Chris Moxham - Part 4: Redefining Drug Discovery with AI, Genetics, & Biotech Innovation

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 Chris Moxham about his leap from Eli Lilly to a smaller biotech, discussed the learning curve of working with investors, and heard how Chris honed his skills in communicating science in business contexts. Chris also shared insights into building Transcripta Bio's discovery engine. If you missed it, be sure to go back and listen to part three. In part four, we talk with Chris about the complexities of building partnerships with Big Pharma as a startup, sharing insights on developing relationships with larger organizations and patent foundations, and emphasizing the importance of mutual goals and the art of aligning incentives. Chris also highlights Transcripta's progress with their groundbreaking Drug-Gene Atlas. Combining genetics, AI and high-throughput data to redefine the future of drug discovery. 

Jon - 00:01:20: You mentioned now that you are in discussions or are currently partnered with some Big Pharma. And I guess a couple questions. What does it feel like to be on the other side now, partnering with probably your colleagues on the other side? 

Chris - 00:01:33: Yeah, I mean, there is the and I recognize it sort of in myself sitting when I was sitting on the other side, like, yeah, we can do that. What's so special?

Jon - 00:01:42: Yeah.

Chris - 00:01:42: What's so special? Like, we can do this. But it's well, actually, you're right. You could. Right. But you're not. And we've taken the time to do this. And so this could be complementary to what you're doing.

Jon - 00:01:55: Yeah.

Chris - 00:01:55: And doesn't have to be seen as a competition, right? So I think there is that element of recognizing why you... Get that response sometimes. 

Jon - 00:02:03: Yep.

Chris - 00:02:03: I think the other is the element of. Being responsive to us as a small company, right? Moving these things along. Because of what they could represent for us as a small company, I'm looking for responsivity quickly, right?

Jon - 00:02:19: Here we go.

Chris - 00:02:21: And that sometimes is what you get mirrored back. Sometimes you don't.

Jon - 00:02:24: Yep.

Chris - 00:02:25: And so, again, when I was sitting on the other side of the table. You weren't as attuned to the sense of urgency, if you will, to what the other partner needed, right, in that regard. And you kind of operated on your time. So there is that element as well. Again, I'm learning sort of the BD hat and just how to, you know, move those things along. Again, not being. You know, a real extrovert, frankly. Just learning from people, right? How to have these conversations and move things along. So it's, yeah, it's funny, right? How things come around full circle in life. And now you're on this side of the table and you can see. What it's like, but also... It's instructive because you also have a sense for what's driving their decisions on their side and why things would take a little bit longer or understanding, well, how many layers of approval do we have to go through to get this job done? With this deal done or partnership done versus, you know, who's the right person to talk to.

Jon - 00:03:24: Absolutely. And as you're learning this kind of like you're flexing this BD muscle now, what are some what are the hardest parts about doing BD with Big Pharma, in your opinion?

Chris - 00:03:35: For me personally, asking the appropriate questions in terms of discovery, right? Like, what are your objectives? How are decisions made? Can you operate on this timeline? I just wasn't asking those questions. I was there more for, again, talking about this amazing thing we have and here's how we could partner. Spending more time now really asking them, well, what would be ideal for you, right? What are you looking for in a partnership, both strategically and, you know, what are your objectives for the year? What are going to help you be successful? So really, I think first and foremost, starting with building that relationship before you jump into, here's the partnership, right?

Jon - 00:04:12: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris - 00:04:14: So it's an art for sure. And their skill to learning those things has been, you know, kind of my apprenticeship.

Jon - 00:04:22: Yeah. 

Chris - 00:04:23: And I think I'm getting better at it.

Jon - 00:04:24: Totally. In your opinion, what makes for the ideal, you know, startup and Big Pharma partnership? Like what are the kind of foundational elements of that?

‍

Chris - 00:04:35:I think where there's really strong buy-in on, let's say the research plan, right? What's the... The area we're focused on, and we're building a plan together. It's not like one side just throwing it over the wall to the other. So you have that element of buy-in, right? And you have a champion on both sides. And. We're just in the midst of closing out a partnership where it started from that. What is a strong research plan? We're all at the table together really building this. And so there's no question this is what we want to do. And the right people are at the table to then take it to the next level for decision making. So I think it really starts from that shared sense of this is what we want to do. It's not being forced down somebody's throat. There's value on both sides. It's clear. I would say it starts there. 

