Neela Patel - Part 3: A Scientist's Role in Search & Evaluation & Corporate Development

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. In our last episode, we spoke with Neela Patel about her time at Roche, focusing on drug discovery and development. We also dove into her experience leading a cross-functional team across multiple countries and her transition from Roche to SUGEN, where she took on the challenge of exploring new therapeutic areas and establishing a pipeline in record time. If you missed it, be sure to go back and give part two a listen. In part three, we talk with Neela about her transition from Genentech to Poniard Pharmaceuticals, her collaboration with Greg Hageman on age-related macular degeneration, and raising $37 million in Series A financing. We'll also hear about her role at Poniard developing pipeline strategy with the head of chemistry and her experiences at Abbott and AbbVie as Director of Global External Research and Search and Evaluation, respectively.

Neela - 00:01:22:

I really wanted to do a startup. And I felt that actually those three years at Genentech really gave me a solid grounding in biologics and timelines and costs and key risks and things like that. And in the meantime, I had stayed in touch with Greg. I liked him and stayed in touch. When he was out here, we'd go to dinner and he'd say, oh, we're going to start a company together. And I'd be like, Greg, do you want red or white wine for dinner?

 Jon - 00:01:48:

Yeah, yeah.

Neela - 00:01:49:

You know, whatever, right?

 Jon - 00:01:52:

Whatever, whatever. Yeah, whatever, man. Yeah.

Neela - 00:01:54:

So he called me maybe two years after the acquisition of Pharmacia by Pfizer. It was like, hey, you know, I've made this great discovery. And I'm like, well, what is it? He's like, well, I found a gene that's responsible for 70% of the risk of age-related macular degeneration. And I think it's druggable. And I'm like, let's talk.

 Jon - 00:02:20:

Hold the wine for a second.

Neela - 00:02:22:

Exactly. Exactly. So he found a venture firm that helped to connect and things like that. And there was a CEO that they found. And so the three of us put together the pitch deck. My part of it was the, okay, it's research stage now. Here's what we're going to do to actually get to clinical stage proof of concept. These are the key risks. This is how we'll mitigate them, that kind of thing. Obviously, Greg gave the scientific pitch. This is how I found this gene. This is why it's important. We ended up raising $37 million in our Series A, which was, in those days, good. The company ended up based in the East Coast. And a California person, you know, wasn't, so, yeah.

 Jon - 00:03:09:

That's the exact same kind of like for me. Like, I haven't left the Bay Area. I was born in Berkeley and I've been in the Bay Area. I'm like, I don't know. Oh, I don't know. I kind of like it here. So, I empathise.

Neela - 00:03:25:

Yeah. So it was a great learning experience because it was, it was like, it was like a mini MBA. I contemplated, should I go get an MBA? And I was like, well, for this particular application of it, I'm learning everything I need to know, you know? So, so it was good. I didn't get paid till we closed our series A and I still had a mortgage. So I started doing consulting work.

 Jon - 00:03:46:

Yep. Those are real realities.

Neela - 00:03:49:

Yep.

 Jon - 00:03:49:

Absolutely.

Neela - 00:03:50:

And one of those was a part-time consulting job with Poniard Pharmaceuticals. I got that through Jerry McMahon, who had been the second. Site head of SUGEN under Pharmacia. And so I knew him quite well. He was actually my boss's boss when I got hired there. So I knew Jerry. And he had taken a position as CEO of Poniard. Company had a next generation platinum drug. It was in clinical trials. Jerry was, you know, looking to the future, let's plan for success. Hey, I don't just want to be a one. Program company. I want to have a portfolio. So he brought me in and one of my former chemistry colleagues from SUGEN to basically head research and start some programs. Now, We were small. We didn't have a lot of money to put towards it, but he got a pipe and some of it was meant to be dedicated to this. We ran three programs, one of which ended up far enough along that when Punyard folded, it was sold. So that was nice. But it was an interesting experience. It helped to solidify my interest in going into business development because here I was co-leading research. It was like, well, we could do three programs. And I was like, well, that's not a lot.

 Jon - 00:05:20:

Yeah. But you were managing pipeline. You were talking about in-licensing, just making sure to having a healthy pipeline. You're just like, three?

