Boston, China and the future of biotech

Introduction

0:00Today is Friday, May 29th, and you're listening to The Top Line, brought to you by Fierce Pharma and Fierce Biotech. I'm your host, Ayla Ellison. What's one word to describe the state of biotech right now?

0:31Apprehensive, resilient, energized, transitional. Those are some of the answers you'll hear in this episode, and together they sketch out an industry that's trying to figure out what comes next. Because underneath the conversations about tighter funding markets, AI, clinical trial costs, and growing competition from places like China, there's a bigger question emerging. Can biotech reinvent the way drugs are developed before the current model becomes too slow

1:04and too expensive to sustain?

Panel Introduction

1:07Recorded live at Fierce Biotech Week in Boston, senior writer Darren Incorvaya moderates a panel with Bruce Butel of Passkey, then Bradford of MassBio, and Uli Stills of Flagship Pioneering. They discuss the future of biotech innovation in Boston and beyond. Let's get into it. My name is Darren Incorvaya.

1:42I'm a senior writer with Fierce Biotech, and I have an illustrious group of panelists here today to talk all about Boston 2026. And I think we're going to go beyond Boston to maybe the state of Massachusetts, it's fair to say, but before we get into the meat of the conversation, I'd like to ask each of

Boston Biotech Scene

1:59the panelists here to just briefly introduce yourself. And I have an maybe onerous task. If you can describe the current state of the Boston biotech scene in one word, what word would you choose? So please, Bruce, maybe you first. Hi, I'm Bruce Futel, CEO, founder of a company called Passkey. And I've been around in the ecosystem for a very long time, a couple other companies, some worked in BD, lots of R&D, a lot of everything, a big pharma and little biotechs and VCs. One word to describe, I have two words.

2:32We're already breaking the rules. Go ahead. Hard to choose because they're opposite in some ways. One would be apprehensive and the other would be but resilient. And I think both things are very true right now. Hi, everyone. Ben Bradford, I head up external affairs at MassBio. We represent about 1,800 organizations across Massachusetts and beyond. I've been at MassBio for about eight years. Before that, I ran economic development for the Mass Life Sciences Center, which is the state's economic development quasi-public agency.

3:03So we've seen some ups and downs since I've been in the industry. But I think right now, the word I would choose is energized. Perfect. Yeah. Good afternoon. My name is Uli Stils. I recently joined Flagship Pioneering. Before that, I have been building and leading the BioInnovation Hub and the global external innovation effort for Novo Nordisk. My keen scientific interest is between translational science, platform innovation, and then out of this, it's this intersectional developed first-in-class therapeutics.

3:40But I also have a keen interest in global innovation ecosystem, how they evolve, how they emerge, and what we can learn from doing this. So now, one word I was thinking about, actually, to actually use this word, transitional. And I have this in mind, not because I believe that the Boston ecosystem is at any risk to lose its unique strength and positioning. But I fundamentally believe that what we experience or start to experience now is that actually the operational model for the biotech and biopharma ecosystem starts shifting from an ecosystem which was very long focused on asset accumulation and then sequential de-risking and actually late-stage clinical trial validation to an ecosystem.

4:29What I see emerging, which is much more a learning cycle ecosystem with a closer interaction between foundational science and then very early clinical investigation and faster learning cycle. So an ecosystem which is evolving into learning cycles to get faster clinical signals to actually be sustainable. Excellent. And I feel like this came up in our prep call for this panel as well, this kind of transition or this kind of new way of being in the biotech ecosystem.

5:00And Bruce, maybe this connects with your words of apprehensive, what was the second word?

Challenges and Opportunities

5:06Resilient.

Challenges and Opportunities

5:06Resilient, yes. And so what are these kinds of challenges that the Boston biotech scene is being presented with? And then what are the opportunities maybe leveraging those strengths that Uli was talking about that are unique to this area? The things that are unique are the ones that are long-term and that's still a great hub because of the co-localization of financing great universities and IP, tons of experience and a great labor pool with lots of experience in biopharma.

5:38We really have everything that we always had that made it such a great hub in the first place. I think the challenge, though, and I think Uli's right, I think that this, I hope, right, because the answer has to be a more efficient process to actually learn. First of all, you don't really learn preclinically in the end. It really does require clinical data. And being able to de-risk more quickly in the clinic and finding completely novel approaches to that, to de-risk rapidly in the clinic at a much better cost efficiency is the key, I think, to the whole industry and not just in the Boston or Massachusetts area.

