We recently asked a couple hundred of you , emerging biotech leaders , about your go-to sources of information when you face tough professional challenges . Your top response wasn't webinars , it wasn't scientific journals , it wasn't trade shows , it wasn't even consultants Far and away . You said you most often turned to your peers for trusted insight .
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The Business of Biotech is produced by Bioprocess Online , part of the Life Science Connect community , with support from Citeva . Citeva also demonstrates its commitment to the leaders of new and emerging biopharma at Citevacom backslash emerging biotech . Check that out . For some people , it's a singular personal experience with disease that motivates a career in biopharma .
For others , it's a desire to make a positive population level impact on global human health . For John Kreyosich , it's a bit of both . That's what makes him a great fit as chief business officer at Vaccinity .
Like many of us , john's seen the devastating effects of Alzheimer's up close and personal and that was a motivating factor in his decision to join Vaccinity , which is taking a big swing at an Alzheimer's vaccine among many other programs .
But perhaps what most attracted Vaccinity to John is his track record of helping to bring some equally big swings like Lipitor , lyrica and Neurontin to commercial fruition throughout his career . I'm Matt Piller , this is the Business of Biotech , and John Kreyosich is my guest on today's show . John , good to see you , welcome .
Thank you , thanks for having me .
I'm super happy to have you . I want to begin today's episode by getting to know you a little bit . One of the more interesting points about your resume , reaching way back , is the fact that you earned an MSc in physiology .
On paper , that's not a degree that necessarily translates directly to big pharma business development leadership , which you've had extensive experience in . You spent the bulk of your career today doing that in organizations like Park Davis and Pfizer , novartis and Leo Pharma . Tell me what that could be . That's , i guess , translation .
What did Pfizer and Leo and Novartis see in an MSc in physiology that led them to entrust their business development efforts in large part to John Kreyosich ?
That's a great question . It goes back a long ways .
A master's in physiology provides a lot more skills than one thinks And , interesting enough , when I was completing my masters , i ended up doing a seminar for the department on career alternatives for physiology grads and interviewed a whole bunch of places industry , medical schools , dental schools , law schools , the traditional ones And it really became clear that a
master's in physiology or a graduate degree in physiology does provide a fairly broad basis not only for understanding the general workings and kind of interrelationships of human physiology , but it also provides a strong grounding in scientific methods , trial design statistics critical thinking , presentation skills and sometimes , most importantly , perseverance .
And as part of that kind of seminar I interviewed the business school where I was doing my masters and they strongly encouraged me to actually apply . And so I did and I eventually did an MBA after I ran the lab .
And it was that combination with the MBA and the master's in physiology that provided both a strong business foundation coupled with a very strong scientific grounding , and that combination kind of led me to the pharma industry and was recruited by Park Davis early on to start in marketing And I had a very strong interest in sales and marketing and got to participate
in the commercialization of launch of more than 10 products on both a country basis and a global level , And that really did provide an exposure to all levels of development , including providing commercial input into the phase transition boards that made the decisions on transition from phase one to phase two , from phase two to phase three , allowed me to build
therapeutic area strategies and thus developed a strong understanding of the external environment and how that environment we thought was going to evolve .
My real goal is to work in marketing and build my career through a marketing line , which I still have a strong passion for , But I also had a chance to work on three deals in that capacity and really got excited about kind of the business development aspects of the industry And as part of that I ended up getting an opportunity to change tracks a little bit as
well as companies and work in development and lead drug development teams at Novartis , which expanded my both capabilities and experience base but also is actively involved in the BD process as a small team of people in the franchise and end up leading more than 100 diligence as part of that role , And this really kind of spurred my interest in business development ,
which continues to this day .
It combines the business side , the R&D side , external focus with search and evaluation negotiations and , along with the Alliance management team , how to internalize a project , And so I think it's the best job in the industry because you get to really look at all the cool stuff that's going on out there and try to understand whether a larger organization can help
accelerate that innovation and bring it to market .
