Inner Rebel: Art, Physics & Purpose-Driven Leadership | Judy Chou (Part 1/4)

Intro - 00:00:06: 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. Our guest today is Judy Chou, President and CEO of AltruBio, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel therapeutics for immunological and inflammatory diseases. At AltruBio, Dr. Chou leads the development of PSGL-1 immune checkpoint agonists, a first-in-class mechanism targeting chronically activated T cells in autoimmune diseases with the mission of fundamentally resetting immune homeostasis rather than simply suppressing symptoms. Before founding AltruBio, Dr. Chou served as Global Head of Biotech and Senior Vice President at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, where she oversaw a $3 billion-plus product portfolio and led over 2,000 employees across six sites. Under her leadership, Bayer launched products including Jivi and Eylea, and transformed from traditional biologics to advanced therapies, including cell and gene therapies. Dr. Chou has spent over twenty-five years in drug development and biomanufacturing at Genentech, Pfizer, Medivation, and AbbVie, where she became broadly recognized for breakthrough technologies in high-throughput screening and accelerated product development. With a PhD from Yale University, postdoctoral training at the Max Planck Institute, and a faculty position at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Chou's journey from big pharma executive to startup CEO demonstrates how deep scientific expertise and bold leadership can drive innovation in autoimmune disease treatment—making this a conversation you won't want to miss. Over the next four episodes, Dr. Chou shares how her upbringing in Taiwan, an uncle's challenge about unsolved problems in biology, and a heartbreaking encounter with a young boy losing his mother to leukemia carried her from medical school through Yale and Harvard to building some of the most successful biologic drugs in the industry. She reflects on lessons from pioneering high-throughput screening methods that changed biomanufacturing, building Genentech's Oceanside product-driven department, navigating Medivation's $14.3 billion acquisition by Pfizer, and breaking barriers as the first Asian woman to lead Bayer's global biotech organization where she faced the reality that she filled no traditional categories for leadership. Today, we'll hear about Dr. Chou's early days in Taiwan, the influence of her professor parents, and how a conservative environment sparked an inner rebel who could meet expectations while imagining doing things entirely differently. We'll also hear how physics led her to medical school, shadowing a pioneering oncologist, and the longest walk of her life from an emergency room back to the lab that convinced her that she needed to find solutions, not just treat one patient at a time. Lastly, we'll hear about earning five honors in her first semester at Yale by taking five courses simultaneously and how her professor moving mid-PhD turned into a "Home Alone" experience that taught her independence. Without further ado, let's dive into part one of our conversation with Judy Chou.

Jon Chee - 00:04:14: Judy, so good to see you again. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Judy Chou - 00:04:17: Thank you for having me.

Jon Chee - 00:04:19: I know it's been a long time coming, and I've been really looking forward to this conversation. When we were doing our homework and creating the prep sheet for you, we wanted to go all the way back and learn about what really got you into science and business. What was your upbringing like to learn about what has influenced your leadership style and business philosophy? So take us all the way back. What was growing up like at home as a kid? Tell us about that experience. I was born and raised in Taiwan, and this was quite a while ago. There are two things I think about growing up in Taiwan. Even nowadays—not to get into politics—it's an environment where you always know there are threats. Using my words, I feel like you're living in an environment where you always feel like somebody is going to bully you. In a sense, it doesn't make sense, and somehow big power is over you, and you have to overcome and find a way. I wouldn't call it fun, but it influenced me in a positive way. I think I have this tendency—maybe a little bit obnoxious—to ignore people being unreasonable around me. You just have to ignore it and let it go because it's going to be there. So it doesn't bother me in some sense. Sometimes my team and my friends will feel like, "Why are you okay with it?" I don't think I'm okay with it, but I know it's going to be there. I ignore it, which maybe makes people feel annoyed, more than I live with it. So that is one big environmental thing that made me who I am today. The second thing is that I was living in an environment at that time that was very traditional and conservative. There were defined paths and defined things about being a "good kid." I don't know what happened to me, but I think even when I was young, I was probably one of the most well-behaved kids. It's not like any strange things happened, but inside my heart, I always had very creative thoughts about doing things differently if I got my way. Maybe that's also the characteristic about me: I can live with something, but when I get a chance, I'll do something pretty differently. So if I think about my childhood, it’s just those two big environmental things mixed with this traditional versus breaking-the-tradition dynamic going around. It has had a profound impact, and I would say it was relatively fun. Maybe the way I described it doesn't sound so fun, but that's how I would highlight my childhood.

Jon Chee - 00:07:14: Yeah, it sounds like you have an inner rebel. You're just like, "I might do things differently here."

Judy Chou - 00:07:22: Yeah. I think you pointed out something that I hate to admit—and that sounds very scary for people working with me—but I would admit that's true.

