Business
Success Lessons from a Serial Entrepreneur
In this episode of Biotech and Life Sciences CEO Stories, Leonard Mazur, CEO and co-founder of City of Pharmaceuticals, shares his journey as a serial entrepreneur in the biotech industry. He discusse...
Success Lessons from a Serial Entrepreneur
Business •
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Interactive Transcript
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Thanks for joining us for another episode of Biotech and Life Sciences CEO Stories.
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Today we're excited to be joined by Leonard Mazur, CEO and co-founder of City of Pharmaceuticals,
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a company with a pipeline in Agit Cancer Care and oncology where the recently approved targeted immune therapy in relapsed or refractory,
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a Futaneous T-cell lymphoma.
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Leonard's a serial entrepreneur, founding earlier companies in dermatology and cardiology,
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after beginning his career in sales and marketing at Metasys and ICN Pharmaceuticals, BASF, and predominantly Cooper Labs.
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He was born in Antsburg, Germany to Ukrainian parents who immigrated to the US when Leonard was very young.
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He's the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
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He also served in the Marine Corps while he was earning his undergraduate NNBA degrees at Temple.
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Thanks for joining us Leonard.
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The real pleasure.
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Thank you for having me.
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I think it'll be fun.
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Most definitely.
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Leonard, you told me a little story when we first met about your parents and how they met and how they got to Germany from Ukraine.
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Can you maybe share that story with us?
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Certainly.
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So what happened was this start with my father.
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My father was actually in the anti communist and anti Polish underground and had a little group from what I've been told in Western Ukraine.
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I say in those days it was Eastern Poland between the two war wars that was all Eastern Poland.
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What is today Western Ukraine?
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So what happened was when Hitler invaded Poland, my father got drafted into the Polish army and was captured and managed to escape because he had enough presence of mind on it.
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Though I wonder how I marvel at this.
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He rolled civilian clothing underneath his uniform.
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So if they're walking to the camp wherever they were going, he just ducked into an alleyway and escaped and put on civilian clothes and that was it.
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So when he got back to his area, the Russians or the Soviets that they were called took over because Hitler actually what he did is he gave.
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There was a treaty called the Non-Aggression Pack 1939 or the Von Driven Drop Pack, something like that.
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And it was the Germans gave the Soviets all of Eastern Poland and the Baltic countries.
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So they immediately started coming in and they sentenced my father to death while he was hiding out.
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So and then somehow he found out that the Germans wanted all people of German descent who were living in those areas to be repatriated to Germany.
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So my father went to a priest friend and he got a birth certificate that said he was a German descent.
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He went to a checkpoint and they said him the Bavaria, which was a big break because that became an American zone after the war.
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So he's in Bavaria in this little town, Onsbach, which is outside of Hürnberg somewhere.
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And one day he saw the Germans parade a woman into work.
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He saw my mother. He didn't know her. He liked the way she looked.
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So he went to the command dot of the camp and he said I need somebody to do work for me to comment on said, take whatever you want.
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We have plenty of people here. He picked out my mother. He ultimately got around that camp.
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I don't know how they met, but you know, they all had my mother as I found out.
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My mother actually saved the lives of two Jewish girls that were in that camp because what happened was they were not supposed to be in that camp.
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And they were supposed to be in a death camp. That was a labor force labor camp.
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So the girls came to my mother and asked if she would teach them how to make the sign of the cross and all the prayers and everything that she did.
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And a German still work convinced.
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So they said somebody had to sign a document under potential death sentence or whatever if it was discovered otherwise that these girls were Christians.
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And my mother at whatever age 20 probably something like that signed that document and they survived and made it the end of the war.
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Which you know what's interesting about all that I never heard that from my parents none of it.
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They never spoke one word about it to me.
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I heard it from my relatives when I started visiting Ukraine and I connected up with them and they knew all about it. They knew everything.
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Interesting.
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You know, I interviewed with my grandson, a fellow who served in World War II.
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And it was great.
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Brought tears lines really and but the thing was that he said, you know, we never talk about it.
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We don't talk about the war.
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No.
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So no.
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It's such a terrible thing.
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Yeah.
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You'd rather, rather forget.
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You know, you and I kind of share an interest, a passion for life sciences.
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But neither one of us has a scientific background.
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Yours is, you know, you're a business guy.
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Right.
