Expanding The Proteome with ProFound's John Lepore, M.D.

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From the outside , looking in drug discovery might look like a bunch of scientists throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks , and while it's a crude way to put it and in fact , demeaning of the important work that scientists do , it's not an entirely naive assumption . It's not an entirely naive assumption .

Disease pathology is incredibly complex work because disease progression is influenced by myriad biological , chemical , physical and environmental factors , beginning at the molecular level , like DNA and the RNA it transcribes to the polypeptides , rnas code and the proteins . Rnas become .

This complexity of disease pathology is only exacerbated as those proteins reach the cellular level where any permutation of chemical , physical and environmental factors influence disease progression . Rudimentarily .

Finding the silver bullet that will stop disease in its tracks or prevent it from starting in the first place means finding the influence or , more appropriately , the permutation of influences of disease and altering their course . So , yeah , sometimes that looks like throwing spaghetti at the wall .

I'm not telling you anything you don't already know , but that's another big wrinkle in the paradigm . There is , in fact , a lot that we don't already know , and the more we discover , the better our odds of getting sticky spaghetti on the wall .

For instance , for many decades , it was generally accepted that just 2% of the 3 billion base pairs that comprise human genomic DNA represent protein coding sequences . Only recently have we discovered that , in fact , 80% of DNA is transcribed into RNA . If you're a molecular level drug discoverer , that's a potential game changer .

Dr John Lepore is a molecular level drug discoverer and his company and further exploration of our new understanding of DNA transcription just might be on to some sticky spaghetti . Founded in 2020 , the flagship pioneering startup ProFound Therapeutics began with a simple question what if more RNAs were being translated into proteins .

Answering that question took Profound down the rabbit hole of the translatome , where it's now studying the full compendium of RNA sequences that are being translated into proteins . Along the way , the young company is gaining confidence that its research will reveal important insight into potential therapeutic protein targets and medicines .

I'm Matt Pillar , this is the Business of Biotech , and on today's show I am thrilled to bring you Dr John Lepore , ceo at Profound Therapeutics . You , dr John Lepore , ceo at ProFound Therapeutics . He hasn't always been a drug discoverer , but we're about to learn how he got there and where he's taking Profound . Dr Lepore , welcome to the show .

I would frame it up as the risks are high up front and the whole process is to try to minimize risk as you go and we call it risk discharge , to get to something that you're more confident to get to patients and all the things that my company are doing and many other companies are trying to figure out how to streamline that process and make it more likely

to get to the end . But thrilled to have the opportunity to talk with you about , I guess , how I got here , but also what we're doing .

I mean upstream in terms of from the , from the patient as as the whole , to , uh , as I said , drug discovery at the molecular level , and I can kind of .

I can kind of rationalize that I don't know if it's the best analogy , I can kind of rationalize that I don't know if it's the best analogy , but I can kind of rationalize that by just giving a brief synopsis of of where you've been .

You earned your MD at Harvard , practiced medicine at Mass General for seven years and taught at Harvard for three years , also serving on Penn's faculty for six . So like that to me , like I look at that and I'm like , okay , well , there's the academic and physician scientist part of the you know continuum . But then you joined pharma with GSK .

You stayed in R&D roles there for like 16 or so years , which is quite a long stint , culminating with five years as SVP and head of R&D .

So now we're , you know , now we're squarely in the discovery phase of your career , and then last year you joined Flagship , became an entrepreneur , in an even further upstream sort of capacity from my perspective , than typical R&D at Profound .

So I'd like you to , rather than me , just kind of make assumptions , walk us through that arc and the why behind the decisions you made , starting with why you decided to stop practicing and teaching and make the move into big bio , as it were , with GSK .

And you know , life's pretty short and there's not that many opportunities and what I've done in my career is try to find the places where I could apply my specific skills , intellect , interest , energy to have the biggest effect . And you know I absolutely love seeing patients and I have enormous respect for the people who do it full time .