Jon - 00:05:21: Awesome. And this is a very nitty gritty question. And it's mostly coming from my naivete. But in Big Pharma land, how many stakeholders do you need to actually get bought in for a project like this or a partner like this? Is it like you can count on one hand or are there like 10 people that need to get bought in to establish a relationship? 

Chris - 00:05:41: It can be done with the number of people on one hand. It just depends what the scale and scope is. If it's a more straightforward research collaboration, let's say using our platform to screen in a given cell type. Of therapeutic area interest, that's probably a simpler agreement. And the number of people that have to really be involved to truly approve and say yes is probably on a single hand, right? I think if you're talking about... In licensing an asset.

Jon - 00:06:08: Yeah, yeah.

Chris - 00:06:10: That is a different discussion, right? That brings in many more people from a corporate development perspective and other areas as well. It gets more complex. And so it will take certainly longer, right?

Jon - 00:06:22: Yep. 

Chris - 00:06:22: You know, six months, nine months, right?

Jon - 00:06:25: Yeah.

Chris - 00:06:25: So understanding that, and I think appreciating that going in, how complex is this to the other organization? And then appropriately setting your, how long this should take, both in terms of what you're planning for, as well as communicating to your board and other people. Here's how it's going, but also here's when I think we could close it.

Jon - 00:06:42: Very cool. Sometimes I'm just like, I like observing kind of like how different industries kind of operate. And my wife is in enterprise sales, but for software and but like a common software playbook is to kind of have a level that is kind of the free level, where it doesn't really require the five approvals or the 10 approvals, where someone who's just like an IC can just, you know. Pick up the software free of charge, start using it, immediately start finding value. And then eventually their peer set starts all using it. And then eventually it gets like to the point where, yeah, where the, there's someone in management is like, oh, I didn't even know all of you who are using it. Maybe we should use it. And to go back into like the life sciences, I'm like, I'm just curious, like, how do you get that first touch? Right. Is it, is it kind of like the, you know, you mentioned earlier about like the job interview, oftentimes it's, it's who, you know, who gets you through the first door when it comes to breaking ice with Big Pharma. Is that something to where it's just like your network is your net worth kind of situation.

Chris - 00:07:48: Your network is really important. It's funny. I can't tell you the number of times on meetings I've joined at other companies. And there's a Lily colleague that I worked with. Like, oh, hey.

Jon - 00:08:00: Good to see you again. Yeah.

Chris - 00:08:02: And so connections are really important, and that's a great way to break in. You know, cold calling and those kinds of things. Yes, you can have some success, but having close connections on the other side is a great way to get a receptive ear initially, right? Just in terms of kind of, here's where we are, here's what we're doing. You think there's something we could, and to your point, like, is there something that we can get done quickly that would be a great way to demonstrate utility and value. And if we're successful there, then will it lead to something bigger, right? So rather than trying to go for the big home run right out of the gate.

Jon - 00:08:36: Yeah, just like boil the ocean. We're just like, we're going to do the biggest deal possible, like out the gate. You're just like, oh my God, we can like crawl, walk, run this. Like we can, versus just like, you know, putting all the eggs in one basket, like out the gate. Obviously we were talking about Big Pharma. Does Transcripta also partner with other organizations?

Chris - 00:08:57: We do. We've partnered with patient foundations. We've had like over 30 partnerships there. We are developing a partnership with medical institutions where you can imagine that. We're screening FDA approved drugs and we're uncovering opportunities for repurposing that are not really commercially tractable, but nonetheless could create value for patients, right? And so creating relationships with medical institutions where giving them access to our data on FDA approved drugs, particularly in monogenic rare diseases, where they may have patients that they see that that could be a path forward. I mentioned patient foundations, you know, talking to other nonprofits. But certainly pharma and biotech. And then, you know, we've also are in NVIDIA's Inception program, for example, right? And so we are, you know, working closely with them. And that's been a phenomenal relationship as well. 

Jon - 00:09:49: Guess really really quick on that what is it like working with NVIDIA? I mean, I my interfacing with NVIDIA, was having one of their GPU cards, like in like a desktop computer.

Chris - 00:10:00: I've never, uh, really, really supportive. Great. They've been tremendously supportive of Transcripta. Their inception program is really designed to facilitate small startups' interaction with NVIDIA to leverage the tools they're creating for work we're doing. We've been doing that. But they've been tremendously supportive getting us in front of other companies.