6:13Because we all knew forever that it was an unsustainable model how expensive it is per success to actually get to, especially for a first-in-class mechanism. So I think real innovation is emerging in this in a bunch of different ways, some that are science and some that are business-related, but that it all goes to ultimately making that cost-effectiveness and efficiency better. Yeah, Ben, I don't know if you have perspectives on the unique strengths here that Boston can take advantage of.

6:45I think Bruce hit the nail on the head with the strengths, but when you look at, I'm not a scientist. I'm sitting up here with a couple guys who are great scientists, but one of the things that we have that we didn't have in the past is access to space and optionality. Companies are able to grow strategically. If you rewind five years ago, there was under 1% vacancy and a company would take 40,000 square feet because they were scared they wouldn't see 4,000 square feet again. And the competition for talent was so severe that people were sticking around to jobs for a year and getting a title and a salary that wasn't necessarily realistic.

7:24And because we did that little reset over the last few years, now as we're starting to see the IPO market open back up and companies are raising some money, they will be able to find the space that they need and they'll be able to find the people that they need. So that's what has me excited about the next couple of years. Bruce, you mentioned and Uli, you mentioned as well, the kind of the de-risking piece and really a key component to moving forward, looking ahead, is being able to more quickly de-risk things in the clinic.

Competition from China

7:55And there's one place that people talk about a lot that's pretty good at getting into the clinic, and that's China. And I know, again, in our prep call, we brought up not only competition from abroad, like from China, but also competition domestically. Other states that are investing maybe more heavily in their biotech industries. Texas came up as an example. And so how can kind of Boston stand apart and maintain that dominance that really uses those strengths that you were mentioning, especially considering that a lot of the maybe fixes that would be needed would come from the federal level or aren't something that Boston or the state of Massachusetts can do themselves?

8:33Whoever has thoughts on that.

8:36Maybe I actually can start into China and as a competition, then we can dive into your question. And I think sometimes in these discussions about China, I hear it's about speed and cost. And now I have spent quite some time in China on the ground, actually saying that's actually not the core of what China is in terms of competitive threat. What I actually have seen in China is that they build actually the architecture of an ecosystem where there is a possibility to go very fast from a scientific insight into an early human clinical signal and then build a much faster iteration loop.

9:12So it's actually the innovation architecture, China's building, I think will be the key competitive threat. It's not so much for us to actually focus on speed and cost. And that's something really for us to reflect on. Other areas in the U.S. evolving, I think that's great, right? Because competition forces everybody to get better. So I don't think that's something to be worried. But now to your question, I think Bruce and also Ben iterated on, Boston has all what it takes from basic science, translation capability, startups, entrepreneurs, skilled capital.

9:49All the pharma companies are sitting here. So what actually becomes really important, it's not so much in my mind the future to be driven by infrastructure and who builds a better infrastructure, but who builds actually the better interconnectivity and actually learning velocity. And so Boston, I think, is uniquely positioned to be a leader in this if we manage to be really intentional about it. I think that's the key is we have the right ecosystem, but it's showtime, right?

10:20It's a time of change, great change that's actually needed. And the winners are going to be the places that seize on that opportunity and win by actually innovating the right way. And it's innovation across the entire business cycle of this thing, quite different than some other eras where it was, there was maybe scientific innovation, but the way these businesses work was pretty set for a while. We do need to do that. We won't win just because we have all the experience and different pieces in place. We do have to respond to this challenge and actually be a leading place in the Boston area for it.

10:56We just did a survey of a bunch of our members to try to get a sense of where their pain points were as early stage companies. 80% of them said their first preference of where to do first in human trials would be the U.S. But under the current market conditions, U.S. dropped to about 30%. And other countries, mainly Australia and China, moved up. China was not number one on anyone's list in the ideal scenario, but it was first on about seven of the lists once it was under the current conditions.

11:30So I think, Darren, you mentioned there's not much we can do about this as Massachusetts, but as a leading ecosystem, getting the feedback from early stage companies of what changes would be helpful, what adjustments can happen. Because these are also the companies that are struggling right now. We're seeing some big mega rounds for VC funding, and that's great. But the early stage companies, the really early stage companies, we're seeing a significant reduction in seed funding. And that's what's been making Massachusetts special for so long is that fundamental science, that really early stage science, that can then become the next asset that's sold off to a large pharma or developed all the way by that biotech.