It's extremely hard work , physically , mentally , obviously extremely important for society . But for me I was just so compelled by understanding the scientific underpinning of disease and you described it well in the preface , so well about how Well , but I mean , obviously you know a painting with some broad brushstrokes .

You know , for example , gastroenterologists that really specialize in inflammatory bowel disease , because there's so many different therapies that you need to know the molecular basis of how they interact with the patient , but also you know which particular subtypes to give them to and in what order , what side effects to watch for .

So it is a complex interchange of science and medicine . But for me , getting back to how I made the decision to switch , I was really enthralled with how can I be involved in creating one of those entities that has such a profound effect on patients ?

And the arc that you've described in my career was a series of decisions that I thought helped position me best to be able to do that . And you know , maybe the last thing I'd say on not seeing patients yeah , I still miss it and you know I was . You could ask the patients , but I was . I think I was reasonably good at it .

I missed the personal interaction and sort of seeing that the outcome and people feel better , get better . But you can't do everything and I think I've successfully steered in a direction where I could help many more patients through . You know the companies I've worked with and projects we've worked on .

And on the flip side of that , where did you feel like perhaps even even with that rich , uh side of that ? Where did you feel like perhaps even even with that rich physician's experience ? Where did you feel like perhaps you were lacking ?

So you know it's simplistic to say , well , ok , we'll pick a target , we'll make a small molecule of antibody against it and then we'll test it in patients .

Well , going from the make a small molecule to test in patients is like a thousand steps of people who are expert on , you know , pharmacology and product supply and product development and how to design the phase one and safety testing . There's like 50 different things . So that was one thing that was an eye opener for me .

It was just the complexity and the depth of , like specialization required to go from step one to step two . What was required of you to to make that adjustment , like to embrace that ? That's a really good question . And so you mentioned , you know why did I step away from seeing patients and teaching ? And I just did challenge on that point ?

I didn't really , because what I learned a lot about , not so much from seeing patients but from teaching , is that you know to run a good department and to develop people . I still continue to teach , and I even do that here in profound .

We could come up on that in a minute , but what I did is become a student in that case , so it's fairly accomplished at that point in time , was fairly on in my career , had a fairly senior role , but I decided I needed to do all the basic steps fill out the blank document for the regulatory agency , go to the meeting where we're just figuring out how many

pills to make and what you know what substance goes in them , and I just did all the basic stuff for about a year or two and then I felt like , okay , now I know the nuts and bolts of how this works and that stood me really well and I've always encouraged all the people I hire and train to .

You've got to take three steps back and do the hard work and then you'll be trained up to do it .

I mean you , you mentioned that like part of your motivation to make that transition was to broaden the , the impact right that you could have on on a patient base . What was that sort of the most rewarding thing ? Or were there there are other , like you know , like John Lepore specific rewards , that that you , I'd say ?

Because why waste time on something that's not going to have the biggest effect ? But then there's things you need to tackle to get there and you know , one of the it's the best thing and the worst thing about Big Pharma is it's a huge organization with deep expertise and people who know things in just great detail .

But it's also big and complicated and hard to maneuver . And you know , I think one of the things I was particularly fond of and I think helped a lot of people through , is how do you maneuver in that system and make sure things get from point A to point B quickly so that they could then get to patients most quickly .

So that sort of learning , organizational dynamics and just how to make things get done was an important part of it .

So for me as an individual it wasn't so big of a risk because of the background I've had and I felt like really capable and empowered to deliver on what needs to be done here and it was an opportunity that sort of uniquely fit my skillset . So it was a , it was a great match .

So in that sense it was less risky , um , but you know I get the point that it's going from , you know , having thousands of people reporting to me to now like dozens Um , and that's that I mean , yeah , thousands , there's that like daily .

You know so I was getting calls all the time , but this one had this unique feature , unique feature and you introduced this a little bit in the beginning of the call of opening up a brand new area of science that essentially no one has been .