Yeah Well , and I imagine that you're moved to vaccinity . Like you just said , the position allows you to look at all the cool stuff , and when you're working for Novartis or Pfizer , sure you get exposed to some cool stuff and some cool resources . But you're not necessary You're not necessarily maybe a cog in every element of that machine .
At vaccinity , i'm guessing you spend a bit more time , you know , cogging , interfacing with all sorts of different departments .
What was it that , i guess I don't know , that prompted you or motivated you to entertain even the notion of leaving the comforts of big pharma for for vaccinity , which is , you know , for those not familiar with vaccinity , it's been around for a little while , but it's decidedly a startup and it's a disruptive , innovative little company .
Quite a departure from where you were . So what was the motivation for making that leap ?
Well , i just said , you know , having worked with several large and mid-sized pharmas and I did a short stint with a couple of emerging biotechs early on . I wanted to really get back to having a direct impact of both the programs and the healthcare system , while working in a much more nimbler environment .
You know , emerging biotech really does many of the same things that big pharma does , with the same quality but without the same level of bureaucracy and politics that you typically find in large organizations . You know it's really refreshing to kind of focus on the work again and not so much on the process of obtaining approvals .
That's the exciting part of being in an emerging pharma You can really see an impact of your decisions almost immediately and you're really working very closely in a tight-knit team environment .
You know our senior team , you know , while we lead departments , really are rolling up your sleeves and working on a day-to-day basis And that's really exciting to kind of getting back and doing the work , if you will .
Yeah , i'm a fan . I've spent a bit of time with a few leaders at Vaccinity over the course of the last few years and I'm absolutely a fan of the company and its culture . You know , aside from the great work that it's doing , it's just cool , like it's just a cool company , cool company culture . What was it specifically ?
So you kind of laid out why you got back into emerging bio , but what was it specifically about Vaccinity that appealed to you ?
Well , i think the culture is really unique . I think , you know our handbook is all of what six or seven pages and basically focuses on doing the right things . But I really joined .
One of the other reasons I joined , in addition to the culture of the company , is because of the technology platform and its potential to really change the healthcare landscape for patients with chronic diseases , as well as a chance to work with a team of really outstanding industry professionals .
You know , the combination of the people and the technology platform really created a very unique opportunity with Vaccinity . You know , despite all of our advances , you know , one of our most challenging aspects to achieving better outcomes in healthcare And the ones that we see in clinical trials is compliance .
You know , the vaccine technology , besides the technical advantages that can allow for more favorable dosing , which should provide better benefit for patients in terms of with chronic diseases , in terms of compliance , is essential for us .
Without this , the healthcare system , we're never going to optimize the benefits of innovative treatments in diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or cholesterol . So we don't . Compliance for diseases like hypertension , high cholesterol and even some cancers is really quite low by the end of the first year of therapy .
So if our technology can help patients take their therapy in a much more convenient manner . It's a relatively safe platform because we produce endogenous antibodies , and providers then can be confident that their patients are receiving the therapy as they instructed , and that will lead to better outcomes . So the platform itself is very exciting .
You know , getting the body to produce endogenous antibodies to self proteins is not an easy task . The team here at Vaccinee has developed an approach that can do this as well as overcome immune tolerance .
This makes certain antibody targets very attractive for us And , with a low cost , simplified dosing that's easy to administer both for treatment and equally important for prevention . we think we've got the potential here to really change the course of some of these diseases . That's the reason I joined Vaccinee Yeah yeah .
So I'm gonna take you to task just for a second on that , john . Maybe not take you to task , but maybe pressure test a little bit of that excitement , because there had to be I mean there had to be some level of maybe not reservation but a touch of anxiety .
I would think , looking at , like , the pipeline that Vaccinee is working on , you know it's one thing to move from , like I said , the security of the big pharma environment to , like you know , a company that's developing monoclonal antibodies for a very specific indication or , you know , very tightly related group of indications .
