A conversation with Carter King, EVP of Business Development at Protagonist Therapeutics — hosted by Alan Vanderborght, CEO & Founder of KYBORA
Alan 00:09
Well, Carter, it’s a pleasure meeting you and welcome to the Healthcare Insights by KYBORA. So Carter, for those of you who know don’t know him, is the Executive Vice President of Business Development at Protagonist. So I’ve known Carter for many, many years now. So it’s a pleasure having you on the podcast. But what I thought we’d do first, Carter, is to start by giving the audience an introduction on who you are. So if you can kind of take us through your your long career now, you’ve been by a farm industry for quite some time, starting at companies that don’t even exist anymore. So but you’ve had a very interesting career. So if you could take us through that, that would be great.
Carter 00:55
Alan, thank you for having me on. Long time listener, first time caller. So look, you know, my journey through biotech, you know, is, is a little bit of an odd one because honestly, I had no idea what biotechnology was when I began my career. I kind of fell into this industry out of serendipity and then fell in love with it, right? I grew up in a rural farming community, had no idea about, you know, science or what you would really do, but always loved, you know, loved it in terms of just the, the curiosity to learn. And so, you know, my dad was a local businessman. And so it was like, Hey, go study business and, and see where that takes you. And so I just, I did just that.
I studied economics and undergrad and, you know, got my first job in finance in San Francisco in the early 90s and then, you know, really found that it was a little boring to be completely honest. And I got the opportunity to join a little healthcare early stage healthcare company and, and that was in the oncology space, but really more operational. And then, you know, fell into true biotech in the oncology world in the late 90s. And, you know, that was at a time before we cracked the human genome and a lot of different things, but it was just really to me, it was very fascinating. The company was called Coulter Pharmaceutical and we’re working on a radio labeled anti CD20 antibody, right.
And at the time I didn’t even know what an antibody was, let alone a radio labeled one. But it was just really an incredible experience to get into that. Some really great people and it really kind of drew me into the industry because we know we had a phase three program ongoing and, you know, had a patient come in that had been fortunate enough to get into our phase three and, you know, have a real substantial benefit from that and see her kids grow up and that kind of thing. And it was just one of those moments in your life where you’re just kind of like, I never want to do anything else again. And, you know, it’s funny how these things work, you know, and it all just kind of flowed from there.
So, you know, eventually found my way into the BD world and, you know, have just really enjoyed, you know, 25 plus years of doing this in a very dynamic environment that’s changed a lot over that period of time.
Alan 03:16
And so you, you worked in drug delivery spaces where life I remember you, you worked Alza right for a while and.
Carter 03:24
Yeah. So we ran into some trouble with our radio labeled antibody. And after I left Coulter, I was looking for an opportunity to get some big pharma experience, right? Because even at that point, it was clear to me that, you know, I’d spend enough time in biotech. And I was like, hey, it would be really good to work at a major pharma company and see how the big guys do. And those opportunities were pretty few and far between on the West Coast. I didn’t want to really relocate. And so I got an opportunity to join Alza after it had become part of the J&J family of companies. But that was really an incredible look into the way the world works, you know, at the at the largest level at that point in time.
And you know, it was really incredible learning opportunity because they had functions within Johnson and Johnson family of companies that, you know, once again, I never even knew existed. Like decision science, right? Like a whole team of people training and decision science. And you know, I look back today in the advent of AI and machine learning and how all these things are shaping our industry. And a lot of the similar principles apply to the decision science that was going on within the J&J family of companies back in the day. Just by virtue of, you know, how you manage portfolios and do regression analysis and all those types of things were, you know, it was really incredible experience to get to work with people that had that level of knowledge and expertise.
You know, again, along the way you also pick up all this drug delivery thing is kind of interesting how all the pieces fit and what not. And that’s a little bit of gone by the wayside in today’s world. And you know, my firm commitment is to, you know, development of NCEs today, but at the time, you know, that did a lot for a lot of patients. So it was, it was a very interesting experience.
