High-Throughput Innovation & Breaking Biotech Bottlenecks | Judy Chou (Part 2/4)

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. In our last episode, Dr. Chou shared stories from her childhood in Taiwan, her unconventional path to medical school through physics, and how a heartbreaking encounter with a dying leukemia patient set her on a mission to find solutions. If you missed it, check out Part 1. In Part 2, Dr. Chou talks about her transition from Harvard to industry, rolling up her sleeves to learn biomanufacturing despite having no background in it, and why she left AbbVie when the company idled after Humira's launch to join Wyeth. She shares how she pioneered high-throughput screening for biologics, earning the nickname "High-Throughput Lady" until her methods became industry standard and generated 10 grams per liter antibody production for the first time. She also recounts being recruited to Genentech to build a product-driven department in Oceanside, why Ann Lee's vision to break vertical silos became her next startup within a major company, and how this department generated much of the pipeline Genentech still develops today.

Jon Chee - 00:01:43: You know, so, like, that in itself is a coveted role and a coveted position to be in. How did you know it was time to leave AbbVie?

Judy Chou - 00:01:51: Before I answer your question, if I may, I'd like to comment on the first thing you said about management and a little bit about getting your hands dirty. Right? I do think the biotech industry is absolutely multidisciplinary. So I do honor the two types of leaders, who's most of the leader, I would say, getting to later on my position, like, running a thousands-of-people organization, running the whole business. You cannot possibly know everything. You just cannot also possibly master everything. So most people have a good skill set. I think maybe three types. The one type is really good at managing. They will still be successful business leaders, particularly in big pharma. And there's another type that knows something, they know of something. And then in the third type, maybe, like you say, you get your hands dirty because you have to know everything. Probably the third one, you'll become more of the expert of a certain discipline. So that's usually, you see that, like, a department of cell biology or something like that. And then the other extreme, you can be, you know, a big CEO of a billion-dollar company. And somewhere in the middle, still, I would say in my peer group, a lot of people are probably just very good at managing people. So the point I want to say is I consider those leaders still good. Don't get me wrong.

Jon Chee - 00:03:16: Style. Different style.

Judy Chou - 00:03:17: Yeah. The style. Yeah. So there are quite a few successful leaders like this, like the big pharma leaders. I have this unique part, which I am not going to say every single leader should be doing this, but I think starting from my first job as we're talking about even up to today. If I'm managing five different disciplines, and there are three new things, I don't allow myself just being a good manager of these three new things. Whether this is good or bad for people reporting to me, they all know. So I will really kind of roll my sleeves up trying to at least get myself 50% good at this. To your point, I do think that's important, so less about I want to compete with my department. But more about...

Jon Chee - 00:03:59: Could I be better than you? Yeah.

Judy Chou - 00:04:01: I yeah. I know. But more about, I want to appreciate them. Yeah. I don't really want to talk just like a cheerleader only. And this is the part I set for myself. And I do want to say any sentence I say, I'm not looking down on other people. Like, can only do "cheer up everybody" because that is also good. And many of us, I mean, report to someone like that. Right? So someone who doesn't know your discipline, but encourages you and things like that. So, anyway, the point I want to say, there are different styles. But I do appreciate you recognizing I am having this style, good or bad, I would say.

Jon Chee - 00:04:38: Yeah. Yeah. I'm the same way.

Judy Chou - 00:04:39: Yeah. People in my department, yeah, will feel a little bit intimidated. I don't know.

Jon Chee - 00:04:44: It's empathy. There's, like, an empathy element to it. I know how hard this shit is, like... Yeah. So I can empathize when it's, like, when things don't work out, I'm like, I know. It's like, oh, that is, like, okay. I can appreciate the difficulty here. Because I feel like—at least I'm speaking for me now—if I don't learn it, I can't actually appreciate the good or the bad. Like...

Judy Chou - 00:05:06: Exactly.

Jon Chee - 00:05:06: I don't know what I'm looking at. I'm like... and I'm like, yeah. Okay. But you get a greater appreciation, which then, for me, leads to a more empathetic kind of, like, working relationship.