Vaccinee's pipeline , though it's incredibly broad . It includes incredibly challenging candidates immunotherapeutic vaccines for neurodegenerative and chronic diseases like Alzheimer's . You've got dementia with Lewy bodies , multiple system atrophy , parkinson's , migraine , hypercholesterolemia that's just to name a few .
It occurs to me that that's not a move for necessarily the faint of heart . So be real with me where you're kind of like wow , you know this company's trying to do a whole lot of stuff , and how to just sort of rationalize that broad swath of indications and indications that the company's pursuing .
Yeah , nobody accused of thinking small , that's for sure , yeah , you know . However , you know , moving to a small company always has some anxiety associated with it . There's no doubt about it .
Yeah , but given the recent number of downsizes in big pharma and also I'm not sure the security level is what it used to be , you know , yeah , of course we're tackling some of the largest and worst difficult healthcare issues , and that's , in part , one of the reasons I joined the company and helped balance my anxiety with the fact that we do have the potential
to bring innovation of antibodies , that kind of millions of patients versus tens of thousands . And then we see , with the current monoclonals , it's a big goal and certainly one that keeps me awake at night .
You know , what we call democratizing health is a great vision and we think we can achieve it , and the reason why we think so is antibodies are expensive to produce , they're difficult to produce in large quantities , they're expensive for patients , which then limits their usage to predominantly most of the developed countries , whereas developing countries don't really see
these innovations for many years , you know , and sometimes they don't see them at all . So we're trying to bring innovation in the broadest sense to the broadest number of people and the technology lends itself particularly well for that .
You know , whether it's addressing the Alzheimer's pandemic , trying to look for preventatives for Parkinson's disease , trying to treat early for high cholesterol . You know a vaccine approach and remember vaccines , if we think back , are probably one of the biggest medical miracles in the history of medicine .
If we can bring that approach to chronic diseases , we can address both treatment as well as prevention , which is desperately needed in order to effectively and broadly address these healthcare issues across the globe . So on one hand , i'm very excited . On the other hand , yes , it does induce a lot of anxiety around . Can we accomplish this as a small company ?
And that's going to be our challenge for each of our programs . But I think on the positive side , we also have a lot of interest for us in terms of both the larger pharmas that are interested in potentially partnering with us .
So we think there is some opportunity here to reduce the anxiety by partnering some of our programs with companies that have much larger footprints than we do .
Yeah , yeah , yep , and that strategy , we'll get into that a little bit . But that plays into the global reach concept And that's something that I discussed at length when I had May-May who on the show . I don't know , I think it's probably been a year and a half , Maybe I can't remember exactly when , but May-May came on the show .
So May-May's the CEO at Vaccinity , CEO , correct ? Did I get that right ?
That's correct she's the CEO .
Yeah , and she was a fascinating interview . At the time I spoke with her she was like in a makeshift office and I think in the mountains of Montana , spending the summer there with her family , like literally like in a mountain somewhere in a box , like in this little makeshift office . Fascinating interview .
But we spent quite a bit of time kind of digging into Vaccinity's effort or initiative to have a measurable impact on global health that you just alluded to , john , this concept of being able to take this vaccine , therapeutic effort into third world countries , places that are hard to reach .
And these are indications that you're pursuing that if not addressed in a timely fashion they will have heavy consequences within a generation in fact , as a population ages . So it kind of begs the question and I got the sense when I spoke with Maymay that part of that culture that Vaccinity is working with a sense of urgency .
But how do you rationalize that , how do you maintain it ? How do you address sort of the urgency with which a lot of these indications sort of need to be addressed ?
We are acutely aware that patients are waiting . They're waiting for treatments viable , effective treatments that can be taken early and for the long call . This is one of the reasons we're looking for partners . At the end of the day , we want to accelerate and amplify the impact we have on a global scale . We can't do that alone .