12:10And is the issue with getting that funding as an early stage company, I know we've talked a bit about the access to capital as a strength in this region, but there's also a lot of competition for capital with other sectors like tech, for example.

Funding and Talent

12:26And so is that one of the key struggles that these companies are facing? How can we, does everyone need to just say they're doing AI everything? No, but then it's a good question, right? And it's also good to reflect on current challenges, right? Because I think both on the capital investor side, as well as on the partnering side, there is, in my mind, a profound shift towards what I would call validation. So capital flows into clinically validated assets, where there is a proof point, an inflection point, but basically moves away from riskier early science.

12:59That's one influence on the capital side, and the other influence is that capital is throwing away into AI and tech companies in a very significant way. So that shifts it towards validation on the capital side. And then pharma companies, large pharma companies, more and more have shifted from actually investing earlier and also helping to de-risk early science into validation also. That's right. Can we buy clinical assets over we engaged earlier? And so that, of course, becomes confounding that the ecosystem gets all of a sudden driven towards validation.

13:33And at the same time, cleaning trials are still lengthy and the landscape is fragmented. And that has upstream consequences in terms of company formation, seed funding. How do we actually move forward riskier science projects coming out of foundational institutions and get to translational and cleaning signals? How do we do this early cycle? That's why I think this cycle we have to change so that it becomes more attractive investing earlier because it's not a criticism over capital or pharma.

14:03They just behave as rational investors. So that's where I think some of the tension sits right now. And I think it was on this prep call where we talked about where those gaps might be coming from, right? Who's going to fill them? And maybe it's some of the smaller pharmas or larger biotechs who can't compete down the cost curve once it has validation. So maybe we'll see some new players getting involved to help support that those companies get to those data points as well. Yeah, Bruce, I feel like you had thoughts about the kind of maybe mid-stage or smaller pharmas maybe becoming more active buyers in this space as big pharma shifts away?

14:41Yeah, I would think that in general, the very biggest pharmas are probably, you hate to say this, but they're probably the least likely to switch from a post-validation focus right now. Smaller pharmas can't afford to play, literally can't afford to play the same game, have to take a little more innovation and clinical innovation as well. And so in order to compete, for them, one new big success makes the business. So I do think that we're going to likely see an emergence of, in this whole new way of doing things, that the smaller and mid-sized pharmas are probably going to lead a lot of the way.

15:21At least that's my personal sense. I have no data to back that up. Yeah, Uli, do you agree that the small and mid-sized pharmas could become bigger buyers for Boston Biotech? A lot of Bs there. I think participants in the formation stage where I always feel like when you're on the validation side and that's where you are the buyer, you actually buy what exists, but you don't shape what gets being built. And I would think and hope that there are still players out there who believe it's actually important to be part of what's getting built.

15:52And you've also mentioned this kind of cycle and we've kind of been touching on that the way of doing business is changing here. Is there an optimal way that it should transition towards or kind of what are the different directions that we could go down? Yeah, I think Boston has so many of the constituencies, what we talked about. I truly believe being very intentional about thinking about this cost talk. How do we think about early clinical investigation?

16:23And then now going back to China, what I saw live is investigator-driven trials in certain sub-segments, high-risk areas. Genial cell therapy is an example, but that you could get to a clinical signal in three to five patients. And that may not be the approval route, the IND approval route, but it gives you confidence and inflection point that this has potential to work in humans. Reality is, it's still a very high-risk gamble what we are all in, right?

16:54We start with a marvelous idea and have a deep conviction that it will work. And nine out of ten times it actually doesn't work because in humans we don't get the signal we were hoping for. So if we could get to this loop faster, so we learn here faster and get a signal at lower, at faster cycle time and lower cost, that I think would change the equation. And then the second way I would be quite hopeful as we build better cohorts, deeply genotyped and phenotype cohorts, that we can also, you know, find those patients faster to do those studies.

17:25And largely, I think over time, that predictive tools and all what we see now, you know, we haven't talked about AI, but of course it has a component here. Can we over time become actually more predictive that it's not nine out of ten which are failing, but that it becomes maybe eight out of ten? And that would dramatically, of course, change the equation. So could we actually, by becoming more predictive, shift the value generation more to the earlier side of the pipeline? That's really interesting.