Judy Chou - 00:05:17: I do think so. I do think so. And then about moving out of AbbVie, so at that time most people asked me this question differently. I'll probably reframe your question because, you know, Humira turns out to be one of the most successful drugs in the world. Right? And that's where it started at the time. And I know people inside there, if you ask everybody at AbbVie when Humira was first launched. And there's a huge poster. I remember we got a town hall meeting about, yay. We got this drug launched, and then we are going to project this drug will be a success every year, going to bring 500 million to the company. So you look at it now later on for twenty years, every year, 20 billion. That was not...

Jon Chee - 00:06:02: It was different?

Judy Chou - 00:06:03: Very, very different. So that probably explains quite a bit of your question because then this company that was acquired by Abbott and become this Abbott Bioresearch Center in Worcester, outside of Boston, they basically just had us idle. Basically, like, well, we're not quite sure if we want to do another biologic. Let's see if this will be successful or not. People don't believe the story. They always say, like, no. Not possible because it's such a successful drug. No. We're not quite sure. We feel like in the whole world, only Genentech can have a monoclonal antibody, and we studied their BLA to death and tried to get so good at it. So we're still... but, anyway, so that probably comes to my answer about I am really not very good at being idle. Like, we just do a little bit of stuff. Keeping in mind, I say, I put down my beloved track in medical school trying to make a difference. And I feel like I cannot just stop this. Right? I have to move on to do something meaningful. So that was that. And I don't want to blame AbbVie about this, but there was the time that's still pondering about the benefit, about introducing a biologic, the whole doubt. Really triggered me to... and to my luxury, this is the one and only job I ever applied for. So later on, all my job is always people come to recruit me. Seriously. So at that time at Abbott, the only job I applied was later on at Wyeth. So even when I joined, it was first called Genetics Institute. I know this has become such an aged name. So this was the last era of the Genetics Institute. So I think they are doing because they are doing a lot of different pipelines and biology. Now I feel like I'm good at this. Right? Because I got to be in a place to see if we can develop more drugs. That's why, just to answer your question, then I applied for the job. So give Wyeth all the credit because I never applied for any job since then, and even my first job as I told you about the story. So my entire career in the industry, one only job I applied was that. So I was hired to play a role more or less in this multidisciplinary area again, like, then create the analytical tools to address the cell culture, purification, the biomanufacturing question. So getting deeper and deeper into the development world since my first job because of that.

Jon Chee - 00:08:41: Interesting. And I'm going to imagine Wyeth, eventually Pfizer, had a very different culture than AbbVie did. Or was it the same? I don't know. Maybe it was similar. Was it, like did you go in? You're like, oh, this is like, you know, talk about, like, environments, like, new environments. What was it like, you know, like, boom. You've got the job. You've landed. Like, is this, like, I feel like at I'm at home, or is it, like, oh, this is an adjustment?