Alan 05:18
That is interesting on how I mean that that kind of, we’ll, I know, we’ll talk about Protagonist, the idea of replacing monoclonal antibodies with oral solution, which is, you know, looking at, at delivery at the end of the day. So there’s still value to patients and making delivery a little bit better. You then went on to AcelRx and I think that’s where you and I met, right and where we helped you partner the product in, in Latin America or at least attempted. I can’t remember whether we were successful or not.
Carter 05:51
That was kind of a a hard road to try to sell a [unclear ~5:51] in in Latin America was not the easiest thing to do, but but anyway, it was interesting technology there too.
Alan 06:04
And then in 2018 you joined Protagonist, right? So kind. Of yeah, late 2018, but. Why? Why you you made that decision?
Carter 06:13
Well, you know, it’s interesting the AcelRx experience. You know, I spent almost 10 years building that company from, you know, 2 founders in a cocktail napkin through phase three data, you know, took it public and what not. And so it was, it was an incredible journey, you know, and, and not really kind of was the thing that brought me into the business development world. You know, I’d spent the first basically 10 years of my career and kind of more of a finance track and thought I was, you know, on headed towards being a CFO. And you know, that kind of small company environment and wearing a lot of hats kind of showed me that that wasn’t really the best fit for me and, and my approach and skill set and that kind of thing.
And it gave me the opportunity to pivot into business development and do my first real deal that I led, you know, I’d supported some stuff from, you know, in past lives, but had never been a deal lead and gone out and actually had to, you know, to close the transaction. So it was, that was a great experience for me and really was the jumping off point to coming to Protagonist, you know, a few years and you know, post that and being in a position where I could really lead a business development function in a meaningful fashion within, you know, a, an adult biotech. the
Alan 07:27
what attracted you to Protagonist at the time? Why did you say you know this is an interesting company? You’d love to work there?
Carter 07:33
Well, I think it was a couple things. You know, frankly, the company had, you know, had stubbed its toe, had a little bit of a rocky path, but you know, I really liked both the technology platform and thought that there were some really smart people here, right? And I think that those were some of my lessons learned from venture world And, you know, and raising money and having to go out and not just sell an asset, but sell a company and, and raise capital around it. It’s like, hey, idea and team are 1A and 1B and you can interchange them. Venture will tell you it’s team first and then idea fine, but you’ve kind of got to have both. And to me a little bit, your Alan, your, your, your point is well taken that my background in drug delivery, I was like, Hey, if you can take these antibody programs that do have tremendous, you know, therapeutic value to patients and turn them into oral agents, like that will have real value from the patient perspective and, and from and there, therefore from the corporate perspective.
And so that was really it, it was like, Hey, this is really it A next generation thing. And I think that’s been also one of the hallmarks of, you know, perhaps my, you know, naivete, if you will, I’ve always kind of gravitated towards the things that were, you know, not just moon shots, but Mars landings. What is really going to push the boundaries? What is really going to be a, you know, a big change that no one’s been able to do before. And so that kind of that appealed to me within the Protagonist context.
Alan 09:10
And then you fairly quickly once you join like to tell us a little bit about the deals that you did with with J&J and Takeda and how did that come about? Because those I mean to looking back over the the past decade, I guess in, in biotech, there was a probably 2 of the with with it in the top 20 deals for biotech, right? So can you, can you talk a little bit about how these came about and then the the process to make these things happen?
Carter 09:39
My arrival at Protagonist fairly well mirrors the timeline of the icotrokinra story, but that the original development collaboration was formed around an asset and formerly known as PTG-200, which was really a a fully gut restricted peptide approach. And that was what I would really call kind of Protagonist. 2 point O was, you know, the early days were injectable sub Q peptidic approaches. And then as the company grew up a little bit and got through its IPO phase, which happened before I arrived, it was really kind of this pivot to oral peptidic approaches. But the concept was you were going to treat GI diseases directly by virtue of a GI-restricted approach.