Jon Chee - 00:07:31: Yeah, I don't think it's a bad thing. There's a time and place for it, and I felt the same way when I was growing up. I had a decent rebellious streak too, but I was also well-behaved. I focused on academics and everything like that, but I had a bit of a rebellious streak. I think that kind of characteristic, certainly when it comes to entrepreneurship, feels almost like a prerequisite. You kind of have to buck the norm. So, I do appreciate that. And you talked about the conservative tracks that were laid out in front of you. Was it a thing where your family was like, "Look, you gotta go be X, Y, Z"? What was that track?

Judy Chou - 00:08:13: Many things. I think part of your question is about the family side. Definitely, there's certain expectation, but I must also give my parents credit. Compared to the parents of my friends growing up, they were probably much less traditional.

Jon Chee - 00:08:29: Oh, cool.

Judy Chou - 00:08:30: Both of them actually went outside of Taiwan for graduate school education, so they brought back a lot of different thoughts. Maybe that's how I became who I am. But anyhow, other things were also at school. That time was very different from today's Taiwan education. It was this whole obedience to hierarchy—that's how we defined good students at that time. I'm glad that's probably no longer the case, but that obedience thing kept me feeling like, "Well, okay, I'll do it, but I know you are not necessarily better than I am." Looking back, when I share detailed stories from when I was a model student, and I tell people what was in my heart while I was on stage doing something, people are shocked. They're like, "Wow, very bad." And I think, "Yeah, that was really what I was thinking." So some part came from family, but I give my parents credit. Among my friends, they recognized, "Oh, your family is very different." So I wouldn't say they were the ones giving me the most pressure; it was more about the environment.

Jon Chee - 00:09:49: Interesting. Yeah, my father and mother went to school in Malaysia, which had a similar kind of obedience. You must obey. My dad is actually more rebellious than I am.

Judy Chou - 00:10:00: Is that right? Wow.

Jon Chee - 00:10:01: Yeah, and he doesn't like talking about it. He didn't like to talk about how rebellious he was until I got much older. He started to be like, "Okay, I could tell you exactly the things that I did that probably were no-nos." But when I was a kid, he was just like, "Oh, no, it was perfect." I was 100% on my mom's side. She grew up in Indonesia but also had family in Taiwan as well and said similar things. So very interesting. Were your parents also in life sciences for graduate studies?

Judy Chou - 00:10:31: Totally different. This is probably something interesting. Suppose my parents are not in science. My father is an English literature professor, and my mom is a professor in library sciences. So I'm the only one in science. I don't know what happened. We are from a very artist-heavy family. My sister is a musician, and my brother is now doing a little bit more close to business, but pretty much all literature or humanities. I am the only one in science.

Jon Chee - 00:11:07: That's very cool. That is a little bit rebellious of you. You're like, "You know what? I'm gonna do science." I like that.

Judy Chou - 00:11:13: I don't know. I kind of try to defend myself and say that's genuine. Somehow, I'm interested in science. But yeah, if you say that, I wouldn't deny it either.

Jon Chee - 00:11:27: It's different. We could say it's different. And so as you were approaching university, talk a little bit about where your headspace was and how you chose to go where you went. I know you ultimately chose to go into medicine, but were there considerations to go to school overseas, like your parents? What were you thinking at that time?

Judy Chou - 00:11:48: Let me go back a little bit to elementary school. I mentioned my interest in arts. Frankly speaking, I was very good and considered a prodigy in painting, piano, singing, and writing. So maybe I'll turn your question to: "Then how could you go to science?" This connects to the first question you asked me. When I was about 12, in between elementary and middle school, the political environment hit me very hard. I thought, "This thing doesn't make sense." I started to be very interested—and I'm serious—in being a politician. I felt I should be the president of the country.

Jon Chee - 00:12:43: Interesting.

Judy Chou - 00:12:44: That probably started silencing my artist gene. Since I was such a good student in school, maybe I could turn that into something. But that turned very quickly. As I mentioned, somehow I just fell in love with science at about that age.

Jon Chee - 00:13:04: Was it a class or a teacher?

