Approved
Life sciences, under the hood. Deep dives into the patent filings, regulatory gauntlets, and capital-risks that shape the business of biology.
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What is Approved?
<p>Approved tells the definitive stories behind the world's most interesting biotech ventures. </p><p>Most people learn about the industry in a fragmented, ad hoc way-- an industry article here, a clinical trial readout there, some science twitter. In contrast, The Approved podcast tells comprehensive, definitive stories of how drugs are discovered, developed and sold. Whether we're tracking a single blockbuster drug's remarkable rise, or following a single startup’s decade-long path to approval, every episode we put out is an unvarnished look at how the biotech industry works. We break down what worked, what failed, and distill insights that...
Blueprint Medicines: Chasing Gleevec to a $9B Allergy Drug
<p>Blueprint Medicines was built to find the next Gleevec-style cancer drug. It ended up pivoting to allergic disease instead, and selling to Sanofi for $9B. This is the platform, the pivot, and who got paid.</p><p><br>Blueprint Medicines set out to be the natural sequel to Gleevec: a company founded by two of the scientists behind that landmark cancer drug, built to order by Third Rock Ventures' "venture creation" model, with a proprietary kinase-inhibitor library designed to drug the 517 other broken molecular switches Gleevec couldn't touch.</p><p>A decade later, Sanofi paid roughly $9 billion for the...
Keytruda: How Merck's Pembrolizumab Became the Best-Selling Cancer Drug of All Time
<p>Keytruda is Merck's $31 billion a year PD-1 inhibitor and the best-selling cancer drug of all time. In Episode 3 of Approved, Alex Kesin and Matthew Pech trace the development of pembrolizumab , featuring interviews the scientists who drove the program forward : co-inventors Gregory Carven and Michel Streuli, and former Merck oncology CMO Roy Baynes.</p><p>Topics include preclinical PD1 / CTLA-4 checkpoint biology that brought industry attention to the target (Jim Allison's CTLA-4 work and Tasuku Honjo's PD-1 discovery); how pembro started as a failed rheumatoid arthritis antibody program at a Dutch subsidiary of a paint company; the two mega-mergers that...
Episode #2: Geron
<p>Listen on Spotify</p><p>Listen on Apple Podcasts</p><p>Listen on YouTube</p><p>TABLE OF CONTENTS</p><p>(00:00:00) - Introduction </p><p>(00:01:19) - Hayflick Limit </p><p>(00:08:30) - Michael West & Founding of Geron </p><p>(00:15:16) - Early Science & IP Strategy </p><p>(00:27:25) - Cloning the Telomerase Gene </p><p>(00:29:30) - Embryonic Stem Cells & Political Context </p><p>(00:44:21) - Okarma, West’s Departure & Corporate Turmoil </p><p>(01:05:08) - Spinal Cord Injury Trial </p><p>(01:30:45) - Pivot to Blood Cancer </p><p>(01:43:08) - Clinical & Commercial Drama</p><p>(02:01:45) - Legacy & Lessons</p><p>CREDITS</p><p>Co-hosted by Alex Kesin...
Episode #1: Amylin Pharmaceuticals
<p>Listen on Spotify</p><p>Listen on Apple Podcasts</p><p>Listen on YouTube</p><p>TABLE OF CONTENTS</p><p>(00:00:00) - Introduction</p><p>(00:04:40) - $50 of Dried Lizard Venom</p><p>(00:29:17) - Fax of Death</p><p>(00:43:04) - Sleeping Beauty Awakens</p><p>(00:52:07) - Carl Icahn Sends a Letter</p><p>(01:09:19) - Endgame</p><p>(01:13:40) - Postmortem & Playbook</p><p>CREDITS</p><p>Co-hosted by Alex Kesin and Matthew Pech </p><p>Written, edited, and produced by Alex Kesin</p><p>Music: “Food” by nerowski</p><p>* Special thanks to the team at NFX for the use of their...