And so you were going to avoid some of the systemic issues of safety and tox by virtue of keeping the drug kind of, you know, on target, so to speak. And you know, really what PTG-200 taught both Protagonist and J&J is that, you know, these inflammatory diseases, even if they’re in the gut, are systemic diseases. And I think that that has proven itself out in a number of different contexts over the course of time since that point. And you know, so when PTG-200 kind of stubbed its toe in the clinic, we agreed to a research collaboration which that was my first thing that I, I literally arrived and, and did the research collaboration that has brought us PN-235, which is our program number JNJ-2113, which is the J&J compound number then became icotrokinra.
That was a really a collaboration where both scientific teams were kind of trying to push the boundaries of what was possible in the in the chemistry labs in order to get to some level of systemic exposure in the second generation compound. But I don’t think honestly that either of the parties really anticipated that we would see what we saw, which was not just some level of systemic exposure, but exposure all the way out into the dermis, which is the thing that begets the concept of, hey, wait a minute, IL-23 antibodies work really well in psoriasis and these other things. Maybe we should open up the aperture here around the indication set and think about the totality of the IL-23 pathway being available, not just the GI parts.
And, and so that’s really kind of the icotrokinra part of the story. The rest of it is fairly well, you know, documented history Protagonist ran the phase one, handed it over to J&J, ran from there with, you know, the phase two studies and up and through positive phase 3 results in psoriasis superiority studying psoriasis and you know, now you know, approval on launch this year of icotrokinra, which you know to me is a is a tremendous accomplishment for both organizations. So a lot of gratitude for our collaborators at J&J, for the scientists here, super excited for the patients that are going to benefit from icotrokinra. So you know, that one’s a little bit of a unique thing.
We obviously, you know, have fairly substantial financial benefit from that, which really, you know, has been part of, you know, our our growth and the ability for us to be, you know, have more flexibility and latitude to you know, seek even greater and and bigger outcomes. And, and the rusfertide story is overlaps with that timeline, but it’s, you know, very, very different program. Rare disease, subcutaneous injection weekly basis, ran into some hiccups in the clinic along the way. Lo and behold, biotech and you know, development is, can be challenging, but you know, we got those things sorted out and you know, really worked on that incredibly.
Again, proud of our our scientific and clinical team for pushing that through and, and bringing the success that we’ve seen there. And that success enabled us to do a great transaction with Takeda. You know, Takeda was very clear about their intent and interest in rare disease and hematology and not being a good fit for their business model. And so at the end of the day, we, you know, kind of looked at the options available for us and decided that it was the best thing for us as an organization to kind of continue to stick to being an R&D engine for the time being and partner that asset with Takeda. That has been a very great collaboration for us that has moved along well with our colleagues at Takeda.
It’s now, you know, on file with the FDA. And so, you know, fingers crossed that we see a great clean approval there late this year. And you know, and then we’re, you know, we’re all in some ways we’re already off and on to the next thing. So.
Alan 14:46
If you were, I guess someone in, in your position in another small biotech company exploring the kind of partnership that you established was both J&J and, and Takeda, Is there any recommendation or like what, what would you see as where the, you know, the advantages of the structure that you ended up putting in place with both of the organization and maybe also the, the kind of the, the downside, right? So could you, could you speak a little bit about that?
Carter 15:18
Well, I think this is one of the kind of learnings right along the way. And something I would advise anyone who’s interested in business development to focus on is that people become enamoured with upfront payments and they become enamoured with biobucks. And to me, those are, you know, frankly metrics that are kind of industry wide and you have to understand the comparables and this another thing, but they also did a certain extent, you know, are trap. And you know, I’m really more of an operator, Alan, in some ways than I am a traditional business development guy, right? My years of helping run a business and be part of a leadership team and, you know, private and take a company public, I have a transaction hat, but you also, you know, kind of have a, a corporate value creation hat and what’s the right thing to do?
