Biotech 2050 Podcast
Advancing Drug Discovery with Cutting-Edge AI & Team Synergy: Fabrice Chouraqui, CEO of Cellarity
Synopsis:
Step into the future of biotech as host Rahul Chaturvedi delves into an exclusive conversation with Fabrice Chouraqui, CEO of Cellarity, as he unveils the groundbreaking ways AI is revolutionizing drug discovery. Fabrice will take you behind the scenes of Cellarity’s trailblazing approach, revealing how their pioneering technology is accelerating drug development and creating a synergy-driven powerhouse. Tune in for a front-row seat to the next era of biotech innovation and gain exclusive insights from a leader at the cutting edge of the industry.
Biography:
Fabrice Chouraqui is CEO-partner of Flagship Pioneering and CEO of Cellarity. Cellarity is a Flagship-backed company developing game-changing medicines that are unreachable with traditional methods of drug discovery. By harnessing the power of AI and single-cell omics data, Cellarity’s approach allows them to see disease biology others can’t. The Cellarity platform links biology and chemistry to multi-omics data and enables the design of medicines against cellular dysfunction – an approach applicable to a vast array of diseases to offer new hope to patients in need. Fabrice is an experienced global pharmaceutical executive with a passion for driving the progress of medical sciences and bringing innovation to patients. He has deep experience across the business spectrum, from R&D to commercial leadership, business development and investor communications. Fabrice has led the launch of breakthrough treatments in a number of areas, including oncology, immunology, neuroscience and cardiovascular. Prior to Cellarity, Fabrice was president of the U.S. Pharmaceuticals business for Novartis, where he was credited with transforming the organization to adapt to a new market environment and turning around its performance. He also represented Novartis on the board of BIO.
Fabrice earned an MBA from INSEAD in France and a Doctorate in Pharmacy, a Post-Graduate Degree in Quality Assurance of Medicines, and a MSc in Biological and Medicinal Sciences from University of Paris V. Born in Paris, France, he is fluent in English and French.
- Duration:
- 31m
- Broadcast on:
- 28 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING] Hello, and welcome to the BioTech 2050 podcast. BioTech 2050 is a think tank chronicling the disruptions changing the biotech industry over the next several decades. Check out our website at BioTech 2050.com or on your favorite podcast listening platform. I'm Rahul Chutteraydi, co-founder of this podcast. And today's host, I'm also the founder and CEO of Chlora. Chlora is a future of work platform that enables biotechs to build fractional teams. Check us out at Chlora.com. I'm very excited to welcome Fabrice Churukwa, CEO at Celerity and CEO partner at flagship pioneering. Wonderful to have you on today, Fabrice. Wonderful to be speaking with you, Rahul. Thank you for having me. Yeah, our pleasure, Fabrice. So to kick us off, as usual, I would love if you could talk to us about what got you initially interested in biotech, the arc of your career, and how you got to where you are today. I'm someone who is, I'm sure, like you, passionate about driving the progress of medical sciences and bringing innovation to patients. I've always seen our industry as a kind of bridge between science on one end and society on the other. And over the past 25 years, I had the chance to really experience a wide range of experience across the business spectrum. From research and development to commercial leadership, business development, investment management. And I must say, I felt really blessed. I was blessed by the learning that this journey took me on. Blessed as well, by the fact that I was able to appreciate the best of the two world. The rigor and the sophistication of big pharma, but also the innovation and the agility of biotech. And if I combine this by the fact that I had also the chance to work on four continents in many different countries, I must say it's been a very fulfilling journey so far. Wonderful for me. So I understand this is your first time being CEO of a biotech. You've obviously held many senior positions over your career during your time at Novartis. Talk to us about making that transition. And perhaps what were some of the non-obvious things that you had to learn when you became CEO nowadays? I decided to move to biotech as I really wanted to understand how you create value out of drug discovery. We all know that the pharma industry is a very profitable industry. And yet, the productivity of drug discovery has not been what it should be over the past decades. If you imagine, still today, despite the advance of technology, barely one or two drug candidates in 10, which are entering the clinic, we'll see the patients. Which other industry will be able to bear this type of productivity level? I don't know, in the construction industry, there are construction just across the streets. I mean, if builders had to build 10 buildings, for one, to be standing on its feet at the end, I'm not sure that would be a great business model. And yet, this is what we're doing. So, for me, understanding how organization, like flagship pioneering, with which has constantly pushed