Christopher Hoppe

The biotech industry is changing in a way not enough people are talking about. This realization came about after I finally had some time to reflect on my time at #bio2024 in San Diego a few weeks ago. I actually spent most of my time at the amazing Bullpen with my incredible dovetail biopartners team with a focus on growing our network to attract future clients and partners. But while doing this I noticed two trends different from last year… 1. Many startups are streamlining operations by keeping a core C-suite and outsourcing all other functions. This strategic move allows them to allocate resources efficiently, crucial in early stages where fundraising is challenging. By outsourcing research functions, startups can stay agile and focus on core competencies, accelerating growth. 2. Collaboration is now pivotal. With financial constraints, businesses are joining forces to innovate and reduce costs. Startups and large pharma alike are finding that partnerships enable them to access new markets, technologies, and talent that would be challenging to leverage alone. Both of these things seem beneficial for my company’s future… but I’m actually more concerned. Concerned about how scientific talent is going to be used moving forward. — So… With companies relying more on outsourced work and partnerships to get things done, the hiring landscape is poised for significant change. Even large pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to outsourcing. This shift raises important questions for wet and dry lab scientists who may have been laid off and are now seeking roles in biotech research teams. Will they need to adjust their expectations and consider opportunities with contract research organizations (CROs) or other non-traditional roles? And this isn’t even getting into the whole “#AI is going to replace humans” debate. (My 2 cents here, AI is in it’s infancy and promises far too much right now. We still need smart humans to extract insights and make decisions.) Navigating this new “lean” landscape requires proactive strategies where professionals can still find fulfilling roles that then help companies thrive. — I'm committed to hosting events that provide value to the biotech community, and want to keep opening up discussions on tough topics. Including what I wrote out here. I have some great stuff planned with Buzzed for Biotech this year and I’m always happy to brainstorm more. So let me hear your thoughts on this new biotech landscape below, and ping me if you have ideas for impactful events! #biotech #pharma #lifesciences #jobs #recruiting #fundraising

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I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Radar Therapeutics, dedicated to making programmable, safe, "smart" #mRNA-based therapies that only get activated in the right cells, at the right time. Working with Katherine Jones, Sarah Chesemore, and others at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we witnessed how Moderna and BioNTech SE/Pfizer catapulted mRNA therapies onto the world stage with unprecedented speed, saving millions of lives.   At Radar, we want to bring this promise beyond vaccines into the most complex therapeutic compartments by solving one of the biggest problems for these therapies: making sure these mRNAs only reprogram the right cells in the body, avoiding potentially toxic off-target effects. We are committed to making therapies with the highest bar of safety, and widely accessible to patients that need them. I was incredibly lucky to meet my co-founder Eerik Kaseniit (thank you Anna-Julia Storch), while at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Eerik was obsessed with the problem of precisely targeted, timely and controlled regulation of mRNA translation. Alongside Stanford Prof Xiaojing Gao and MIT Prof Jim Collins, we decided to direct those efforts towards saving lives by starting Radar Therapeutics. We attracted the brilliant minds Svetlana Lucas, David Schaffer, and Eric Klein along the way. We are grateful to NFX, Eli Lilly and Company, Biovision Ventures, and KdT Ventures for taking the lead on this round, alongside BEVC, Pear VC, ARTIS Ventures, Ten VC, Elementum Ventures, Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited, SALT, Conscience VC, and more. Here’s to a future where we can program therapies to rewrite any disease with utmost safety and accuracy. I’ll be at #BIO2024 for anyone looking to connect! Sharing some information about the company here: Endpoints News - https://lnkd.in/g4MQT245 Firstword Pharma - https://lnkd.in/gq3heWsE Genetic Engineering News - https://lnkd.in/gNPDfHEs Chemical & Engineering News - https://lnkd.in/gUx8ijmY Longevity Technology - https://lnkd.in/gRwdtiKx PBR- https://lnkd.in/gvUG_c5M Businesswire - https://lnkd.in/gcv88QAM Alix Marduel Vasudev Bailey Asset Abdualiyev Shan-Lyn Ma Wesley Barrow Pioneer Fund Jackie Benson Shannon Dahl Jackie Papkoff, Ph.D. Nat Kolber Jon Levin Ilya Strebulaev StartX Ron Boger Howard Rosen