17:56And I'll take us in a different direction now because, Ben, I wanted to bring up something I think you touched on as a strength of the Boston region is the talent available here. And I think you all would agree that there's a lot of talent here. So what, in terms of the current available talent pool, what's that looking like in Massachusetts right now? And what can the industry and the state do to keep that talent here, considering all these different pressures that we've touched on? I think it's a true ecosystem, right? You have the early stage researchers, you have commercial people, you have contract people.

18:31But what makes it special is that you can go from one job to another. And people were doing a lot of that in 2021. Since then, the biopharma industry has lost about 5,000 employees in Massachusetts. And that's company closures, layoffs. But I think this is also another cyclical thing where, you know, if we find ways to get more early stage funding to companies and we figure out the pipelines for the larger commercial companies, there will be hiring again.

19:02But I think put a silver lining on 5,000 people losing their jobs is there's really good talent sitting on the sidelines, though, that wasn't there. So if a company raises some money, they don't have to go compete with Takeda or Lilly or Novo. They can find people who know what they're doing and then bring them right in right away. Bruce, your thoughts on the talent situation? Yeah, absolutely. Right now, there's a lot of people looking, a lot of people have been affected. I see a lot of, especially high-level, C-level and VP-level people doing fractional work and multiple.

19:40On one side, that's very efficient. And on the other side, I think some of them would prefer full-time roles, although some like the fractional. And I think, yeah, it does. In the short term, business-wise, it's an advantage because it is that if you get the funding, you can ramp up with fantastic talent that's still the best in the world very quickly and execute very fast. And I do think it's a cyclical thing. It'll tighten up again. The ecosystem is actually really, really challenging now, right, in terms of employment opportunities,

20:17where it has exceptional, experienced operators and scientists on the market who look for new, exciting opportunities. But I think that's also a real opportunity now to build very strong companies, to be very intentional about companies to build. At a time where also infrastructure costs have come down quite significantly. So I think it's probably a real sweet spot in terms of now building very intentionally strong innovation-focused companies,

20:49which are highly differentiated. And maybe if you think about the ecosystem, what I hope is that we move towards building a sustainable innovation ecosystem and not build the next bubble. Yeah, that's the hard part. Most people maybe don't realize they're building a bubble until it's too late, right? But on the fractional appointment piece, Bruce, I know part of my job at Fierce is assembling our weekly shoots and ladders column where we track the kind of high-level hirings.

21:21What do we say? Hirings, firings, and retirings in the industry. And I've noticed firsthand the increase in the fractional appointments that are coming in. And I see why someone who's looking for work would be like, okay, I'll take a fractional role here and a fractional role there because you need to make a living. But I have to wonder if there's some kind of downstream negative consequence that will come. I don't know if maybe for those people, but for the companies that are getting part-time CMOs or something like that doesn't seem ideal to me.

21:51I don't think it's a negative consequence for the people, for the employing. I actually think it's still, in fact, one could argue if that stayed in the ecosystem for a long time, it's just another way of having a good percolation of cross-fertilization within the ecosystem here of people gaining that much more rapid experience in different places on different topics. And so there's a hidden advantage there maybe even. I think for the businesses, it's harder because in the short run, it's more cost-effective to get some work done.

22:23There's not that same sense of true ownership back to the wall, I got to make this work, right? Which is that ferment inside the company to actually make the mission successful is, you know, that's the intangible secret sauce always. And I think that's much harder to achieve with fractional. Just like it was harder to achieve during the COVID era, I think, with off-site work, everything remote. Neither of those is particularly good for what this ecosystem really was originally built for,

22:55which is that it's all that in-person interaction and unexpected conversations that lead to pretty incredible breakthroughs, actually. Yeah, I don't know, Ben, Yuli, if you have thoughts on the rise in fractional appointments, just because it seems to be so stark to me. I think Bruce has made most points I would have in mind here. But of course, I like this thought process that it can help to give individuals an experience, first of all, to float, and then to gain broader experience,

23:25and actually transfer insights between companies. There could be a real value proposition here from how learnings get transmitted between companies, not in a competitive way, but in a conceptional way. How do we go about certain topics in a meaningful way? But otherwise, there's also this aspect of intensity, right? If you have one job, then you focus all your energy on it. If you have five jobs, the energy goes maybe five times 20 or five times 22, but it's a different intensity.

