Quin Wills - Ochre Bio - Part 1

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

Jon - 00:00:23: My guest today is Quin Wills, CSO and Co-Founder of Ochre Bio, a pioneering biotechnology company developing RNA therapies for chronic liver diseases. Using a combination of genomic deep phenotyping, precision RNA medicine, and testing in live human donor livers, Ochre is developing therapies for liver health challenges ranging from increasing donor liver supply to reducing cirrhosis complications. In addition to his work at Ochre, Quin is also a highly accomplished academic with a medical degree from Witwatersrand University and doctoral degrees from Cambridge and Oxford in computational biology, mathematics, and statistical genomics. Along with his academic accomplishments, Quin also co-founded SimuGen and has worked at the University College London, the Mayo Clinic, and Novo Nordisk before he went on to co-found Ochre Bio. Quin's diverse experiences offer a wealth of insights that everyone can draw inspiration from. Over the next four episodes, we cover a wide range of topics, including Quin's early years growing up in Johannesburg, his experience as a research scientist at UCL, his pursuit of dual degrees at Oxford University, and his journey founding and building multiple biotechs. He also shares insights into Ochre Bio's evolution and their unexpected journey through Y Combinator and more. Today, we'll chat about Quin's childhood, the importance of seizing opportunities when they arise, and challenging the status quo. We'll also touch on his time at UCL, his transition from medical school to studying genetics while at Witwatersrand University, getting his MPhil in biology at Cambridge, and his early exposure and passion for bioinformatics and big data during the Human Genome Project era. Without further ado, let's dive into this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast.

Quin - 00:01:54: Where would you like to start? I mean, I'm as a gay kid raised in a loving but religious at home in the rougher suburbs of Johannesburg during apartheid. But I don't think any of that very directly impacted my leadership style and philosophy. I think something that I've come to embrace over the last decade is this concept of situational leadership. I'm a big believer in that. I think it's very tough for more leadership to practice. If anyone works it out, let me know because I think I still suck at it. But it is something that's so important when you're starting young companies because sometimes you do need to be visionary and sometimes you do need to be more transactional. But guys, this is where it's going. The authority says, this is it. I do try and make the effort at least once a quarter to really meet with everyone in the company, including junior team members. And it is an opportunity more for the mentoring style leadership. And I've come to realize I'm a bit of a stuck record because I'm too consistent. And I do tend to hop on two topics. And I have realized that those two topics came from sort of a lot of my early life as a kid, you know. And one is always encouraging scientists to be action prone. You know, that part of our brain gets damaged with PhDs. You get told to be analytical and slow it down and really do the part. And it gets beaten out of you. For me, that's never, I don't want to say it's ever been an issue, that's pretentious, but I've always been a very action prone individual. And I know where it started. My grandparents were English. So that's my connection with the UK. And they left the UK after the war, you know, tough class system. And they wanted to reinvent their lives in South Africa. So really interesting people. And, you know, my granddad gave me this advice in his deathbed saying, you know, never forget that opportunity in life is like trying to grab the hair of a bald man with a beard, once he's walked past his date. You know, it's such a bizarre analogy, but it really stuck with me. And that really heavily influenced me there on out to always take the opportunity when it arises, because you never know when it's going to happen next. And that's something that I really try to encourage in scientists a little bit more. The other thing that I just annoy everybody with is just because it works like that, is there not a different way to do this? You know, the challenging way of doing things. And this is going to make you laugh. And I don't know why this stuck with me, but it was a moment that really stuck with me as a kid. I was in my second year of school. And our teacher was teaching us some mathematical problems, early days maths, but, you know, basic expansion on timetables and stuff like that. And I remember her giving us the lesson and then leaving the class and giving us exercises to do. And I remember we were naughty kids. The moment the teacher left, we would walk around and talk. And I remember the whole class being so convinced that what she meant was one thing. Like the whole class telling me. And I was convinced about it. No, no, this is how it is. And everybody told me, you know, and they completely convinced me. And then I changed it to their way. And the teacher came back and my way was the right way and everyone else was wrong. And, you know, that's not me just saying I was right and everyone was wrong. But for me, it was, again, another one that really stuck with me. I can remember that exact moment in detail because it was one of those big universe moments where it's like, just because everyone says it that way doesn't mean it's that way. You know, always, always challenge and think about, you know. And then, of course, that's your brain switch. It's one of the teenager in the unusual country that South Africa was during a party. You learn, okay, just because your government says that that's right doesn't make it right. And there's just an element of that that I think I drive the team crazy with. And so perhaps those are my two sort of youthful contributions to the craziness that is me.

Jon - 00:05:38: Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny. I feel the same way. I always joke internally that I do sound like a broken record. But it's like, it's worth repeating. And it's like, also, as your company grows, and there's more junior people joining, who haven't heard the approach. Sorry to the senior folks who have heard it 100 times. But in order to keep it gelling, it is imperative to bear repeating. And I think there's a lot of momentum, that kind of inertia, actually, both, you know, from the pure physics concept, but just like behavior. It will stay in motion. So I really love that philosophy. And during your early days in schooling, were you always into science? Or was it something that you developed a love for science at a later point? 