Judy Chou - 00:09:08: No. Now you say that I would say, culture wise, I don't think huge difference. However, I was hired—you know? I never thought about this way I have to say this moment just click. I was hired to create a new department in some sense. At the time so you know in the biomanufacturing world, the cell culture purification and formulation, and then also analytical, four most important disciplines. But Wyeth has, at that time, been very famous, developing the one of the most difficult express protein. So then you can imagine getting to the analytical department will be something need to be fully purified, formulate, and then you can characterize that. Otherwise, in in between, it's just extremely difficult. You have to look at all those non-post-translational modified molecule and things like that. That's hard. So that everyday discipline is very clear. However, the challenge for cell culture particularly, like, in the very beginning, right, cell line and cell culture, you want to know the answer, then you can improve. Otherwise, it will be very, very difficult. So I'm gonna talk about something now that they become commonly accept, but in my day, it wasn't. And then so the question pushed me to think about is then can you create some tools, the analytical tools in the process about cell culture, purification, formulation, we kind of can pick on those answers. So giving my background at AbbVie, at Humira, was on this analytical protein characterization. But academic wise, I was in cell biology and chemistry, so they want me to create that. So I think probably not a, wow, this is so easy, but more about then I need to create that tool. But I do think the innovation thing just click right in. Right? Because I have to kinda thinking about certain thing. I give a lot of my managers at that time the credit because they would—I wouldn't call desperate—but really eager to, like, feel like this is something they couldn't figure out. Right? So I was the first one. This is why I will brag about this because some people ask me if I'm thinking about on the technical side, which kind of things that I feel most proud about in the whole biotech. I was the first one starting thinking about how can we creating those bioanalytical tools. Maybe I wasn't the first one to think about it, but I was the first one actually created this whole thing about how can we introduce the bioanalytical tool. So the golden sentence, now people still use that. I will take that credit. The analytical is the eyes and ears of the biomanufacturing. So that sentence is keeping going on till today. The high-throughput screening about from the get go for cell line screening and cell culture was totally not present. And now since we chatted so much about my background, probably hopefully, it doesn't surprise you because what I did is then I walk around looking at a small molecule, how they'd be innovative. And I see this high-throughput. I say, well, got to be high-throughput something need to come to biomanufacturing. But everybody think I'm crazy. Seriously. Now you say, well, this is now everybody does this. No. It was the day people say that's really crazy thought because the biologics take time, takes all those things, and it's just not possible to do high-throughput. So I even have a nickname from that day, for a while called "High-Throughput Lady". We're joking about, like, oh, there's a High-Throughput Lady come along studying and show that idea. So I bought the... my manager is like, okay. Since she seems to have some good idea, so they gave me the bio robot, the Tecan, and some of the high-throughput tool, the small work people do. So a lot of, nowadays, even in the industry, in the equipment side, a lot of—and I don't know the name name, the reason why we know each other so well because I was the one trying to make their tool or the equipment or the instrument to make it useful for the non purified protein. Right? So then I introduced this whole high-throughput concept about screening hundreds of clones from the beginning, not just for productivity, but also for the quality of the protein quality. And I find many, many pattern out of that time. And there's a whole now I'm very proud about not become the paradigm. Every company does this, was starting from this high-throughput screening from the cell line, not just looking at the productivity expression level, but also looking at key characteristic about the protein. Will they be able to do something? And that creating those tools and have that breakthrough was, I'm most proud about. So then we were no surprise at Wyeth's time. Was it this is really a long time ago, twenty some years ago. We were first one generate production with 10 gram per liter of molecular antibody production. Today, it's still like a while. Right? So because of that, because of high-throughput tool and people starting to appreciate that. I gave really some credit about my department head, particularly, and his name is Tim Charlebois. He was the one, I would say, probably one of the only one. Consider I'm not crazy and say, okay. If she has this idea, let's just give it a shot.

Jon Chee - 00:14:23: You need people like that.

Judy Chou - 00:14:24: Yeah. You need that. So I don't I wish I can come up story about I just make it because in biotech, it's a little bit different from high-tech if we do that comparison. I can do this out of my garage or something like that. That's high-tech. Unfortunately, biotech, you really do need more of those. This is more complicated. I think back, I take a lot of credit, but at the same time, I give Tim and many others credit about they don't know how they look like, but they say well, it seems like she has some good idea. So I have those fancy tools. That's why the High-Throughput Lady was a little bit mocking rather than...

Jon Chee - 00:14:57: I like that.

Judy Chou - 00:14:57: That's cool. Yeah. That's cool. At that time, Frank speaking, I'm not like a problem. I said, whatever you want to call me. That's fine. Uh, like it so then I have all those tool and crazies and you name it, and now you go to every single biotech company. Everybody has a high-tech, the robotics system. We even filed a patent out of it, but later on, was in the transition getting to, oh, I should say, GI's in transition to Wyeth in this whole mode about later on. We continue that patent file until probably before Pfizer. But anyway, we'll later on say, well, nice will just give up on the whole continuing thing. But the point I even though probably nobody going to put my name onto every single robotic tool, but I'm very proud about that shake the field about now. More confounded become a commodity. Otherwise, it is so handcrafted like we did with Humira.

Jon Chee - 00:15:53: Yeah. Just like perfectly, like, artisan one.

Judy Chou - 00:15:56: Yeah. Like one at a time, and now you can screen multiple one and try to identify the one to narrow down and from the transaction to the IND's limited time because of that tool. I wouldn't say only because of that tool, but I feel very proud about. But to kinda come back to your original question, I do think it was difficult because you can imagine a lot of people, there's a High-Throughput Lady, like, mocking about. She's just crazy about don't know why she's even got a job having a department. And then to the point about, earn a President Award, out of the whole... Again, I give some of my manager different credit, and I did write a article to give the credit. Mike Kamarck, he was the Wyeth Head that I had. He nominate me. And you have to understand, this President Award is the person make a biggest business impact of the year of the entire Wyeth.

