Staying Lean When Funding Dries Up: Surviving Biotech Downturns | Roy Maute (Part 4/4)

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, Roy shared how Ab Initio got acquired by Ligand Pharmaceuticals, why he joined Forty Seven Inc., and how the $4,900,000,000 Gilead acquisition during COVID meant spending over a year without meeting colleagues in person. If you missed it, check out part three. In part four, Roy unpacks co-founding Pheast Therapeutics in 2021 with Amira Barkal, Irving Weissman, and Ravi Majeti—getting the band back together to pursue CD24 as the next macrophage checkpoint target. He also breaks down why Pheast became the first company pursuing macrophage checkpoint inhibitors as a new immunotherapy class, how PHST001 addresses toxicity and potency limitations, and why Fast Track designation validates the clinical path forward. He reflects on why clinical-stage work makes every experiment matter, how leading Pheast requires balancing demanding training with autonomy, and why the pipeline programs require strategic decisions about partnerships and resources.

Jon Chee - 00:01:46: Versa—exactly what you said, like, in a smaller org, it's a forcing function. Like, you have to choose your path and make it count. But sometimes that's a double-edged sword in that, hey. Like, you could go on the wrong path. That could be the game over. But I'm always, like, curious, like, you know, how can the two have, like—it's kinda where my question derived, like, working with the Pfizer at Ab Initio. Like, how do you get the best of the both worlds? You get that, like, speed and focus, but you also get the resource and, like, try to, like, bring some focus to an organization that's, like, larger, but, like, super, super resourced. Very interesting. And the '47 transition into Gilead, you spent a little bit of time there. When did you know it was time to leave?

Roy Maute - 00:02:25: It was a kind of an unusual time to be going through that transition because this was 2020. So the acquisition was announced, I think, in February 2020, and then, like, you know, things really got underway in the months subsequent to that. So, obviously, the world was going through the early stages of COVID lockdown. Nobody kinda knew exactly what this would look like, but it certainly disrupted the ways that we were expecting to work with these new colleagues. So just for example, I was at Gilead for a little over a year, and I didn't meet in person with anybody at that company until the last week before I left because that's just how it was back then. Everyone's, like, at home trying to figure out how to not double mute and, like, you know, I—yeah. My—my young son was just, like—I'm, like, on the phone with, like, pretty senior people at the company, like, pushing him in a stroller while, like—anyway, there was some chaos to it.

I would say that that wasn't the sort of reason for me to think about leaving, but it did probably, like, get me a little less settled into that organization than I might have otherwise. But the other thing that I spent a lot of time thinking about was even as I was very eager to be part of the clinical progress for the drug, I think, like, pretty quickly once we, you know, got things there, we did our part to help the new owner scope out what their plan would be for registrational trials and made a couple key decisions with some of our input. I didn't feel that essential to the process at some point, which is—is good and fine. I mean, that—there's a lot of really skilled people there to sort of pick up some of the stuff we were doing.

There also was a bit of a kinda administrative division between laboratory science and, like, discovery work and the clinical development side. That's always a bit of a—yeah. It's a specific decision that every biotech organization has to make if you are a clinical-stage company. It's like, you know, "Does someone who work on the biomarker studies, like, are they just plugged into some sort of clinical development? Do they have a foot in the lab? Do they have a lab team?" For me, I think it's best to have some level of crossover between those kind of things and take questions from clinical observation and bring them back into the lab. There didn't seem to be a lot of opportunity for that, both because of how the company was set up and because of this, you know, unfortunate—you know, nobody gets to come into the office. Nobody—you're either lab-based and you get to go in the lab, or you're not. So there was a desire to kinda keep these things a bit separate.

So I felt like that was missing a little bit from my position there. And so I just sort of started to ask myself, like, "Is this my long-term home? Okay. If not, how long does it make sense to stay here?" And then that just led me to have some conversations about other opportunities, and so I decided, "Okay. It seems like whatever good I've—I've done is mostly banked. The—that organization is very well set up to take it from here. My heart is in a smaller company at this stage in my career, so let me leave, take at least a little bit of time off, and then kinda see what comes." And, yeah, that's what I did, and that's what led to me joining the founding team of Pheast.