We believe it's imperative to advance the therapy through clinical development and into the marketplace and quickly look at it . As we all age , we have a vested interest in finding a prevention for Alzheimer's disease , alzheimer's alone . Currently , there's 55 million people that suffer from Alzheimer's .
On a global basis , it's expected to grow to 79 million by 2030 , and nearly 140 million people by 2050 . These numbers can potentially cripple any national healthcare system . If we can bring a vaccine approach that greatly reduces these numbers , the savings and the impact for patients , caregivers and the healthcare system is absolutely staggering .
One of the other approaches we're taking is also to engage countries to form public-private partnerships to help address these issues .
We're in discussions now with several countries to better understand their system and the ability to collaborate on addressing this growing pandemic , whether that's Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease , for that matter And it's only through this form of collaboration , either with other farmers or with countries that we would be able to accelerate the development of these therapies
through two patients around the world .
Just quick follow-up on that , john . Your public-private partnership initiative and the fact that that's a global initiative does that fall under your auspices as Chief Business Officer ? I'm just curious what part of Accidentity sort of accepts responsibility for the hard work I'm sure that goes into establishing those public-private relationships .
You know it's a team . My team is actively involved in it . We have a government affairs head , john Harrison , who's spearheading some of these parts of these discussions . On the medical side , we obviously are spearheading the scientific discussions of countries , and both May-May and our Chairman , lou , are actively involved in these discussions at senior government levels .
And so you know there is a small team of us that work on these . Because of the complexities of public-private partnerships , it's not any one group alone that's going to be able to deal with the complexity of both healthcare systems and governments , to be able to pull it all together .
And so we have people at multiple levels in discussions with countries now so that we're able to address questions and start to think about what type of structure would make sense , so that it's a win-win for both the governments and for the organization , in order to help advance what could be very large prevention studies in some of these areas .
Yeah , yeah , good . Thanks for that insight . You know I mentioned from the outset of the conversation that perhaps Vaccinity took a shine to John Kreyasich , given his track record for playing a role on teams that saw products through to commercialization . That gives you a pretty .
When you and I first talked a couple weeks ago , we talked about your desire to have measurable , to be able to see a measurable impact on global health .
Your work like to associate your work with a measurable impact on global health And you've got a rare vantage point in that there are a whole lot of people in our space who have played a role on teams that launched Sure there's been a lot of success but maybe not played a role on teams that launched candidates or medications or therapies that had such far-reaching
impacts on global populations . You played a role on the launch of Lipitor , which has had a great big , giant , measurable impact positive impact on global cardiovascular health . Lyrica and Neurontin were also game changers and they're right for people with epilepsy , neuropathic pain and fibromyalgia also common and increasingly common indications .
Tell me about how those successes inform or motivate your take on the indications that you're tackling today at Vaccinity .
Yeah , Lipitor was once in a career opportunity . They had the privilege to lead and work with some amazing people on it .
Lyrica the same Lyrica was a drug that a lot of people didn't think was going to be effective And a big drug and we thought otherwise and showed that it was truly a terrific drug for neuropathic pain And fibromyalgia the first drug ever to get an indication for fibromyalgia and provide an option for people that suffer from this complex of symptoms that people really
didn't know how to treat With Lipitor . It was nice . We had the right drug first and foremost and equally important , the right people . The teams both within the company and the medical community , really brought forward a treatment that had a truly measurable impact on the practice of medicine And atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease .
It's rare that you can actually bend the curve and we did , and I'm super proud of the impact we've had with this amazing drug on global cardiovascular health . Early on , we believed that , in terms of LDL reductions , the concept of lower is better .
However , many people were very skeptical of this concept at the beginning , until we demonstrated it with the TNT trial . this thing led to changes in medical practice on a worldwide basis .
Vaccine it's in a very similar situation with our programs in both Alzheimer's disease , parkinson's disease and our newer programs in cardiovascular to lower cholesterol , we have the potential to have similar impact on some of the most devastating diseases .