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And so from that standpoint, do you think that that's how's that influenced the way you think about what makes a good investment?
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That's a great question.
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You know, I.
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I learned a lot in my first, the first company where it was, which was Cooper Labs.
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Cooper Labs was a real entrepreneurial company.
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They made 150 acquisitions at one point.
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And it was run by a gentleman by the name of Parker G. Montgomery, who was a Boston blue blood Harvard undergrad Harvard law.
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Okay.
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And so it's a secretary of state at one point.
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So, but he was not a science guy at all.
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And what happened?
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I witnessed this firsthand.
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The company started making inroads into ophthalmology.
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What the company did ultimately is they formed companies around medical specialties.
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So one of the very first ones that did that way was in ophthalmology.
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It became known as Cooper vision became a real giant in that field at one point.
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But early on, they picked up along the way some company with that had technology and extended where it was.
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And they had a lot of different contact lenses.
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And what happened was the lens was called perma lens.
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And it.
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So the Parker and the company brought in consultants.
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The consultant said that.
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They advise that this would never get through the FDA impossible.
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The FDA would never allow anybody to keep a lens on overnight or anything like that for long period of time.
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It was impossible.
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And yet.
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Parker had a right hand man who was his science advisor who's a PhD.
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Brilliant.
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Sort of a maverick in some ways.
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But a great great great great first great human being.
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And he advised Parker to make the make the plunge make the investment.
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And he said, let's get this thing through the FDA.
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And it worked.
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And here was a man with absolutely no science background whatsoever.
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And yet.
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He he took the risk and said all right, we'll do it.
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I'm convinced that if it had been somebody with a science leaning real science leaning and all those experts started coming forward.
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They probably would have said no.
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So yes, so basically, you know, I learned a lot from that because as I started to say, if that had been a science oriented CEO.
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He probably would have said, let's not do it.
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You would have listened to his science people.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So.
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When you're looking at an investment, what is it that.
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That makes you.
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Trust your gut.
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And you know, give me some of the.
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Yeah, we we pick.
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You know, we have a cancer drug that got approved.
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Right.
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We're going to talk about that.
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So that.
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Listen, I mean, what happened there was I get contacted by.
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I don't know if you know Tim.
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I mean, either went into the Alcohol芯.
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I mean, lightly macam please look at the.
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And Mary Wifeen left.
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Siobhan I.
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So she said she said she was there.
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What?
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If about.
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Who revealed evidence that her that.
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The one person in particular.
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She said that she was there폰.
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And I said what should I say.
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as we go along, all right? So basically what it was,
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told me by accident, a year before we hired a chief medical officer,
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and that chief medical officer was an oncologist who spent 23 years at
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Roswell Park in Buffalo and published 180 papers in Lymphoma.
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Okay. That was wonderful.
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He was in our tiny little company. At that time we had like eight people,
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okay. So, so I go to him and he said,
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I said, you know this drug? He said, are you kidding?
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I was an advisor today on this drug, and I used it when I was still in
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practice because then he went to cell gene for five years after that.
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He said, I think it's a good drug. It's a solid drug. It works.
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So, you know, it doesn't cure, but it will help control.
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So, you know, I then that was one side of it, but then there was the financial side.
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And so for two to three, these things sometimes line up your way.
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What had happened was six months before that auction,
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we managed to raise over a hundred million dollars in one month.
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And an incredible raise at the height of the pandemic.
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Oh, well, it's February 21. It was like, it happened.
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And he was free. So I had cash and I was looking for something that would be late stage.
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I wanted something late stage. This was about as late stages you could get.
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So, but short of an approval. And so, you know, I had to take a big chance
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because the bidding went up and it got up to 40 million.
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And we had to cross the line and I had people saying we don't do it.
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And it's too much too high. Too high. I said, no, it's not.
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I said, not for something. They were one patient away from concluding the trial.
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So I said, finally, it took them like 10 years almost. So,
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so we went for it. We got it. And we won the auction.
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And the drug did ultimately get approved.
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So, and we're getting ready to launch in the second quarter.
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So we're making preparations now. So it's, it's, yeah, you gotta be prepared.
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I'm a risk taker. I'm not a risk a voter by personality is, you know,
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what I, you know, but you know what I'm saying. You probably, maybe I said it to you.
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That is, if you're not standing on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
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Okay.
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Probably you're right. Not from your dad.