And it was never my intent with any of these things or never has been. And I would advise anyone who thinks about it this way to think twice is to do the deal and run off to the next one. And I think that’s something you do see is it’s like, well, now I’ve done the deal, there’s nothing for me to do here. I’m going to take my deal sheet. I’m going to pad it with the big upfront in the bio box and then I’m going to move on until the next party that I, you know, look at, look at all the things that I’ve done. And that doesn’t necessarily be get the thing that’s the best for the organization. And so I I think that Decatur in particular is an example of structure.
First, I spent a lot of time working across our leadership team and just looking at the organization and what is the right thing for us to do for our, you know, for the program, for our investors, for our leadership team and our employees. What actually is the right thing for us to do here? And then the economics will flow from that. And, and you know, there’s a lot of different ways to debate that. And so where we really landed was we needed to hold an option that we weren’t really clear on exactly where things would land. And economically, we had the ability to raise some money along the way. So we weren’t desperate to do a deal just to get enough money to feed our new app Next asset.
And so, you know, we just kind of decided that it was, you know, we needed to hold the option and that we were willing to, you know, not transact if we couldn’t get what we wanted. And that’s always a great thing to have, you know, work with the organization to have the ability to walk away. And and so that really was, you know, learning of Arma’s very fond of options because it gives them the power in the in the agreement. And it’s very unusual in my experience to see the smaller party hold that option, but it was a very important element for us. You know, we’re now in the midst of exercising the opt out of that option and have chosen, you know here three years later that we’re going to continue to lean into our R&D engine and that we’re going to allow Takeda to really run commercially.
And it’s a small enough call point that we don’t need to be Co detailing with them and you know, we’re going to let them run and you know, we’re off and continue to create value through the things that we’re doing in R&D. But you know, that brings us along with that conversion when, you know, we get a a lot of capital for stepping away from our, you know, profit share in the US and allowing them to run. And so now that’s capital we can reinvest in our business as we’ve kind of set our sights on what Protagonist 3 point O we hope looks like.
Alan 19:01
Very interesting. And when you partnered those assets, they were, what stage of development were they in? Were they already in the clinic or were they preclinical?
Carter 19:09
So rusfertide was actually in the clinic and the deal didn’t get signed until, you know, phase three was, was well under way. But the nature of those studies, I mean the phase two was very positive. And so I think it was part of it was we just, we had conviction and we were fairly late in the game, right? And so that’s part of the reason why the option was well received by the street, right, is because we’re in fairly close proximity to phase three data. And then I go, hey, well, depending on how this data works out, right, this gives you guys the option to, you know, take the first step in towards becoming fully integrated. Now, you know, with the strength of icotrokinra alongside that, it kind of gave us this nice opportunity to choose between, hey, we can continue to do R&D and focus on things like icotrokinra, which begets some of the things that we have in our in our research and early development portfolio today.
And you know, at the end of the day, I think that is really ultimately the core competency. Of Protagonist, which is, you know, all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, the thing that brought me here. And so sometimes you kind of look at it and you go, all right, what are our opportunities for growth? And, you know, sometimes those opportunities are just growing up, but the thing that you’re already good at.
Alan 20:31
And but you didn’t mention it, you call it Protagonist 3 point O. So can it kind of, you know, what it, what is to the extent that you can share, of course, what are the thoughts there like of what the Protagonist looks like, you know, in the next five years or so?
Carter 20:47
I guess I would say more than anything in the world today, I’m lucky that my investment thesis played out here because this is what I was hoping for, right? If you can show people that you have a platform and a team of people that are capable of taking high value antibody targets and converting them into oral agents and maintaining the safety profile of the antibody that there’s tremendous value in that. And so, you know, Protagonist today, you know, we now with the validation that that can be done through icotrokinra are, you know, leaning back into that and taking the learnings of, you know, of decades really of work within our scientific team and platform.