Judy Chou - 00:13:05: I think it was middle school starting to expose me to physics. I really like physics even up to today. I like the concept of understanding the reason for things and simplifying complicated observations into a single formula. That's just amazing. So I liked it so much, and of course, I was very good at it. That started turning me onto the science track. Unfortunately, in my education back then in high school, we needed to pass a very stringent entrance exam to get into the best, second, third, or fourth high school. I got into the best girls' high school. In that school, in order to maintain the name of being the "best," they usually put us all into different tracks. Of course, I assigned myself to the physics/engineering track because I was so interested in and good at it. The story takes a dramatic turn right before the entrance exam for college. Students in that track don't study biology at all because we have to pass a stringent entrance exam focused on physics, engineering, and math. So I never really studied biology. I specialized in physics, engineering, and math, and I think that background is still with me today. But the dramatic change happened around February or March, right before the exam (typically in July/August). I have to give credit to a grand uncle. He was a very famous surgeon—maybe one of the most successful surgeons in Taiwan. He chatted with me about being a doctor, and somehow he had this vision. He felt like I was going to be the next Chou family medical doctor. The way he said it was less about the typical Asian family pressure of "doctor is important," and more about passing along the good name. He had this big Chou family, and I was nobody—particularly being a girl in those old days. But he was like, "You're going to be the Chou family the next time." The other person in the family I definitely want to highlight is an uncle who is now a very well-known biochemistry professor in Taiwan. At that time, he asked me what I was going to be in college. I said I was absolutely going to study physics. He asked me, "Do you think you are smarter than Albert Einstein?" I couldn't say yes, right? He said, "This guy already figured out most of the physics things." My uncle was right. He said, "But you look at the biology questions—how many people have decoded that? No one. There is still a lot of groundbreaking work. If you feel like you're good in science, do something that makes sense." These two family members, in opposite ways, made me think. I thought I was going to make a huge difference and was so passionate about physics, but is that where I would have the most impact? My heart still went to physics, but I thought, "Well, it probably doesn't hurt." That was the first year Taiwan allowed students in the college entrance exam to take one extra exam. For my track, I could volunteer to take one extra biology exam, and then I would have the choice to choose medical school. That was groundbreaking—the first year. Not many people would do that because you didn't prepare for biology. I was like, "Well, if both of them say this is right, let me just pick up biology and study a little bit." Somehow, I always joke that I did abnormally good on that exam and got into medical school. If it wasn't because they motivated me, I wouldn't have had that motivation. I was always a little bit abnormal in medical school because most of my peers got into medical school without studying physics. So I was always the outstanding physics person. Today, particularly in the U.S., a lot of people come from engineering backgrounds, so it's not strange. But I was very strange in medical school because I was passionate about physics questions and interested in the engineering side. So that's the prelude to your question about medical school. It speaks a lot about my career—this breaking of boundaries has been happening from the very beginning.

Jon Chee - 00:19:40: Interesting. And I love what your uncles pointed out: there's basically so much discovery to be had. Like, we have not figured out virtually anything in the biological context. There are so many new things that you can discover to make an impact. To hear that when you're young is a massive inflection point. No one told me that. I wish someone told me that when I was embarking on it.

Judy Chou - 00:20:05: Absolutely. When I look back now—and recently when I saw my uncle, I praised him. He was like, "Oh, there's nothing."

Jon Chee - 00:20:13: He was like, "Whatever."

Judy Chou - 00:20:15: Yeah, that's interesting. It gives him extra credit because even if his logic was just a random comment at the time—"What's the point?"—he had a profound understanding of what Einstein had done. We were chatting about all those things I felt I was so good at, like theory, and he was like, "Yeah, but fundamentally, he really shook the whole physics world." Fast forward to today, people go into astronomy or things like that, but not like biology. Molecular biology was just in its infancy then—not to mention sequencing and the human genome. So I give my uncle credit. He saw through it: physicists have broken the stage, but biologists are not quite there yet. That was helpful for me.

Jon Chee - 00:21:20: Yeah, it might have been a throwaway comment for him, but it was very astute. My father told me a similar thing, but I don't think he had the opportunity to branch out in his track. It was just, "You're gonna be an engineer." But for you, the timing seems to have been prescient where they were like, "Actually, you can do cross-disciplinary studies," which is very cool. I see it a lot in the United States, where friends who went through medical school studied music for most of their time and then maybe did a little bit of biology. I think that diversity in discipline is a net benefit so everyone doesn't think 100% the same.

Judy Chou - 00:22:13: I like the way you highlighted it because that's me—I always have this multidisciplinary thing. Maybe in the U.S. it's nothing strange, but it was extremely strange growing up. If you and I ran into one of my elementary classmates or teachers and they said, "Oh, Judy," they would be shocked. They thought I would be an artist, writer, or musician because I was good at it and interested in it. How could this happen—Judy going to medical school? It's very abnormal, but I take that as a good thing. I really echo the point you said: multidisciplinary is key. It's where the innovation really comes from.

Jon Chee - 00:23:13: I absolutely agree. It is always surprising to see how different disciplines overlap. You encounter something and think, "What the heck? I saw that over there, but somehow it applies here in this domain."

Judy Chou - 00:23:32: Just for fun, I’ll share this with you. When I first took on a big role at Bayer, I had to introduce myself to thousands of people. It was probably the first time I publicly talked on stage about my artist background. At the very end of the Q&A session, one of my employees raised a hand and asked me, "What do you see as the benefit of your artist training?" Even today, I couldn't answer the question exactly. So I said, "Well, I think that really helped me making PowerPoints."

Jon Chee - 00:24:24: Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind—I make a great slide deck. It's killer.

Judy Chou - 00:24:29: I don't know what else I would say. I do have people help me make PowerPoints now, but if I ever need to make one, usually I impress my leadership team. They’re like, "Hey, that looks really good. Which firm?" And I say, "Well, that's my hobby."

Jon Chee - 00:24:50: I love that. So now you're in medical school, but you mentioned being a bit of an outsider because you had this physics background. How was the medical school experience?

Judy Chou - 00:25:04: It set the foundation for my whole experience because, with that research, physics, and engineering background, I was always curious about the lab. I spent most of my summers in the lab trying to understand a little bit more and read stories about scientists, even though I was training to be a medical doctor.