Now there's been little snippets out in the literature about , but we really explored what's the size of this opportunity of novel proteins and the data I saw as I was looking at the job told me , wow , like there's enough here to be convinced that this is going to be a very huge opportunity , not for me but for patients and for science , and to figure out how

to unlock this systematically . And it just seemed like a fabulous career challenge and also fabulous opportunity to help patients even better than I could have staying in large pharma .

But oftentimes when I have conversations with folks who have worked in big bio and big pharma and made the transition , we talk a lot about moving from a super well-resourced organization to moving to an organization that's just , by design , has to be more agile , more nimble , more frugal , right ?

Maybe doesn't have quite as many people to turn to when you've got questions . Excuse me . So what , what ? Tell me a little bit about that . Like what did , what did the , the GSK experience prepare you well for in your role at Profound ? And then on the flip side of that , like making that transition , what did you feel ?

Perhaps a little bit like , uh , uncomfortable with the adjustment , right , maybe you had some some some discomfort around the lack of resources , for instance . Like what were the sort of ? Juxtapose those experiences and tell me what was great and what was maybe not as great .

It might be a scientific one , it might be a practical one , about how to make the protein or something , or it might be one that's more related to how the medicine would look 15 years from now when it comes . So it's a new question every day .

So having spent 16 years in various parts of R&D really helped me prepare to see the questions like , look around corners and anticipate what questions are going to come up , and then also to know where to look to get them answered . So that was great preparation . The other thing I'd say is I did a lot of business development at GSK .

I ran the BD department for a year and then we also did a lot of deals , and so I was on the other side of the table working with biotech and that really helps me now to think about how are pharma thinking about my company and what are the questions and challenges that I need to be prepared for .

So I'd say those two things in terms of what was a surprise or a challenge . Two things . In terms of what was the surprise or a challenge yeah , intellectually I knew it was going to be a much smaller , much less resourced group in terms of people and money and all that . But you don't understand that until you actually feel it .

It's like it's true and a question comes up and I just subconsciously think , OK , I know exactly who in GSK spent 15 years doing that thing and I could call her tomorrow . It's like , OK , wait a minute , she's not here anymore . So now what do we do ? So , yeah , that was a little bit of a challenge .

Like , OK , I've got to create a new network and a new process for getting things answered . So yeah , there's been challenges and opportunities .

Yeah , and I want to get your perspective on , uh , how a physician , scientist and academician like some , someone like you who comes out of Harvard and then spends that time in industry , even during your time at GSK like when you , when you , took on that BD role and then the further evolution of that from GSK to you know absolute leadership of a biotech , the

skills that you needed to acquire to be a businessman in this space , how did you do it ? Like , how did you prepare for that BD role at GSK ? And then how have you prepared for you know sort of taking on the whole enchilada for lack of a ? better term as the leader at Profound .

It ended up being a whole year and many deals and great opportunities . So I didn't prepare for it , it just was sort of there .

But you know , I'd say the things that prepared me to enable me to take that on are , first of all , having done deals before that , just as participating in them are first of all , having done deals before that , just as participating in them .

But then you know BD , just like drug development , ultimately it's about clarity on how the science relates to an ultimate application of the science to a patient for a specific value proposition .

And once you really understand that and could articulate that and know the vocabulary and know the questions and know the risks and challenges to get there , then BD becomes okay . It's the deal and the terms and the math around it . So that's what I brought to the table . It's just a real deep understanding of how . Not it's not a scientific question .

It's a business question how the science translates into benefit for a patient , and then that's what could be sold to . You know people who buy it . So understanding that well is what helped me with BD , and it's the same thing I need to do now .

It's you know , all this science is great , terrific , but I'm not here to sort of do human genome 2.0 or write 10 nature papers . That's a different job . I'm here to help the science get visibility , get uncovered , but then rapidly translate it to medicines .

I've had conversations like this before where I I equate it to like if I suddenly decided I want to go work on our , on our , in our sales department , like I don't think , I don't think I would do . Well , you know what I mean . Did you have a level of discomfort that you needed to wrestle to the ground with that , or what or or ?