Jon - 00:10:23: Cool.

Chris - 00:10:24: So they've been phenomenal.

Jon - 00:10:25: That's awesome. And you touched on patient foundations, medical institutions. You know, I realize these could be like hour-long masterclasses. But let's start with patient foundations. What makes for, like, I guess, how is that different than Big Pharma? And kind of what makes for an ideal partnership with a patient foundation and a company like Transcripta? 

Chris - 00:10:49: I think first and foremost with these patient foundations, right? These are individuals who are living with... Either the disease themselves or have a child, usually they are living this firsthand, right? So honesty and integrity and just being upfront about what's possible, what is impossible is really, really important. And really being a good listener, because we certainly, you know, we are in the business of hope, right? But for these people in particular, right, you are really, you know. I just go into it. Being very, I think, conservative in terms of just, look, I would love to create hope and find something. You know, I'm not going to promise you something that we can't do necessarily. So those relationships happening, you know, they're good relationships. And the work that we, you could call it client-paid R&D in terms of what we've been doing. And again, we've repurposed now five different drugs for five different diseases. You know, it's great to see here back when, you know, there's signs of people doing better. But they are, these are not big companies, right? They're not a biotech even. And so, you know, you're typically interacting with a parent who's got a foundation that they're running or some organization. And so you just have to manage. You know, to the level of where you are, right? And so those can be really rewarding, but they are a different flavor versus traditional sort of BD types of discussions with a biotech or a pharma company where the rules, the business rules are really well understood, if you will, right? The ground rules are really well understood. And there isn't as much personal, I'll say emotion, but also just personal need as embedded into the nature of the partnership that you're discussing. Yes, it's focused on helping patients ultimately, but really it is a business-to-business business that you're building in partnership that you're trying to get to. 

Jon - 00:12:42: Yep.

Chris - 00:12:43: And likewise with the academic institutions, it's, you know, how can we help facilitate additional research on the things that we've uncovered or their research, but also how can we feed things into clinical research in the academic setting?

Jon - 00:12:57: Very cool. And maybe this is just my experience at Berkeley, but this was a long time ago, so I can't claim that it is like this right now, but. There very much used to be like this like separation between church and state where it's just like I got a very puzzled look when I was like, yeah, I'm going to try and, you know, we're going to start Excedr. And this our goal is to help you get the equipment without breaking the bank. And they're like, where's the data? Exactly your experience. Like, give me the data, because if you're not talking about the data, get out of here. And just the concept of like business was like very kind of almost there was like the the body rejection, like the organ rejection. Do you find as a startup collaborating with academic institutions, things are more collaborative? Have they gone worse? Have they gotten better than, you know, what an act like industry academic kind of relationship might be?

Chris - 00:13:50: The ones that we've had so far have been very good. And I think just because more and more of these have been done, obviously, the rules of the road are pretty well understood. You know what each side is going to be looking for, more or less. And so if you're coming to the table on a shared opportunity to help each other out, and their currency typically is publications, right? So making for that to be available, as well as getting more data on molecules or things that we're interested in. So it becomes this, you know, mutually beneficial relationship. Yeah, we've had good experience doing that. I can't say we've had a horrible experience.

Jon - 00:14:24: That's awesome. I've heard horror stories way back when.

Chris - 00:14:28: No doubt they're out there. Right. But I think it's maybe we're again, just the missions weren't aligned from the very beginning. Right. And now you're trying to force people to get to your side like this. You're both directly just going at each other, right? And now each side is dug in, right?

Jon - 00:14:42: Yeah. I think that's, you know, is that alignment of incentive? And regardless of your investor, is it your team that you're managing? Is it partnerships? Really, literally any stakeholder. It's just like finding that alignment is at least what I'm learning is like critically important. And I think something that I'm now, as I'm kind of just like thinking about it, it's like, if you don't find that alignment early on, it's okay to be like,

‍

 Chris - 00:15:07: Hey. You know what, this isn't going to work out. 

Jon - 00:15:10: Yeah, and that's okay. And I think, you know, in the early days, I was like, you know, I think when Excedr was far smaller, I wanted to say like, this is right. This is like, let's go for it. And kind of put the, this kind of, not shoo it under the rug, but just like, yeah, I can overlook this, like this little, this little detail. And I think it'll just be fine. But those little things where you're just like, didn't have that alignment, oftentimes bite you in the butt later. And it's now with all the kind of scar tissue of being bit, I'm like.