upon the area of the science, how these organizations have been successful years after years, a decade after decade, to drive the progress of the science and create value, create immense value. I mean, when you see the success of a company like Moderna, the impact it has on humanity. Obviously, this is the tip of the iceberg, but so many biotech firms are having many, very significant impact on human life. And so, I felt that to really understand how we do this, I think the best way was actually to roll up my sleeve and really work in drug discovery as part of the successful organization, like flagship pioneering. We were talking earlier about what a unique ecosystem flagship pioneering is. I imagine you were aware of flagship, obviously, for quite some time, before making the jump. I'm curious, as you saw flagship from the outside, what was your view of flagship at that point? And then, how has it evolved now being on the inside? - I don't think it's that different. I think I know flagship is much more granularity now, I've been working there for the past four years. From the outside, I saw flagship at the forefront of innovation, trying to tackle big problems. And clearly, when you are inside, that it is real, that you see the dynamics, the sense of purpose of every single employee, to reap, as I said earlier, to push the boundaries of the science, to rework in white space, in order not to accept the status quo. I think there is a concept, a flagship, which a new bar of fame is constantly reinforcing, is this concept of leap of space. Belief without evidence. That's how you pioneer. You need to have very strong belief. And in some instances, you don't have the evidence yet. You're gonna generate the evidence along the journey. But really, your belief is a very strong guiding principle. Working at flagship, for me, has been full of learning, obviously, but also learning. You know, when you work in big pharma, when you make decision, the goal is to be right, is to be perfect. And you are ready to take the time that it will take to make the most perfect decision. Even if some time, that decision can be outdated. In biotech, you don't have the luxury of time. Science is moving very quickly. Science is complex. You've got to make a decision. And so, I've learned to make decision, which are less perfect, but much faster. However, I've learned, I would say, to make less perfect, good decision. And by this, I mean that at the time when you make the decision, you know that you don't have all the information at hand, that your decision may not be perfect. And therefore, you need to be able to be ready to course correct as you gather more data. And being able to keep options when you make a decision, as opposed to be cornered in the past. And that's a real mindset shift, I must say. I must say, to grow new neurons in my brain. And as a consequence, probably others retracted a bit. But I feel this is really the mindset that is required nowadays, whether you are a small or a big company, to be successful in an ever-changing environment, successful in an ever more complex environment. And I must say, it's a very, very fulfilling experience. - Yeah, so it sounds like your view and timeline as it relates to value creation has changed over the last couple of years. I'm curious if that is true in terms of in a biotech, the horizon to value creation can be quite different. I'm curious how that's changed, how you operate or how you run, celerity, tangibly. Just listeners that perhaps want to make that shift as well. What advice could you provide them? - Daxie pioneering is a company which is a very long term focus. We are not a venture capital firm. We are not investing in others company and then looking for an exit after three or five years. We create our own company and we support them for the long-term. And Sarti is a great example. It came out of the flagship labs. It was created by Avak Kavijian, who is a general partner at flagship pioneering. And I was lucky to take the helm of the company just a few months after it was created. And we have a real long-term. So we're thinking about really maximizing the value of a platform. I think at flagship, what we do, we only work with platform company. We are not looking at just assets. It's really very much about harnessing what the science can offer to build platform company that can yield actually a number of assets to tackle significant and mathematical needs. So we are not restricted by just the first or the second one. It's always about developing the platform, continuing to enhance the platform while showcasing the output of the platform through the development of different assets. And Sarti is a great illustration of this. We have a very unique platform, potentially completely destructive in the way it's going to change the way we are creating drugs. We've been working on that platform, but equally important as being to show that platform can deliver. And now that we're the first program and trying to clinic next year, we have a stream of other programs which are coming behind. And it's very much about showing the application of the platform and also how repeatable this approach can be over and over. I'm sure this is nothing that we're going to be discussing today. If you're an HR or hiring manager in biotech, you