Neela - 00:05:28:

There's still a lot, but I mean, there were, it was, there were reasons why it was fine. I really wanted a bigger playground. And to me, I realized, okay. Even if I were to become the CSO of like a Merck, which I, the phenotype of somebody who becomes that, I already knew that wasn't me. Because these are people with, you know, miles of publications and sort of a passion for the basic research that was never my phenotype. But even if I were to, I was like, I'm still going to be limited in the number of programs I can run, right? And so my transition to the world of business development was a science side of BD. So search and evaluation. And when I first joined, I joined Abbott. And in those days, Abbott was a conglomerate. They had nutritionals, they had diagnostics, and they had devices, and then they had pharmaceuticals. And the CEO, did not love. We were the stepchild. And I understood because his whole thing was, if I give $1 million to our nutritionals, they will design a new bar. And within six months, I'll have sales. And within two years, I'll have recouped my investment. If I give you guys a million dollars, you just flush it down the drain. And I'm like... Well, have you noticed that... The revenues from pharma are actually helping to support your other divisions because our margins are very different.

 Jon - 00:07:12:

Yep.

Neela - 00:07:13:

And not too long after I was at Abbott, AbbVie was spun out. And it was a good decision for everyone. It was good for Abbott because I get it's really hard to tell your shareholders a story where your P&Ls are like, my margins here are 2%, 3%. My margins here are 70%, but it's a total binary thing. And next year when we have a patent cliff, they could go to zero.

 Jon - 00:07:37:

Yeah. I think there was like, they call it like the, like Wall Street calls it like the conglomerate discount. And just like, because there's like, you have P&Ls are just like so different. They're like, ah. Too complex and too different. We're just going to just give it a haircut. We're just going to give it a haircut.

Neela - 00:07:55:

Exactly. So I'm sympathetic to why it was a hard story to tell. I was actually, I was really happy when Abdi was spun out because I was starting to get itchy because they were like, oh, you know. We don't know if we want to do oncology. And by then I was really primarily dedicated to oncology. And we had done a lot of work to build that therapy area. And I was like, oh, what do you mean you don't know if you want it? And then we got spun out and I was like, yes. And of course, that totally unlocked the value. Of what was the pharma division. And it quickly, I mean, even before that, it was an interesting job for me because initially when I joined Abbott, it was a very... Inward-looking company, as were many pharmas, but especially in the Midwest, like there weren't a lot of peers around it. Like if you're on the East Coast, you're in New Jersey. And you're at Sharing Plow. Down the street is Merck. And down the street is like a Novartis. You know what I mean? Yeah. Whereas. North of Chicago, you don't have a lot of-

 Jon - 00:08:57:

Not so much.

Neela - 00:08:59:

So it was a very interesting challenge there to... Help. The scientists understand why it would be beneficial to look at external opportunities and to first recognize... Their fear was, oh, if we bring in something new, I won't have a job because my program will go away. It was like, oh, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. Your skills, we need your skills. Why don't you help evaluate this external thing? And if it comes in, you'll be working on that thing. And it was... It was messaging like, don't you want to work on the thing that's the most cutting edge and has the most promise? Like, you've been doing your program for 12 years. Yeah. Maybe do you want to work on something that like Keystone just did a whole conference on that one area?

 Jon - 00:10:00:

Sounds kind of fun. Like sounds kind of

Neela - 00:10:02:

fun. So it was a little bit, you know, it was just a shift in mindset. And so when I first started there, I was the only R&D employee in California for Abbott.

 Jon - 00:10:12:

Oh, wow.

Neela - 00:10:13:

Because the original structure was research wants to be able to see what else is going on in the world. And we won't do this through business development. We'll just do this like our own private little thing.

 Jon - 00:10:24:

Right.

Neela - 00:10:25:

Yeah. And so they were like, I was like, well, where do you want me to look? They're like, oh, West. And I was like. They're like, west of Chicago. That's the most. And I was like, that's kind of a lot of the country. I don't know if you've looked on a map recently.

 Jon - 00:10:40:

That's a lot of geography, this FYI.

Neela - 00:10:43:

And I was like, well, what TAs? Oh, all of our TAs. Okay, I think I'm going to scope this to something where I can deliver something to you. So I said, look, I didn't tell them this, but I was like, I'm going to start in San Francisco, in my backyard, because I've been at several companies now and been laid off several times. Each time now, you know, a lot of people at a lot of other companies, I've got a network. Let me start here.