Was sort of that pragmatic assessment of of the job enough for you to embrace it and be comfortable in that role ?

They are pragmatic , like how to function and bring people together and visualize what next steps could look like , and bring people along on an intellectual journey where they say , wow , okay , now I see where you're going , I'll give you money . You know that's not wow , now I see where you're going , I'll give you more money .

You mentioned already that you walked in and you saw an opportunity in the science and in the discovery that you thought would be huge . What exactly was that Like ? What was it that flipped the switch in you ? The premise of Profound that flipped the switch in your brain that said you know , this is what I'm going after .

For my team and that's one of the things that I brought to the company is really talking about the transition from pure platform company and we're still a platform company , but it was a pure platform company when the platform was being created , but now we're in transition from a platform company to a platform company and a pipeline company and you know my job is

to really make sure both things thrive . I'll tell you more about the platform but also to make sure there's visible , tangible products coming out that everyone sees as valuable to patients and therefore valuable as a business . And you know the first , I'd say , recognition of that was the deal we recently did with Pfizer , which we can talk about later .

So you know they're the first to really recognize that and there will be others , I'm sure . But what we do is as you introduced at the beginning . We started with the premise that there's 20,000 known proteins from the Human Genome Project about two decades ago .

But when they did that project and with enormous respect , and that was such an important landmark in science they necessarily need to have some rules where they defined what a protein needs to be to be included in their list . And they were partially , they were restrictive rules by design .

It turns out , if you relax the rules a little bit , then you start to say well , wait a , a minute , there might be other types of proteins and , as you alluded to , there are many types of RNA that we thought . There's one class called long non-coding RNA , meaning it doesn't code a protein .

It turns out that it looks like probably hundreds or thousands of them actually encode a protein , which is what we've defined and the way we did it was . We developed a particular technology . It's called RhypoSeq . I'll just spare the details , but it's a way of identifying proteins . In the process of being translated .

It's therefore unbiased and we find all the 20,000 known , but also everything that's now newly described , and there's literally tens of thousands of other ones , and what we have is a platform that enables us to rapidly , through a database , attribute sort of in silico potential function to them , and then we have a platform to do experimental assessment to see what

they really do , and we have a heavy dose of looking at which ones have human genetic evidence for being causal in disease . That's one of the things I brought to the table is because at GSK , I was leading on the collaboration we had with 23andMe .

So you know , this approach of using genetics to really pick the most promising targets is one that I've utilized here as well . So , look , it's no longer a theoretical proposition .

We've identified quite a number now of novel proteins that have drug-like properties , where the protein itself could be a drug , or drug target-like properties where we're making antibodies against them , for example . And , look , we're hoping to have our first candidate molecules within the next year or so . So it's a very exciting proposition .

It's capable , you know , the technology is capable of moving the needle , moving the ball downfield , but we don't necessarily have theoretically , we don't necessarily have the intent to take the ball any further than discovery . Let someone else develop a pipeline .

We'll be happy to sell our platform as a service or to partner , and oftentimes I've had conversations where it's know it's been put to me point blank we did that , we couldn't get anybody to get on board . So we said , well , let's demonstrate it by a pipeline . You know a candidate , develop a candidate to prove the theory .

But the intent isn't necessarily to say we're gonna have a follow-on candidate , we're gonna have a candidate beyond that , we're gonna build an entire pipeline . Uh , so I'm just I'm looking for like what , what the sense is at profound .

You said that your role right now is is kind of two-part , uh , in terms of the , the platform product and also developing the pipeline . Would profound and maybe it's too early to say , and I don't mean to put you on the spot but would Profound like to develop a pipeline .

And there's no way any single company could prosecute all of that . So , for example , there's no company who could take all the 20,000 proteins there's , like many dozens of companies working on that space . So we won't be a company that owns it all , takes it all , never partners anything . We've already partnered with Pfizer .