know all too well that the pool of experts seeking full-time employment is shrinking. Filling key full-time positions can be a long, drawn-out, or deal. It can slow the pace of execution and growth. Throw away the old hiring playbook. Now you can build a biotech dream team in a fraction of that time. Find out how. Visit chlora.com. Chlora, talent optimized. Yeah, for weeks before we jump into celerity, you would mention something at the onset regarding the productivity within our sector isn't what it should be. I'd love to hear your perspective, given all that you've seen, as to what are the some of the key factors that you think are correctable as it relates to this productivity gap? Drug discovery has barely changed over the past decades, despite, again, the huge progress of science and technology. It's a very reductionist approach by which you take a complex disease and you reduce that disease to a single-modicular target. And you use this molecular target as a starting point for your drug discovery process. So it provides a starting point, which is good. But it's a very reductionist starting point. So you place a bed at the onset of your drug discovery process on a single-modicular target, expecting that by hitting that target, you are going to address a very complex disease. Sometimes it works and we have amazing medication, but most often it doesn't because it doesn't translate. It doesn't translate from test tube to animals. And as I mentioned before, it often doesn't translate from animal models to human. And we've got to find ways to do drug discovery while embracing the complexity of biology. Biology is complex and until now, it's been very difficult to re-embrace and unravel the complexity of this diet. It was much easier to try to reduce that complexity, to find the target and then expecting that by hitting the target, you'll be able to address the disease. That's one of the main factors, why the productivity is solo, because it is so reductionist. But today we have the tools, specifically with machine learning, to embrace that complexity, to see biology in a much more granular way, in a much more holistic way. And that, in my opinion, will allow us not only to understand this is biology much better, but also to come up with drug candidates that will have a much higher likelihood of success in the clinic than what has happened so far. - Yeah, great point for base. And so you talked a little bit about the application of AI in drug development. There's certainly a lot of excitement around the application right now. Curious how you're operating at the intersection of AI and biotech, and then also what problems you're tackling at Celerity as well. - Yeah, Celerity is a company that is working at the conference of many fast moving fields. AI, like you said, single-cell omerics, system biology, chemistry, so clearly are very exciting. It's AI enabled. I really believe that the use of AI in drug discovery is game-changing, and it's going to allow us to develop drugs that are out of reach presently. Yet, no drug is just a click away. AI needs to be honest and combined with lab experiments. I believe that AI will be an enabler as opposed to this solution, but clearly it allows to do amazing things. So when it comes to Celerity, what we do, we are really harnessing the power of AI and single-cell omerics to drive a radically new approach with drug discovery. We've been able to create unique capabilities that allow us to link a biology and chemistry with high-dimensional, multiomic data to create medicines, again, the cells in nature of the disease. And what's very specific about our approach is that we are shifting the starting point of drug discovery. We are shifting the starting point from a traditional single-modicular target to the Celerity function underlying disease. And the understanding of that Celerity function that underlies disease allows us, as alluded to before, to re-unravel and embrace the complexity of this biology. It's allowing us to see biology that other can't and create medicines that, in a sense, completely out of the rich with a traditional method of a microscope. And just to give you an example, in single-cell disease, where there's been actually recently a number of advances, and yet they are mathematically this huge, we've been able to create a drug candidate, which is due to enter in the clinic next year, that has an efficacy profile, which is similar to gene therapy, but in the ones that appeal. It's quite mind-boggling to think about having gene therapy-like efficacy, but in appeal. And yet, this is by leveraging, again, this unique platform and the combination of AI andomics data that we're able to see the biology of single-cell disease in a different way and come up with a drug candidate that would not have been able to generate if we had started from a target. But obviously, I can tell you more about this program, but I can tell you more about other programs. - Yeah, that's really interesting. One point that comes to mind is that, historically, this is a bit of a sea change in terms of the type of team you need to build when you're applying AI to drug discovery. What's that process been like in terms of perhaps bringing folks over from the tech sector to biotech? And how do you feel about just the overall talent pool that