Jon Chee - 00:05:04: Yeah. I mean, I'm just trying to think back on the COVID era. It's kind of crazy thinking about that. It's like, did that actually happen? It was such a strange time.

Roy Maute - 00:05:13: Yeah. I mean, we still obviously live in the world that it has wrought, but I—I'm pleased that we are out of some of the real stressors of that time of life. But I still don't have quite enough distance from it to know exactly how big of a role that might have played in, you know, in my decision to stay versus—versus leave. I do know that it—we started Pheast at a time where there were still a lot of challenges associated with COVID in general and just, like, existing in the world.

But then as you—as I'm sure you know, the biotech industry was really disrupted in transiently positive and long-term negative ways by the COVID experience—logistical challenges, running lab work, supply chain disruptions, and then the money—the way that the money flew into the biotech industry during that time in the sort of late COVID era, and then, obviously, that's had a big impact on the ability of companies like ours to raise money in this current era. And I—I think in all respects, we're sort of now really moving out of all of those COVID aftershocks, but it looms very large for biotech companies, I think.

Jon Chee - 00:06:09: Yeah. Absolutely. And so talk about, basically, the early days of Pheast, like, kind of, like, when you decided to take a leap. And then talk about your co-founders and from the very, very, like, earliest days.

Roy Maute - 00:06:19: Absolutely. So the most crucial person for making Pheast a reality, especially in those early days, is a colleague of mine named Amira Barkal. When I was a postdoc in Irv's lab, she was doing the PhD portion of her MD-PhD in Irv's lab. So we overlapped briefly. I take no credit for her success, but I did have the chance to train her up on some basic lab techniques, and so we got to know one another. She helped me to finish up some of the work that I had started and gotten, I think, like, 80% of the way as a postdoc. I left Irv's lab to start Ab Initio before I managed to publish that story, which is, like, the sort of key part of the work that I was doing there. So it's a big relief to have colleagues like her who were able to step in and finish it out.

So she and I became friendly during that experience. You know, she's a great scientist, and I had a tremendous amount of respect for her. And I got to observe from afar while I was at Ab Initio and then at '47 that she was doing really cool work to identify new regulators that can sort of, like, access some of the same biology as CD47, but in a different set of cancers in a slightly different way. So she and Irv had published this great story in Nature around CD24 as a—a novel regulator of macrophage function. I would say that story kind of showed in many ways that it was similar to '47. So it was a great time to sort of be putting together a company around that. And it's like there had been this big acquisition of a target against the sort of first pathway, CD47, so balst—

And, you know, we were saying, "Okay. We—we really know this biology. We know how to successfully develop drugs against it. This one is, like, the next best opportunity." And so, like, it's a great story, I would say, to put in front of investors, especially because we were able to bring along some of the key people who had been involved in that '47 story. So Amira was the nucleus of that group. You know, she had made this discovery. She wanted to form a company around it as most people would and especially every Stanford student, I would definitely think to do. Irv and—and then our final co-founder, Ravi Majeti, had built Forty Seven Inc. from the ground up and they were just at that time kind of untangling themselves a bit from that program.

I mean, they were crucial leaders of Forty Seven Inc. even as it became a more mature clinical-stage company post-acquisition to add a lot of responsibilities on the scientific side to help make sure that things were settled at Gilead. But after a year or so, they, like some of the rest of us, were kinda looking around and saying, "Okay. Like, probably the key part of my work here is done. I can step back." And then, yeah, they had the ability, I would say, to consider another company formation in this kind of related space against a different target. So it was, you know, great timing and I think a great alignment of interest amongst that group.

Amira had started this journey, but she wanna continue with her medical training. So she wasn't really gonna be available to, like, 40 hours a week being in the lab and, you know, setting up the PCR machines and that kind of stuff. And she was moving across the country to continue with that clinical training. Irv and Ravi were extremely senior. That's really important as you put together a company and especially as you talk to investors. So both in terms of their ability to appeal to investors in that way, but also their actual experience and having built a company before was just an incredible resource. So that group of four is—I was really excited to join and be the person who was kinda building the nuts and bolts of the company on a day-in, day-out basis and had the opportunity to draw on both the scientific and entrepreneurial expertise of the rest of the group and get things off the ground.