Quin - 00:06:18: So another funny story. That time we comes in school. What do you want to be when you grow up? I said, I want to be a medical doctor who does research. And that kind of just always stuck with me. Here I am. I think the details of where I want to be in life, that was shaped by the latest age in life. But that was always there. And I think in terms of the science of it, and you will have seen all of this in sort of all the folks you've chatted to. Scientists come in lots of different flavors. One of the classic flavors are scientists are people who were good at it. They can think through problems. But they like the challenge. They get incredible satisfaction from it from GI problem. That was never me. If you gave me a Rubik's cube as a kid, I'd have gotten no satisfaction. We're going to solve the Rubik's cube. My satisfaction is peeling off the stickers and putting them back the right way.

Jon - 00:07:04: Yeah.

Quin - 00:07:04: Look, I found a hack. Same solution. Same solution. Just, you know, I've never been that kind of scientist, but I didn't quite raise it like this as a kid, but definitely as an adult, when I had the words to explain it is I'm very driven by moving beyond the current human condition. And I see science as just one of the most amazing school in which to do that. And I still do. I know it's not cheesy, but it is such a privilege to be out of this evolution of society where I get paid to do this. It's wonderful. And I still love it as old as I am.

Jon - 00:07:43: I think about that too. You got to pinch yourself sometimes where you feel like you're almost living like in the sci-fi future, but it's now. And you're just like, whoa. And then you can like, I even sometimes thinking back maybe 10 years ago, it was like, it was markedly different and the pace in which it changes and like the tools that are now available to scientists. It's like, we're spoiled in a way. You're just like, I would say I would not want to go back technologically. I'm like, this is like a great place right now.

Quin - 00:08:09: We are so privileged right now. And we can get onto this whole debate about AI and implanting humans in science. The problem at the moment is not inability to analyze all the data. And so we need AI. The inability. The problem is we're reaching a point where we spoil for choice with tools. And it's just people who can creatively think about the right question and then bring the tools in. I mean, I just, oh, it's so much fun. It really, really is. And it's a real pleasure to be in medicine right now.

Jon - 00:08:37: Absolutely. And you went to medical school as well and you did genetics. Can you talk a little bit about your undergraduate studies and medical school?

Quin - 00:08:44: Sure. So I did a bit of like an integrated study. I feel like when I look at a lot of the undergraduates here in Oxford, they all seem so driven and really know what they want. I was like, this is great. I'm just a number. I can do what I want. And there was an element of that. And so I ended up doing a way too long protracted, sort of intercalated, a bit of science, a bit of my pre-technical years, finished off my honors level in science, then went to medical. And, you know, when I started doing the science side of things, my two majors that I worked with, the one that I took forward then was genetics, but then also microbiology and lab-based work. So I have a lab-based grounding, but learned very quickly that I like the data side of things. And that's why I love genetics, because genetics is like a little bit of mathematics at an undergraduate level. And that love for genetics just grew from there.

Jon - 00:09:36: Very cool. Was that something that you found this spark from within? Or was there someone like a professor or a mentor that kind of sparked that flame for you?  

Quin - 00:09:44: I definitely had some very encouraging lecturers who are like, you clearly like this. Go with it. I was like, okay. And it's good to hear to hear, because you're young. It was really helpful in those days to have lecturers who took the time and said, listen, you're clearly loving this. You're doing above average. Run with it.

Jon - 00:10:02: Did you have a lab experience that early on where your actual wet lab experience came or did it come later?

Quin - 00:10:07: No, we started right from the very beginning. A classic genetics classes where breeding your own fruit flies and looking at the genetics of fruit flies. To be honest, I actually do quite enjoy. People ask me, you know, don't you miss patients? Don't you miss the wet lab? I love all of that. It's just that you can't do everything in life.

Jon - 00:10:25: Yeah, exactly. That is something worth repeating too. It's just like, and you're talking about like the plethora of tools and just like all the options available. It's kind of this thing where I wish there was like unlimited time in the day, but there's like, if you work backwards, you do need to sleep. You have to make decisions and have to focus or else you're just going to be spread too thin for it to be effective in any way. So it sounds like you found everything, like you're kind of at this point where like you love the wet lab. You love like the genetics, mathematical component of research, but you also like the clinical aspect of it too. How did you end up choosing to go to UCL to be a research scientist? Like what was it that actually was like, all right, I'm going to do this, like pick a lane or "pick a lane" .

Quin - 00:11:06: I hadn't quite picked it up then. I had it all figured out by the time I moved to the UK. By the time I hit the end of medicine in South Africa, I was feeling very frustrated. This was the late 90s. South Africa was at its peak of its AIDS epidemic. And we had a government that did not recognize that this was an issue. It was super frustrating. I felt very almost burnt out and very disenfranchised. And what am I doing here? What did excite me in the late 90s was like, oh, there's this thing called the Human Genome Project that seems to be coming together very nicely. Because I really then loved the whole story of the acting panicking when industry was taking the lead. It's a wonderful story of science. And I was like, you know what? I think I really want to go for the big data stuff. And this is where I want to go. Here's the challenge. Bioinformatics didn't really exist in those days yet.

