Noam Solomon - Immunai - Part 4

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 Noam Solomon. About approaching precision medicine in an entirely different way, and the challenges he faced in the initial stages of establishing a lab in New York. We also discussed the intricacies of working with pharmaceutical giants, the delicate dance required to navigate these partnerships, and the importance of fostering a culture that embraces failure as a learning opportunity while avoiding catastrophic missteps. Lastly, Noam reflected on the evolution of Immuni approach to innovation and collaboration in the pharmaceutical landscape. If you missed it, be sure to go back and to give Part Three a listen. In Part Four, we talk with Noam about the unique dynamics of working with academic institutions and the alignment of incentives that come with collaborating with top researchers. We'll also discuss the importance of strategic partnerships and the meticulous analysis involved in selecting the right collaborators, his fundraising journey, the technological advancements at Immunai, and the application of AI in optimising drug development processes.

Noam - 00:01:35: Working with academic institutions is like being back home.

Jon - 00:01:38: Yeah.

Noam - 00:01:40: You have much more control. I think it's also clearly the incentives are always very aligned because what they are trying to do, we don't work with an academic institution as much as we are working with principal investigators. They understand that we have something too, something very valuable. They're going to get a better publication, a nature publication, because they use our tool, our capabilities, our platform. And we are going to partner with people that are, you know, the dog of the game. And they're going to kind of allow us to generate case studies and success stories that are going to be very meaningful to us. And we've done plenty of this and we are doing more of this. I think with both pharma companies and academic collaborators, it is our prerogative to decide, who to work with, right? By the way, I don't mean to insult any pharma company. The metaphor of a gorilla, just to understand the magnitude of the scale and the volume and the fortitude that you have to, at the end of the day, when you started the collaboration. It has to be in their own pace, they have to lead the dance and you need to succeed. But you don't have to take the dance. You can also take a bath and say, you know, let's walk later when, I mean, one of the things that we are doing before every collaboration, we are doing.. And the nut is this. It's called a scorecard analysis on whether we believe we're going to succeed or fail. If we don't think we're going to meet the deliverables, we're not going to do the project. And I think it's a very important point. You said something about Black Swan or being able to go to zero. It's a very small ecosystem. If you are going to fail with Novartis or Roche, then their colleagues in, you know, other companies, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, are going to hear about you. I think we've done very little marketing. We are not publicizing what we do. We are kind of really, it's people working with us, circulating the experiences, whether they are positive or negative. And I think we are doing everything that we can to take projects we're going to succeed with. I think we have very good statistics. I can't tell you of a single project that we failed. Sometimes the biological signal is not going to be as the partner had hoped, but our platform is going to come up with interesting signals that are always going to lead to discussions, always going to lead to whether this is a new biological finding or something that they already knew, etc. We're going to do a very serious and thorough analysis on whether we believe we're going to succeed and then we're going to decide what is the business value of this and then we're going to decide to take it. Hopefully they're going to agree. And similarly with academia, we're not going to say yes to everyone. With academia, it's also very important that the PI is going to be very driven to succeed. Success is not just dumping a problem on us and hoping we're going to figure it out. So you need to really screen for the right partners. And this is exactly like choosing employees. Like choosing your spouse. You need to be very selective. You don't want to get married to anyone.

Jon - 00:05:00: Yeah, yeah. That's spot on. I think about that too. It's just like, take your time and be honest about the statistical likelihood that you can complete the deliverable. Because I think you're absolutely right. And I think Warren Buffett, who talks about this, but it's just like your reputation is everything. It takes a lifetime to build the reputation. It takes a second to lose it. I love that analysis that you do before even signing up a client or a partner. Because I think in startup culture, it's all about what's the next quarter? What's the revenue growth? I need to see month over month growth rapid. And it works for some, but especially in the sciences, which is a very small community, exactly what you're saying, word spreads fast. And that's that Warren Buffett Black Swans event. If you don't complete the deliverable. The word of mouth. They're just going to go talk to their friends over a beer. They're like, Johnny Doughnuts didn't finish the project. And I spent four years championing them. And now, no, I'm on the chopping block, right? So I love that analysis, that scorecard analysis. And I think any founder, it's like be honest and introspective about who you take on and your ability to actually get a win for you, your own company, and also a win for the counterparty. We're talking about the downside if you don't complete it. But if you do complete it. It's the other way, right? It's like, they're at the bar with their friend and they're saying, Johnny Doughnuts hit me a grand slam and I'm getting a promotion. Like that's the conversation you want versus like you say, yes, we can deliver on this project. Sign it. Let's go. And then lo and behold, everyone at your company is like, we're not going to get this done. And you're pulling your hair out. So I love that analysis. And I love how it also applies to when you're evaluating your PIs, your partners in your academia. And so all of this is, you know, I love hearing this. And also, it seems to be pretty scaled at this point. And I think, you met your team's growing. It's almost like it's like working a well machine. And I know for the past couple years 22, 23 fundraising has been kind of like upside down for the life sciences, I'm going to assume that it takes not just sheer willpower and your team, but it also takes capital to get this stood up. Can you talk a little bit about how your philosophy on fundraising and how you've navigated this kind of weird turbulent market? And do you have any tips for anyone out there who's looking to embark on a big, hairy, audacious goal like yours.