Jon Chee - 00:09:26: Badass. And I think it's kinda like you've assembled getting the band back together, also just like a kind of like a—Vendors crew. Just to—to see a kind of a Vendors crew to start Pheast. And so we talked about, like, the early foundational elements here. Maybe just set the table for everyone—what is the state of the market and why is it this way? And then also, how does Pheast disrupt that status quo?

Roy Maute - 00:09:47: So Pheast, as of today, is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company. We have a drug that we call PHST001, which is a monoclonal antibody that blocks that target that I mentioned, CD24, which is a crucial regulator of macrophages. And when you block that, it sort of brings down one of the major barriers to macrophage attack of cancer cells. So this is a drug program that follows in the footsteps of some things that have come before. So, like, going way back early in our conversation, I was talking about T-cell immunotherapy, which in the kind of, like, 2010 to 2015 range was completely changing everything about how we think about cancer and treat cancer.

Many drug programs sort of work to follow on on those successes with a big emphasis on those particular slice of immune system, T cells. The focus of Forty Seven Inc. and now Pheast is on this other part of the immune system, on macrophages. And we think it's really obvious that we, as a—an entity and, like, as a cancer immunotherapy field should be focused on these cells because they are really abundant in the tumor microenvironment. Like, there's a lot of cancers that have more macrophages than they have cancer cells. So they're there. We also know, like, from biological research that they can be induced to attack cancer, but then we also know that if you don't target them in the right way, they actually support the growth of cancer.

They bring in blood vessel growth. They help promote the growth of the cancer cells and protect them from other drugs that you might throw at them. So we are far from the first to ever want to try to develop a drug that activates macrophages against cancer cells. But the field is surprisingly open because all of that great work that I described at Forty Seven Inc., super promising early clinical data—in the end, it didn't get over the hump in terms of drug approval. So there is no macrophage checkpoint drug currently in the landscape.

So on the one hand, you know, that makes things a little bit tough for Pheast because our kinda current message to investors, especially—like, they're very familiar with that—that worked before, like, almost got there, but not quite. So our key job is to convince them that, "Okay, we've got everything that was good about that, but we can take that last final step and get over into the efficacious window because, you know, the—less toxic. We work more potently in certain cancers." So we have a lot of data to—to speak to these things. But in the earliest days of the company, it was a pretty easy story to tell. It's like, "Okay. We're the next thing in this successful template that you've just seen."

Now it's like, "Okay. Well, we're gonna be the first thing." So the opportunity is bigger. The clinical impact will be bigger, but you gotta believe that we can sort of succeed and get that—that last couple yards over the finish line versus what's been tried before. So I think it's a—it's a great challenge. I'm really pleased that we have had investors that have believed in the story, not just in that early stage, but now through to where the rubber is really meeting the road in the clinic.

And I think as we become successful with this lead program and the stuff that we're developing that comes behind it, you know, one of the really easy things to—to tell people about is the impact that it will have because this will be a new class of immunotherapy. It will be something that accesses this, like, very well-known biology that is gonna be quite different from other current successful drugs, but that also means that it plays very well with other things that have been successful in the space.

And so I think we see a lot of opportunity mechanistically, biologically to combine with the sort of best-of-the-best, whether that's a traditional T-cell immunotherapy, whether that's a—you know, the emerging landscape of antibody-drug conjugates, which have made a big impact on a lot of the diseases where CD24 biology is relevant. And we think that by working together with those drugs, we can push further into a broader set of patient responses. We can really drive real benefit for patients in these high-net-need diseases.

Jon Chee - 00:13:09: Very rad. And I think we were talking about, like, how a lot of the work kind of, like, stem, like, ingested in academia. But, also, like, you're on shoulders of giants. It's kind of like this accretive experience where we're just like—you learn a little bit more, but, like, kind of evolve it again, evolve it again. And, like, it's just like this—we talk about, like, drug discovery timelines and pipelines, and you see that graph. It's just like, "Alright. You stand up a company, get it through clinical trials," and it's like, "No." It's like all the way back. Like, you go all the way back into, like, academia.

You work all your way through. You stand up a company. You get somewhere, and then again, it's like you build on top of that again, and you're like, "Okay. How do we just continue?" And, like, the horizons of these things are kind of, like—when you zoom out, you're just like, "Oh, we're all in this together." Like, everybody is, like, you know, all the work that's done previously and everything like that. And as you're thinking about, like, progressing this pipeline—you mentioned, like, working—you know, there's obviously '47. There was, like, the Gilead collaboration and then—then Pfizer at Ab Initio.