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What is the motivation towards finding a leadership role outside the lab? WIB-San Francisco Bay Area ran a panel with some fantastic women from scientific backgrounds who successfully transitioned from the lab to leadership positions, moderated by Kara Calhoun (NGM Biopharmaceuticals). Let’s say that you are someone like Becky Pferdehirt, PhD (Andreessen Horowitz) who enjoys the initial phase of ideation but when it comes to assay optimization your brain has already moved on to the next ideation process; then a job where you get to set up partnerships (#BD) or invest in budding start-ups (#VC) will be a better fit for you. Bonus: you also get to bring your personality into this. Great, now we have identified that BD or VC or (add your dream non-lab-bio-job here) is for you, but what are the steps to getting there? Estelle Paysinger-Hill, PMP (Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc.) suggests you do all the informal interviews you can. Reflect on your skills and get those first interview nerves out of the way. Ok, you are doing this, but the process feels uncomfortable and on top of that the imposter syndrome feelings start getting to you. Executive coach and psychotherapist Nidhi Kaul advises you embrace the discomfort and focus on improving the things that you can actually control, including, self awareness, emotion regulation, and communication. And now you are wondering, everyone always talks the talk about how communication is key, but how do you actually improve? Marica Grskovic (CareDx, Inc.), who has been with the same company for ~12 years, a very unorthodox Bay Area story, says that practicing with your family is a good start. You will always have a different audience, so practise delivery by using different people of different backgrounds and seniority. Getting exposure to managing a team (even if it’s the smallest team) will also help you manage these people dynamics! Within this dynamic era of translational science, a lot of us are likely to be looking into transitioning. It never feels easy, but listening to these 5 women who were so comfortable in their skin was very heartwarming!! (two exclamation marks for Becky) If you are unhappy in your current role, the time to change is always now. #WomenInBio #VC #CareerTransition #jobchange #bio #PhD

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I am super excited about and proud of what the Arrakis team has accomplished here. All the more so because of the sweat, talent, creativity, persistence, resilience, and orthogonal thinking it took to make this happen. While the DM1 program itself is new, it is the culmination of seven years of effort to build and optimize the physical and intellectual infrastructure needed to drug RNA with small molecules. It's been a long, occasionally frustrating, often exhausting, but always exhilarating journey. It's also, amazingly, the longest job I've held. It's been an honor. I am grateful to Arrakis employees past and present, our investors, our partners Roche and Amgen, our advisors, and everyone who has helped us one way or another. So what has the team accomplished here? In short, we have identified and optimized multiple series of drug-like small molecules that directly target the precise molecular genetic cause of myotonic dystrophy, type 1 (DM1). This devastating disease is caused by expansion of CTG repeats in the gene for DMPK, which are transcribed into mRNA carrying long extended arrays of CUG repeats. These RNAs aggregate in the nuclei of affected cells and sequester splicing factors, causing global perturbations in splicing involving dozens of genes. The impact of these aberrant splicing events on cellular proteins leads to physiological defects in multiple organs and tissues. The data that Jennifer Petter will present today establish that the Arrakis compounds specifically recognize and bind the CUG repeat - we have beautiful X-ray structures that show us precisely how they do that. They bind that sequence selectively - over other RNA sequences and the CTG repeat in DNA. They interfere with formation of nuclear aggregates in DM1 patient-derived cells. They rescue the splicing defects in these cells. Importantly, they correct splicing in a mouse model of disease and fully reverse myotonia in these animals. And they do all these things in the familiar and comforting package of drug-like small molecules, with all the properties we've come to know and love about small molecules -- including broad distribution to address tissues beyond muscle, oral bioavailability, and a relatively simple, inexpensive, and commoditized supply chain. We believe that if we can continue to advance these molecules, we'll have an important and differentiated therapeutic option for patients who have none at all today. This is why we do what we do in our business. It's wonderful when the magic works.