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Yeah, probably. You're right. You got a good point there. So, so,
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I know, and you know, I don't fit the profile.
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The typical, always having American if you're crayon just said.
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So, but I don't fit that profile because most of the people that I do that were
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in that, in that, the ethic environment all went for professional titles.
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You had to be a PhD or an MD or a lawyer or something.
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So, you know, it's really funny.
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So I busted my backside just to finish my MBA because I was a psych major.
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I had to take all the courses. I only got a waiver on WOMPS.
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And I had to do it at night and I drove a thousand miles a week to get it done.
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Okay. And I remember after all this big struggle, my mother-in-law comes up to me.
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And she was also you, Franin.
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And she says to me, she goes, well, I said, well, what?
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She goes, when are you getting a doctor degree?
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Okay.
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That wasn't good enough.
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Yeah.
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So, let's backtrack for a minute here.
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And just get back to
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Sidious itself and you're meeting with your partner, your co-founder, Myron.
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Yeah.
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Holy back.
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How did you guys come together?
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That's even an interesting story onto itself.
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What happened was Myron, the hallubiac and I started out at the same time in the industry.
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And we were both in pharmaceutical sales.
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He was in Pittsburgh. I wasn't filled off the, he's at Rochum at Cooper Labs.
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And roughly about the same time, we both get promoted into market research or he was in something
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like that. I was in the market research analyst at Cooper.
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And Cooper sends me to an IMS training seminar.
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And there were like 20 people there, 25 people.
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I'm looking down at the list of names that I see Myron, hallubiac.
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I said, there's only one group this guy's part of.
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He's out of our ethic group.
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He's got to be a Ukrainian.
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So I went up to him and it was really funny.
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He was living like about five miles without a road from where I was and it turned out just
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by, this was really, really funny.
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Was really cool.
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Then I went about it.
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I called my mother mom and I said, do you know, do you know the hallubiac family?
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She started to laugh.
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She goes, yes, she goes.
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She said, his mother is one of my best friends.
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I know.
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I know.
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And that's how we got to know each other.
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All right.
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Wow.
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And it's kind of interesting.
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So we stayed in touch over the years.
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I always thought we'd get together at some point do something.
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And then finally, I had my, you know, I decided I wanted to go start up another company.
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And I thought he would be the one.
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And we went, both of us went down to MD Anderson.
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We had licensed the drug for sterilizing infected central Venus catheter.
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So we're still working on that.
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Yeah.
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So let's start that's mineralog, right?
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Yep.
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Let's talk about that.
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How you came to, you know, purchase.
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Let me pay that.
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That has a story of itself.
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All right.
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It actually began with when I was myself and Joe Kravalko were partners in a company called Triax Pharmaceuticals.
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It was a dorm company.
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And I had been chasing.
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He and I had been competing against each other first.
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I've been trying to buy a drug called Minneson, which was an antibiotic for acne from Wyatt.
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And I was going to start with literally even when they had it before they became, they got acquired.
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So basically we wind up acquiring Minneson.
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And about a year after we acquired it, I get a call one day from the Department of Defense.
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And they said to me, they said the reason we're calling you is because
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your company owns the file on Minneson IV, which Wyatt or Lely had discontinued because they had
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launched another hospital antibiotic.
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So he said we're treating soldiers that were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan in a hospital in
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Germany for certain bacteria.
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And this is the only one that works.
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It's the IV form of it.
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He said, but we can't continue treatments here because it's not available here.
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Would your company be willing to bring it back?
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I go, I said, no, we're a dermatology company.
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We're not even a hospital company or a IV company or anything like that.
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And I said, bringing it back could be almost as bad as getting an NDA approved.
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So I finally sat down with the guy, beg me.
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So I sat down with Joe and I said, look, it's going to be a loser financially.
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But we got to do the patriotic thing here.
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So basically, I said it'll cost us something.
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But let's see if we do.
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We had a good regulatory guy with us in the company.
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And he got it done.
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He did it in a year's time, which was really surprising.
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So what happened was all we could afford were two people on the road covering hospital.
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It's so ridiculous.
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So all of a sudden, I noticed we started getting sales out of MD Anderson.
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So I go down, I'm making a point with the chief of infectious disease,
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namely, he's done right.
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And I thought they weren't buying it to treat anybody.
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He was buying it to make the experiments.
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He was trying to find the ideal solution for something for infected catheters.
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So basically, I wish them well.