Jon Chee - 00:17:00: Sick. Yeah. Most of the time, people give this to the sales and those, and... Yeah. Exactly. Presidents Club almost. Like yeah. Yeah. Almost similar.

Judy Chou - 00:17:04: But Mike also honored that he feels this is so important. You know, Pfizer still own this Grange Castle Biomanufacturing in Ireland, and I think the other person, Bob Ruffolo, research head, even praised me about, like, if we would have used doctor Chou's technology, we probably don't need to build so many facility.

Jon Chee - 00:17:26: Yeah. Like, goddamn it. Why didn't we do all this? Like, we're just brute forcing it right now. And something that really, like, stood out to me, like, about this kind of experience is having the willingness to kind of I can imagine Wyeth, when you join, was a pretty decently large company, and it takes a lot of courage to shake things up inside of a a bigger organization. Because I think larger organizations kind of have this inertia that that's like, we're just gonna keep doing it this way.

Judy Chou - 00:17:58: Exactly.

Jon Chee - 00:17:58: And you can come in, shake it up a little bit, and it's not comfortable. Sometimes it's not. And then what's especially important too is, as you mentioned, is having someone who can give you some, like, cover to let you shake things up. Because if when you don't have that, it just makes it really hard. You're just, like, shaking it up on your own, and it may not come to fruition. But I think it's important for anyone who sees someone trying to do something different and try to improve on something, even though it's not the kind of way you do things right now or is the status quo, is to give them the room to do it and let it blossom. Because and and look at the look at the impact here, like, massive impact. And the other part that stood out to me too it's kind of like your physics engineering kinda coming back.

Judy Chou - 00:18:40: That's right. Now you know, most of people are like, how did you come up with those idea? And I think, yeah, that is in my heart still. I always say the three passions just guide me even up to today is science innovation and helping patients. Right? So the three things when it merged together, that's how it's come to, like, well, if the current technology is a limit is then you have to do this whole lengthy production to know if you got a good protein or not. If there's something really you can address that to a salary. So I do think that probably that was the place I started to define. I'm going to be the one, like, on a mission to accelerate the whole development of this, uh, biologics or any drug. Right? So acceleration is the thing. It's not just I like the speed, but also that's important because that make a difference.

Jon Chee - 00:19:32: It makes a difference not just in your organization. Like you said, now it's a broadly accepted and broadly applied methodology. It's unlocked on multiple fronts. It pushes the whole industry forward, which is important.

Judy Chou - 00:19:46: It's important, and maybe allow me to kinda expand that. That's probably what getting to the next about the Genentech Life because I do think those are the days. I am not that close to that technical area anymore and now because I'm running a business. But I think those are the day, the biomanufacturing or bioprocess development, people are really close. So we are very willing to share the knowledge because it was a lot of thing need to break the like I say, like you just point out. Right? It's become a boutique thing. Like, one at a time, everybody have this whole special skill set to make things four. So that's not everybody kinda starting feel limited, and it was getting widely displayed because that was the year I after I have everything together, we have a result about this 10 gram per liter and things like that. And I was speeching a CCE conference, the Cell Culture Engineering. So that's in cell culture, the top notch, and the recovery and then purification. So almost like the top conference I was highlighted in the conference. And the key thing is not about me getting that recognition, but more about other people say, hey. This is really cool and good. Genetic colleagues definitely come to many. I know of them, but we didn't work together. We'll be like, hey. This is the best talk I have been hearing for years. Probably no surprises. This is a probably good segue about them. They feel like that's what we need. Right? That's what Genentech need. So the important thing, just to echo the point, I do think the spirit about to share and this happy family's culture at that time, because that was the time maybe to a lot of people not aware about Wyeth is producing Genentech's, I think it was Herceptin. And then, like, we cross manufacturing for each other trying to share that because this was the beginning of the biotech. And somehow, I think we all have that spirit about to help each other to overcome the difficulties. Now it become commodity, definitely, then it's more competitive, like, the trade secret. But it was something not like we get out to talk about everything trade secret, but you know of who knows what, then you can kinda humbly to seek for advice. Yes.

Jon Chee - 00:21:59: Yeah. It's like the problem's too hard to take it on solo.

Judy Chou - 00:22:02: Exactly.