Noam - 00:07:51: Yeah, I'll try.

Jon - 00:07:53: Sorry, I'm just throwing, I'm just bobbing like big questions at you.

Noam - 00:07:58: I just want to be transparent that this is my first startup. So if I'd done it like five times, I probably would feel more comfortable giving tips, but I can definitely share my experience. I think number one is we were lucky. I think we were lucky in the beginning. We didn't walk very hard to get in the seed round. And I think that since then, I never officially have done a financing round. Some of my friends that are also founders, they always say that when they do a fundraising event, they have to kind of, the CEOs have to take kind of three, four months and don't do anything else, just go fundraising. I've never done it. I've never missed a week of work for fundraising. So I was lucky in this sense.

Jon - 00:08:42: Jealous, jealous.

Noam - 00:08:43: But, I think it's probably because when I don't fundraise. I mean, I think CEOs should always be fundraising. So that's kind of the opposite. I mean, always go and socialize and meet people when you don't need their money.

Jon - 00:08:58: Yeah.

Noam - 00:08:59: If what you're doing is interesting to them, they're going to find it interesting, they're going to keep in touch, and they're going to know that you're making reaching milestones, and they're going to come to you with mine. And I think that's kind of what happened over the years, that most of the financing rounds happened because I was in touch with people that were interested in me and in what we were doing, and they knew that I was trying to do something, and they kind of kept in touch, and when we hit the milestone, they said, okay, why don't you take our money. I also think that I was very transparent in our $60 million round, $200 million round, that we will try to do something very ambitious. And to kind of scale away all the investors that are trying to invest a dollar and get $5. So if you are looking for like a quick ROI, like a two, three year ROI, go to a different company. We are looking for someone that wants to invest for building a company in the next 10, 15 years, a deep science company where the executive team is passionate about the mission statement and trying to improve patients' outcomes. And is trying to, if successful, try to make a big dent in the industry. And I think we're lucky that we have very friendly board. The board is kind of, I feel that they are my friends, they are my allies, and if we're going to succeed, they're going to be there with me. If we're going to fail, I hope they're going to understand that this is part of the game. I can't change the fact that we were lucky all the way through. And what happens if we are going to be unlucky? I don't know. I can't say. Hopefully, it won't be the case. But I will say that in 2022. First, I thought 2022, 2023 were going to happen. So we were very, you know, we planned for a rainy day. The rainy day happened. We have, we raised, you know, enough money to last for years. We changed our mindset to be very cash-conserved for years. And part of the work with pharma companies and increasing the footprint working with pharma companies is to make sure that we don't have dependency on how attractive we are for investors, so that we will help define our own fate and our own future. And I told you that I also felt that we learned tremendously from working with pharma companies and biotech companies. So I think it was two bears with one stone, or like a win-win. I believe that deep science companies, I believe, should be run by scientists. And I think that many scientists, it's more difficult for them to speak with investors and communicate their dreams and ambitions or manage companies through difficult decisions. So I think you need to have a combination of like, can you articulate what you're trying to do and can you survive storms or hardships? But don't be a person that cannot ask the right questions or the hard questions to the team. So I think in our case, Immunai's case, even though he's still in the deep science, Jon, we haven't mapped the human immune system, we are in the process of mapping the human immune system. So when I'm going to the board, when I'm going to new investors, I'm telling them we still have six, seven years of grinding. And I love it. I have to say I'm as energized as I was six and a half years ago. And I just enjoy being in a company that today we are 170 people. And we have, I think maybe, two thirds of them, maybe more are PhDs. So we have a very strong, you know, scientific R&D team that work together, that likes working together. And that is, I hope in it for the long run and for the achieving the mission. My dream is that all the money that we raised, all the years of like building this machine, will be translated to help people like my co-founders, Louis' late grandfather, and my wife's aunt that died a few years from breast cancer. There are so many people that are suffering, and I think, you know, I was a theoretical mathematician years back. Now, I am a person that really wants to apply technologies to improve patient's outcomes. And I kind of found biology and I found medicine and I want to stay in this space for years. 