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He was so early on, I said, I was too early for us.
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We're not going to do anything with this now.
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But what happened was ultimately, we sell the company.
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And some a lot of time passed that in Marin and I get together,
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we go down to back down to MD Anderson.
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I go down there, meet with the doctor, Brad.
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And he had progressed all the work.
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So that's when we decided we funded the early work ourselves personally.
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That's how we got started with him.
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That project would never have occurred if it hadn't been for the fact that IV form came back.
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And that's how it came back.
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So again, you never know what the outcome or how you're going to impact somebody.
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And our business is one of the few where the impact is positive all the time.
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It's going to either save a life or it's going to change a person's life, but it's positive.
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That's a wonderful thing about it.
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So then there are a couple of other before we get back into lymph year, which I want to spend some real time on.
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But I want to get into lymph year.
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But before we do, let's talk about a couple of other assets.
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It has one is is a allergenic stem cell for a respiratory syndrome.
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And then the other is a hemorrhag treatment.
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With the percentage, I understand there are none available other than the preparation age.
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So the stem cell product, that drug we in licensed, and we tried, and we couldn't make a go of it.
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It would take way too much. It was beyond our means completely.
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So we gave it a shot. We went to the FDA with it on a pre-IND basis.
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They laid out everything for us.
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And once we took a good look at it, we'd go, whoa, we've been off more than we could chew here.
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So we kind of backed away from it.
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And then the hemorrhag drug, that's one where the FDA, believe it or not,
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21st century there isn't a single prescription drug approved for the treatment of hemorrhag.
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It's on her up.
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So we think we have a good product there.
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It's a combination of halo-batazole,
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pothocosteroid, high-potency with lidocaine.
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We got a PRO questionnaire that we've designed with it that we patented.
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And we're going to sit down with the agency and see if we can't get approval on a certain protocol
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for a phase three trough.
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And then we'll seek a partner ultimately, depending on the requirements that we come up with.
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Okay, because that's big sales force.
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Yeah, that's not for us.
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That's for somebody that's going to be familiar with DTC advertising,
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primary care sales force.
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We're much more special if you're in it.
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But I thought it's something that we could monetize for the shareholders of the company.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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So let's get more into them for now.
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So when you acquired it,
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they were down to their last patient in a trough.
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Right.
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It comes to you.
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And then you submit it and you get a CRL.
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Yeah.
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How did you get today?
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That was, that was very disappointing.
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I will never ever plan for a party before
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in a frugal again.
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I was going to have everybody here.
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Oh my heavens, I had to wave that off.
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So basically, what it was, there was a certain test
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that it was called an endotoxone release test.
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That was basically that passed.
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We passed the test.
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However, the validation of it wasn't complete.
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And so the validation process was going to run like four to six months past the
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Padoofa date.
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We thought the agency was going to give us a break and say, all right,
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you could go but don't go to the market till that test is complete.
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Now they chose to give us a CRL.
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And you know, it's interesting with shareholders that aren't familiar with the
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terminology in our industry.
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I actually got, it's because of complete response letters, a very
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diabolical term.
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I got emails from shareholders who congratulated me on getting approval.
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So what are you going to do?
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But that happened.
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So we went through it.
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It wasn't difficult to submit the validation results once we finished with it.
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And we got approved in August of 24.
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Did you ever find out what you could have done differently so that you didn't get that?
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They wanted that validation procedure.
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Yeah, you know, it took you a little bit.
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You waited six months and done the validation and then,
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yeah, right, right.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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So tell us about kind of the target and the mechanism of action,
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what you're doing with it, you know, about the drug.
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So it has a very interesting MOA.
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Basically in that it reduces something known as T-regs in the micro environment of the cancer cell.
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And where that has relevance, it's kind of interesting.
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An investigator is an OB-GYN oncologist at the University of Pittsburgh,
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filed for an investigator I&D to combine our drug with key truta.
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And to look at it in solid tumors in female cancers.
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And a reason he did is because we had published some animal data that showed that
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if you combined our drug with something like a key truta, like a PD1 inhibitor,
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basically it would perform better than each of those by themselves.
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No, this investigator decided to look at it on that basis.
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And the reason he did it is because key truta actually increases the T-regs.
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And so if those can affect the overall efficacy.
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So he submitted data for a poster that got accepted in just the past November.