Jon Chee - 00:22:02: It's too hard. Like Yeah. You know, we need to work together here or else we're just never gonna solve this. But, obviously, there's, like, things that you can't be sharing, but it's kind of that saying of, like, the the rising tide raises all ships. Like, you kind of, like, help each other and everyone gets better for it, and, you know, we continue on. And it sounded like the Wyeth job was the only one you applied for. Now this one, via just working you know, being in this space with the people in Genentech, is that how the opportunity came about and you got you got pulled in?

Judy Chou - 00:22:33: Yeah. So Genentech at that time—so this is 2005, 2006—have this unique problem. We all know at that time, Genentech's research team's super proactive. Right? So creating a lot of things. Nowadays, we be able to introduce to patient. But this bottleneck become the development side. You cannot possibly get so many antibodies through. And so that huge bottleneck, they need to debottleneck it. And so then when my talk going on to all those conferences, the leader of Genentech is, her name is Ann Lee. So she's like, we need to get this person. This will help Genentech because then we are having this limit. Right? Every year, Genentech pump out fifty, five zero pipeline into the development organization. And development organizations already, like, 850 people still not be able to digest.

Jon Chee - 00:23:24: Yeah. It's like too much.

Judy Chou - 00:23:26: Credit to her. She didn't see this solution as hiring more people because you don't have the money. She says something got to be, like, we talk about this decoded, right, somehow break in different way. When she heard about my work and she later on did call me personally and then asked me my thinking and everything and then so they were recruiting hard, I have to say for more than a year, I was a East Coast person up to that point.

Jon Chee - 00:23:53: Yeah. Yeah.

Judy Chou - 00:23:54: My America is East Coast.

Jon Chee - 00:23:56: Yeah. Yeah.

Judy Chou - 00:23:57: Yeah. Have never really worked on the West Coast, ironically, but I don't know why I want to move out. And then, definitely, my side of family also, like, as I mentioned, my parents are professor. They have even house in Boston. So there's no reason for me to be like you point out. Right? I am this unique kid in the whole family, and I don't need to be the only one being so unique all the time. But, of course, fast forward, you know, I am the only one on the West Coast. So I'm the running away sister. Anyhow, so then they persuade me first will be, like, all those different position, but more or less, because Genentech has 850 people, even bigger way bigger than Wyeth. We have a department probably just a 150 people. And so every single discipline is very well established. And I wasn't so convinced about I can make a difference. And so I do think, to me, the important work is all along what I want to do is this impact. Right? So if it's a great position, higher salary or anything, but if it's not the impact I can make, I'm not quite sure. I need to pack my whole family to move to the West Coast. So I I wasn't convinced until they create this, uh, this was also to Ann's credit. She's thinking, like, maybe not just hiring someone with this new technology. How about we give this person a department? So instead of them discipline, this is all, like, vertical. Right? And we cut horizontal. Now she will have everything. So a little bit of this. This was also the year Toyota published a paper about they have a maybe McKinsey looking to the business model. Is this better, like, if they need to create, like, I just say SUV? Is that better we have a cross department team working on SUV, or is that better we just have a SUV department? You see the difference? Because then if you just do a SUV department, you would still need the people know how to do windshield, the engine, and this is but they are all those discipline, they're supposed to be very good. That's how those vertical things are coming for all the pharma even nowadays. Right? So everything got to be vertical because you all need a deep, deep, deep understanding, then you can kind of create a to this cross department team. But then they publish this article they try out, and they interestingly point out having a product driven department is more productive. You get to the product to the end faster. So Ann was very intrigued by this. He's thinking about we got to create something like that because otherwise, we're still we have to hire 2,000 people so that even the technology could not just solve that. So she persuaded me about, if you come join, not only I will create such a department, but also I'm going to put it outside of the Bay Area. That's very smart. Because the human nature, right, because the Genentech is so big and also so successful. Uh, have bunch of the commercial product. I think it's one of the most, uh, lucrative company. So then having a lot of money and then people feel very good and smart people walking around the campus, if she create anything on the campus, it would immediately kind of fall into the stereotype of thinking. So she create that in Oceanside in South California. Also benefits some other talents outside. And putting the discipline about the leader cannot be front end tech. Need to be somebody from outside. Otherwise, it will be the same old...