And you know, looking at other high value I and I targets, you know, in particular our IL-17 program, which is in a phase one study right now. But you know, we’re able to do that in a fashion where, you know, if you look at that, for example, look at the AE profile of, of icotrokinra and the AE profile of placebo is actually higher than the AE profile of icotrokinra, right. And and you know, just, I don’t think small molecules will ever be able to do that, right? I think you can engineer out some of the off target elements, but they’re just by nature a little too promiscuous. And and so if we can continue to do that, like we, you know, can bring incredible value to patients and, and to our organization.
And so, you know, we’re basically scaling that platform. And a lot of what I’ve been doing over the last 18 months or so is looking at across that platform of all the innovation that’s going on in research and early development in the world today and trying to really form a well thought out strategy and execute on that around what’s real in no space. So we, you know, back to your drug delivery, have looked at a number of bespoke formulation type plays around, Hey, peptides are still challenged in terms of you’re not getting too small molecule levels of oral bioavailability. So you can try and design that in from the front, you can formulate to a certain extent and do some of those things.
So, you know, that’s kind of one part of it. You know, another part obviously has been a huge amount of AI and machine learning in peptidic chemistry that has come forward. You know, especially, you know, post David Baker Nobel Prize. It’s become an incredibly hot space. And so I think that Protagonist is very well positioned to appropriately play in the machine learning world of peptidic discovery. But, you know, that’s distinct from our platform today. And so we’re working on ways that we can utilize those new technologies in our core discovery programs. But you know, at the end of the day, it really comes down to the chemists and the scientists in the lab really understanding the biology that you’re going after and being able to, you know, work those challenges.
You know, I think that’s really one core part of our of our business is really trying to repeat success, if you will. But then we’re also, you know, for our own account, thinking about different modalities and what’s kind of fit for purpose, right? So we’ve, you know, taking a foray into the small molecule world ourselves for one of our early hematology programs and, you know, we looked at a number of different approaches there and, you know, think that may be a very robust route in order to address the biology that we’re after. And so, you know, again, we’ll, we’ll run that experiment and see what happens.
Alan 24:28
Do you think or do you foresee a world where peptides replace and became become the main agents to go after all of the targets that monoclonal antibodies or antibodies in generals go after today so that you’re kind of going away from infusion injections to all peptides or is that too much of A pipe dream?
Carter 24:51
I think that would be an incredible benefit, right? And and that’s part of what I would say, you know, what we really need to do is, you know, have some fundamental breakthroughs that I think are going to come through a combination of knowledge and new tools. And so we really look at it, you know, first and foremost around the biology. And so some of the big antibody targets have very, very challenging and complicated biology. And those are things that maybe it will be very difficult to divine an oral peptidic approach that will really interact with the biology and in the fashion that an antibody can. But that is certainly something we should still aspire to, even if it again is, you know, well, now we’re talking about Mars landings, right?
So, you know, 5-10 years ago was like, what are you talking about? Like now it’s like, well, maybe you are going to occupy Mars. Where I see the potential for that really is this. What’s left in front of us of trying to do what’s left of what’s never been done, is to be able to address those challenges and get to the high levels of oral bioavailability that you’ll see with canonical macrocyclic peptides, right? But be able to pair that with the exquisite potency and selectivity for the target that we have been able to engineer into our non traditional macrocyclic structures. If through a combination of human wisdom and machine learning. You know, I think that’s where a lot of the machine learning AI players are trying to, you know, push this next frontier, whether it’s through undruggable targets in oncology or whether it’s through being able to address some of the more challenging biology of inflammatory targets.
Like those are going to be challenges that are going to require like substantial leaps and the fundamental scientific ability to design compounds to address the biology.
Alan 27:08
Is there any limitation on the peptides when it comes to manufacturing or distribution? You know, they require cold chain, anything like that that might make them I guess a the western world type of product, but not a global product.