Are you guys taking a similar approach when it comes to collaborating with external partners, like, large players, or are you guys thinking about just, like, doing this thing internally? What's your philosophy around that at least?

Roy Maute - 00:14:15: I would say pragmatism is our primary philosophy, and I think we are now to the point as a company and especially with our lead program where a lot of those conversations are becoming more relevant. I think we're very fortunate to have the resources and the personnel and the expertise to go from this really cool target, you know, that was described at Stanford. And then from scratch, kind of build a team, ask, "Okay, do we understand this target well enough to build the best possible drug against it?" Get that drug, take it through, you know, early stage of the validation, manufacturing, get it into the clinic.

So many companies, I think, aren't fortunate enough to have the ability to do all of those things, but we—we were, which is great. Because now we are in the clinic and we can really generate the data that I think will be of interest to, you know, potential larger partners. I think once we have established a clear activity of this drug in the clinic, that's when a lot of that discussion can kind of start. And I would say that we'll see where it goes. We've been in touch with a lot of potential partners and have started to hear from them what they're focused on, what key data will really get them very interested.

And I'm pleased to say we're in the process of generating exactly that data. So I think there'll be some exciting discussions to have in the near future. But then on the other side, so thinking about what an early-stage collaboration like that—Ab Initio Pfizer collaboration—could mean for a company like ours, I would say that we have a lot of really great stuff in the pipeline and even earlier stages than that where we're a small company. We don't remotely have the hope to develop 10 drugs simultaneously. We just couldn't do that. But we do have the sort of biology to support that level of discovery.

And so I think that's where a potential early-stage collaboration with one of these partners could be impactful for both sides because I think, you know, we've gotten quite a good start on, you know, identifying many novel regulators of the immune system and things that—yeah, very unexpected and allow us to target them with a different template of drugs. So PHST001, our lead program, is kind of a checkpoint-style antibody. The primary focus is blocking this immune interaction, which we think there's a clear precedent for.

I mean, this—the world's most successful drugs are the PD-1 checkpoint drugs that do nothing else except for kind of take the brake off of this part of the immune system. At the same time, in the years since then, a lot of the drug development successes have been with a different style. So I mentioned antibody-drug conjugates earlier in the sort of early days of immunotherapy. That was something that had been tried and, like, mostly not worked, and there wasn't a lot of, like, heat in that space. Basically, completely flipped.

Now a lot of second-generation immunotherapy targets have failed, but ADCs are making a huge impact in patients' lives, and there's a lot more, like, room to run there. So as we have looked at our pipeline, we've got these novel immune regulators, and we think that there's the opportunity to target them in these different ways, including through ADCs. So we've got a couple that we are putting forward as, like, our next drug in our pipeline. As we raise money, like, those will be explicitly supported, and we'll be able to continue with those.

And then we've got a dozen additional things that we could be doing in that space—just for lack of resources. So I would say that just as with the conversations focused on the lead program, we've begun to start to—to talk to potential partners around these types of collaborations and don't have anything of that type yet. But I think it—it could be a really cool opportunity for both us and a larger company.

Jon Chee - 00:17:12: Very cool. And we're talking about, like, the kinda, like, 2020 era and what that meant for the industry and the proceeding years after that. How has the approach and strategy kind of have to evolve when it comes to capital raising, partnerships, and just, like, company building, frankly—change for a modern biotech in this day and age to thrive?

Roy Maute - 00:17:32: Yeah. When we were raising our Series A, I would say that we were at the very tail end of boom times for biotech investment. I would say it was apparent to everyone that that particular party was coming to an end at that time. So for us, we had a really focused story. Like, "This is the amount of money that we need in order to get to this stage," and it's a classic story in that sense. Six months before that, I would say there were a lot of companies that were pitching much bigger visions and, like, platform and, like, you know, "This is the starting place for 10 different drug programs."

We were, I think, more conservative in our focus, and I think that was to our benefit. Once we got underway and we saw that the public markets became very cold for biotech, a lot of the private investment was dried up. Of course, we were pleased that we weren't raising money at that time, but it also really focused us in on—on runway efficiency. So the company is still only 34 people. We've worked very hard to not over-expand and to make sure that every dollar we spend is going toward tangible progress.