Jon - 00:11:57: Not yet.

Quin - 00:11:57: It did. We talk about it like it's an old thing now, but it didn't. I mean, that's 20 years ago, right? And even then, at the beginnings of Bioinformatics, people were like, what is it? Do you need to do computer science? Do you need to do mathematics? Do you need to do statistics? I mean, AI wasn't even really a big feature in all of that yet. ML was clustering. So I thought, well, you know what I'm going to have to do? I'm going to have to suck it up. And it is not going to happen in South Africa. It wasn't going to happen for me. I need to suck it up and go to the UK. But I had to take a very big step back. It wasn't my dream job. It wasn't genetics. It was microbiology again. And even though I was given the title research scientist because of my qualifications, it was a technician role. I had to take a technician role. So I took a big step back in life. I worked in sites so that I could get myself out in the UK. And what I did was, during that year, I enjoyed the people I worked with. Lots of great lessons. There was a strong industry focus in that research too. It was therapeutics, which was great. So I enjoyed the elements of that. But I really spent the time, any day I could take off, I would jump on a train or a bus and go visit a professor in a university to ask them about what did they think this field was going? I think it was one of the times in my life where I was just really touched by the kindness of people. I actually look back now, I was like, who were you just emailing these professors from nowhere? You were like, it was nobody. And they were like, oh, come over tomorrow. No, it really was. I actually have blush now just thinking about it.

Jon - 00:13:23: Yeah, yeah.

Quin - 00:13:23: But that's what I did. And there were just some really incredible people on the whole spectrum. You said, the London, Oxford, you know, Cambridge Triangle, who took the time to just, ignorant. South African shift. It was like, so, parking addicts. 

Jon - 00:13:41: Yeah, big data.

Quin - 00:13:42: You know, for me, I was trying to understand the culture, where it's going. Because they were very distinct cultures. There was mathematical biology, which is still its own very unique culture. And computer science, statistics. And I really wanted to get a sense for how people thought about the space. And once I had some ideas, I made applications to go and do my further studies. And that's how I then got into studying in the UK, staying on, becoming a citizen. 

Jon - 00:14:10: Very interesting. And that's really inspiring that you decided, like, I'm going to take this step back. Kind of one step backwards, but you're now in a completely new environment. It's like an immigrant story, where you're like, you know, I've done step one through whatever, five here. But if I'm going to tap into this ecosystem, this nascent bioinformatics ecosystem, some things might have to give. And that's a very powerful concept for anyone, like, sometimes a sacrifice needs to be made in order to get two steps forward, maybe three steps forward.

Quin - 00:14:43: It's such a tough thing to learn in life. It really, really is. And you're right. Some of us who are the immigrant story, you've had to learn that. You know, it's like, who are you coming to the UK? You'd be like, I have two degrees. I have.  

Jon - 00:14:55: Yeah. Yeah.

Quin - 00:14:56: I know, we have lots of talent.

Jon - 00:14:58: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Quin - 00:15:00: But I just feel in an age where in the work situation, things progress a lot quicker now. There's, there's an expectation for things to progress quicker. There's nothing wrong with taking two steps back for a year or two to then take multiple steps forward beyond that. And it's another broken record moment. I think I like to hop on.

Jon - 00:15:19: Yeah, absolutely. I feel the exact same way. And it's painful in the moment, but it's kind of a thing where if you're too micro, you can lose sight of that. On the net, it's like, if you zoom out, you're like, oh, this is absolutely a no-brainer. And I love hearing that people were kind enough to open the doors and have those conversations. And I think as scientists, we can sometimes be so focused and like, I don't want to like ruffle feathers, but most people don't bite. And what is the worst thing they can say? They can ignore or just say no, but more often than not, they say yes, which is beautiful.

Quin - 00:15:51: It was quite something. And talking about technology and thinking about how the world evolves. In those days, we didn't have the internet in our homes. So this was going out to little internet cafes.

Jon - 00:16:01: Cafes, internet cafes.

Quin - 00:16:03: I'm rising from an internet cafe. There goes the, the connectivity.

Jon - 00:16:07: I need to go pay another $10 for an hour of internet.

Quin - 00:16:10: That's exactly it.

Jon - 00:16:12: Like, wait a second. I got to go to the front desk.

Quin - 00:16:15:  Exactly. Yeah. My brother immigrated to the UK many, many, many years after me. And I drive him nuts because there is that particular road. There was an internet cafe that I used to go to all the time, which is now some bougie something or other. And I was like, that's where it all began.

Jon - 00:16:29: Yeah, that's the origin. That's the origin. There's a plaque just like Quin was here. The monumental email that went out. 

Quin - 00:16:38: In my mind, maybe. Yeah. Different times.

Jon - 00:16:42: Different times.

Outro - 00:16:45: That's all for this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast. We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Quin Wills. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave us a review and share it with your friends. Thanks for listening. And we look forward to having you join us again for part two of our conversation with Quin. 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 Exceda or its guests.