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🌟 Exciting News from Cache! 🌟 "Cache DNA, a life sciences company revolutionizing biological sample and data storage infrastructure, today announced the closing of its seed round. The team raised an undisclosed amount from notable investors, including Climate Capital Bio, Exor Ventures, Hawktail, LifeX Ventures, Pillar VC, and Trousdale Ventures, including support from Illumina and founders such as Alec Nielsen. The funds will help power R&D and support commercial development efforts and key partnerships to bring their solutions to market." 🧬🔬 See the full press release here: https://lnkd.in/gcRuzkSF 🔗 James Banal and I set out on this mission to store the biomolecules of today to unlock the possibilities of tomorrow. With our talented Cache team, we couldn't be more excited to leave freezers behind with our next-generation approach to molecular preservation 🧊 Join the growing number of commercial labs, academic medical centers, and biobanks worldwide by trying out our technology yourself. Apply for a demo kit here (https://lnkd.in/g8c8hgBz), and learn more at www.cache-dna.com. 🌐 #Biotechnology #Innovation #LifeSciences #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #PrecisionMedicine #Multiomics #Pathology

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Coming out of the Biocom California CEO Summit, I share biotech investor predictions and CEO insights in the latest edition of Vital Signs: https://lnkd.in/ghXYRsaq

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Investment, therapeutic viability, and next-gen. technologies... That's what the cell therapy field needs. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jason C. Foster of Ori Biotech recently on their podcast to talk all things cell therapy, the enabling technologies that support this modality, and the need for more investment. What did we touch on (and link to full podcast below)? Investors needing to see a return when investing in cell therapies. Need to bring manufacturing costs down to expand access. Next-gen. tools to create better, more robust therapies. Purpose-built therapies require purpose-built tools! Our consulting practice, how we help our clients, and how we view the field of advanced therapies. We take a differentiated approach to tracking, following, and mapping key trends across advanced therapies to bring novel, business-impacting insights to our clients. Want to discuss any of the above? Where the field of cell therapies are going? What it means for your own development pipeline? Reach out and let me know what you think in the comments! #celltherapy #venturecapital #consulting https://lnkd.in/g7SH9FAU

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I think we're seeing a whole new Illumina strategy for defending the mid-market from Element Biosciences competition. I for one was thinking too narrowly to see this - figured it was all about Aviti vs NextSeq. But I think we're starting to see a clever three-pronged Illumina strategy: (1) Times are hard, why buy a mid instrument for $400K when you can just skip that and send your samples out to someone with an X? (2) High throughput is where it's at, here's a cheap NovaSeq X, why not stretch a little for that and be able to hang with the cool kids? (3) Have you seen our new MiSeq i100? Here take this Lego one. It's just $100K, you can most of your stuff with that, and just send out for the big stuff. Sure, kills NextSeq sales too, but that's easy pain for Illumina to bear, but existential for Element. Here's Illumina CFO Ankur Dhingra spelling it out for Wolfe's Doug Schenkel: "...customers, because of the macro [economic/grant] issues, have been transitioning their sample volume to high throughput. And a lot of our mid throughput customers who are constrained by that macro environment are resorting to sending their samples to either core labs or other sequencing providers." "...the constrained environment is making people take decisions on what are they going to invest in their lab or until money frees up, they're going to take advantage of the lower high throughput [X-based sequencing as a service] pricing that is available externally." "I do think there are additional two factors that are coming our way from an Illumina perspective. We have said we will be launching a slightly lower throughput version of NovaSeq X with a single flow cell. And that is at a price point which is well below 1 million. So, there is a potential that some of our mid throughput customers may see some value there. And also, the higher end of the new MiSeq i100 that we have launched has capabilities that can seep into some of the mid throughput kind of requirements as well. So, it's [Element?😳] going to get squeezed from a little bit from both the directions as well."

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Join A Growing Community of World-Class Entrepreneurs. Biotech Labs. Tech Workspaces. Medical Offices. At Colorado Health & Tech Centers (CHTC), we are a premier hub for a diverse array of companies specializing in health and technology, allowing you to expand your network and spur your innovation. Join the world-class CHTC network and discover the power of collaboration in the life science and biotechnology sector. https://coloradohtc.com/ #Denverrealestate, #biotechnology, #Pharmaceutical, #biotech, #pharma, #innovation, #tech, #Technology, #CBSA, #CoBioscience, #cro , #cdmo , #laboratory,  #relocationspecialist, #Medicaldevice, #entrepreneurship, #startups, #culture, #HR, #partnerships, #LetsWork, #Whatinspiresme, #Productivity, #socialentrepreneurship, Babak Kia, Thomas Malcolm, Danny D. Martinez