 Jon - 00:11:10:

Yeah.

Neela - 00:11:11:

Find what's interesting. I can cover Stanford. I can cover UCSF, cover Cal, get you something tangible that is interesting to you. Then I'm going to go down to San Diego. It's an hour plane ride. I'll do that. And then if there's any time left over, I'll head up to Seattle.

 Jon - 00:11:29:

Yeah.

Neela - 00:11:29:

Maybe I'll visit Texas for you.

 Jon - 00:11:32:

Yeah.

Neela - 00:11:33:

Right. But there was a point where we had somebody beast in Chicago and they were like, I've met all of the companies in my region. I'm like, all 12?

 Jon - 00:11:41:

Yeah.

Neela - 00:11:42:

Yeah. He's like, why haven't you met all of yours? I was like. Come sit in my chair. Do you want to try to meet a thousand companies?

 Jon - 00:11:54:

That's hilarious.

Neela - 00:11:55:

Like the scale, like it just was, it was just, it was a mindset thing though, right? It just was a different way. And so when we got spun out as AbbVie, a lot of my work had focused on oncology anyway, just because that was a field that, you know, if you look at proportionate spending in the, either in the academic space or in the early stage biotech, a lot of money was going there. So I was assigned exclusively to do oncology, and we married up that external innovation group with BD. BD had a formal search and evaluation group. And so that was really good. And then I got to work with Steve Davidson, the head of oncology research, to formalize a way for us to think about external innovation. And- Steve was just... Brilliant and super nice individual. He still is. But in my interactions with him, I said, look, you've got all these really smart people in research. I've met them. I sat down and I interviewed each one of them for an hour. And I was like, hey, what'd you do your postdoc on? What'd you do your grad school work on? What papers do you read? Because I wanted to know, if I'm looking at a company that does X, oh, there's someone who actually that's their area of expertise, right? So I said, you have a lot of great people here. They've got a lot of good ideas. They're reading the literature. Let's make this a democracy of ideas. Annually, or we actually worked out a cadence that was 18 months, which was fine. Let's have everybody submit their ideas for what they've seen outside that's really cool and interesting.

 Jon - 00:13:42:

Ah, okay.

Neela - 00:13:43:

And I put in my stuff too, but you know. And it didn't matter whether you were an entry-level RA, you were a senior director in the department. It all went onto one spreadsheet. And it was interesting because... Unsurprisingly, people were seeing the same trends. So you'd hear from four different people, oh, this epigenetics thing, I saw an interest, right?

 Jon - 00:14:08:

Yep.

Neela - 00:14:08:

And then whoever proposed the idea or the group we'd have a one-day jamboree. And whoever proposed the idea would come and present in front of the senior team and say, this is why I think this is interesting. Here's what we could do. And then at the end of the day, we'd look at everything and be like, okay. It was so fascinating. Every time, without fail, we saw the things that were the most interesting places to place our bets. And they'd come. From the bottom up. Do you know what I mean? And we- Simultaneously reviewed our internal portfolio on day two. And on day three, we're like, okay, now that senior leadership, which wasn't just the head, but like his people who were running the functional areas and so on and team leaders. Now that you've seen what's outside, what is new and what's inside. Now let's talk about how do we want to do this? If we're going to do these things, okay, this is mature enough. There's now some biotech companies. That is still in an academic stage. Let's do some collaborations. This is a whole new place that we want to place bets. And guess what? AbbVie has such great small molecule drug discovery capabilities. Let's displace this thing we've been working on for 10 years. It's going nowhere with this new thing, right?

 Jon - 00:15:39:

That's so cool.

Neela - 00:15:41:

So it was really, it was, it was very exciting and very fun. Just... Great to be able to lead that. I wasn't doing all of it, obviously. Do you know what I mean? But I was definitely looking outside. And in an average year, I looked at 300 or 400 opportunities. So I saw a lot. Originally, I thought, oh, I will get to see all these opportunities and I'll see a small company that I want to go to. What happened was the more I looked at stuff, the more I was like. I don't know if I want to be at a small company. I got to think about this, right?

 Jon - 00:16:21:

Yeah, yeah.