They affect mortality , they affect morbidity and , most importantly , the quality of life for both patients and caregivers . For me it's very personal . You know , Naurantin and Lyric were very personal for me because of family members that had seizures and that were never really treated very well .
I've seen family members succumb to many of these diseases without much hope of producing their burden due to the existing treatments .
If we can bring something better to market , get something that we can treat earlier and move from the concept that we had with Lipitor in terms of lower is better to earlier is better in many of these diseases , we think we truly can have similar impact in bending the curve for both patients and for the healthcare system .
You know , I recently saw a terrific quote from the Prince that I had not heard in a while and it kind of best describes our efforts . There is nothing more difficult to take in hand , more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things , And that's what we're trying to do .
You know , I think Nelson Mandela also said it in a much more simple manner It's always seems impossible until it's done , And in many ways that's what we're trying to achieve at Vaccinity with chronic diseases .
We truly believe that a vaccine approach to create endogenous antibodies is both an effective and safe approach to treating patients early with some of these incredibly devastating chronic diseases .
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It's big mission work and that Nelson Mandela quote certainly strikes a chord Always seems impossible until it's done . One of the inherent challenges over the last 18 to 24 months is that capital markets are tough and investors don't necessarily . You know they're not necessarily .
Especially in tough markets , they're not necessarily drawn to potentially impossible or seemingly impossible . I'm always trying to reconcile , you know . I mean there are safe bets . I spent a lot of time talking with executives from companies that just feel safe . Right , vaccinity doesn't necessarily feel like a safe bet because it takes such big swings .
That's just , that's just gone . I mean it's awesome , i love the work that Vaccinity does , but it takes . I think I guess I'm assuming it takes a special kind of investor to say , yeah , man , i'm gonna jump on board with that .
In a world where perhaps venture capitalists are more drawn to less aspirational , lower risk development efforts , how do you navigate , as chief business officer , sort of this tough capital market situation ? And I don't mean to , like I said , i don't mean to paint you into a corner with that question , but talk about things that keep you up at night .
I would imagine this is high on the list .
Yeah , anxiety runs high when you talk about capital markets these days And we know capital markets are like kidney stones These two will pass , bad times will pass , but they're not easy right now And certainly trying to tell our story to investors is a constant and ongoing endeavor . You know , we're not a follow on company . We're not a biosimilar company .
We're very acutely focused on bringing innovation to patients with chronic diseases . But we do that right now with going after at least proven targets .
So we know we can de-risk the platform by de-risking the targets as well as understand how the mechanism of certain diseases work and taking targets that are relatively proven , so that de-risks it and then focuses more on the platform itself of how do you deliver antibodies at the appropriate levels and can we get the appropriate dosing with a reasonable safety profile .
So that really is kind of how we're trying to position ourselves in the capital markets at this point , of not going after extremely novel targets yet , but focus on those proven targets and how do we make them better ? How do we make those approaches better for use of those targets in the broadest population ?
You know we're fortunate to have strong interest in our programs . We'll continue to explore options to ensure that we advance these programs with larger partners who have broader development footprints , commercial footprints , so that kind of de-risks us in some ways in the immediate term and cushions us from capital market needs at the moment .
And then exploring , as we said , the public-private partnerships to help fund large-scale prevention trials in collaboration with a variety of countries . We also think is a way to reduce the dependency on the capital markets , at least in the short term .
Yeah , yeah , and I want you to take this next question . I'm throwing a lot of , like you know , potential challenges at you in these couple of these questions And I want you to take this next one with a grain of salt , because it seems that nothing comes without controversy these days . No announcement is made without controversy these days , for whatever reason .
It seems like everything's controversial . But in recent years and months there have been some Alzheimer's approvals that have elicited controversy anyway adicanyumab , lacanumab , for instance . Do those developments help the cause ? hurt the cause ? How do you sort of you know , how do those affect the work that you're doing in Alzheimer's ?
as an example , You know , if we push aside kind of the noise around those , i think if you look at strictly at the data , i think it's really the most exciting thing about the recent data announcements is first and foremost it validates the A-beta hypothesis . It also demonstrates how hard this business is .