So I think to maximize opportunity for patients , we're going to have to do some combination of internal activities , partnerships with the right people , and that's where the BD thing comes in .

It's a matter of , for each area and even each asset , what's the most efficient way to get it to patients , which almost always means everybody makes money also , and it's a good business model . So we're going to be exploring and implementing different business models across that space . But you know it is early and we have optionality across all of it .

But yeah , that's what's fun about this there's going to be lots of great , great press releases for you to follow .

You know to your point . It's exciting . The optionality is there and as I learn more about this and see the companies that are coming on board and perhaps going to build a pipeline , maybe not , maybe just going to partner , maybe a combination of all of the above , maybe it doesn't matter so much . Right , like , the science is cool .

That's just like some amazing asset and that's not really a platform , it's more of a . That was the research to get to the asset . The other extreme , I think , is where we are , where the platform has been successful . You identify this whole new area of science and now you've got like dozens and dozens of target and drug opportunities .

And again , that's where I think we're going to necessarily need a mixed model of some sort and variable sort and , yeah , it'll be fun .

You know it would's easy to overstate , right , like I think I think from my perspective , you know it would be easy to overstate like , wow , you know , there's a whole new world of proteins that have yet to be prosecuted , yet to be , you know , researched and applied . That's , you know , it's revolutionary .

It's , you know , pick your adjective right , it's easy to overstate . So I want some perspective on that , you know , some pragmatic perspective . Like how do you characterize this opportunity in terms of sort of historical reference points ? Is it comparable to the quote unquote discovery of X or the development ?

If from these tens of thousands of proteins there could be even a quarter of that or half of that , that's fundamentally important for patients and let's just leave it at that . The opportunity is very , very big . Is , it know , as big as the genome project or this or that you know I'm going to ?

I'll be extremely happy when there's dozens of medicines that come out of this .

I guess the question would be how and when do you determine like , hey , what we're discovering has applicability in these specific disciplines ?

And there is an antibody that's engineered with a toxin on it to kill cancer cells , but based on there being a cancer-specific antigen . So the ADC could kill the cancer cell but not normal healthy tissue Revolutionary HER2 and others .

But you know there's only about 10 targets in that whole field and almost every day you see a press release of somebody buying one for a hundred million or a billion , depending what phase and what companies are doing .

Now they're doing their best to find additional targets , but that's been very , very hard and what there is a lot of momentum on is iterating on the modality , on the antibody , like the next generation .

What we're bringing to the table in oncology is a new set of antigens , of targets , and the way we did this is by identifying novel proteins , as I've described , and we found quite a few that are expressed on cancer and not healthy , and they're ones that no one else has seen before , lot healthy and they're ones that no one else has seen before .

And we're starting antibody drug discovery programs and have ADC programs in flight and it's very exciting because , you know , if we're field where there's only 10 or so , adding two , three or four more is just phenomenal . So that's why we started there . And then the other thing we're doing is finding in immunology .

As you know , many of the drugs target circulating cytokines or their receptors , and those are definitely not easy but they're relatively easy compared with small molecules which are , you know , indeed tons of chemists and it's hard work to make the molecule and you know you've got tissue penetration issues , et cetera , pk , whereas making an antibody against a novel

cytokine is relatively straightforward and we've identified through our platform or mentioned very briefly the database . But once we identify these small proteins , we know tons about them . For example , we know if they have a signal peptide and therefore looked like they would be secreted .

So we can very quickly figure out which ones are produced by T or B cells , have a signal peptide and have a genetic association with human disease . That's like fabulous as a starting point for a drug discovery program and that's what we're doing in immunology .

But it's not like you don't go to JP Morgan , for instance , and you know , start talking translatome and just seeing heads nod and all of your , all of your meetings , you're just not going to see that it's new . You know it's new .

So you know when , when a to developing therapeutics is presented , the risk in terms of partnership and funding is sort of ratcheted up a notch . Yeah , and you've said you know BD's tough , it's a hard business . How is Profound ?