And I think that's been crucial not only for just literally making sure we had the cash to get there, but also to making sure that our current investors see that we sort of understand that landscape and are responding accordingly—not trying to do too much too fast, and instead really focusing on what would be a value driver. I think now things have started to wake back up, thankfully. Around this time last year, heading into the JPMorgan week, people are, like, feeling very optimistic.

I think the tariff chaos dampened that enthusiasm quite a lot throughout the year, and it was a very difficult time to be out there kind of talking about raising new money. But interesting, what I saw was that there was a bit of a bifurcation where people were focused. I think throughout 2025, there was now finally the ability for people on the investment side to look at early-stage opportunities and say, "Okay. We're now investing in, you know, kinda seed-stage or early Series A companies."

There's always gonna be money to help develop drugs at the mature stage if they've got the right data behind them. And I think that made it a little bit difficult in the middle, which happened to be where Pheast was. But I think we're in the process of moving out of that phase into a phase where it's the clinical data of the lead program above all that's gonna be the most important thing for people to look at and, you know, decide that Pheast is an appropriate place to invest.

And, yeah, I think ten years ago, to kind of, like—just making progress through a lot of the phases that we've already, you know, traveled through would be enough to pretty easily justify further investment. And then now we live in an era where it's really data-driven and no one's gonna give the benefit of the doubt to an unproven target or an area of biology that hasn't yet succeeded—they need to see the data. So that's how we focus our efforts from a kinda company building and fundraising messaging perspective. And I think very naturally, we are looking to raise money in this coming year, but we'll be doing that on the backs of, I think, really strong clinical data to support it.

Jon Chee - 00:20:09: Make a lot of sense. And I think one thing is that watching the kinda, like, these cycles come through, eventually, things have to thaw off. I always think about, like, where we are in the cycle. I suppose, like, always, like, reminding yourself, like, "This too shall pass," like, eventually. Like, the cycle will go kind of exactly what you said, kinda, like, people will put their heads up. Like, "Okay. It's, like, safe that we can go outside again."

But it makes sense that there was, like, a massive correction during the 2020. It was just, like, so, like, go-go times. And, you know, there's gonna be a kind of, you know, a force in the other direction that, like, kind of you have to reckon with. And as you're thinking about building this company and, you know, if you were to think about Pheast and kind of, like, different eras of, like, first couple years and then year four and beyond—kind of how has Pheast evolved?

Roy Maute - 00:20:54: Yeah. We've gone through what I think is a very natural growth path for a company like ours. Like, earliest days, it was a team of scientists focused only on science. You know, we were carrying forward the work that had been done in the academic lab, but now, you know, starting to kind of professionalize it a little bit and focus it in on, you know, not just understanding the target, but understanding the drugs that we would develop against it.

The phase after that, once we decided, like, "This is the exact drug," then it was like, "Okay. What is the regulatory package that we need to put together in order to get it into patients?" And so that's a kind of distinct enterprise, which is mostly science, but starts to be, you know, some other stuff as well. And then now we're in the clinical phase, which, you know, for the team, just requires a different set of people.

We hired a—a chief medical officer at the very, very end of last year, and he's led us through this process of getting into patients, built a small but incredibly effective team to activate sites, deal with our clinical CRO, and, you know, interface with the investigators all along the way. And that, I would say, is the likely area of focus and expansion as we think about the next couple of years. The scientists, meanwhile, continue to have a crucial role to play to support that program.

Right now, for example, we're in the monotherapy dose escalation, but we're quickly coming to the end of that phase. And we think that the best way to develop this drug is in combination with other things that are used and made diseases where we are treating. So justifying, like, "Okay, which ones are we gonna pick? Like, what exactly are the relevant ones? Will these combinations actually be effective? And what's the best way to test them?" That's been a big enterprise in and of itself.

And then at—at the same time, I'm coming from this background as a biomarker scientist and translational biologist—understanding the ways that we can assess patient samples and understand whether the drug is working and how and in whom is a crucial part of the enterprise going forward. So at the same time, much of the scientific team has turned its attention to our pipeline programs, some of those interesting novel targets that I described.

