S&S On Biotech
To continue listening to thought-provoking podcasts on biotech, pharma, and medtech visit: biobizbuzz.com.
Conversations on the science and business of Biotechnology with Andy Smith and Cormac Sheridan.
To receive notifications when new episodes are published, email notifications@smithandsheridan.eu or follow us on LinkedIn.
Episodes
31 episodes
3.9 The slow rise of TCR-T therapy
To continue listening to podcast on biotech, pharma, and medtech visit our new channel: biobizbuzz.com. When the first chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy was a...
•
36:07
3.8 Innovation in Myasthenia Gravis: The leap from poison arrows to targeted therapy
To continue listening to podcast on biotech, pharma, and medtech visit our new channel: biobizbuzz.com. In 1934, Mary Walker, a pioneering Scottish physician, successfully, albei...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 8
•
29:22
3.7 Melanoma: At the frontier of cancer immunotherapy
To continue listening to podcast on biotech, pharma, and medtech visit our new channel: biobizbuzz.com. Melanoma has been at the very centre of the cancer immunotherapy revolutio...
•
31:32
3.6 Brain Cancer – The unkindest cancer of all?
To continue listening to podcast on biotech, pharma, and medtech visit our new channel: biobizbuzz.com. This is a sobering episode that traces the history of the treatment of bra...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 6
•
29:42
3.5 Eyes on the prize: Developing therapies for ophthalmic disease
To continue listening to podcast on biotech, pharma, and medtech visit our new channel: biobizbuzz.com. Ophthalmology has long been a fruitful area for biotechnology innovation....
•
Season 3
•
Episode 5
•
37:57
3.4 Allergy’s innovation gap
To continue listening to podcast on biotech, pharma, and medtech visit our new channel: biobizbuzz.com. For all the extraordinary progress we have seen in basic biological resear...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 4
•
24:43
3.3 Where have all the PROTACs gone?
A couple of years ago, PROTACs were ubiquitous. Start-ups were devising increasingly clever ways of making them, while large pharma companies were queuing up to tap into their expertise and their development programs. Proteolysis-targeting chim...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 3
•
27:14
3.2 Kidney Disease: a really big problem that’s getting bigger
To continue listening to podcast on biotech, pharma, and medtech visit our new channel: biobizbuzz.com. Over 10% of the world’s population – or 850 million people – are estimated...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 2
•
28:09
3.1 Death and its discontents – or extending human longevity
To continue listening to podcast on biotech, pharma, and medtech visit our new channel: biobizbuzz.com. Human longevity is a precious thing. Some people receive a tragically shor...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 1
•
25:16
2.12. The unfulfilled promise of cancer vaccines
Therapeutic cancer vaccines have had a long and chequered history. The BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin) vaccine, originally developed to protect against tuberculosis in the 1920s, was adopted back in the 1970s as treatment for bladder cancer. Whe...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 12
•
28:53
2.11. The healing game: Biotech in recovery
The flow of money is a constant preoccupation of the biotechnology sector, because without it nothing gets done. So, whether the markets are up or down, and whether investors are buying or selling is important, even if it is secondary to the ac...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 11
•
32:54
2.10 Relyvrio’s setback in ALS is a clinical and a regulatory failure
The failure of Relyvrio in a post-approval phase 3 study in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) means its days as a commercial drug are probably numbered. It initially gained approval in Canada in June 2022 (where it is, confusingly, known as A...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 10
•
27:39
2.9. Ironwood’s woes or why a stock craters after a ‘successful’ phase 3 trial
A 40% share price drop after an investigational drug hits the primary endpoint of a phase 3 trial is not typical. But that’s what happened to Ironwood Pharmaceuticals when it reported data from a trial of apraglutide in patients with intestinal...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 9
•
29:42
2.8. Alnylam’s big bet in amyloidosis
By late June or early July we’ll know whether Alnylam’s decision to alter the design of its phase 3 ‘Healios B’ study of Amvuttra (vutrisiran) in transthyretin amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) was a good one. The short-interfering RNA ...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 8
•
27:43
2.7. ‘MetaMorphosys’ or how a big pivot paid off (kind of)
Novartis’s recent €2.7 billion ($2.9 billion) offer for Morphosys is the very stuff of biotechnology. The medium-sized deal adds two clinical-stage cancer drug candidates to its pipeline. Both operate through epigenetic mechanisms ...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 7
•
23:50
2.6. Hereditary angioedema: Biotech innovation in action
Hereditary angioedema (HAE), arguably, represents an ideal case of the Orphan Drug rules in action. Because of the incentives on offer, a mini-cluster of firms has, over the past fifteen years, developed a well-stocked cabinet of therapies for ...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 6
•
28:56
2.5 NASH. What’s in a name? Mash and Nash both spell liver disease
Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and its precursor non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) have recently been redesignated as MASH and MASLD – metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 5
•
28:42
2.4 When is a deal not a deal. Sanofi makes a big bet in AATD
Sanofi’s partial acquisition of Inhibrx recalls earlier transactions, such as Pfizer’s acquisition of BioHaven or, to go back even further, Johnson & Johnson’s acquisition of Actelion, in which assets deemed surplus to the acquirer’s needs ...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 4
•
23:48
2.3 Radiopharmaceuticals space heats up as BMS and Lilly join the fray
The use of radiation in medicine began with the work of the great pioneers Marie Curie, her husband Pierre, and Henri Becquerel. In the 1940s, Samuel Hertz, Samuel Seidlin, and William Beierwaltes established radioactive iodine (I-131) as a tre...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 3
•
25:39
2.2 Recent Biotech Acquisitions. Done Already, or More to Come?
The annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, held in San Francisco every January, marks the start of the biotech industry’s new year. It’s the time when biotechnology companies of all shapes and sizes set out their stall for the year ahead, hopi...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 2
•
25:32
2.1 The FTC vs. Sanofi. Stifling innovation or smashing monopolies?
In its own words, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s opposition to a licensing deal between Sanofi and the biotechnology firm Maze Therapeutics, “is a case about a monopolist seeking to eliminate a nascent threat to its monopoly”.
•
Season 2
•
Episode 1
•
26:54
1.10 Have ADCs peaked?
Have antibody-drug conjugates peaked—or is there more innovation to come?Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are complex products, and it has taken the field some time to iron out some of the difficulties that hampered their initial developm...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 10
•
29:13
1.9 Historic approval of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing therapy a game changer – for some
The UK approval of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing therapy Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel or ‘exa-cel’) for treating the inherited blood disorders sickle cell disease (SCD) or transfusion-dependent b-thalassemia is an historic scientific and cl...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 9
•
25:27
1.8 Are CAR-Ts stuck?
When they first emerged, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies seemed like the stuff of science fiction. The basic idea of reprogramming T-cells is decades old. It involves isolating a patient’s T-cells, genetically modifying them ...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 8
•
31:06
1.7 Biosimilars. Have they delivered?
When I was a global product manager in big pharma, my US counterpart mentioned to me one day that “we do generics properly in the US, not like you do in Europe.” He meant that when a small molecule went generic in the US, and the 180-day first-...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 7
•
23:45