Jon Chee - 00:25:34: That was the first question for me. I was just like, "How did you end up in the lab?" usually those are different tracks.

Judy Chou - 00:25:41: I assigned myself. I looked at certain professors I was interested in. I started in the lab at pathology, then cell culture, and I also learned molecular biology.

Jon Chee - 00:26:03: You were just knocking on doors?

Judy Chou - 00:26:04: Yeah. I went to people and said, "The electron microscope is very..."—I particularly highlighted that because EMs are so expensive. I said, "I can learn. I could be an apprentice. I would just shadow anybody. I won't touch it, but I will try to learn." Literally, almost every summer, I signed myself up in a lab even though I knew I was going to be a medical doctor. In those days in Taiwan, it was less about the "physician-scientist" concept, but I did have many professors doing that out of genuine curiosity. You asked about medical school. In Taiwan, particularly at National Taiwan University, it is a top-notch medical school. You run into many super-talented people. There is a bit of history there because Taiwan used to be governed by Japan. The Japanese were a little worried about the Taiwanese getting too smart and becoming a problem, so Taiwanese were only allowed to get higher education in medicine, probably because Japan had a need for more doctors. So the most creative discipline allowed was medicine. This became a culture, even today. You see super-talented people go to medical school. Nowadays, Taiwan is very well known for semiconductors and business, but medical school still has a very special place. My experience was that not just the professors, but also my classmates, were very talented people—in music, in arts, and everything. It was a very enriching environment. However, later on, the question became: how come I would even bother to take a PhD? That is very unusual because almost 100% of people become medical doctors. You get a decent job, social status, and everything is super good. Studying for a PhD is a very unusual track because normally you go into clinical practice right away. I didn't. I got my degree and immediately went to do a PhD for a very profound reason.

Jon Chee - 00:29:14: Interesting. And you mentioned while in medical school, you were bumping into super sharp people. Was there anyone specifically that had an outsized impact on you or perhaps even took you under their wing?

Judy Chou - 00:29:28: I will highlight one professor, Dr. Chen Yao-Chang. However, it was in the opposite way. Recently, we got reconnected, and I really think he had a huge influence on my life. He was the first physician—an oncologist/hematologist—to do bone marrow transplantation successfully in Taiwan. I thought, "That's so cool," so I signed myself up on his team. Since I was only a fourth-year medical student, I was treated almost like an intern or resident. We went to do bone marrow extraction from patients. It is a horrible thing because you cannot fully anesthetize the patient. It was very profound and creative thinking, different from typical treatments. The reason I highlight him in the opposite way is because he was such a successful doctor. He praised me for having the "insight" or "sense" about being a doctor. He always said, "A good doctor knows what kind of medicine to prescribe when the patient walks in." But because he was so successful and so good, I had all those questions—not just about how to treat patients, but also the fundamental science I saw in the lab. He allowed me to shadow him. The more I observed, the more I had this internal question: "I can do whatever people expect me to do very well, but is this really the best thing you can possibly do?" Even in the U.S. thirty-plus years ago, there were not many solutions. Most cancer was a death sentence. Basically, we just had to tell patients and their families how to cope. I really did not think Judy should give up her dream of being a physicist—the super-creative person shaking the ground—just to be there to tell people their fate. That was very hard for me to take. If he is so successful and this is the best he can possibly do, is that what I really want to be? But the heartbroken part—and allow me to share this story—was a patient with acute leukemia who was just about to die. Professor Chen wanted to collect some blood samples to do research someday. I was always the volunteer to take those samples. This was in the emergency room because she was just about to pass away. I got there with my white robe on. Next to this patient was her son, who was about nine or ten years old. She was already in a coma, and we knew there was nothing we could do to save her life. I was just there to withdraw some blood samples, hoping one day we could make a difference. But this young boy was trying to wake his mom up to allow me to draw the blood. It’s extremely difficult to gather blood samples when a patient is in a coma. This young boy was trying to wake his mom up, saying, "Mom, the doctor is here trying to save you. Wake up." That was hard. I knew I wasn't able to save her life. I did get the blood sample, and I always think about that walk from the emergency room back to the lab. That was the longest walk of my life.

Jon Chee - 00:34:56: Holy crap.

Judy Chou - 00:34:57: I still remember the patient's case number. I told myself, "Somebody needs to figure out what is exactly in her blood. What is the reason she will never wake up? And what is the reason I can truly fulfill this young boy's dream about saving his mom?" I didn't think continuing as a medical doctor with the limited tools I had was the answer. That was the moment I said, "This is it. I'm going to just finish the degree, check that box, and then I'm going to move on. I have to do something else." The reason I say Professor Chen influenced me negatively was that I felt, "I don't want to be you. I want to be somebody else doing more." But like I said, recently we reconnected. It wasn't him; it was being in clinics with him almost every day and studying cases that made me realize that limit. I wouldn't have realized there was something else I wanted to do. If I had been in an environment like today's medical schools—so creative and mixing everything—I wouldn't be so determined that for the rest of my life, I'm going to make a difference and bring solutions back to the patient, not just treat one patient at a time.