exists to be able to operate at the intersection of AI and drug discovery? - That's a great question. Applying AI to biology is a true multi-disciplinary endeavor. Not only you need data scientists and computational scientists, but you also need biologists, chemists, clinicians, as you build AI model and you train that asset. And so, you need to realize as well that all these people, all these experts have been training in a different way, they speak different languages. And for these two work, they need to become multilingual in a sense. And so, along, I would say, the journey of celerity what has been very key, in my opinion, our success beyond, obviously, either development, the concrete development of the platform or the output through the progress of a number of our programs, has been this ability to create a true multilingual scientific workforce where really people are fluent in others' language. If you are a biologist, when you are confronted with the result of an experiment, it's never perfect, never good, or it's never bad. It's either in between, but they are always learning if it tends to be bad, or if it's good, it's never good enough. If you are a computational biologist, things are more binary. It's more like it's good, or it's bad. It's very much not only about language, it's also about mindsets. And it's absolutely essential for all those experts who come together and we learn from one another, embrace others' mindsets. Otherwise, if everyone stays in their lane, as it is often the case, in big company, because large organizations require well-defined organizations of structure to be efficient. So if everyone stays in their lane, then you won't be able to really embrace and harness what new technology like AI can offer when you apply it to biology. - Yeah, a really interesting point for Greece in terms of shared language and mindset. Just tactically, how have you implemented that and what's worked well to be able to implement that? - Tactically, I would say, first of all, there's no walls in the office. I don't have a closed office. So we've designed the office in a way that there are no walls. People are on the floor, people are working in teams. It's not by function. So it's not like, hey, you have the biology function, you have the computational biology function. So I know people are totally spread through teams. Another important aspect has been the fact that after the pandemic, we've asked everyone to work from the office at least three days a week and we've picked three days during which everyone had to be in the office. Because you cannot ideate on Zoom. You can do a lot on Zoom. It brings immense flexibility when you need it, but you cannot ideate. You cannot really embrace this multidisciplinary, this multilingual aspect of the job through Zoom. I know it's been a bit controversial at the beginning. Some people were not happy. Some people lacked us, but we held firm. And now, actually, I can see that even on Monday and Friday to measure it to the people in the office. Because people see the value of being in the office. I don't believe in the value of telling people what you do. I think you are surrounded by amazing professionals, amazing talent, and the best way to leverage their capabilities is not to tell them what to do. They need to see a value in what they do, and this is how they're gonna be at their best. And I'm very happy to see that we've been working towards that goal, and it's funny, because now people coming to the Sarah's office always have reactions. They say, "Oh my God, but it's buzzing here. "Is it every day like this?" And we tell again, and we're visitors, yes, it is. And that's why now, to attract people, we have them come to the office, and it's often actually a great selling factor that they see actually the buzz in the office and in the lab. - And Fabrice, you were talking about shared language and mindsets, and not everyone staying in their lane, and just pulling on this thread of culture and how you've operated. I'm sure you develop many principles and mental models in terms of how you like to operate or manage. I'm curious if any of those required tweaking when you went to the biotech side if I asked you to reflect for a second. - Not that much, I would say. At the end of the day, it is about what? It is about creating an environment that foster a very strong sense of purpose, creating an environment that foster openness and respect, creating an environment which is conducing for people to express themselves, challenge the status quo, so we can really push the boundaries of the science. Don't think that it is dramatically different compared to what I've seen throughout my career so far. Perhaps the difference that I see in biotech, which I see really big plus, because we are operating in a smaller structure, we accept more diversity in the way people express themselves, behave, diversity beyond the traditional marker of driver's city. And I think that's good because we can really truly leverage the diversity of a workforce. You don't need to fit in the box because biotech companies are younger, their culture is not yet established, it's more real, the culture is being built from the ground ups, as opposed to just being portrayed on posters and on slides. And I think that really allows people to be