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It looks like we've got, it's not that trial is not over yet, it's just about over, but we'll
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have some final data on it soon. We think there's a good possibility there that it should go ahead
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for probably a phase two trial at some point. But there's also another investigator I&D at the
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University of Minnesota with Lynn Feer now and combining with something known as CAR-T, which
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I'm sure you've heard of, it's another cancer treatment. So basically we'll see what that does,
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that what effect that had. But it's kind of interesting that all of a sudden a drug that
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is approved for a very rare cancer, small numbers is all of a sudden in the forefront of
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significant cancer treatment. So basically I kind of, I like that association, but it's more than
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the association, it's just the fact that this could really be beneficial to the people.
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Right. So are there any, only 3,000 patients I think.
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Correct, that's true. Do you have competition?
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We do, we have at least, we have a couple of drug, one of them is called Etc.
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And it's a CGen drug that Pfizer now has. That mark is about a $400 million market.
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And the other principal competitor is Protolego by Kyoto Keirin.
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And there's a third one that's not promoted that that Bristol Myers had that they took over from
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CellG. I know that at some point, she told me, but first time, at some point in your career,
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you're more against the House.
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Yes. Right. Yep. And you've got, I think, $22 million of your own money in this.
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Correct. Now, yeah, take. Yep.
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And you're thinking about the shareholder.
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Yeah. Well, I know. You know, my interest at the shareholder interest are totally aligned.
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Completely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, at so wonderful here, because I am so frustrated
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with companies coming out with great data. And then the next day, there's a secondary.
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The next day, there's an S3. Right. You know, and how will you ever expect
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to raise real money if that's your activity? Yeah.
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Once you have some success. Yeah.
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Well, you've got to do what I see. See, you know, the difference between myself and all the other
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CEOs in this business, they're all working for stock options. I'm not. Okay. I'm not working for stock
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options. I'm working for the shareholders. I'm working for everybody getting a great return.
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That's what I want. That's my goal.
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$23 million market count on 400 million. These things happen.
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So do you have a code now? Have you applied for a code and all that sort of thing?
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Yeah. J code. We got a J code. They gave it to us.
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In fact, it'd been in April. Yep. So you're ready to go. We are ready. We've been working with
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ever SANA. You know them? Yeah. Yeah. So they're good. So we've identified where all the
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traders are. We know exactly. We've already laid out all the sales territories. We hired a
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national sales manager from one of the competing companies who launched the last drug launched
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in this market. And we've got the beginnings of good staff here for that purpose.
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How many sales people we have eventually, do you think? How many sales people we
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will hire eventually? 25. 25. How many people do you have in the company now?
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We have somewhere around 23. So you're going to double the size of the company?
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Yeah. It's about correct. Okay. And do you have any kind of sales?
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Hold on. Let me just say one thing. So those people that come on board that group of 25,
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that's going to be a mix of sales reps, the medical lays on reps and KOL reps that they're called.
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Okay. They're going to be on the payroll of ever SANA. All right. However, they'll carry in
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the city of Soncolle's business cards and then over time, it's volume increases. We'll transition
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everybody full time onto our payroll. Okay. That's the same thing with the management of CTOR,
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or city of Soncolle's. Right now, the whole management team is the city of team on a shared
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services basis. That too will change as the volume increases that will make everybody full time.
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Okay. So what is a, do you have a performer that you can talk about?
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No, I can't. We have not disclosed anything like that at this moment. So,
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not yet. But and you may not be able to talk about this as well, but I know that you've,
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you know, you've engaged Jeffries. Correct. That's a whole different side. All right. So,
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and everybody knows that we've retained Jeffries for strategic alliances and to explore strategic
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alternative scores, which would include finding partners for us in Europe as well as potential,
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potential buyer for the business here in the US. So that we're going to do again. What's going to
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govern that whole process is getting a best return for the shareholders.
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I love to hear that. So, you know, most of your career, you've been doing acquisitions in
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revenue, producing, I know, businesses all the time. Now you're managing, you know, I cash
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burning business. I know. How do you approach that differently or is it the same mindset?
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Sometimes I really bothered by it to say the truth, but because I was such a revenue person,
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but you couldn't believe it. But, you know, I made the, I made the transition somehow, but
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I'm like, desires to get as revenue produced as quickly as possible. So we'll see how that goes.