23:56There's a consequence to that, that unfortunately goes in the same direction as some of the funding issues, which is the rich get richer. So basically, you get the mega rounds, you get the higher people, you have the more focused workforce. The companies that can't afford it are the ones getting that less focused workforce. So it's just another way. It's a weird labor-related way of having a bifurcation in the ecosystem between the haves and the have-nots. Another part of the talent piece, and Ben, I wanted to get your thoughts on this as well,

24:30is so there's these people sitting on the sidelines, right? And Massachusetts is a great place to live, I think, in general. But there's a lot of competition for this talent, and there's a lot of other factors that influence whether a person's going to stay in a given area or not. And there's lots of federal policies that are influencing the ability for talent to come into not just Massachusetts, but the United States. And I'm curious what you see the state of Massachusetts doing to help keep talented people

Retaining Talent and Innovation

25:02here or make sure they can come here, or what the state kind of should be doing. And then we can broaden that to what the industry should be doing, actually. So the current administration's been really focused on building more housing, right? That's one of our biggest challenges in Massachusetts is lack of housing stock. And it's hard to stay here because it's so competitive for housing. But the administration also filed a economic development bill last year, and it was passed to reauthorize the Mass Life Sciences Center, which has funding programs, and they're coming up with new programs now,

25:34which can bring money to those early-stage companies. If we can do things simultaneously, build more housing, but also give grant money to early-stage companies and not dilute their equity so that they're more investable, I think both of those are things that we could do, which in tandem should keep people here. And then I think you look at just general policies in Massachusetts, and it is a desirable place to live. Safest state in the country, best public schools in the country, transportation's tough,

26:06but we do have a lot of advantages. And I think really leaning into those advantages makes this a place that people want to be. I have to say, I was just hearing about the cost of parking in Boston. So you mentioned that transportation. I can't imagine, but I guess part of my question also has to do with maybe the threat of, not just from Boston, but the United States in general, of a brain drain of maybe because of federal policies or because of, yeah, funding cuts for, kind of early-stage research that maybe the talent just leaves to go other places. Or we see reporting on folks who maybe come to the U.S., maybe to Massachusetts to get their education,

26:41like from China, maybe normally they would stay here, right? But now under current policies and maybe due to enticements from China, they're going back instead, right? So are there things we can do to kind of counteract that brain drain? I mean, it's a big question to ask you, Ben, but I'm... That's a bubbly pay rate. Yeah. I solve it right now. But Bruce Anuli, I'm sure you have thoughts maybe on the brain drain concerns too. Look, yeah, I think that's a much broader issue than Massachusetts. I still think that there's a lot of intangible benefit to this area, regardless of cost of housing and regardless of traffic.

27:15For a certain type of person who is the type that works in this industry, being in an area that just so highly values quality education, great public schools for kids, it's just, it is a great place for families who are of the type who work in this industry. And I actually think compared to a lot of the rest of the country, it's relatively immune to some of that. Honestly, I think we still have an advantage that it's a great place to be. I think the brain drain issue, as there's an equalization

27:50in the whole world and China's industry is rising, is a clear thing. Of course, more people are going to get trained and then go back there. I think it's easy to dwell on some of the negative that's happening. But also, if you look at the problems we have here in Massachusetts and the problems our industry has, man, I bet 49 other states would kill to have our problems. And you look, AstraZeneca is building a new U.S. headquarters here and Takeda is expanding 600,000 square feet and Biogen just doubled down in Kendall Square to stay.

28:23So we can dwell on a lot of the negative things, but there's a lot of good happening too. And again, it's cyclical and it will come back. What I've been trying not to do is dwell on too much of the negative, focus on what we can control and go with that. Not much to add. I think, of course, talent will always be very mobile, right? Because there are opportunities around the planet. And so talent will be mobile in some shape or form. But at the same time, I always feel like it's actually interesting, right? When I internationally travel and arrive at

28:53Boston at the airport and there's a video, right? A welcoming video. And so it actually feels like a place, Massachusetts, where actually, you know, those who arrive get welcomed. And that's how I felt when I came here that within a few weeks, I felt actually I'm part of this, right? It doesn't matter where I came from. And that's how it was for me too. And I think that's actually really important to keep this inclusive culture, that it doesn't really matter where you come from, that it really matters what you do and contribute. Yeah. That's an excellent note. I'll say

29:23as a journalist, it's maybe my job to dwell on the negative, Ben. So that's what I, I live in the negative, but kind of one of the, one of the pieces I wanted to revisit from earlier, and it relates to a positive, the strengths of the Boston area is of course, the strong academic institutions. I don't even think I have to name any of them, but really harnessing the strengths of that kind of academic expertise requires a tight relationship with, between industry and these academic centers. So are there things that can be done to strengthen that bond between