Neela - 00:16:22:

So when we talk, we're almost to the later part of my career, but that experience taught me what was really important to look for in a small company, right? Now, I was looking at it from the buy side. Yep. But even if you're thinking of joining a company, you should still evaluate it in the exact same way. Is the science robust? Is there a plan to get to proof of concept if they don't have a proof of concept first preclinically and clinically? Do they have the right team members on board? Are the team members working well with each other? What does their financing runway look like? Is there a path to raise more money or to get a partnership? Is the board going to approve a deal? If I'm on the buy side, is the board going to approve this deal? If I'm on the sell side, is my board going to support me?

 Jon - 00:17:11:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The same thing. Yeah, yeah.

Neela - 00:17:13:

It's the same parameters. So I'll say when I first started doing S&E work, the biggest challenge was... Was like, oh, here's this new thing. Let me go read all the primary literature. I was working like seven days a week, 24 hours a day, right? And it took me a while to, it took me a year to develop that feel for, yes, this, not that. And I told Steve and the person who really was his right-hand man, Saul Rosenberg, another amazing individual, instrumental in the BCL-2 inhibitor invention space. I said, look, at first, I'm gonna be a little wide. I'm not gonna be a very good spam filter on purpose because I wanna know what you think. So let's meet. On weekly cadence, and we're going to talk about these 10 things, and I'll listen to your feedback, and then I'm going to put another filter in place. And so, you know, if a year from now, I'm still not giving you the right things, and I'm not doing my job right. But at the end of the year, I should be landing on the mark most of the time and being a really good spam filter. So you don't have to look at a lot of junk because I'm cutting it out. Or not just junk, but things that are misaligned, really.

 Jon - 00:18:39:

Yep. Super interesting. Kind of what you're describing, where my head went was actually your investment club, where you and your friends would go find. Potential investment opportunities and bring it back and then present. And it's a similar situation. Obviously this is like, you know, with, you know, not just like a company investment opportunity. It is an investment opportunity, but it's like scientifically focused on your pipeline. And I love seeing that kind of like that pattern connecting that because that grassroots element, like you said, there's only so many hours in the day. You're going to have to figure out, like, how do we filter this? And also, you're not in touch with every single, like, place where an in-licensing opportunity is going to be at all times. Again, you would be, your days would be endless. You would not be sleeping at all. That's right. And from that perspective, like, at AbbVie, and, you know, I think right now for a lot of startups, and I think you have an amazing kind of purview of this because you've been on both sides. For startups that are, like, trying to partner with a larger institution, and you kind of described what you're looking for, there's, like, licensing, there's investment, and then there's outright acquisition. What is it that a big company like AbbVie is like particularly looking for in each of those kind of buckets? And we don't have to go like too deep into it, but just like how does a startup set themselves up for success where it's like they make it through the screen?

Neela - 00:20:12:

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I'm not actually going to be speaking specifically about AbbVie. I'm talking more generally about Big Pharma. And, one thing, well, I would say a couple of... Underlying principles, one is going to sound so stupid that you're literally going to laugh at me. Send your CNS opportunity to a company that does not work in CNS now, they're not going to open a new therapy area for your opportunity. Like focus on people who are going to actually understand your value proposition. They're already in the area. You might be able to discern what problem they're trying to solve or not, but at least know that. You're in the same playing field. Like, let's start with that. Yeah. I think the science, any pharma company worth their salt. The science has to be there. Now and then we can both see and find acquisitions that were driven by relationships at the top. Those rarely work out well, just to be honest. They're not, they're not really, it only works if your M&A is for a rep, like commercial revenue generating products. And you're just looking for a certain number. Like I need another 500 million and I know that I'll pay 4X the revenues. I found somebody who will sell for that. I get that kind of M&A, right? But anything that you don't have the product, like the commercial stage product as yet. Your science has to align, right? And whether it's a license, a collaboration, an acquisition depends on... Appetite of the other party and the stage of your program. I didn't know that we were going to sell Roche, our program at preclinical. I thought we'd generate clinical data and that would be what. The scales for them, but they were really interested and they knew a lot about the molecule that we had, which was a PD-1 regulated IL-2. They had publicly disclosed that they had an unregulated version in the clinic. So they understood, like they got it. And then we did an MTA. They were able to test the material. So anyway, I digress. You asked about what does it take to do an acquisition?

 Jon - 00:22:35:

Yeah, and to get through the screen, your, like, a screen, anyone's screen who's making these.