You know we've learned so much about this disease from biomarkers , trial design , end points , timing . You know , if you will , it's taken over 20 years for AD treatments and A-beta to become an overnight success . You know this has been a journey . Pharm is a continuous learning industry .
It's also one of persistency You know many other industries would have long given up on the concept of trying to find a treatment for Alzheimer's , and yet , as we are focused on prevention , for Alzheimer's is pandemic which many still feel is the brass ring and some really still think it's a little bit out of reach .
But we think with the validation of the A-beta hypothesis , as well as some room for better administration , potentially safer treatments opens up a space in AD treatment and prevention that is really needed .
You know , at the end of the day , physicians and patients are going to need multiple options And we will build off of the learnings from Magic Canimab , lecanimab , dunanaab , and based on this we feel our approach with 311 has the potential to make a significant impact on AD treatment and prevention Because one we target toxic forms of A-beta , which we've learned is
really kind of one of the critical forms if not the critical forms of A-beta to address . But at the same time we reduce plaques in a manner that really hasn't been demonstrated to show the same levels of ARIA as the monoclonals .
So we believe the monoclonals have kind of reignited interest and focus on A-beta approaches And we think our approach , being a little bit softer in terms of plaque reduction but at the same time targeting toxic oligomers , is going to build off of the learnings from the monoclonals And hopefully then demonstrate that this is an effective therapy for both treatment and
prevention for Alzheimer's . But I really think that the tremendously good work that has been done and innovative trial designs that we've seen coming forward in from the monoclonals has really finally advanced our thinking around Alzheimer's disease .
Yeah , it's interesting . it's a long view perspective , but we need a reminder about it every now and then . It's a good reminder .
You've mentioned on several occasions through this conversation your partnership approach and the importance of partnership , And I want to dig into that a little bit and learn a little bit about what your partnership strategy looks like like , what the intention is there , and maybe share a little bit on how the partnership initiative is executed at Vaccinity .
But we realize Alzheimer's disease , Parkinson's prevention , these are large , large and long studies to do And we realize they can't be done with Vaccinity alone .
So we for the last year or so have really been exploring interest in those programs with large pharma , mid-sized pharmas but we're normally with large pharmas in order to try to understand would this approach fit into their portfolio ?
because it's going to take the strength of a larger company on both the development side as well as the commercial side to really bring these to market quickly . We've had strong interests , We continue to build additional interest in these programs and we're working through the process .
Now We'll provide an update when those discussions have really matured into much more tangible outcomes . It would be premature to kind of discuss the status at this point .
Yeah , okay , so share with us what's next on Vaccinity's agenda . Not that I expect that there should be anything new on Vaccinity's already aggressive and robust agenda , but is there anything sort of forward-looking that you can share ?
Look , we're very excited about the platform . We're reinventing the concept of a vaccine . It's still vaccines are one of the most accessible effective ways for managing infectious diseases , now applying it in a new way to chronic diseases . So we've got programs in Alzheimer's , parkinson's , migraine cholesterol .
We've got early stage programs in Alzheimer's that we've talked about in non-A beta approaches And we're looking to bring that platform to other chronic diseases And so we're going through an exercise now to look at how we can apply the platform to other targets .
So if we can look at other targets that have been de-risked , crossover other studies and other approaches , we think we've de-risked it in terms of the number of studies . We've done some half dozen or so clinical trials . We've had multiple commercialized products in the animal health rules from a sister company .
So we are going to look at continuing to use our kind of plug and play target and platform to bring the next wave of treatments in other chronic diseases And we're trying to prioritize those right now because I don't want to boil the ocean when looking at the number of targets out there .
I really want to focus on what additional targets that we know of that we can apply our technology to in chronic diseases . And you can think of things that if we're treated very early on with a more effective therapy that's easy to use and expensive . Things like psoriasis , atopic dermatitis , become very interesting targets .