And so now we're sort of in this phase of the company where a lot of the value of the company and a lot of the attention is focused on the lead program. You know, maybe a larger number of personnel are actually focused now on the pipeline and what's coming next, but it has required just a very thoughtful approach to evolving ourselves from, you know, just a team of scientists to now a more complex organization. And I think that piece will accelerate from here where, for example, as we've tried to be very conservative with the way that we've built, we don't have, you know, a full-scale finance function.

We have a key leader and then a handful of consultants who we're working with externally. We don't have, like, in-house attorneys, but we have our external experts. Same on the regulatory side, same on the quality side. So as we go along, I think deciding when and how to bring those functions in-house to make ourselves a fully built company will be a, yeah, a fun challenge and something that other companies have gone through before us. But every company is different, and every company needs to be responsive to the kinda external conditions that speak to some of those things.

Jon Chee - 00:23:42: Totally. And I think, of course, in the earliest days, you start with the kind of, like, the external help, and then you start, like—exactly what you're saying, figuring out what you're gonna bring in-house. And, you know, for folks who are thinking about, you know, starting their own companies too, it's like, yeah—don't bring everything in-house all at once. Like, definitely, like, take it step-by-step and, like, give yourself the flexibility to work with these external partners before you go full-bore.

Kind of like similar, like, when you're talking about—I'm thinking about your Ab Initio experience. It's like, go to an incubator first versus just, like, signing up a massive lease. It's like, let's outfit this whole thing. Just, like, take it step-by-step and, like, figuring out kind of, like, when is the right time to bring something in-house. And you mentioned that you're gonna be raising your next round sometime in the future. Can you just talk about your philosophy on fundraising and investor selection, and how do you think about how do—

Roy Maute - 00:24:30: You put the right investors on the bus? We've been incredibly fortunate with the investors that supported Pheast from the earliest days. So, you know, our Series A was co-led by Catalio Capital and Arch Venture Partners, and they are the ideal investors in many respects. So first, they're very well funded, so they have large funds and are able to really follow companies through every stage of development. They're not seed specialists, but they are willing to take a chance even on—on very early-stage companies.

They're also deep networks and deep expertise. So in terms of helping us to build the company and guide it, they've been crucial members of our board and really active voices in helping us map our way forward. But they're really scientifically minded, so, you know, both funds, I think, have a clear focus on working with strong scientists. And so I think that often leads them to look to academic labs—you know, where are people doing the best work, what's exciting, and making sure that they work with people like Irv, for example, who's very well known in the field, has the track record of scientific success.

They wanna be working with people like that because he has indeed successfully generated companies and value from—starting from that—that scientific mindset. As we look to the next stage, I think we are, you know, getting to be a more mature company. And so the types of investors that are interested in helping to support a mature clinical-stage company are a little bit, you know, distinct. I would say it's a very capital-intensive enterprise to develop drugs, and so they need to be pretty deep-pocketed.

But I think looking at a company like Pheast, which has derisked, you know, many parts of the drug development process—basically, like, we have a drug. We can make it. We've gotten into patients. We've demonstrated it's safe. And now, like, the question of, you know, exactly what level of efficacy can we demonstrate in these specific indications is a different risk profile than people operate at the earliest stages.

And so for us, I think we're looking for the same set of characteristics, but at that next stage of development—we want people who are interested in novel science because that's what we have. We want people who are primarily looking to invest in a way that makes a real impact because I think there's a lot of drug programs out there that are just modestly iterative on what's come before. That can be a good financial opportunity, and that can be good for patients, but we're taking a much bigger swing.

I think we're looking at something that, if it's successful, is gonna have a big and very broad impact, but there's some risks involved in the meantime you're doing something new. So we want people who are on board with that, and we ideally want people who have a long-term view. I think as we approach this next stage of our growth, let's reflect back on that kind of 2020 era. Like, there are some investors that are mainly focused on that immediate next value inflection. I'm like, "Okay. How can you flip into an acquisition? How can you flip into an IPO?"

I think, you know, for us, it's not that we're closed off to those kind of opportunities, but we don't necessarily want that to be the first thought for everyone who's in the company. We wanna ask—what's the best way to develop this drug, what's the best way to—to drive patient benefit. Ultimately, that is the primary driver for long-term value, but we just wanna make sure that people are on board with doing what's right for that program and for patients rather than only focused on, "Okay, like, is it six months? Is it two months? Like, how quick can you get to an exit?" The exit and the value will come, obviously, for a company like ours, but we want someone who wants to be there for the journey.

