and they're just like, what is all this you're talking about? I can just point and they're like awesome. So I'm super pumped for you and just so invigorating. And it reminds me why I don't do airplanes. This is exactly why we do what we do at Excedr this exact thing. So thank you for your time.

Jake - 00:25:06: Thanks you, man. We wouldn't have been able to do it without you. Like with DBIO, your company literally helped us do that inflection point launch. So we were able to go do the exit. And like, I warned you, we're going to call you up around October. Right after that Series A. I'll be like, hey, here comes another big old order from old Jakey.

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Jon - 00:25:21: Yeah, no worries. We're ready when you are. And the kind of a closing question is, would you like to give any shout outs to anyone who supported you along the way?

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Jake - 00:25:31: Yeah, it's been a lot. I mean, that's a great closing question because that's the other last piece is like, make friends and recognize them and value them. I think this whole thing really came back to 2012 and I already said thank you to Arvin, Gangemi, Sawsan, Javier, Dave Tsao and I worked together at Reyna and like, those people continued on that journey. I said thank you to the faculty at UC Berkeley Glynnis and Kim Gelandrick, my parents, for the stuff that they did with just helping the army for doing this journey, this work that I do, and then distributed bio, building that up and launching it.

And I'm just very appreciative to have the team that helped launch that work up having Sawsan join me there's. Sarah Ives, heavily involved in the she was like a nine year process. She was there for four or five years of that thing, so she's like a good chunk of the development work. She was involved in the team for that. Nick Bayless was involved since early in the beginning when I mentioned the concept to him back at Stanford for the universal vaccine, he came out and helped us set up the nukes. So the neutralization assays, like processing eggs, Sawsan and I have been working together since I met and so she's just been phenomenal. Dave Tsao has been amazing that you.

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Jon - 00:26:36: Banged on the door.

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Jake - 00:26:37: Yeah, same with Dave Tsao. I knew him since then. We worked together. Stephanie Wisner is our CBO. Her books out, by the way. It's Building Backwards to Biotech and it's being taught in a bunch of universities as curriculum. So she's been an amazing person with a really amazing ability to go synthesize information from lots of people and have an amazing network and an expert communicator. And I think her background has been great towards the founding. We have a lot of founders at Centivax and I think that speaks to the nature of our DNA that we want lots of expert people at the table and so having us involved again. Gangemi’s retiring right now. He's been phenomenal to work with and just amazing background as a virologist and just immense expertise and history of working in military infectious disease science, which is kind of what we do right.

And then our team for the work we do to pull this whole thing together and get it launched. I also want to thank my brother. I was able to build that animal facility because he was down there and he was able to do the whole thing and get the spec in place and make sure the thing was built according to spec. He's like the unsung hero behind the starting of the vaccine technology that I was able to be in two places at once because the only person I trust to go do something like that in Guatemala was my brother and he nailed it. And so I just want to thank him for making that happen.

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Jon - 00:27:48: Amazing. I think something that I'm really taking away for this, it really takes a village. And I always try to gratitude and just like, no one does it alone, so it's really refreshing. And when I hear someone like, I did it by myself, I'm like, did you really? It really does take a village. And thank you for your time again.

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Jake - 00:28:05: And Mark Davis. I didn't forget Mark Davis. Okay, sorry. I would go on for it, but like a lot of people at Stan, honestly, Stanford was an amazing experience. But Mark Davis is like a bizarre strategic genius. He's like so exceptionally good. And so again, this rare person where I was just like every time I hang out with him, I felt like I learned something and it was really helpful. A lot of great people out there and I think that's important. It takes a village and it's going to keep taking a village. So make sure to build expertise, but never so much that you stop listening to other people because you're always going to be wrong sometimes and you're never going to learn at all. And if you can do that, you'll build great things.

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Jon - 00:28:36: Absolutely. And we'll deep dive on another topic on another episode. We'll do another round of shout outs. We'll do the shout out bench. So thanks again, Jake. Appreciate the time and thank you so much.

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Jake - 00:28:45: Awesome. Thanks a lot.

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