Chris - 00:15:43: Okay. I've seen this before.

Jon - 00:15:45: I've seen this before and it's all right. And there's no hard feelings either. And just like-

Chris - 00:15:50: No, not at all. Right. You're probably better off recognizing it then. Than going down a period of time where you're now creating even more pain for each other.

Jon - 00:16:00: Yeah, absolutely.

Chris - 00:16:02: Most things come down to leadership, right? In terms of the principles of leadership and just how you do stuff.

Jon - 00:16:08: Absolutely. And I think it also is like it happens at all levels to like. That's right. Like it's not necessarily just like reserved for.

Chris - 00:16:17: No, leadership is not just for the people in leadership is it is for everybody. And we try to instill that here. And ownership is also a big component. Act like you're an owner of the company. And help each other out in the same way. Take ownership of helping each other out.

Jon - 00:16:34: Yep, absolutely. I love that because I think sometimes that exactly what you said is like, leadership is not just for leadership. Could you like TM that? It's like, it's so critically important too. And I think. With that autonomy and people feeling like they're not getting micromanaged and also they can start doing things self-sufficiently, you also are building stronger and stronger generations of leaders as your organization begins to grow.

Chris - 00:17:02: And people will surprise you with how much they can achieve, right? And they'll surprise themselves as well.

Jon - 00:17:06: Yep.

Chris - 00:17:07: And it's just, that's like when it becomes fun. Like-

Jon - 00:17:10: Yeah.

Chris - 00:17:10: It's like, well, look at what we're doing now. Like this is-

Jon - 00:17:12: Like the meeting. Like, I'm just thinking about your meeting where like 25 meetings and you're like, there's like this, this trust and rhythm where you're not even second guessing.

Chris - 00:17:23: Yeah. As soon as you got one question, I knew like, it's, I'm going to hand it off to him and it's going to come back to me this way. And we're just going.

Jon - 00:17:30: Yeah. And I used to play sports like way back when, and there was some like some teams that I played on, whereas that exact element where it's just like, I was playing lacrosse. So I was just like, I know you're going to be here at like around this time. So you just like, like whip a pass and lo and behold, there they are. And it's like where you started. And you don't even have to think about it. But I think I see parallels to that, even in company, company building. It's just like, you know, you just know that they're going to be there at the right time. And I try to learn from successful organizations, but also try my best to learn like the lessons of like organizations that might be dysfunctional. And there's like, usually that like lack of trust. Where it's kind of like second guessing and just like slows everything, everything down. But not only slows everything down, but I think it's... That lack of trust, I think trust and lack of trust can be, it's kind of like this logarithmic curve where there's like more trust, but gets more trust.

Chris - 00:18:32: Oh yeah. It's synergistic, right? When you have a little bit of trust between the two, it's synergistic in that way. And likewise, distrust becomes negatively synergistic.

Jon - 00:18:41: Yeah. You start going in like the opposite, like exponentially in a different direction and the organization, it's kind of like, it's just like, oh my God, like how it's kind of like when also when I think about hiring too, about. Like setting the culture, setting that trust, empathy and respect early on. And once your organization starts getting bigger and these people that your early kind of cohort end up making hiring decisions, maybe they're hiring two people. So it starts getting like, the culture starts multiplying. And if you don't set it up right in the beginning, you can multiply in the wrong direction.

Chris - 00:19:17: Absolutely. And it can happen fast, right? And so you really have to make sure that you're hiring for the right traits. Skills can be taught, right? But if you're hiring for the right traits, that's where if you don't hire for the right traits, you will destroy your culture.

Jon - 00:19:32: Yeah. And that's exactly a phrase that I learned from a family friend. It was the... Hire for attitude, train for aptitude. Because it's really hard to train anyone to have a good attitude. You kind of have it or you don't.

Chris - 00:19:48: Yeah. Either somebody else trained it into you early on.

Jon - 00:19:51: Yeah, exactly. So it's like critically important. Man, Chris, this has been an amazing conversation.

Chris - 00:19:58: Thank you. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. It's been great.

Jon - 00:20:02: And, you know, as we're looking forward, you know, one year, two years, what's in store for Transcripta and yourself?