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BIG NEWS FOR HORMONE HEALTH! Almost 2 years in the making, so proud of the Elix team for the completion of our second independent clinical trial focused on #PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome). Big shoutout to our medical advisors, our passionate team and most of all - our community members for your strength, resilience and belief in more sustainable approaches to our health and longevity. The clinical study assessed two of Elix's flagship products—Cycle Balance and Daily Harmony. These herbal supplements, rooted in 5,000 years of TCM research, target inflammation and hormone imbalances associated with PCOS. Results revealed that in a group of non-birth control users: * 89.3% of participants agreed that Elix Cycle Balance and Daily Harmony have helped to regulate their cycle.
 * 85.7% of participants agreed that they had fewer premenstrual and menstrual cramps after taking Elix Cycle Balance and Daily Harmony.
 * 71.4% of participants agreed that taking Elix Cycle Balance and Daily Harmony had improved their hormonal acne/breakouts and that they experienced fewer mood swings.
 The trial, conducted over six months, involved 70 participants with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome aged 18-36, divided into two groups: those using hormonal birth control (BC) and those not using it (No BC). Each participant was also diagnosed with PCOS and experienced symptoms such as irregular menstrual periods or the absence of menstrual periods and/ or excessive facial or body hair, thinning hair, hair loss on the scalp, oily skin, and or acne. Additionally, the majority of participants in the Clinical Study experienced improvements in the following symptoms: * Cycle regulation
 * Bloating
 * Fatigue
 * Mood swings
 * Anxiety
 * Sleep quality
 * Premenstrual and menstrual cramps
 * Hormonal acne/breakouts
 * Brain fog
 * Mental clarity
 * Focus
 * Weight gain
 * Unwanted facial / body hair
 * Fluid retention
 * Overall PMS symptoms
 * Overall PCOS symptoms
 * Overall health and wellbeing https://lnkd.in/eUjV7DkZ

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🚀 The Episode with David Slack is Live! 🚀 Yesterday, we dropped an incredible episode featuring David Slack, CEO of Impilo Therapeutics, Inc., where he shared some game-changing insights on biotech collaborations and leadership. In case you missed it, here’s a quick highlight where David talks about the importance of treating external partners with respect and building successful biotech collaborations. 🤝 Catch the full episode on YouTube and Spotify—links in the comments below! 🎧 Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe! #TheBioHub #Podcast #Biotech #Innovation #DavidSlack #ImpiloTherapeutics #Partnerships #Leadership

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Congratulations to our SELLAS Life Sciences Group, Inc. team for additional exciting data around ASXL1 and our SLS009 program. ASXL1 mutation may be playing a key preselection/biomarker role with our highly selective CDK9 inhibitor, SLS009 – both in hematological and solid cancers. We observed high efficacy of SLS009 in 67% of ASXL1 Mutated Solid Cancers, including colorectal cancer (57%) and non-small cell lung cancer (100%). We raised the bar in this study significantly: high efficacy was prespecified as IC50 < 100 nM, significantly lower than the standard threshold definition for an effective compound (IC50 < 1,000 nM). Our ASXL1 mutation-treatment approach is now further validated for potential biomarker use for SLS009’s drug response in solid cancers as well as hematological malignancies. https://lnkd.in/e8YVGG3R American Society of Hematology European Hematology Association (EHA) American Association for Cancer Research American Association for Cancer Research American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) ESMO - European Society for Medical Oncology

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Great to see that DELFI Diagnostics is using reasonable language to communicate around it's cancer DX technology: "DELFI Diagnostics, Inc., developer of accessible blood-based liquid biopsy tests that deliver a new way to enhance early cancer detection" "We have a vision of the future where cancer is routinely detected early, and patients have more options and better outcomes as a result." Just as a reminder, here are some Illumina/GRAIL quotes: "Our mission is to detect cancer early, when it can be cured" “Broad adoption of Galleri could avert nearly 40% of the 5-year cancer mortality or around 100,000 deaths annually in the U.S.” "If this acquisition does not proceed, GRAIL’s European roll-out will be slower and the cost will be measured in the unnecessary loss of life. Re-uniting GRAIL with Illumina will accelerate ... saving tens of thousands of lives.” "Illumina feels there is a moral obligation to have the deal decided by a thoughtful and full review by the EU regulators and the US courts. This can only be done if Illumina acquires GRAIL now. " “As we shared in late July, we remain committed to closing this pro-competitive deal and believe with this acquisition, Illumina will be uniquely positioned to help save tens of thousands of lives.”