Jon Chee - 00:36:59: What a formative moment, and thank you for sharing it. That's so brutal and tragic. I can definitely imagine how it set you on a different path. And so now, you're like, "Alright, I'm gonna dedicate myself to finding a solution," and part of that was deciding to go get your PhD. How did you start conceptualizing that? You're in a totally different environment in your medical school, and then you're starting anew. Tell us about that experience.

Judy Chou - 00:37:32: It's a great question. People say, "Then later on, how come you didn't study oncology?" I think that brings back this whole genuine curiosity. I give a lot of credit to Yale University. I really think Yale had a profound positive impact on my life. I enjoyed every second of the education I got there. In the first year getting into Yale—I don't know if they still run that program—the biomedical graduate school program had maybe fewer than 100 graduate students. Even though you get into a different department, we crossed similarly to undergraduates with a fundamental education. Somehow, everything just came together for me. Everything I learned just made sense. Yale has this requirement where you must get at least two "Honors." The professor can decide to give one student out of the class an "Honor" grade. So typically for a student, that would take about two years and six or eight courses to become the one out of 100. I was a foreign student, and it was my first time in an environment where everybody probably spoke English better than me. I felt like I needed to work harder than anybody else. Usually, in the first semester, students take one or two courses, plus teaching as a TA and doing lab rotations. But I felt like I needed to work harder because I thought it would take me 20 courses to get two honors. So I took five courses in the first semester. Most of my committee said, "No, that's a bad idea." But I said, "No, I have to do this." It was really crazy. But somehow, as I said, everything clicked. I really enjoyed every single thing I learned. Out of the first semester, I got five honors.

Jon Chee - 00:41:14: Oh, shit.

Judy Chou - 00:41:15: I know. My committee was sitting there like, "We have never had anybody do that." I wasn't overly ambitious; I just thought I needed to master it. Yale gave me a special scholarship because they have someone donate to the graduate school, and every year they pick just one student. They had to name me because nobody in the entire graduate school—not just biomedical—had achieved five honors in the first semester. My committee was very reasonable. They basically said, "Well, in a sense, taking courses is no longer a benefit for you. You mastered it right away. You should just go directly to research." I didn't know that was a benefit. In my education background, there is no such thing as skipping grades. But to your question about how I shaped myself: because of that, Yale also had a program in neuroscience, which at that time was in its infancy. Students in the biomedical discipline could apply and compete to focus on neuroscience in the second year. Neuroscience probably only took four or five students. I felt like that was the hardest thing, and since I mastered this in one semester, I absolutely should study neuroscience. I have to admit that's 50%. The other 50% is connected to what my uncle said: "You have to solve that." Nowadays, a lot of people say the hardest thing is using our brain to understand our brain. I thought, "How can that be possible?" It's basically an unsolvable question. I always felt like when I moved on to grad school, I shouldn't carry that oncology/terminal patient experience as a negative mark or a debt. I wanted to be a scientist trying to push human knowledge to the next frontier, so why not try to solve the biggest problem? That's why I went into neuroscience. I still remain today reading almost most of the important oncology papers, but I felt like for training, I was going to be in neuroscience.

Jon Chee - 00:45:51: Wow. What an experience. There's something to be said about putting yourself in an environment that plays to your strengths and passions. Everything is clicking. And so now you're doing research. Talk about your lab experience. Whose lab were you in? What did you focus on?

Judy Chou - 00:46:28: I was in Professor Reinhard Jahn’s lab. I was in this really golden time in neuroscience. My project was on synaptic vesicle proteins. This was the time before the SNARE complex, which profoundly changed the whole field about how the presynaptic vesicle gets to the postsynaptic membrane and conducts signaling. That was unknown when I first started in the field. I'm not going to over-brag, but I was the first one to get the first result about the SNARE complex in my first rotation—that lab notebook is still there. But somehow, because it was so unexpected, the professor at the time didn't believe it. He thought, "This is a first-year rotation student's result; it couldn't possibly be true." Later on, James Rothman (currently at Yale) published a paper using a different method to bring down this SNARE complex, and he got a Nobel Prize out of that.

Jon Chee - 00:47:46: Woah. That's crazy.

Judy Chou - 00:47:50: That's crazy. We did publish the paper, but it was later on. My second project was on the Rab protein. Basically, bit by bit, that also contributed to other Nobel Prizes later on for Paul Greengard, Thomas Südhof, and many in that field. So it was always that close. It was great because I was always on this very competitive path in the neuroscience field, specifically the cell biology side. That set a very great foundation in biochemistry and cell biology approaches to trying to break the codes. This particular period of time generated three Nobel Prizes out of this field because of how important it is to change the field of thinking.

Jon Chee - 00:49:13: Wow. You talked about it being the golden age. That's what it truly feels like. And how big was your lab? Was your professor or PI like, "Just do what you will," or was it more regimented?