Neela - 00:22:40:

And I would say. I don't know anybody at a big pharma who works in Esne who doesn't have a science background, minimally a science background, and usually 10 to 15 years of doing drug discovery themselves. So they need to see and hear a compelling science story. Whether you go through the front door of BD or you go to a conference and you've got your scientist presenting, it's still a science story that you're telling, right?

 Jon - 00:23:15:

Yep.

Neela - 00:23:15:

So that's the first screen. But this first screen, the first screen is, are you aligned with our interests? Second screen is, is your science solid, right?

 Jon - 00:23:25:

Yep.

Neela - 00:23:25:

Yep. The third screen is, is your molecule at the stage that we are interested in? And some companies are very explicit. We do not do any agreements before clinical candidate. Others explicitly say we welcome early stage collaborations. We think we could help you. We could do something together. We want that. So make sure your stage is aligned. It's so not rocket science.

 Jon - 00:23:53:

That's what I was going to say. That's what I was going to say. It's kind of like, you know, maybe I was trying to fish for like the secret sauce, but it's like not so much secret sauce as it's like it's at your fingertips, basically. Or a little bit of elbow grease will go a long way.

Neela - 00:24:10:

And helping your scientists get out there. If you're on the sell side, help your scientists go to the conferences. In other words. They'll do all the content for the poster. But if you have more junior people who are going, help them get set up to talk to companies that might come by and be interested and what they can and can't say and what point they should be like, hey, we'd love to continue this discussion. Can I refer you to our BD person? Give them that confidence that they can go to someone else's poster who could be a good partner and tell them, hey, just talk to them about their science just like you would anyone else. Show you're interested and then mention what you do. And every single scientist that I've suggested that to. You just have to say those few words and they're off to the races and they do it great.

 Jon - 00:25:03:

Yep. Yep. I love that. I love that too. And also just like. Help your friend out. Like conferences can be like, especially when you're going there for the, like exactly when you said, when you're doing your grad school, like going and presenting is scary.

Neela - 00:25:17:

It's really scary.

 Jon - 00:25:18:

It's really scary. So help your friend out. At least like cheerlead for them a little bit, like get them a little bit kind of like comfortable. I love the simplicity. It's not easy, but it is straightforward.

Neela - 00:25:31:

That's right. And do front door and back door. Take the approach. Through the S&E portal, take the approach, the backdoor approach, get out there with your science, get publications, present posters, you know. Talk to your friends about it. Once you have secured your IP and you're in a situation that you can do that, by all means.

 Jon - 00:25:52:

Yep, absolutely. So you've learned all this and you've learned to have this filter at AbbVie so you can run this efficient, scalable machine. Was your role at SUGEN a similar ilk to this search and evaluation, or was it a little bit different in its manifestation?

Neela - 00:26:12:

It was a plus. So at AbbVie, for any deal negotiations, we were assigned a transaction person and that's all that they did. They were usually quite sophisticated. Some had PhDs, you know, they'd been around in the business. But I was basically riding shotgun saying, hey, you know what? The deal structure that makes sense is it would look like this. Like this is a de-risking scientific point. We can pay a lot. This is a scientific, you know, de-risking point. We can pay there. The other party is probably going to want to be paid here. And that's meaningless to us. So I'm sorry, but probably you won't get support from senior management to pay money there. You know what I mean?

 Jon - 00:26:57:

Yeah, totally.

Neela - 00:26:58:

So that kind of a structure. But I was not the one at the table saying, no, or it has to be this way, or let me hear what your needs are. I watched. I watched and learned. So I was at the table, which was wonderful. But I was not the one getting it across the finish line. I went to Seattle Genetics in part because I had gotten to know the company. One of the areas that we entered into as AbbVie was antibody drug conjugates. And I had set up all the collaborations where we tested. Linker toxins from all the companies that had them. So I got to know Seattle Genetics that way. And they had an opening in corporate development, which was everything. In a small company, you don't separate your S&E from your transaction. It's like...

 Jon - 00:27:48:

Yeah.

Neela - 00:27:48:

Right. You do it all.

 Jon - 00:27:49:

Multiple hats. Multiple hats.

Neela - 00:27:51:

So I really wanted to get transaction experience under my belt because I saw that for the kinds of jobs that I wanted in the future, that would be an important piece of it.