Things like psoriatic arthritis become very interesting targets to start to look at and see if there's a potential to apply our technology there with relatively robust targets that are well known and well characterized , and so we view the platform as really becoming an asset machine to continuously bring innovation forward to these other chronic diseases that really haven't
had a significant number of innovations that can be applied to the broadest patient population .
Let me I want to ask you a quick follow up question just for your perspective on sort of the vaccine approach .
So let's say we get to a point where an Alzheimer's vaccine is close to , or in fact a commercial reality , or there are a lot of companies working on oncological cancer vaccine , therapeutic vaccines right now , and obviously the concept of therapeutic vaccines is a little bit different from prophylactic vaccines And the public doesn't necessarily understand that difference .
They hear the word vaccine and they probably think like MMR and influenza and COVID . In fact Now COVID brought to light a number of , i guess , public perception vaccine challenges , for lack of a more eloquent way of putting it . We saw vaccine hesitancy initially .
Much of that became , was overcome , and then this new concept of vaccine fatigue sort of said , and particularly I see it here in the States where even those who may not have been hesitant from the outset became fatigued .
Now I know that we're talking about a different therapeutic approach , but is there a concern or a thought process around the presentation of the cost benefit analysis that consumers , the patients , perhaps do , around acceptance of a vaccination effort or refusal of a vaccination effort ?
So a lot of words but I'm hoping you're kind of picking up what I'm getting at here in terms of the question Like what is sort of the end game approach to ensuring that you beat the hesitancy slash fatigue curve ? It's sort of unfortunate timing coming on the heels of COVID where , like I said , the vaccine fatigue thing may be real .
You know the vaccine . Certainly here in the US we're seeing vaccine fatigue as it relates to COVID and how it's going to become more and more of a reality . I think there's several things that we need to do as an organization as our therapies kind of mature through development . One is going to be education .
You know there is a strong need to educate both the public the medical community that our approach is quite a bit different than what you see in . Probably the most controversial and probably the most beneficial as it relates to COVID is mRNA vaccines .
That rightly or wrongly , and mostly wrongly , there was just a misunderstanding of how mRNA vaccines really worked And I think that confusion didn't help the COVID vaccine cause at the end of the day And we're going to have to do a similar approach is you know , in many ways , you know , we truly are in the classic definition of a vaccine a vaccine , but in
probably the broader sense we're in immunotherapy and really a therapy that allows your own body to produce its own endogenous antibodies against , effectively , self-proteins . So we're going to have to educate the public on what exactly does that mean to produce your own antibodies , to get your body to produce naturally antibodies that attack the disease in question .
Whether that's Alzheimer's with toxic forms of a beta , whether that's Parkinson's , where you have this excess of alpha-synuclein and toxic forms of alpha-synuclein and preventing the spreading of it , whether that's migraine with a focus on CGRPs , all of these are going to require a fair amount of education and almost to get people to rethink that this isn't a vaccine in
the classic sense . This isn't a one dose and you're done like you would with an MMR or a tetanus that you get every 10 or so years . This is an actual therapeutic vaccine , so much like you're taking a monoclonal antibody , where you're actually giving the antibody .
We get your body to produce it , and that's why there is a need for boosting on a regular basis with our approach . And so , whether that's three times a year , four times a year , twice a year .
Whatever it's going to be for the particular therapeutic is going to really it's going to be very similar to what you would do if you were taking an injection with a monoclonal , but instead of taking it every two weeks or once a month , you're going to do this twice a year , four times a year type of approach , and so , instead of giving the antibody directly ,
our basic injection is going to allow you to produce your antibodies yourself , and so the antibodies are exactly those that you would produce endogenously against disease normally , but your body doesn't , because you don't produce antibodies against your own proteins . The body is wired to prevent doing that .