Judy Chou - 00:49:28: It's both. He had the Howard Hughes grant, so it was a very well-funded lab. But since you zoomed into my lab experience, I do have a very unique and miserable path. As exciting as this field was, in the three and a half years of my grad school, my professor moved out of Yale. He got a great position somewhere else. So it was too early for me to graduate and too late for me to change labs. For the rest of the year and a half, I was on my own.

Jon Chee - 00:50:07: Oh, man.

Judy Chou - 00:50:09: Yeah. The lab was big. He only took two graduate students, and the other one was three years ahead of me. So most of those postdocs just wanted to prove I was the idiot of the lab. I would be competing to do the ultracentrifuge and everything. So when the lab moved out, it was quite like the Home Alone movie. At first, it's like, "Yes! Party! I have the whole house!" I set up three ultracentrifuges at the same time and ran the column. But that excitement didn't last more than a week. It became, "Oh, seriously? I'm here by myself." It was really scary. Howard Hughes had to distribute things, and the space needed to be given to somebody else. Then the question became: where to put Judy? Like I said, too early to graduate and too late to change labs. Later on, I had a couple of professors who allowed me to work in their labs. But interestingly, those successful professors also had very jammed-up labs. So I had this one cart, and I put most of my solutions on the cart. I was literally like a homeless scientist. I would pull my cart into a bench and work however long I could. A lot of very successful professors—I would name them now: Pietro De Camilli, Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas (later at Harvard), and also Ira Mellman—just allowed me to roll my cart into the lab and do my thing. So I learned how to survive in such an environment. At least one thing I'm very good at is packing. I remember one of the grad students watched me packing up to go to another lab and asked, "Are you serious? Are you going to be a postdoc? I think you should work for a moving company." But I learned how to survive, be independent, publish my paper, and get my thesis out. My thesis advisor just got a new job too, so he had to pay attention to that, and I had to be independent. That's how I kind of got a job later. Everybody in the field knew such a student who was close to two Nobel Prize data sets, and then later on managed to somehow get herself out of Yale to defend her thesis. That independence paved the way for people to pay a lot of respect to me. They said, "Hey, she's not a typical postdoc or grad student. She knows how to get her thinking and things going."

Jon Chee - 00:54:37: Yeah. Honestly, I think those are when you become stronger—when you live through those experiences. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It kind of seems like a rollercoaster. And then you managed to get out, and you said you pursued a postdoc. Talk a little bit about that and how you were conceptualizing that era and what was next for you.

Judy Chou - 00:55:09: I decided to sign myself up to go to Germany for one solid reason and the other for the institute—for some fun reason connected back to my past. The top reason is because I was studying the synaptic vesicle. At that time, at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, that was the only institute in the whole world that had this separation resin technology (CPG column). That precious resin was developed in that institute. Using that resin, you would be able to purify the purest synaptic vesicle to study it at the molecular level. I felt like I had to be there. As you mentioned, this is an institute that also had another Nobel Prize laureate, Erwin Neher (likely whom she meant by "Evan Miller"), who studied electrophysiology and the single ion channel. I felt like I got to be in that place to put those technologies together to have the next breakthrough. The second reason is a little bit of the artist Judy coming out. The Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry was set up because of a Nobel laureate, Manfred Eigen. He got a Nobel Prize in 1967. Germany honored him by building this institute. I have this passion for music and piano playing, and that's why I know of him. He is not just a Nobel Laureate; he is very good at playing piano. When they built that institute, they built a concert hall for him and had a Steinway there for him to play concerts. I had this weird dream: maybe if I get there, I get to play that piano.

Jon Chee - 00:58:27: Yeah. No. Totally. And I think it's cool that you're able to scratch two itches at the same time. Hopefully, the postdoc experience was a little bit better than the tail end of your PhD.

Judy Chou - 00:58:50: It was. Göttingen is a very small town. In the institute, we spoke English. But in the town, anybody older than 50 couldn't speak English. Unless I had a car to drive to a suburban area, the grocery shop was like... you go in, and the person is in front of you. You have to tell the person what you need, and then this person goes to the back to get your grocery. I really liked the bakery shop because at least you can point at it. For survival, I had to be able to speak German fluently. Even getting onto a bus, you have to tell the bus driver where you're going to get off. The Max Planck Institute in Göttingen is up in the mountain. So good luck if you get off at the wrong stop. I learned how to survive. Different from today where you can get by with English, in such an environment, it was very different. But I really learned a lot from my postdoc experience at Max Planck and got to brainstorm with top-notch scientists. Something I do want to highlight is that CPG column technology. Today, in our modern industry, protein purification of antibodies is a standard. Sartorius and many companies out-licensed that. That was a research tool then, and now it is something I mastered. I have to mention embarrassingly that back in the day when I had to manage people in the purification department, they wouldn't anticipate I knew that. When I was suddenly speaking about the column technology so well, they were like, "Wow." Someone with an MIT bioengineering degree reported to me and said, "I have to tell you, you are the most engineering-like boss I ever reported to." I never actually said it was because I used to work on the whole CPG column.