 Jon - 00:28:03:

I guess really quick to this set the table for anyone who may not be familiar with corp dev. What is your definition of corp dev?

Neela - 00:28:12:

You would probably get 10 different answers from 10 different people. But corporate development is really looking at how you can best both monetize your assets and grow your pipeline. So it's really about your bottom line, your ultimate bottom line, your revenue. But how do you get there? Do you need to bring things in? Do you need to do some out licensing? Do you do some collaborations? Whereas I feel like... Business development, when you're in a big company, it's buy side. I mean, you're spending money so that ultimately the company will make money, but...

 Jon - 00:28:52:

Yep.

Neela - 00:28:53:

That's like the long-term goal, right?

 Jon - 00:28:54:

Yep, totally. And can you talk a little bit about the corp dev experience at SUGEN? Like, were there... Any kind of like, again, the challenge or triumph that was memorable for you that stood out?

Neela - 00:29:11:

Well, I would say it was interesting. It wasn't all that different from one aspect of the culture. Wasn't that different from Abbott when I joined in that. SUGEN was just starting to do buy-side work. They had bootstrapped in an impressive way by out-licensing their linker toxin and realizing revenue and then milestones and, you know, really fantastic. They'd reached a point where they were like, oh, we now want to expand what fingers we have in which pies by doing some in-licensing. So it was a similar kind of, like there was a cultural shift that was required. And that's what I mean by common with Abbott, like a culture shift. And so, for me, the challenge was to really get to know the scientists in research and figured out what they needed. Show them, like bring some things that were like, oh, look, you said you were interested. How about this?

 Jon - 00:30:14:

Yep. Yep.

Neela - 00:30:15:

Kind of thing. And then see what we could get done. And the bigger challenge was, you know, at that time we were. Maybe a midsize biotech. Like when I joined, we had one product on the market. While I was there, we got two more approved. So, you know, our revenues started to increase, but it was hard to compete dollar wise for deals against larger companies. Like we saw some pretty interesting and exciting things and everyone was like, oh, we want that. And I'm like. Oh, no. Yeah.

 Jon - 00:30:48:

I know who else is looking at that.

Neela - 00:30:52:

It's going to be a problem.

 Jon - 00:30:53:

Yeah.

Neela - 00:30:54:

And that's nobody's fault. Do you know what I mean? It's just a nature of. What is your pocketbook?

 Jon - 00:31:01:

Yeah.

Neela - 00:31:01:

And so on. So that's

 Jon - 00:31:03:

really interesting. And I guess something that stood out to me, as you just kind of described, you know, SUGEN as a company, is like them being able to via out licensing being able to generate revenue. I don't know if they were fully bootstrapped, but I think-

Neela - 00:31:18:

Obviously, it was publicly traded by the time I joined. So it was, you know, you had access to public markets and all that. But the early days were really built that way.

 Jon - 00:31:29:

Which is super cool. I think I, again, I, I a big part of something I find so energizing about conversations like this is the multitude of ways that the light, like a life science business can capitalize itself, operate, and really just like. Cut him. Carry out its mission. And I think, you know, there's a, I kind of want to just like dispel the myth that they're like, you, there's, you have to finance it a certain way. And that's the only way to get it done. Like hearing that, that SUGEN was like, no, no, we like started generating revenue, you get out licensing and you can kind of, that gives you the ability to be in the driver's seat. Like, you know, okay. We're like, we're generating revenue. Yeah.

Neela - 00:32:14:

Absolutely.

 Jon - 00:32:15:

Slower. It might be a little bit slower, but it's a different path that I think is available to, you know, I think it's critically important for these startups to think about that early.

Neela - 00:32:26:

I think so too. And the trickiest part is... To do deals that don't significantly impact the value of your internal pipeline, right? Because you don't want to be licensing out like the best. Everything, right? And, you know, in some cases, if you're a technology company, sometimes there's another play where you can generate revenue. Like maybe you do, you can do biomarker discovery or you can maybe apply your technology and do something for someone else that's outside of your area, which is certainly what we at Bonham are looking to do. Like, hey, we're mostly immuno-onc. We're starting in I&I now. But if somebody wants to do something in an area that is, we're 31 people. We can't do everything with our technology. So I wouldn't feel like I was giving away a huge piece of our internal pipeline value to make a molecule for someone else where they have the science, they understand, you know, what it is that they need. Fine. We'll realize some revenue from that and it's fine.