Jon Chee - 00:27:26: same old. Yep.

Judy Chou - 00:27:27: And then for each functional head I hire can be from the campus. That's okay. But the leader, the vision so I think that's really cool. It sounds cool. Even though I haven't done that to run such a I was running this different department and doing the apply the technology to different area. Definitely, I mean, they named me as most cross functional than anybody else already, but never being, like, a a demonstrative wise responsible for that. So and also build the whole company up. So I work name my startup from that day because this was at the oceans I didn't have acquire from Biogen Idec, but it was the one floor totally empty. Hey. Let's build a department. Need to have all those function you need to develop the bioprocess to have everything and then connect with the pilot plan. This will be GMP. So expanding my bandwidth really to even more of those engineering and also the biomanufacturing side, I think well, I don't think anybody will give me such a position to do that if I continue on this defined track. Right? So, well, I guess that sentence that came back to me about then thing was, Thoreau says is, don't go where the path may lead you. Instead, go where there's no path and leave a trail. So that hit me about that's something I should do. So I took the job not because of the it's just one of the jobs. So but first for also at Genentech, definitely, they quickly realized about they need me to be very, very connected to the main campus. So I have to say throughout my Genentech career, uh, 50% of my time is using this department and fast forward a salary. And happy to say a lot of pipeline Genentech have today in phase three or launch was from my department.

Jon Chee - 00:29:22: Sick.

Judy Chou - 00:29:23: Yeah. And then but on the other side, I was the other 50%, I was leading another even more creative thought. This is probably not just Ann, but meaning even higher manager who many of them now become my board member. So they were see me as having the potential to run even more bigger like the project lead. So that project, 100% people are all in South San Francisco, and nobody report to me. That was new to Genentech. Like, I have somebody this is what we're talking about, the leadership style thing. Right? So you don't have power to write their performance review, but you have to influence them to share that common goal to move forward. So they feel that's important for me to build that leadership skill set. I really think, uh, across all my entire career, Genentech benefit a lot about really taking me to where I was not to be where I am today. They really want to grow me into that role to lead, and I have many, many professional coach. I'm not gonna be shy to say this. I really do think at the beginning, a lot of people gave me the advice about don't take that because people think, like, you're so bad. That's why you need a coach. And I was having the same spirit about, oh, I mean, let's just see what this coach will help me. Looking back, I really do think those, uh, those executive coach make them where I am, and also this responsibility. So I need to kinda report to our CEO, Art Levinson, about this was the project created by the creator of Avastin. So this was the angiogenesis, uh, so he was academy member and Napoleone Ferrara. So it was great. I got to work with this top notch of Genentech considered the best scientist, and this is his second mark.

Jon Chee - 00:31:09: Yeah.

Judy Chou - 00:31:09: So cannot be scrub and the company, really. We have the at that time, this is really now [anti-VEGF] be become a thing. Right? That's called [anti-VEGF] project at Genentech, and we have to accelerate and make this, uh, fast forward. So that both having a cross functional department as well as having the cross functional project I have to lead really was, uh, very, very fruitful years when I was at Genentech.

Jon Chee - 00:31:36: Very cool. And, again, it's kind of like, I see another theme where Ann was like, I'm gonna just give you it's almost like a sandbox to be creative. I can see the artistry. There's a bit of, like right. You're you're in the very early part of our conversation. Like, how when they ask you, like, how did your art your interest in art like, this is pretty artistic and creative, by the way.

Judy Chou - 00:31:59: Okay. Thank you.

Jon Chee - 00:32:00: It's like you're you're talking about, like, breaking boundaries. That's hard to do. That's like a creative endeavor. It's to, like, do something like that from scratch. Right? It's kinda like this blank canvas, and it's a very creative thing. As much as it's not necessarily, like, physically painting, but it is, like, a creative endeavor. Right? It is a creative endeavor.

Judy Chou - 00:32:20: Yeah. And there's just no example to follow. Right?

Jon Chee - 00:32:22: It's blank. It's like, here you go. Like, you know, it's just this blank canvas, and that's really cool to see. And I think when you were, you know, tasked with this, I guess, like, did it shake out to what Mackenzie said?