Jon Chee - 01:02:39: It sounds like your postdoc was very multidisciplinary. You learned German, you went there to scratch your musical itch, and also you're learning about these columns.

Judy Chou - 01:02:49: And I did get a chance to play in that concert hall.

Jon Chee - 01:02:52: Oh, that's sweet. You're doing a bunch of different stuff. That's really cool. And as you were kind of wrapping up your postdoc, when did you know it was time to leave?

Judy Chou - 01:03:08: I had the thinking that I didn't want to be like others. Typically, grad school takes eight years, and I managed to graduate in five years. For postdocs, if you get stuck for four or five years... I told myself I didn't want to spend that much time. I wanted to have a real job. It was less about knowing I was ready to leave and more about knowing an opportunity at Harvard. They posted that they wanted to have this "multidisciplinary research professor" role. It would be 100% paid by Harvard. The Cell Biology department, led by Marc Kirschner, wanted to see intracellular trafficking and the cytoskeleton interaction—Nobel Prize areas. I thought, "Well, I think I'm going to be good at that," so I applied. To my luck, I got that position.

Jon Chee - 01:06:18: Very interesting. And so now you're on the faculty at Harvard, and you're no longer in training. So what was that like for you, that transition?

Judy Chou - 01:06:29: I really had a fortunate situation. The assistant professor role—you can fight hard for grants and tenure—but I got that position, and it wasn't on the tenure track, but it was funded by the university. It was in the best interest of the department to make us successful because I was creating a new discipline for cell biology, which at that time was very well known for cytoskeleton and motor proteins but less about intracellular trafficking. It had top professors like Tom Rapoport, but I didn't need to write a grant. I kind of associated with Tom's lab and could use his equipment. I had my little one-bay lab, one assistant, and undergrads. It was really good.

Jon Chee - 01:08:11: Almost like you're doing a little startup within Harvard.

Judy Chou - 01:08:16: Yes. I think the reason why they picked me—they literally even told me—was because most people knew my miserable past at Yale. Being the student that close to top-notch research, having to independently figure my way out, and publishing all those papers that people still read today. They said that independence I demonstrated was way better than a postdoc who published five papers under a well-known professor guiding everything through.

Jon Chee - 01:09:33: And as you were going through this, I know kind of the next phase for you was going into industry. What catalyzed that for you?

Judy Chou - 01:09:45: Given what you just said, up to this point, there was no motivation for me to leave my position. But I think where I came from—that dying mother, that crying boy—is something I ask myself. I have this luxury to dive into this great knowledge, but am I there to answer that question? What took that physics Judy out of that track to medical school? And what took medical school Judy out of that well-recognized social status to go to the nobody-cares PhD? It was that fundamental question about the test tube in my hand. It was that longest walk. I don't know how to connect that back. So this was the time—I think I saw a poster from the Harvard Biotech Club. I was asking out of curiosity because the biotech thing really attracted me. I have this tech itch always there. I stopped by for those seminars. This was biotech in its infancy. In my days, usually only if you didn't get an academic job would you go to industry.

Jon Chee - 01:12:35: Yeah, the dark side.

Judy Chou - 01:12:36: That's the dark side. But they managed to invite some industry leaders to give talks. I was curious, and I just stopped by. One day, instead of a seminar, they had a job fair. I was strolling down, and I ran into someone who asked, "Are you a postdoc or a grad student?" She asked what I did. I explained, and then I asked her what she did. I’m pretty sure I didn't understand what she was talking about. She said, "Well, how about you come to my company to give a seminar?" I said, "Okay." The name of the company was BASF Bioresearch Center (which later became Abbott Bioresearch Center). I went to give a talk. At the end of it, this person said, "Did you notice in the auditorium, in the very back right corner, there's a guy sitting through your whole talk? That is our VP of this whole site. We have interviewed 13 top candidates. He killed every single one of them. But your talk—he sat through it. That's amazing." I met with the VP, and I had no preparation for industry. He asked me, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" I started talking about my ambition in research. That was okay. Then he asked, "So what do you see yourself in ten years?" I was thinking, "Oh my god. Is this an interview? I don't even know what you guys are doing." I couldn't make anything up. I tried to look around his office hoping this question would go away. He was still just looking at me. When we went eye-to-eye, I was just almost like, "Help me out of here." So the thing that came out of my mouth was: "You have a very nice office." He was in shock. He said, "I asked you, where do you see yourself in ten years?" I was like, "Oh, darn it."

Jon Chee - 01:18:20: You have a very nice office.

Judy Chou - 01:18:20: And then I go, "Oops," but I cannot take that back. He smiled back, and then he moved on. But later on, I found out he told everybody, "I like ambitious people. This person has no idea about industry, but she already projected herself in ten years that she's gonna be a VP, so we should take her." So the second day, they called me.

Jon Chee - 01:19:26: Yeah. You're just like, "I don't know what to say right now, but this is a really nice office."