We don't attack ourselves , and so the ability to overcome that is really the key to being able to differentiate this from , say , a COVID vaccine in the pure sense or a pure vaccine that's given when you're a child and you're getting your vaccine for TB or whatever it is .
Yeah , yeah , very good . So I realized we're running short on time here . John , I'm beginning to abuse your time , but I want to ask you what's next for you ? Anything near-term on your horizon , Personally , professionally , whatever funds going on , whatever your next step plan is what's next for John ?
I'm having the time of my life right now . I'm very fortunate to work with some exceptionally smart and passionate colleagues .
Our goal of continually discovering , develop new therapeutics that really address both big healthcare issues reducing suffering on a global basis , making innovation accessible for more people , regardless of the geography Look , if we can continue to do this at Vaccinity , continue to address these , to become a partner of choice with other companies , to be able to get these
commercialized alongside them , i think is going to be the thing that I'm looking forward to most . We're certainly not done . I would love to say that I could end my career in many ways by bringing in Alzheimer's preventative to market as Vaccinity , or with a partner , with a public-private partnership .
I think would be an incredible thing to actually see And maybe , who knows , maybe I'll be taking it at one point , which would be ideal , but I think that would be for me would be the greatest achievement , i think , and a great way to just kind of say what's next for me , in addition to trying to bring my golf my golf board down a little bit too , would
be nice . I think there's never enough time to address that at the moment And I'm trying to figure out what's the biggest challenge bringing a preventative for Alzheimer's or bringing my handicap down .
I don't know . I've never golfed with you , john , obviously , but given your track record with commercialization of therapeutics , i'm gonna bet on the Alzheimer's . That's not to put down . I don't wanna put down your golf game , but I've attempted golf myself and I don't know just when I think I'm getting somewhere . It's two swings forward and five swings back .
It's a great it's a scary thought when I think bringing an Alzheimer's disease preventative to market may actually be easier than bringing my handicap down .
Where do you live , John .
I'm in Western North Carolina .
Okay , yeah , well , it's a good season to get out there and work on that golf game , but what haven't I asked you that I should have asked you What you know ? what Pithy nugget of wisdom did you wanna contribute to the conversation that I didn't tee up for you ?
So , you know , I just think this is a really exciting time to be working in neurodegeneration and immunotherapies .
I think , like the , you know , the advances that have been made in the last 10 or so years really has allowed us to start thinking about new , how to address new and existing targets and address those that can produce real intangible benefits for patients , for caregivers , for countries , and I really believe that vaccinities , approaches to Alzheimer's , parkinson's ,
cholesterol have the potential to be game changing And , more importantly , from a preventative point of view . You know we're really only at the beginning to fully understand the potential of this platform and the benefits it can provide .
I think this is probably going to be the decade for neurodegeneration and really seeing significant advances in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's , from vaccinity and other companies to really kind of change the way we look at these diseases , and it's now's the time to really start thinking about how this is going to become a reality , because I think the tools are there now .
Perfect . Well , i've enjoyed learning about what you guys are working on . I've enjoyed getting to know you a bit And the words of Ted Lasso John , i appreciate you , i appreciate you , i appreciate the work you're doing And I wish you the best as you continue that work And I'm looking forward to having you , or maybe someone else from Vaccinity , on the show .
I've had Mamie , i've had you now . Maybe we'll shoot for Lou next time . I don't know , we'll see where it takes us . But thanks for joining me . It's been a pleasure .
Thank you very much , greatly appreciate it .
So that's Vaccinity . Chief Business Officer , John Kreyasich . I'm Matt Piller . This is the business of Biotech . We're produced by Bioprocess Online with the support of Citeva , which demonstrates its support for new and emerging biopharma companies at Citevacom backslash emerging biotech .
If you like listening in on conversations with biopharma leaders like John , subscribe to the business of biotech podcast . Sign up for our newsletter at bioprocessonlinecom backslashbob . Also , be sure to leave us a review . Let us know how we're doing And , as always , thanks for listening . We'll see you in the next video .