Carter 27:24
Yeah. I mean, here’s one where I think the advent of GLP stuff and being peptides is really beneficial to the broader peptidic discovery and development community. Those types of scale beget different types of CMC capabilities and and bring more supply online for us. I think it’s really a combination of things. We’ve come a long way even within Protagonist like when we were our early days of working with J&J around icotrokinra, you know they had substantial concerns about the ability to produce the type of peptide that we were talking about at commercial scales and have reasonable cost of goods. Those were deal points in our negotiation of the discovery collaboration and our tech OPS team did a great job of, you know, identifying what I would call kind of manufacturing processes to where you can scale the CMC of peptides in a fashion where you can really drive down the cost of goods curve and get to very acceptable COGS at, you know, at substantial scale.
But you know, we were once again a little bit at the cutting edge of that. But it’s now I think one of those things with having that experience under our belt, we, you know, we certainly feel much more confident, for example, with our 881 program that cost of goods for us are not going to be a problem. But, you know, it’s something that you’re always mindful of, you know, especially in highly competitive therapeutic areas.
Alan 29:01
Talking about competition, is the is the peptide discovery and development space very competitive at the moment or or is, you know, Protagonist pretty much on its own?
Carter 29:14
Let’s just say it’s gotten a lot more competitive over the last couple years. And I do think part of that is the David Baker, you know, aha moment for people that, oh, wait a minute. But honestly, I think part of that has been the success of Protagonist as well. There are a lot of people that at the time I joined Protagonist were exploring alternative approaches to delivering biologics orally. And I don’t see a lot of that these days. Those really haven’t panned out. And, you know, I think they’re just some fundamental kind of laws of thermodynamics at play there that that doesn’t really work trying to deliver big, you know, proteins into the gut.
And, and so I think that, you know, it’s a combination of factors, But I, you know, I will say that flattery of people trying to mimic the things that you’ve been, you know, able to do is incredibly flattering. But at the end of the day, I think it’s great for our industry, right? I think it’s great for patients. I think it’s, you know, or always, I’m always a huge fan of innovation and you know, seeing people try and one up you on the things that you’ve done means maybe you’ve done something right.
Alan 30:26
Can you talk a little bit about, I guess how you perceive the difference between being AI guess a discovery and development platform to kind of evolving more towards a, you know, a fully integrated pharma company with your ability to commercialize your own product? I mean, when you’re looking at this and when you guys, you know, was in the executive team at Protagonist thinking about this, you know, how do you kind of balance the idea of to your point about I’m really good at doing this and I don’t really know about doing that, but I can see there’s a lot of value into commercializing the product myself. Well, why would I want to give that value to a third party, especially if the indication is narrow, You don’t have to build a a massive commercial presence.
So how do you guys think about those things?
Carter 31:19
So I would say we try and keep all options open right and then it’s on a case by case basis. So the fact that we’re opting out of our commercialization rights on rusfertide, you know, it is not a not an indicator that we’re not interested in eventually becoming a fully integrated company. It’s more an assessment that that isn’t the time for us right now to do it based on the nature of rusfertide. And we see Takeda as being a strong partner that’s going to go and succeed all on their own there. And so it’s better for us to try and find something that we, you know, have now evolved to the place where we have the financial resources primarily and the latitude to say, hey guys, we will not be under any pressure at any point of the chain here to go and find non dilutive funding or partner this asset.
And I think that’s a lot of times what knocks people off of that path is they don’t have the financial resources to go do it. And at the time we did the Takeda deal, you know, we were kind of little bit didn’t really know exactly how things were going to play out. And and so now with better clarity on that, that you know part of our longer term strategy is to identify indications where it’s something you could own and commercialize 100% on yourself. And so we won’t necessarily or are not necessarily limiting that to pure hematology slash oncology, right. We’re not going to become an oncology commercial company, but they’re very interesting as you get into the rare disease space there are, you know, number of different really interesting indications where you could go out and promote a a program that has, you know what’s call it 2 to $3 billion peak revenue opportunity with you know, roughly 100 to 125 person commercial organization.