Jon - 00:13:32: That's really, really inspirational, to be honest. And it's also refreshing because what you said is something that really stood out to me. You openly saying there's luck involved? And that's something that not everyone speaks about. Like there is like the time businesses timing and luck at times. But I'm not going to deny the luck. I'm not going to say no to it. I'm going to capitalize on this luck and let's go. So I love that. It's really refreshing to hear from a founder to say that. And the other part I love too, and I think it is a tip that I would agree with, is continue to fundraise when you don't need the money. Like you want to be prepared for when you do need the money. Like it is way worse to when you need the money to be scrambling to figure out who are the people we need to talk to versus when times are good, the sun is out, it's not raining. You probably should start building your relationships, building your connections. So when you need a hand, someone's actually there to lend a hand. And then something else that really stood out to me too, is I love the filtering mechanism of like, basically finding an alignment with your investors and your company and your mission. And I think finding investor alignment is incredibly important because it's like getting married. You don't just want to marry anyone, right? You want to find a compatible partner. And same goes for your investors. Making sure that they are, when things get tough, that they're going to be there. When things are going well, they're there. Because if you don't do that, what ends up happening is things get tough and someone's like, too much for me. I'm out. And the mission might go out the window because there's someone who's like, I need to exit or whatever it may be. So that's an incredibly invaluable insight that I think all founders can take home with them. And you talked about you still have six, seven years of work to be done. Maybe you're saying this to your board. But if we bring it forward, just maybe one or two years, what's in store for you and your company in one or two years? 

Noam - 00:15:50: So. Maybe I'll mention something that we talked very highly about the technology, but the AI engine that we have built. It's called the IDE, and it stands for the Immunodynamics Engine. We also have the database that we started building five and a half years ago, which is the largest clinical immunology database out there. We keep growing it. Today, it contains, I think, more than 10,000 samples with single-cell resolution. We want it to be much, much larger, but already today, it's one of the largest datasets out there for the immunology space. And the idea is that we are kind of training the idea, this Immunodynamics Engine, on the database. And we want to keep training it to be applicable for more and more use cases. So in the next two years, we are going to kind of keep furthering our case studies. We have a few of them we haven't talked about. For example, we showed we can optimize the dose selection. So what dose do you need to give the drug in in order to get the optimal immune effect and then the optimal clinical response? What is the optimal combination agent you need to give the drug with? For example, what is the optimal chemotherapy? That you need to give the drug in combination because it's not just one drug, you're giving combination, a cocktail of drugs that you're giving together. What is the optimal disease to go after? So the idea is Immunodynamics Engine is measuring for every drug, what is the optimal or the right features in the immune system that we need to observe for the drug. As we are doing more and more projects, both internally and externally, we are learning how to apply this better. This is to me like a GPS. And I think I said earlier that we are building Google Maps of the immune system. And what I mean is the Google Maps can be used if you want to go from point A to point B, you need a GPS. We are building this GPS for improving the drug development process by understanding how the immune system is going to respond. And we need to kind of keep building more and more cities and roads in this GPS. So that's what we have in store for the next two years.

Jon - 00:18:03: Very cool. Yeah. And it's like, can you increase the fidelity? Can we get really granular with it? And that's a great analogy. And I was thinking about the early days of Google Maps were, one, life-changing. But now it's like, I'll give you an example, a real life example, when my wife and I love going to Tokyo for vacation. Google Maps, maybe like 10 years ago, couldn't map Tokyo because there's like 12 different levels, like up and down, and there's trains going in like every direction. And then we come now. And we're just, we use Google Maps. They're like, it's so precise. It's magical. They're like, where are you right now? Okay, here's the nearest station. Go on third car at this time. It's going to be here at, you know, literally on the second. Make sure to walk two alleyways or hallways down. Make a left, take a right. And then it basically just puts you exactly where you need to be now. And Tokyo, for anyone's been there, is incredibly dense, and complex. So I love that analogy of Google Maps. And so, Noam, you've been super generous with your time. I've learned a lot and I'm having a blast. And honestly, I could go on for hours and hours with you. But in traditional closing fashion for our podcast, we have two questions. First, would you like to give any shout outs to anyone that supported you along the way?