Jon Chee - 00:27:34: Absolutely. And I think we see it the same way on our side too. It's like, obviously, financial outcomes are important too, but, like, having that North Star long-term vision and hyperfocus on that—in your case, patient outcomes. And for us, it's the success of anyone at the bench. If you make that happen, everything kinda just, like, flows from that.

And so I think too—like, exactly what we said—we're seeing it on our side that things are beginning to thaw off. And as we're entering, like, JPM season, I think, you know, hopefully, the last year's kind of reservations also have kind of thawed off too. And now, like—when you look one year, two years out, what's in store for you and what's in store for Pheast?

Roy Maute - 00:28:11: Yeah. One to two years, I absolutely hope to continue to be in my current position at Pheast because I think we've got a lot more exciting work to do. I think the lead program—we strongly expect that we're gonna finish the monotherapy phase of development in the first quarter of the coming year, and I think we've seen a ton of exciting stuff. We will see, you know, some really exciting data during that phase, and we'll already be starting to treat patients in the sort of disease-specific, combination-specific way also in the first quarter of the coming year.

So I think for us, these are two distinct aspects of just understanding what this target is doing, what this drug is doing. And, yeah, we expect that will open up the path for us to determine, "Okay, how are we gonna get this approved in our first disease and then how are we gonna get this approved in a broader set of indications after that." So I think getting that data and getting clarity around that path is a really exciting thing for our company, and I think that goes glove-in-hand with finding the resources in order to carry it forward.

At the same time, I mentioned it a couple of times, but the stuff we've got in the pipeline is really excellent and would completely justify a company around those products just by themselves. So finding the best way to develop those to make sure that we can, you know, do it quickly in a way that's also kinda balanced with our lead program. For example, that could involve earlier stage partnerships, and we're really excited to just start those discussions and see where we go.

But across the board, I'm really pleased and really excited that Pheast has now become a company that is actually having an impact in patients' lives. I think as a scientist, you know, it's really fun to do cool experiments. And then in a program like ours, you start to get that sense of, like, "Okay, well, if we get over this hump and we get through this next barrier, then, like, an actual person—a real-life patient is gonna be treated with this thing that we're developing now."

And now we've been sort of living in that world as a team for quite some time. And amongst our group, there's people like our chief medical officer who have been only doing that for decades of his career. There's people like me who have gotten the taste of it before and are—are really hooked on it. And then there's people who—this is their first experience being part of the clinical-stage program. So it's a—just a great time to be at this stage of company.

And so I think as we look to make sure that we can effectively build the team and build the company, find those opportunities with those new additional programs—this is where the real scientific innovation and the impact meet. So for me, that's—it's the most exciting type of opportunity to have, and I'm not looking anywhere else.

Jon Chee - 00:30:26: Hell, yeah. I'm pumped for you. Like, everything you described is super exciting. And I think too is just like, what a rare opportunity to kind of, like, see this all the way through—just like from, you know, the earliest stages up to—you know? And you talked about, like, when you're at '47 kind of just, like, having the kind of—the more of an observational opportunity, but now you're actually getting your hands dirty and, like, really doing it, like—you know, the "see one, do one, teach one." You're in the "do" phase. Yeah. Yeah. You're in the "do" phase right now, which is very exciting.

I'm pumped for you guys and pumped for Pheast as an organization. And you've been so generous with your time. This has been super fun and super rad, so thank you for sharing everything and also being willing to share your personal experiences from, you know, the earliest days. For me, like, this is why I get out of bed—it's because, like, this is so fun to hear. Kinda, like—I can hear the passion. I can just, like, really also too—just, like, you can appreciate the technical difficulty of all this. This is, like, hardship and your willingness to do the hard thing.

Not to say that, like—kind of a—we talked about the kind of, like, opportunities that may not be as kind of, like, swinging for the fences, but, like, I'm pumped that you're willing to tackle big problems and do it full speed. So very, very thankful for your time. And in traditional closing fashion, we have two questions. So first is—would you like to give any shout-outs to anyone who supported you along the way?