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Okay. And you paused the stem cell work. We did. How do you determine
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when to pause? And then how do you manage the kind of the individual egos involved in the company,
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you know, whose pet project is? Well, since we were so small when all that happened,
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it wasn't difficult. Man, she knows that. Yeah, we're no individual egos.
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Well, that was easy. Okay. Okay. How do you reconcile being a risk taker in a business with
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such a high failure rate? You know, I've always been a risk taker. So all my life,
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and you're still happily married. Yeah. You know, I always bring out the story. Maybe you've heard
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this. Stefan Benzel, but CEO at Maderna said to his wife when he proposed, were either going to be
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really rich or really, really poor. And she went for it. Believe me, I know.
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So you must be a very lovable guy, Leonard. I try to be, I have a good supportive wife at home.
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That helps believe me. You have no idea. That helps a lot. Okay. So. But you've also,
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been very generous with your success. I read that you had been a major benefactor at the college
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of letters at Temple and at your high school. Why is giving back so important to you?
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Well, I think it's like this. I think if you don't get your success by yourself, you know,
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you didn't achieve it. I don't care who you are. You did not achieve it by yourself.
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There were people along the way that helped. And I think, I learned my lesson about that a long,
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long time ago. So as a result, my philosophy has always been that if you can give back, give back,
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give back where it deserved to be given back. So I'm very careful about that. But I've done that.
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And, you know, but I think my wife and I are, you know, one of the first things we did at one point was
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we gave a substantial donation to my high school.
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You know, so which was going to be shut down by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
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All right. And the reason why? Because the high school I went to, it was run by the Christian
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brothers. It was called Westcapping High School for Boys. Okay. In other days,
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at Westcapping High School for Girls was located three blocks away. So, and a neighborhood that
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it drew from was heavily Irish, from the times. And I was one of the low new crannions probably.
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So what happened was the neighborhood changed. It became 100 percent all minority.
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And enrollment dropped. And it was, I thought that that school was doing such a great job with
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those kids that came from this, he came to worst neighborhood in Philadelphia. That they were saving
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lives. They were saving lives. So I met with the Archbishop at that time. And I said, I want to give
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a donation, but you have to give me your word that you're not closing the school.
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And he did. So, and you know what it is about that school? It's really interesting.
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For three years in a row now, maybe four years in a row even. 100 percent of the seniors
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have college acceptance. Oh, wow. All right. You won't hear that anywhere. Okay.
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No, no. Oh, it's, it's so remarkable. And when you go there and you meet those students,
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they love that school. And the reason they do is because the faculty, the administration,
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everybody there cares about them. And they know it.
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I went to a Catholic high school in Cleveland in a Ukrainian neighborhood.
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It's all Ukrainian and Slovenian. And the girl school was re-blocks down the street.
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Right. And kind of the same sort of sort of aggression. So,
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wow, very interesting. Leonard, I've had a lot of fun with our talk today. I hope you have too.
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We had some laughs and all that sort of thing. And I wish you all the best of luck.
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Yeah. I think, uh, it's okay. You know, you'll mind that phone ring. I ignore it all the time.
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Yep. You know what's what's interesting anymore? All my important calls coming on the cell phone.
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All the junk calls coming on my landline. I never, I never pick up my landline. I never even used my
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landline anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Don't even have one. So, yeah. But it's been a pleasure. And I
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wish you all the luck in the world. And, and we'll be following your progress is, uh,
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okay, begin your marketing. Thank you. And I, you know, something I look forward to
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getting together with you in person, hopefully. Thanks for tuning into the Life Sciences and
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Biotech podcast. We'll see you in the next episode. The information contained in this website
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and podcast are purely informational and not considered investment recommendations. Tim Dory's
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participation in biotech insights is separate and apart from his role as an investment advisor
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representative. Nothing contained herein can be construed as a recommendation or endorsement
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of any of the companies discussed. Tim Dory also has no financial affiliation with any of the
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companies mentioned in this communication. Tim Dory makes no representation that the information
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contained in this material is accurate and is under no obligation to update this information as
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changes occur.
Topics Covered
Biotech CEO Stories
Leonard Mazur
City of Pharmaceuticals
Agit Cancer Care
oncology
targeted immune therapy
T-cell lymphoma
entrepreneurship in healthcare
dermatology
cardiology
FDA approval process
investment strategies in biotech
cancer drug approval
risk-taking in business
Ukrainian immigrant story
life sciences investment