And in the context of Profound's relationship with Flagship , how are you uniquely situated to embrace the risk of pursuing science that some in the traditional space might consider a bit too soon or early for significant investment ?

Um , first off , um , in terms of the interactions with , say , with pharma um , it all depends on getting to the right people , because if you get the right scientists who understand what we're doing , that you usually see the light bulbs go up like , oh , that really , that really , wow , ok , tell me more .

And sometimes it takes , you know , the second conversation where the first group is like , well , that's interesting , I don't know . Then they talk with their colleagues and they come back and they say , oh , yeah , ok , now we want to see that .

So it's a little bit iterative and I think that's common in a new space where you need to take a few bites of the apple to really understand it . So that's one . Number two is what I think a lot of pharma will be doing is thinking about what's their process for identifying new targets versus what we bring to the table .

And , as I described , we could in silico , through our database , very rapidly frame up key elements of a target that in the past might have taken years to get those data around . So once people understand that , they're like , okay , wow , you're saying you could give me a list of X number of targets that have A , b and C and D features that I'm looking for .

I'm like , yeah , we can do that tomorrow . So that's like very attractive , can do that tomorrow . So that's like very attractive .

And then your point about is it maybe early to invest and again , I think the Pfizer deal exemplifies why , for many , it might not be is that one element is that some of the proteins themselves will be the drug , will be the drug .

Think like insulin , glp-1 , gip these things are peptides that are administered and it's not like you've got to create a lot of new composition of matter , so there's a more rapid route to using the protein as a drug . So that's one element .

Yeah , and look , people are going to be doing drug discovery for some time and where a lot of the companies are stuck now is they're competing with each other on the same targets , and I knew that really well . Like every target presentation would have a big section on OK , where's ? You know ? Where's Pfizer , where's Merck , where's Novo ?

You know right down the line and everything we have like no one is working on it , by definition , because it's new .

Um , so was , was that uh kind of key to , to Pfizer's interest inound and what you're doing , that sort of novel target , absolutely .

But finding proteins that act locally , for example on fat , is something that you know there's an enormous opportunity for novelty and to be first in class .

So I'm going to allow you , I'm going to hit rewind and then allow you to take it when you would normally start , with the explanation of the Pfizer deal .

We have a very we being flagship pioneering and , by the way , my role is constructed in a very cool way , where I'm CEO of Profound Therapeutics , but I'm also have a role as called CEO partner in Flagship , and it's intentionally designed that way so that I have visibility and ability to contribute to other things Flagship are doing .

So , as in my wearing my Flagship hat I think it was about a year ago Flagship and Pfizer put together a deal where each contributed 50 million , and so there's 100 million pool that could be applied to drug discovery programs that come out of any part of Flagship .

And the idea was look , pfizer are just outstanding in terms of drug discovery , drug development capabilities . They're interested in first-in-class medicines . Flagship have all these creative platforms that are generating ideas , molecules and , potentially , assets , and then the idea is use this $100 million to fund 10 asset-specific programs .

So ours is the first one in Profound from this larger umbrella deal , and the idea is that we will use our platform to identify novel proteins that have a role , an important role , in obesity . And then Pfizer has an option to bring that forward for drug development .

So there's a lot of spaces there , a lot of detail in between that we haven't disclosed externally , but that's the premise of how we're working together .

They're not designed to have their own programs but rather to facilitate , from all of the platforms , molecules getting into development . So it's a three-part partnership between pioneering medicine , profound therapeutics and Pfizer . That works really well because we each bring distinct skill sets to it .

So we're really excited about that .

With this early program with Pfizer that you're working on , how it's sort of differentiated from the central application of Ozempic . Can you elaborate on that a little bit , like what is it about this specific project that piques Pfizer's interest ?

So , you know , it wouldn't make sense for us to say , well , okay , let's find GLP-1 . There's 10 GLP-1s . The point is to find novel proteins that regulate the pathogenesis of obesity , that could be used , you know , orthogonally with GLP-1 . And it's you know .