29:57industry and academia, or is that relationship already solid enough? I personally think it's very solid in here and compared to most anywhere else. And obviously academia is having a lot of challenges from changes in policy and things, but if anything, it just drives it even closer to industry. And so I think that's super solid, but I would say all the other stuff we were talking about, the challenge still remains. This ecosystem must be innovative and adapt. And you mentioned earlier AI and all that, right? We cannot follow the same old

30:33biotech model and the asset focused only approaches or the slow path to eventually 90% failure in the clinic. Like Uli was mentioning, we can't stay on that old way of doing things. We really do need, as Uli was saying, the quicker cycle to early proof of concept in humans and to change the whole equation. And AI and other computational approaches are a major part of that. And it's part of what differentiates, let's face it, one of our big competitors would be San Francisco as an area,

31:05right? We can't have that be a split thing, right? We have to be just as much on AI and its use in the health sciences as San Francisco, right? It shouldn't be one or the other. And we do need to stay on the front of the curve on the whole thing. And then it's all going to take care of itself. Because I think all these other factors are a little bit secondary, absolutely, as long as we take care of that innovation and leverage the ecosystem that we do have. I would like to add, and I think I didn't say it so clearly when I talked about both the funding

31:37and the partnering ecosystem moving towards validation, that actually the result of this, if we all focus on only validation, the result of this will at the end be an ecosystem which becomes more and more incremental. So that's why I said it's actually a time to transition, change the operating model, that we can go back into transformative science and actually real breakthrough therapeutic development. Exactly. You can't get trapped into, all we're going to do is keep marginally saving costs, right? It's over if we go down that path.

32:08Yeah. And I think it's also a talent thing. We need to make sure that we're training talent for where the industry is going, not just what we've always done. So it's not just companies being innovative, it's companies making sure that they're training their talent, making sure that our academic institutions are preparing people for what's next. Because we had all of the tech companies here in the 80s and they all went to California. Yeah. So can't repeat that either. Absolutely. How do we make sure that they come here?

32:40We have to, like I said, we have to be the innovative center and have examples, positive examples where the breakthrough came here. There's nothing like success to build success. It doesn't have to be everywhere, right? One big success, doing things a new way, always leads to then more followers and it just drives the whole ecosystem.

33:03Yeah. One thing we talked about in the prep call, I think came back to with all the investment in AI, the big pharma also investing heavily in AI. A lot of it's investing in platforms, investing in the promise of these future returns. And so I think I maybe facetiously asked this question at the time, but is the answer for more platform biotechs rather than the asset centric model you were talking about, Bruce, should everyone be a platform biotech? Because I feel like we also went through that a little bit years ago. So I'm CEO of a platform biotech. So my answer maybe doesn't doubt.

33:36I definitely think certain platforms are very much important. No, I don't think it's like a wave one way or the other. You cannot, insofar as all platform really means to me is that you are trying to rewire the way the whole thing works and what opportunities you're creating. And that's what Uli and I have been saying all the time. You do need that. You can't just do things the old way. That kind of means platform. But at the end of the day, you try to make drugs and treat people. So it's still going to always be both.

34:07So then there's not a contradiction, right? There will always be, of course, assets, right? Because it leads to therapeutics to change conditions and improve the life of people living with certain diseases. So that is always a focal point. But what I would think in a future model is that most likely not the winners are the companies who have an asset, but actually those companies who built a learning system. And out of this learning system, it becomes repeatable to create new insights. And out of these cycles, then they keep developing diversified assets over

34:39time. So that would be my prediction that those companies will be the winner in the new world. Yeah, I've seen many companies, I think, advertising an engine of discovery. We have a drug development engine. That seems to be a popular word that is in my inbox. I don't know about you. So maybe that's what you're getting at of having a repeatable way to, that's right, get those assets and then hopefully a way to validate them quickly in the clinic. Exactly, right. Yeah, exactly. I think we're just about running to the end of our time here. So please join me in thanking our panelists again for taking the time.

35:14That's it for The Top Line. I'm your host, Ayla Ellison. You can find out more about this topic in our show notes at fiercebiotech.com. Look for podcasts. And that's the bottom line from The Top Line.

35:36The Top Line. Yup. That's it for the top line. It's a great story. I'll see you next time. I'm your host, Ayla Ellison. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.