Judy Chou - 01:19:33: I would tell you, embarrassingly, this story went on in the biotech field for quite a while, even up to my Genentech time. When people first met me, they would always ask me, "What do you think about my office?" It was particularly intimidating when Abbott acquired us. That's how BASF became Abbott. I was the first person sent to Abbott Park to give a talk about Humira, and every single person asked me, "Do you like my office?"

Jon Chee - 01:21:26: But so it sounds like you took the job, though.

Judy Chou - 01:21:28: Yeah. The thing that made me make the decision was: "Will this be that piece to close that circle?" It seemed like they were developing some new medicine. This was where Humira was in Phase III, and I had no idea. At that time, the only two antibody drugs approved were Rituxan and Herceptin. Nobody else other than Genentech could get anything approved. But I felt like, "If they are working on something they think can be the third or maybe one of those new therapy tools... keep in mind that 'tool' thing kicking me. Maybe this is the part I was seeking for so many years." I felt I needed to stick to that passion. Not just the position, not just the glorious things people dream about. Some people ask me, "Is that decision harder or the one leaving medical school?" I think leaving medical school was harder. It crushed that dream. Now, if I got the opportunity to put these three things together again—science, innovation, and helping patients—why not give it a shot?

Jon Chee - 01:24:20: What an important seminar you gave just on a whim. And so now you're in industry. How was that experience? Now you're in a completely different environment at AbbVie (eventually AbbVie).

Judy Chou - 01:24:36: Well, first, when I joined industry, even though they gave me the Senior Scientist position and I started leading a group, I have no doubt I was the most silly, stupid idiot in the whole company. I had no idea what they were working on. Nothing in my skill set—like mass spec and purification—was there. I could have just been a big boss asking people to do work, or I could give up. I chose the third path: I'm going to just be the idiot to expose and put my "glorious Harvard professor" role aside and humbly learn from the people. I had people on my team with twelve or thirteen years in the industry. They were Research Associates, but they were good. They knew something I didn't. Taking HPLC, for example—in my academic life, I pressed a button. But I didn't know how to do the plumbing. I was in the Analytical Chemistry lab doing development, close to manufacturing. I have to honestly admit, the first week they gave me a tool and showed me the purification column—it was huge. I had this tiny, cute column in my lab. It was like, "Are you sure this can be purified as good as..." So many things were new to me. I tried to create tools, even with mass spec and HPLC applied for protein analysis, which was in the very initial stage. You've got to be good at that. Otherwise, you just stay on the strategic level, the experimental design, but not so much down to earth. It took me a year. I told myself, "I think in industry, the most important thing is the common goal of that company, not myself in research interest." So I didn't allow myself to just be there trying to do my thing. I paid a lot of attention to the most important question and how I could be helpful. This whole team was on Phase III. I probably can't get into the detail because that's very confidential, but what exactly the breakthrough I made—being a co-author and being highlighted—was really making a huge difference to be able to launch this drug. I do appreciate this multidisciplinary thing because that creative thinking allowed us to see that breakthrough. Humira became so successful for good reason—it has really the highest affinity and great half-life. Enbrel is already out there; Remicade is already out there. But BASF/Abbott Bioresearch Center tried to see if we could overcome that. When we launched that BLA, we actually highlighted those things which I directly contributed to figuring out: why this molecule is so good.

Judy Chou - 01:31:30: The biggest honor I would say was this Research Associate who reported to me. I was really worried about him because he had 13 years of experience. But I learned so much from him. At the one-year mark, he openly talked about it: "Judy, I have to say, if this team doesn't have you, we will never see things this way. You really bring a lot to the table." That is the honor to me. I feel like that's what I really want to earn. I was gonna say that there's a bunch of different directions I can go, but the first thing is the lesson: not being too precious about rolling up your sleeves. You were like, "I'm just gonna learn, even if it means doing the plumbing." And I like your observation where if you don't know how to do that stuff, it's really hard to manage. It reminds me of how Jeff Bezos in the early days of Amazon would take customer support calls just to learn firsthand.

Jon Chee - 01:34:30: Also, thinking about this environment, it's kind of like when you bring in fresh eyes. That's why I think diversity in hiring and thinking is so critically important. You can become so singular in your focus that you lose sight of the possibilities. And the third point is just: what an amazing first industry job. To basically participate and contribute to one of the most successful drug launches ever. Talk about the stars just aligning and setting yourself up in an awesome position.

Outro - 01:35:37: That's all for this episode of the Biotech Startups Podcast featuring Judy Chou. Join us next time for part two, where Dr. Chou recounts her postdoctoral work at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, mastering CPG column technology that would later define industry standards, and her transition from Harvard faculty to industry at Abbott Bioresearch Center working on Humira. She also shares how she pioneered high-throughput screening for biologics at Wyeth, earning the nickname "high throughput lady" while others thought she was crazy, and how Genentech recruited her to build a revolutionary product-driven department in Oceanside. If you enjoy the show, subscribe, leave a review, or share it with a friend. Thanks for listening, and see you next time. 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.