themselves within some boundaries, obviously. I'm not saying we do not tolerate any unacceptable behavior, but the spectrum of behavior is slightly larger. That allows, I would say, greater expression. And at the end, I think it is extremely positive for what we're doing. I think in biotech, people are more focused in making a new impact than managing it. - For me, I was gonna go elsewhere, but now I wanna pull on that thread a little bit. I often get asked from folks that are graduating college or some postdoc programs, whether they should go to pharma or biotech, being that you've been on both sides for quite some time. I'm curious what advice you provide, folks, that would ask you that question. - Both are equity-fulfitting. It's different, but equity-fulfitting. As I said earlier, I think in large company, you will learn really deep expertise and rigor. In a biotech environment, you're gonna learn what entrepreneurship means, what true innovation means. So it's different set of skills. I would advise people to do both, to be fair, but I don't think I would actually play one against the other. I think large pharma being successful will remain successful. That'll have to adapt, obviously, to the changing environment, but that will remain very successful for most of them. Dietech, actually, the dynamic, the dynamism, the innovation that comes out of biotech, actually, will continue to happen. And so I believe that these are two great sets of experience that are complementary. - Well said. For me, so you talked a little bit about one program, and then we've talked broadly about the potential power of the platform that you're working on. To zoom out, when there is so much that you could do with a platform, how do you think about which programs to pursue aggressively and your own kind of indication selection framework? - That's a great question. That's a, in my opinion, a million dollar question, perhaps a billion dollar question from a valuation perspective. I believe that there is amazing science being done all across the biotech world, but what matters is very much what you do with the science. It's your ability to ultimately come up with highly differentiated assets that will change through the entire time, will be of value in medical practice. If you are using the letters of the science to come up with me two drugs, yes, you come up with those assets, leveraging the letters of the science, but these are me two assets, and patients, caregivers, doctors don't need them. And you cannot create value. And so your ability to shape a pipeline that will ultimately create tremendous value for patients, for doctors, as well as for shareholders, is absolutely paramount. Is there a recipe? I wish I could tell you that there is. For me, in a world where you can do virtually anything, you cannot do everything. You have to be extremely diligent when you allocate your capitals. So you need to pick the right disease areas in which you believe that you can showcase the power of what you do. If it's a platform, the power of your platform whilst de-risking. Because there is already a lot of risk that I'm embedded in what you're doing. It's so novel, it's so innovative, it's so transformative that you want to de-risk what you can de-risk. Being able to pick those areas where you have a high chance of showcasing the value of your technology quickly, de-risk fashion is absolutely paramount. And then you need to combine this with the fact that these need to be sizable opportunity so you can create value. Specifically now, when financing is not as strong as it was in the past decade, you cannot have the luxury to just start a number of programs which are scientifically very sound but will not generate value downstream. These are criteria that we have been applying to what we've been doing at celerity. And for instance, in our case, we decided to focus on two areas in a menu because these are areas in which you have many conditions where there is a direct coalition between celerity differentiation. And since our platform allows to understand cell dysfunction, the whole new level, we felt that actually these were good areas to prove the value of our platform. And now we can obviously leverage other ways to expand the use of the platforms through partnership, for instance. We have great partnership with Novo Nordisk in metabolism. We would not have been able actually to work in metabolism on our own. I think if you need to have world-class expertise, when you enter a certain disease area, we cannot develop world-class expertise in everything. However, in metabolism, working with the world leader in metabolism, Novo Nordisk, obviously brings tremendous of expertise, experience that we can leverage. And when we bring together our science and their knowledge of the disease, we can do great things. And this is exactly what's happening. - Robis, you talked a little bit about the current capital markets. We're recording this in the third quarter of 2024. And there's been waves of layoffs and companies shutting down as well as some M&A activity and partnership activity as well. I'm curious how you think about team building and scaling a team, given the current capital constraints that we're all operating under. And if that's changed at all in terms of how you think about hiring