Noam - 00:19:32: Yeah. I mentioned my co-founder, you know, we found the company together. I want to mention Sir Louis Voloch, Ansu Satpathy, Danny Wells, Dan Littman. These were the first kind of founding team. Without them, we wouldn't be here. Of course, my wife, first and foremost, that she's been supportive. Even before we started, I wasn't sure I wanted to start a company and be a CEO. She was really supportive. She said, I know you're going to be great. So she's really my force and inspiration. And recently I have a small baby. She's 11 months old. She's really my joy. And I want to say that when you are growing a company or growing like a child, and it sucks you to kind of do only that. And I think now having my baby girl, it's a really inspiring experience for me. I want to give a lot of shout outs to my team, but I'm not going to choose any names, but we have really an amazing team. And when people ask me what am I proud of? So there are many things that I would have done again, but I think I'm really proud of the team that when I wake up and go to sleep or walk very late or travel very, a lot of complex travels, I know that they have a team I can rely on and they are the success of Immunai. It's not just the CEO, founders, it's really the team that grinds day in and day out. So shout out to the team. 

Jon - 00:21:02: That's really beautiful. And I would completely agree. I always talk about my wife. When we were starting Excedr a long time ago, when revenue was zero, I couldn't pay myself a salary. So if you do the math, the simple math, you don't need a PhD in math to do this. Where did the money come from? And my wife was generous enough to say, I got you. And just like, I'll really put food on the table and a roof over our head to give me the room to start Excedr. So I completely resonate with your story of your wife being supportive of the entrepreneurial venture. And I don't think it's talked about enough. So that's really beautiful. And our last closing question, if you can give advice to your 21-year old self, what it would be?

Noam - 00:21:49: Take more risks. I think there are two advice. The first one is to get out of academia, earlier. I think I could have done this earlier, but, and to take risks. I think the other advice I would not only give my 21 self, I would give all of the viewers and listeners, study Biology.

Jon - 00:22:13: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, that's great advice. And I think, you know, something I reflect on a lot as well. I got lucky. My luck is I stumbled into biology just because of this incredible teacher in AP biology, Mr. Fong. And I feel super lucky about that. And I'm like, I'm super grateful as well for that luck. And I love your advice to yourself to take more risk. Love academia like look it's incredibly it's the backbone of all this. But I think something to think about for any founders out there and again this is not to say that founders that are later in their career are older it's too late. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying, there is something to be said about being young and taking the risk when you don't have as many responsibilities. You don't have a child that you need to take care of yet, right? You know, it is literally like, can I live on some ramen? Like, you know, can I can I live off of this? I think I'll be okay. So I'll let's pile on the risk now. And if it doesn't work out. I'll be all right. And there's something to that. There's a beauty to it as well. You talked about the long, the long horizon for you and your company. And there's something about compounding, knowledge and value. The earlier you start, you let the compounding just really, you know, compounding looks flat until it isn't. And then it starts going to the moon. So I love that advice. And I think it's everyone who is thinking about jumping into the, you know, taking the leap of faith into entrepreneurship can find value from that. Thank you for your time.

Noam - 00:23:58: Thank you.

Jon - 00:23:58: I really appreciate it. Maybe when you're in New York, I'll catch you. We'll grab a beer. And yeah, thank you so much.

Noam - 00:24:05: Thank you again. It was great to spend the time with you. And I also learned from your experiences as well. So thanks for sharing.

Jon - 00:24:11: Thanks, Noam. Talk soon.

Outro - 00:24:15: That's all for this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast. We hope you enjoyed our four-part series with Noam Solomon. Be sure to tune into our next series where we chat with Doug Drysdale, CEO at Cybin, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company on a mission to create safe and effective psychedelic-based therapeutics to address a large unmet need for new and innovative treatment options for people who suffer from mental health conditions. Doug is an experienced investor, corporate director and CEO who has chaired the board of a NASDAQ-listed company and, as a CEO for the past 14 years, has built and turned around four pharmaceutical companies. During Doug's 30-plus years of experience in the healthcare sector, he has formed cohesive management teams, recruited board members, completed 16 corporate acquisitions across three continents. And has raised and invested around $4 billion of both public and private capital. Before his role at Cybin, Doug was Commercial Products Manager at Dupont Merck, Director of BD at Elan, VP of M&A at Actavis Group, CEO of Norwich Pharmaceuticals and Alvogen, CEO of Pernix Therapeutics and CEO of Tedor Pharma. Doug's extensive background as a seasoned CEO, investor and turnaround specialist gives him a wide range of experiences that founders can learn from. 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.