Chris - 00:20:10: Continue to build this industry dominant Drug-Gene Atlas, which will create many opportunities. For us to either start taking things forward ourselves into the clinic and or partner within this very broad ecosystem. And we will build something that leverages not only interrogates biology at scale. Through this druggable target space. Leverages compute at scale as well. So we will be state of the art in everything we do. My goal, hopefully, is that someday we become a public company. So taking the company public and just looking back after we've done that and have been successful in terms of where we started from, but how we got there, right? Not just what we did, but how we did it is really what I'm excited to see.

Jon - 00:20:57: Very cool. And in traditional closing questions, there's two of them. First question, would you like to give any shout outs to anyone who's supported you along the way? And I know you've there are folks you've given shout outs to.

Chris - 00:21:08: But. Yeah, I mean, well, you know, certainly my parents, obviously my family, all of my siblings, my kids, my family have been phenomenal. I've mentioned people along the way, both in terms of, you know, Ephraim Racker and Craig Malbon and Kurt Steiner and John Hadcock and Alan Palkowitz and people like Phil Hipskin as a medicinal chemist, many other medicinal chemists, Greg Plowman. Has been a great mentor as well. Robert Gould was a great mentor at Fulcrum. The board at Fulcrum was really great. People like... Jim Collins and Jim Garrity were really phenomenal there. Alan Azikowitz on the board at Fulcrum. And then here, you know, people I've had the chance to interact with on the team, both in terms of machine learning scientists. And I'm not a machine learning scientist by any means. But yeah, those are the people that I would highlight along the way.

Jon - 00:22:01: That's so cool.

Chris - 00:22:01: There'll be many more, I'm sure.

Jon - 00:22:03: Absolutely. And hearing that, we talked about how drug discovery is a miracle, but it also just takes a village.

Chris - 00:22:12: Yeah. You know, and somebody else like a person like Dave Port, again, another postdoc, when I was a graduate student, Dave and John were postdocs and really were, you know, to me, instrumental in being good role models for what good science looked like. But also just, you know, made things hard on me. Appropriately putting in my place at times as well as just challenging me to be better.

Jon - 00:22:36: I have this, I know that experience for sure. Like I know that experience for sure. And our last closing question is if you can give any advice to your 21 year old self, what would it be?

Chris - 00:22:47: I think, first thing would be like you know you got this right you can do it and i always kind of believe like it i can do things um but i think the other piece would be speak up more right like you have good ideas uh and while you may not think that people would be interested to hear or is it going to add value but actually People really do want to know what you think. And you do have good ideas to speak up and And that'll help your colleagues, but also... We'll open up other doors for you as well. Don't wait so long to speak up.

Jon - 00:23:17: I feel like I could use that advice for sure, because I feel like there are moments in time where I was just like... And maybe I'll just like stay mum about it. And I kind of beat myself up now in retrospect. I was like, I could have said something. Well, Chris, thank you so much for your time. This has been really, really fun.

Chris - 00:23:33: Yeah, I've enjoyed it immensely, but thank you.

Jon - 00:23:36: Awesome. And I'm so stoked for Transcripta and everything that you guys have in store. Like I said, there are probably those sections of our conversation that we could double click on and just like really go deep. And maybe we save that for another conversation. But Chris, thank you again. So generous. And I'll see you again soon.

Chris - 00:23:54: All right. Take care. Thank you so much.

Outro - 00:23:57: That's all for this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast. We hope you enjoyed our four-part series with Chris Moxham. Be sure to tune into our next series with Barry Ticho, founder of Verve Therapeutics and chief medical officer at Stoke Therapeutics, a biotech company addressing the underlying cause of severe diseases by upregulating protein expression with RNA-based medicines. Prior to Stoke, Barry was the head of development at Moderna, where he focused on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Before Moderna, he was head of external R&D innovation for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases at Pfizer and was VP of clinical development at Biogen for over a decade. An accomplished academic and physician, Barry obtained his MD-PhD from the University of Chicago, followed by a pediatrics residency at Northwestern. He then joined the pediatric cardiology group at Boston Children's Hospital, where he served as a clinical staff member at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital for nearly 20 years. Barry's insights into clinical development in large and small organizations. And for-profit and nonprofit settings makes for an incredibly valuable conversation and one that founders don't want to miss. 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.