aggressively, leveraging CROs, leveraging external vendors, and so on. - It is true that the current environment is an incentive to be super disciplined in capital allocation. Yet, I cannot say it has changed fundamentally the way I've been operating. If you operate successful businesses, you have to be disciplined in capital allocation, regardless of the environment. I think what the environment is teaching us is that actually, I believe that the environment is making you better. It's making you better because you need to be more forceful in convincing investors that actually, you have the transformative technology that can yield tremendous value. So, I think it makes you better in terms of not only obviously in your narrative, but in what you do, and how you prove actually the value of that platform concretely. It's easy to fall in love with the science. It's easy actually to do a lot of things because it's so cool and not necessarily produce value with that science. And I think that environment is re-pushing you to be much more value-oriented. So that's very good. When it comes to hiring, again, I've always felt that actually in any businesses that I've managed, whether they were small, whether they were large, that you need to be very diligent in how you hire. You need to have clear processes in place to justify the value of additional resources because it's so easy to hire. And we see that with many companies who either are well-capitalized or are in a growth territory. And then one day they wake up and there are too many people. And too many people means they are not as agile as they were and not as innovative as they were. And their cost base is way too high. So regardless of the environment, you need to keep an eye on the internal efficiency, on the way you deploy your capital, on whether you need that resource. And more importantly, whether you believe that you need that resource internally. In biotech, an environment where a capital is scarce, you need to decide to really develop internally the capabilities that will make you win, that will be differentiating. If these are capabilities that can be accessed elsewhere, you can work through sub-parties. You should not necessarily have everything in-house. For sure, it's more comfortable to have everything in-house. But for me, this lens, you know, in terms of what is truly differentiating, is it a capability that makes celerity distinctive and better versus the capability that I need, but I can access elsewhere. That's also a great way to keep control of your hiring. Yeah, said for base. In the closing minutes here, if I could ask you to fast forward and think about 20 years in the future, I'd love to hear your perspective on, and perhaps our ambitions as a sector in terms of what does the biotech space look like as a result of the application of AI and ML to drug development. I believe that AI/ML is going to revolutionize the way we are creating and developing drugs. AI is revolutionizing many parts of our economies, and the pharma industry will not be immune to it. In some instances, it's gonna be incremental. In some instances, it's gonna be transformative. When it comes to drug discovery, it's gonna be transformative. We will see more new drugs, more new breakthrough medications, developed faster with a much higher chance of success. I think in 20 years from now, the rate of failure in the clinic would have decreased significantly, because we would have had model to be able to test in silico, pressure tests, the viability of these programs on a number of criteria toxicity to efficacy and so on. And that's gonna be absolutely essential because this is gonna have a very significant impact on the cost of medication. Today, not only it takes a long time and a lot of money to develop drugs, but because of the failure rate, cost of failure is being passed on to patients. And this is one of the explanations, just one, there are others, but this is actually a sleeping one. This is why actually innovative medicines cost so much. If we can increase the throughput of innovation, in drug discovery and development, the price of medicine will come down. And more patient, if not all patient, I hope in 20 years, that all patients suffering from a disease, regardless of their income level, regardless of whether they are under will, will be able to access that innovative treatment. So I think this is, personally, this is what edimates me. I believe that we can have a very significant impact on humanity by harnessing the power of AI and ultimately ensuring that innovation is accessible by the majority. And not just by small segment of the population in wet sea markets. - I certainly agree and hope that's the case for Breece. It was a pleasure having you on today for Breece. Thanks so much for chatting with us about your own personal journey, as well as the exciting work that you and your team are pursuing. - Thank you, Raoul. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to this episode of biotech 2050. This episode is hosted by me, Rahul Chaturvedi, and Alok Taiyi. If you enjoyed this episode of biotech 2050, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Also follow us on Twitter and Instagram and biotech 2050 pod. Again, that's biotech 2050 POD. Until next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]