 Jon - 00:33:35:

Yeah. And there's kind of like that kind of that division where you kind of like are able to kind of, I don't know, you kind of like supplement and augment the operations of your startup. And I think there's a lot of pain right now because when you're overly reliant, I think about diversification in the broadest sense. Customer base, try to diversify it. Investor base, diversify it. As your parents oftentimes say, don't put all your eggs in one basket type situation. And that adage is still very true. And I love that approach where it's like, okay, we have our crown jewel, our platform, our assets in the pipeline. But that doesn't preclude us from doing these other things, these other business lines, these revenue streams that ultimately result in your company being more resilient should you get rug pulled. Who knows what might happen? You might get rug pulled, but you maybe can fall back on insert X business line or revenue line.

Neela - 00:34:37:

Exactly. I think that's right. That's 100% right. And it is a tough time. I have to say having been through many booms and busts in the life sciences. It's not worse than it has been. There's still, there's still companies are going public. There's still money available. I don't. Really, really dislike the boom and bust cycle. No one's asked me. I can't fix it. But we all know what it's like when the markets are running hot. You know, at the peak of COVID, so much money was flowing into VC funds. And eventually, I'm sorry, not every idea is worthy of funding. It just isn't. And. You end up then funding things that are maybe a little more marginal. You don't get the returns on those. Then, you know, you enter more of a bust cycle. And then you rinse out, you do rinse out some of the companies that maybe shouldn't have gotten funding, but it does creep into the companies that are solid and hurts them as well. And I just wish we could run a little more even keeled. I think it would actually, I honestly think it would benefit everybody all the way back to the LPs.

 Jon - 00:35:52:

Yeah, I agree too. You know, having conversations with leaders like yourself and folks who've seen how the boom bust cycle is like, it's almost like perennial. And again, it's like what you said, it's just like, don't know what the solution is. It's almost like capitalism. It's kind of just like, it's like, maybe we just live in a multiverse where it is in a capitalistic system where people just dog pile. They're like, well, that looks like it's going up. I guess we should all go in and use this going up. And then eventually there's like this indigestion that you need to work through, but there's like collateral damage of that, of working through. But I always think about. Just exactly that. It's like, you might not be able to get rid of the volatility, but you could probably create a level of, like, resilience where you can, like, withstand the blow.

Neela - 00:36:45:

That's right.

 Jon - 00:36:46:

That's right. Like, roll with the punches as best as you can. I don't think it's going away. Or at least not in our lifetime.

Neela - 00:36:54:

I don't think so either. You know, I do see that good, innovative science where there is a line of sight to a product. And when I say product, I mean something that could enter the clinic. You know what I mean?

 Jon - 00:37:08:

Yeah.

Neela - 00:37:09:

For patients where there's unmet need, you will get funded. It's true. If you are the 150th EGFR inhibitor or PD-1 and you don't get funded, I'm not crying a river for you because I really don't see how you're differentiated. And I'm really not trying to criticize any company specifically. I'm just saying that, be mindful that you have to have a way to talk about how you're differentiated. And it can't just be that. Oh, I think that I'll be able to dose, twice a day instead of three times a day. Like maybe.

 Jon - 00:37:51:

That's like incremental.

Neela - 00:37:52:

But that's like really not moving the needle for the patients.

 Jon - 00:37:57:

Yeah.

Neela - 00:37:58:

But things that move the needle. Somebody will buy it. Somebody will buy it from you.

 Jon - 00:38:03:

Yep, absolutely. And it's like, it's a kind of like the, that incremental improvement versus that just like out the park. I think, again, just like thinking about that super early, like, so you save yourself that pain.

Neela - 00:38:16:

That's right.

 Jon - 00:38:18:

And I'm thinking more about your experience with AbbVie, SUGEN, and you've evaluated a lot of technology. For licensing, investment, acquisitions, you've seen it all.

Intro/Outro - 00:38:33:

That's all for this episode of the Biotech Startups Podcast. We hope you enjoyed our discussion with Neela Patel. Tune into part four of our conversation to learn more about her journey. 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 on the Biotech Startups podcast for part four of Neela's story. 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.