Roy Maute - 00:31:41: So you gave me ample opportunity to call out a bunch of them. It was—starting from my parents, my undergraduate research mentors, my postdoc research mentors, Irv. So I—I have to say I—I covered all of that. The only additional call-out I'll give is to my peers who I worked with at Stanford. So some of them I still work with now. Some, I, you know, co-founded that first company with. Others, I just—I'm friends with and stay in touch. But that was a really special group that I would say is very self-supporting and a great fountain of expertise and friendship. So that's my additional call-out.

Jon Chee - 00:32:11: Hell, yeah. I think too, like, I think about my colleagues at Berkeley who have just, like, continue to be super supportive in the same fashion. I'm like, "Damn. Really couldn't do it without y'all. Like, really." So definitely empathizing that. And last question—if you can give any advice to your 21-year-old self, what would it be?

Roy Maute - 00:32:29: I was thinking about this. I honestly wouldn't change anything about the past that I've had. I've just been lucky when I needed to be lucky. I have learned a ton at every stage. You know? There have been successes. There have been failures. I wouldn't trade any of those for anything. Probably the one thing I would tell myself at the age of 21 specifically is, like, "When you get a break, just really take it."

Because I think in this conversation, we talked to a bunch of different stages of my training, and it's like—between, you know, undergrad and grad school, between grad school and my postdoc and my first, I could have taken a little bit more of a break, but somehow I always found something to do and—like, maybe tying all the way back to that part of my upbringing where, like—you should always be working on something. You should always be, you know—"Go sand that trim, go paint that wall."

Like, that impulse to just do something is sometimes—should be resisted because, you know, the review article that I wrote between my PhD and postdoc is, like, not consequential. I should have just relaxed a little bit during that time. So we'll see if I have the wherewithal to actually do that at some point in the future when I get my next window to take a break.

Jon Chee - 00:33:28: Yeah. No—that—that's actually the same for me in that I was just like—rest is important too. Rest is also productive. But for some reason, I'm, like, hardwired to, like, ignore that. But, like—it's always worth reminding yourself that, like, resting is— I always think about, like, rock climbing. Like, you see, like, Alex Honnold, like, free soloing a wall. Like, he definitely is resting. Like, there's, like, so much on the line, and it's just, like, giving your body and mental the opportunity to, like, recover—important stuff. Easy to overlook, for sure.

Roy Maute - 00:33:59: Start a race on fresh legs.

Jon Chee - 00:34:00: Yeah. Exactly. Well, Roy, thank you again. This has been so much fun. You know, we've talked about JPM season. We're close by. We're in the Bay Area. But, yeah, we'd love to connect with you as we approach JPM season. You know, let's grab a bite to eat. Maybe something in Berkeley, actually. I mean, I really like JPM's in San Francisco, but I always love getting back to Berkeley and going back to the stomping grounds. But thanks again, Roy. You've been so generous.

Roy Maute - 00:34:21: I would love to. Yeah. It's a real pleasure. Thanks for the chance to meet with you.

Jon Chee - 00:34:24: Talk to you soon.

Outro - 00:34:27: Thanks for listening to our four-part series featuring Roy Maute. From Dallas to Berkeley, Columbia, Stanford, co-founding Ab Initio, leading translational research at Forty Seven through its $4,900,000,000 Gilead acquisition, and now building Pheast as CEO, Roy's story shows how scientific rigor combined with entrepreneurial execution can pioneer new classes of cancer immunotherapy. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, leave a review, or share it with a friend.

Join us for our next series featuring Sujal Patel, co-founder and CEO of Nautilus Biotechnology, a life sciences company creating a platform technology for quantifying the proteome. Before founding Nautilus, Sujal founded and served as CEO of Isilon Systems, which completed one of the most successful IPOs of 2006 before being acquired by EMC in 2010 for $2,600,000,000. He served as president of EMC's Isilon storage division from 2010 to 2012.

At Nautilus, Sujal leads development of the Nautilus proteome analysis platform, which uses single-molecule technology to achieve comprehensive proteome coverage. With 19 patents in storage and networking plus five patents for Nautilus's innovations, Sujal's journey from building billion-dollar tech companies to revolutionizing proteomics demonstrates how entrepreneurial experience can democratize access to the proteome and enable fundamental advancements in human health, making this a conversation you won't want to miss.

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