Judy Chou - 00:32:34: I'm glad you go back to that. I was thinking about, should we elaborate not or not? I know your podcast has probably been being heard by many people who want to go into the industry. I really do want to say, when you go into a bigger established environment and company, you'll face a lot of headwind for no good reason. Like, we just talk about this. It's a pretty exciting part. Right? There's no example to follow. So many, many different times. Again, I appreciate my genetic colleagues, but in a bigger organization, it's always like that. Why is she going to be doing this? Oh, no. That's not going to work. Right? So many, many things that you kind of try to address to make sure it works well. First of all, I would look looking at positive side. So like I said, proudly to say, my department really generate many pipeline. Um, I wouldn't say all the pipeline, but I dare to say really huge amount of pipeline Genentech still benefit today. Second thing, this is hard to answer your question. You can say yes or maybe no. So because later on Roche took over Genentech. So like I said, many, many headwind were coming to we tend to think the bigger organization is more stable, but there's many things that can happen. Right? Like this acquisition, prioritization, deprioritization. So when Roche took over, Genentech itself have hard time to justify, remain this development. It's still up to and running today as a commercial manufacturing site. They can no longer to say, hey. This is better. You can brag about South City. San Francisco is the thing because that's a hub of the biotech. You can brag about you must not kill this, but you cannot argue about Roche. It has Germany's side in Penzberg and part of Switzerland and then also, like, and and we also have to kill it. So then it kinda agree with Roche. He had to sell that department. So this is still, like I say, still positive side. That become today if you talk about Gilead, uh, biotech. So that was Gilead, at that time, did not have the large molecule yet. So Gilead buy my department out. And so it's build a whole oceanside site out of it. Of course, I mean, as a company evolve, I heard recently Gilead now want to move everything to the Bay Area, so that's differencing. But Gilead doesn't have that Bay Area footprint. They actually buy the sell. So I think probably it's a yes because that model apparently work. We didn't build all those very profound vertical department. It's still cross discipline. That whole department sell to it was, uh, they really consider that's a jewelry they got. But at the same time, Genentech plugged this back to South San Francisco doing that. Most likely, no. That's probably because the size of the company and then human nature about hard to kinda combine with that. But if you ask me, do I believe the model about SUV department or, uh, SUV team? I do think the department works better if you want to accelerate things. Really, acceleration is important. And if you ask me, why is that? I will tell you just one word about mindset. Because your department no longer have the biggest thing about I'm going to have the top cell culture technology. Your goal is I'm going to get this product to the finish line as fast as possible. And with that mindset, really change the whole thing. So that's how Frank speaking since around my institute always like that. Very, very product driven. I call innovation more like anchor owning on the product, but not so much. You just have the special niche about here and there. And I think I'm facing my career as well. So innovation in biotech is innovate the product. It's not innovate the technology itself. So you are the most innovative company. You are the most innovative of, uh, in product. I think that's applicable to high-tech as well. I talk about this also a lot about you look at Apple, I consider as a very innovative company. They don't create or invent chip technology, but they know how to produce iPhone, iPad, and this that is what the goal we should have. So the bigger organization is hard. I used to run bears, you know, 3,000 people organization. Can I only do that? It's really hard. It would probably take quite a bit of years and changing everybody's mindset.

Jon Chee - 00:36:59: It'd be painful too, probably. They'll be up in arms like, I do it this way. Like and now you're changing what I do, and it could probably be like it's kind of like or you can get, like, organ rejection.

Judy Chou - 00:37:11: Yeah. That's very well said. And, also, the as you point out, the comfort zone. Right? Because, um, we know what we know. And people good at purification doesn't want to be in an environment competing with people good at formulation, then they become second tier scientists, all those things. So it is higher. So, definitely, this is probably going to be something we would chat about for the biotech versus the pharma. So probably also explain where I am today too.

Jon Chee - 00:37:40: Interesting.

Outro - 00:37:42: That's all for this episode of the Biotech Startups podcast featuring Judy Chou. Join us next time for part three where doctor Chow recounts joining a biosimilar startup as employee number one in an empty 50,000 square foot facility walking into an FDA meeting alone to face 32 agents and why her medical school friend's death from cancer made biosimilars personal. She'll also unpack building Medivation's lean operation that sold to Pfizer for $14,300,000,000 and joining Bayer as the first Asian woman to lead the global biotech organization where an employee publicly questioned how she got the job. If you're enjoying 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.