Our platform enables us to identify potential proteins that could do that , and then we'll have a screening mechanism for identifying them . But we haven't disclosed anything beyond that .

I mean that happened quickly , right , Like that's been- .

So that's something we'll be really pushing . And then in metabolism , beyond obesity , there's really important opportunity to think about molecules that affect muscle , for example , or other organ systems . So that's an area we're working on .

And then , yeah , it's the platform's amenable to so many other areas and we'll be creatively finding ways to build value in those areas too .

You know , I have a short focus on proving that these molecules are going to make medicines and just like pushing these through and I don't mean pushing it through no matter what I mean like really doing the hard work of finding the ones that have the most promise for patients and most differentiation , and this is like we kind of have the you know , whatever the

expression is that pulled by the horns or something . Now we just have to wrestle it down and it's going to be an exciting couple of years to see this progress because , you know , I joined , as I said at the outset , the vision is that this is not just cool science oh wow , how neat it is that there's more proteins .

Science oh wow , how neat it is that there's more proteins . The box to check for me is that that's all true and we got something over the hump and it's really in patience and doing something important that'll be outstanding yeah very good , I'm confident we're going to get there .

There's little doubt that you would jump onto a project just for the fun of it at this point in your career , right ?

Um , it's like a really cool place to work and we've attracted some just amazing talent from like different quarters of the world , literally and figuratively , because to do this it's quite an interdisciplinary challenge where this computational biology , genetics , proteomics , biology , now even like clinical development and it's not the standard roles that are in pharma to do

this , because it's a new kind of science , and the application of technology and computational biology and AIML to this is like a new way of approaching target selection .

So , you know , it's a really cool environment and we've attracted really cool people and that's been a lot of fun for me to see them starting to nourish their careers and seeing them turn the corner from oh , this is really cool to hey , this is really cool and we're making medicines . So that's been fun and it's a cool place to work .

It has raised the question in my mind that maybe you you'd be interested in in in addressing it , and that's like there are dozens of flagship companies and computational and AI and ML are integral to so many of their platforms . How is there differentiation from one to the next within these flagship pioneering companies that are using these computational ?

And that's really been great because we meet with them and we get ideas about oh well , with your database , how come you're not doing x and y ? That's a really cool idea . How do we do it ? Well , we did it over here , so maybe you could use that model . But you're applying it in a different way and then it accelerates our ability to use the methodologies .

So that's been great . But no , I think we're all doing computation . But it's actually fine if some of it is applied . If the same methodologies are used , it's the substrate that's different . So we have a database of more than a trillion data points .

It's like ridiculous across like genomics , genetics , proteomics , gene regulation , et cetera , integrated in a single database . And with that size of data , it's really a fabulous substrate for doing like machine learning models that start to predict things . But what we're trying to predict is what's the function of this novel protein ?

Over here in another flagship company . They might use a similar model , but they're predicting something else . So the overlap isn't on the science and the outcome . The overlap is on the methodology , which is great . That's by design .

That helps a lot and in a sense , like I get the sense that even though , like you you mentioned earlier when you were at GSK and you had a question or needed some information , like there were a multitude of resources to turn to this , the flagship pioneering ecosystem kind of presents you with , with yes the same concept , right , A whole lot of resources .

I mean you can pick up the phone or walk across the hall and 100% .

We're a company Profound Therapeutics but we're nestled in this ecosystem where we call people and get help and they're incentivized as well , because we're largely owned by Flagship , and as are the other ones , and then there's essential groups like Pioneering Intelligence I mentioned Pioneering Medicine that are specifically designed to help us be successful .

So it really is the best of both worlds in that sense .

Yeah , yeah , just for a catch up and , you know , to learn about progress , because it's it's such an exciting discovery and there's so much , so much to be done with it . So hopefully you'll be , you'll be agreeable to come back on and join us at a later date .