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Gordian Biotechnology is all about predicting patient outcomes, and are now hiring a Head of Translational Genomics to envision and enact strategy to identify patient segments most likely to match responses we're seeing preclinically. You'll have access to unprecedented in vivo datasets showing therapeutic potential from experimental tests in half a dozen species, as well as patient samples. From this and additional data you seek out, you'll explore and decide the best ways for us to identify patients likely to respond in clinical trials, e.g. endotypes sharing pathophysiology with preclinical models, biomarkers for responsiveness, and more. You would report directly to the CSO, and be supported by an outstanding team of disease experts and wet+computational biologists. Read more and apply: https://lnkd.in/gwFgvT3T #Hiring #Biotechjobs #Startupjobs #Bayareajobs #DrugDevelopment #HumanGenetics #ComparativeGenomics #SingleCell #Genomics #MASH #Fibrosis #HeartFailure #Osteoarthritis #CreatingTime

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Artiva Biotherapeutics, a clinical-stage NK cell therapy biotech, is trying again for the public markets, it revealed Friday afternoon in an #SEC filing. The San Diego biotech is going for a Nasdaq debut but in a very different biotech financing environment than when it originally sought an #IPO in the spring of 2021, at a time when large public floats were easier to achieve thanks to low interest rates and generalist investors’ intrigue in drug development. And this time around, it’s without partner Merck, which axed their CAR-NK solid tumor collaboration last October, according to Friday’s S-1 filing. #NKcelltherapy #celltherapy #cellandgenetherapy #advancedtherapies #publicmarkets #biotech #biotechnology #financing #funding #lifescience #lifesciences #IPOs #solidtumors #bloodcancers #autoimmunedisease GC Cell 5AM Ventures venBio RA Capital Management

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Roche's recent decision to offload their Vacaville facility highlights the increasing importance of cell line productivity in biomanufacturing strategy. According to Dan Stanton of Bioprocess Insider, Roche is moving towards more high titer processes and products with lower volume demands. (You can read the article here https://lnkd.in/erRx597k) Agile manufacturing strategies are enabled by cell line productivity, which allows for the same amount of drug substance to be produced in smaller bioreactors. This, in turn, allows for smaller clean rooms and lower running costs. Just - Evotec Biologics' J.CHO High Expression System cell lines, grown in perfusion bioreactors, produce over 4 g/L of antibody each day, equivalent to around 30 g/L in fed-batch mode (https://lnkd.in/eexeJrQA). This level of productivity allows for commercial quantities of antibody to be manufactured in 1000L single-use bioreactors in our modular J.POD facilities. As a result, large-scale stainless-steel facilities are becoming redundant. The future of biomanufacturing lies in maximizing cell line productivity, and our J.CHO system is leading the way. #biomanufacturing #celllineproductivity #JCHO #JPod #agilemanufacturing 👨‍⚕️Philip Boehme

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“What is an engineering way to de-risk the possibility of reaching that type of prototype in the shortest amount of time possible?” I love the way Meliora Therapeutics CEO, David Li, thinks about this stuff, and Part 3 of my conversation with him for The Biotech Startups Podcast is an incredible deep dive into the combination of engineering, finance, and life sciences principles that are critical for bringing paradigm-shifting biotech solutions to market: – De-risking the “rifle shot” of biotech development, learning new business cadences, and learning to balance caution and urgency – Leveraging existing infrastructure, iterate quickly, and finding ways to run parallel experiments to accelerate prototypes and pre-clinical testing – Learning how to “make a call” when there’s endless experiments you could run… and a lack of concrete benchmarks for what an endpoint looks like – Rewiring beliefs around raising capital as a biotech vs software startup, and the critical importance of building (and flexing) your storytelling muscles, so you can do all of the above effectively It’s another don’t-miss episode, packed with multi-disciplinary learnings that traditionally, just don’t get enough airtime in biotech. Apple Podcasts & Spotify links in the comments below! 👇🏽 #biotechnology #lifesciences #podcast

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A tale of perseverance and strategy at 2seventy bio. In just two years, the biotech has weathered layoffs, pipeline reorganizations, fierce competition, FDA safety warnings, and discontinued clinical trials. Yet, CEO Chip Baird credits transparency and a committed staff for keeping the company afloat. Despite the challenges, 2seventy is now on the path to profitability, with Baird predicting reaching that milestone next year. Stay tuned for potential growth strategies once breakeven is achieved. #biotech #perseverance #strategy #celltherapy #CarT #multiplemyeloma #advancedtherapies #regenerativemedicine #lifescience #lifesciences #biotech #biotechnology bluebird bio #milestones #profitability

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