And so that’s one of our kind of broader long term strategic initiatives is to, you know, place some bets there, but also, you know, play some bets there where it’s our wholly owned science. Like we, you know, we may choose to go outside our walls and bring something in, but I think we really have kind of that. What are the things I really appreciate about our team is we have that innovators mindset and that we really believe in our science. And now we’re we’ve arrived today allows us to start some programs that we can take all the way to commercial ourselves and our and our oral hep signing is just the first example of that. And you know and we’ll continue to be thoughtful around where there are real opportunities.
I think there are someones we’ve identified of late that are kind of rare indications in the eye and eye space. You know, and I think that’s the other side of the coin, Alan. What I would say is, you know, we very well know there have been a number of organizations that mistakenly believe as a biotech you can really get into indication that is partly occupied by the major pharmaceutical companies and be competitive in that space. And so we look at things in our I and I portfolio largely through that lens. There are again, some creative structures you could think about where you could do some things and, and retain more risk and value and, and, and participate in those in a more wholesome fashion in a commercial level.
But to think that you’re going to promote in the psoriasis space against the parties that are currently entrenched there, to me is career suicide. So I think we looked at each one on a case by case basis and, you know, really try and map out where it makes sense, where those inflection points are. And, you know, and then we have the luxury of being able to push out all the way back into our discovery function, you know, and, and launch initiatives over, you know, of a long time span, you know, and I think that’s one of the benefits of being able to navigate from being a private company where you’re beholden to venture investors. And it’s always about where is the next raise coming from to, you know, this part of the ecosystem where my BD associates kind of characterizes.
We’ve now become a tuna in the ecosystem, right? We’re no longer a minnow more and we’re not a shark, but we’re kind of operate in that zone where you’re both predator and prey. And you know, that’s a pretty good spot in the ecosystem. Yeah,
Alan 35:44
the problem with the analogy of the tuna is that you have to keep on swimming, otherwise you’d die.
Carter 35:50
Well, but we’re, we’re a company of swimmers, right? I mean, we’re, we’re still, you know, we’re at the market cap we’re at today we’re 100 and 25150 person company, right. So you know, you look around and you’re like, there are a lot of companies that are out there have 1000 and employees that don’t have anywhere near the valuation that we do. And I think that’s part of, you know, it starts with Dinesh, our CEO right on down. It’s like there is, it is a non-stop. You know we are we we take the time to think, but we never stop moving.
Alan 36:23
I know you, you mentioned just before, you know, I was talking to the Chief Business officer of Ipsen earlier this week. And it’s interesting because, you know, he was talking about the same thing you’re, you’re referring to is to know where you can win, right? And, and not to be, you know, he’s like, I’m not going out there Alzheimer, There’s no point. They’re interested in neuroscience, but Alzheimer is the realm of big pharma and there’s no reason to even think that. And it’s a big company, right? It’s and it’s not a small fish either, right? And so I agree with you. Sometimes you hear a lot of, you know, kind of entrepreneurs that want to tackle these enormous markets, not realizing it’d be very, very difficult to to do that.
But you mentioned a couple of times in our conversation, machine learning, AI and things like that. And so as you’re looking at your organization and what’s out there, how do you see, what do you see it’s role into a company like Protagonist? Where do you see could bring value?
Carter 37:28
I think it’s, it’s another thing where it’s just you have to have a, an ongoing and never ending level of curiosity in the world and the in the industry that we work, right. And so despite David Baker’s Nobel Prize, there are no approved drugs that were designed by AI machine learning. And we’re like, it hasn’t cracked the code. You know, we follow a lot of discovery companies and yeah, they’re making progress, but it certainly hasn’t reached the point where you just, you know, push a button and say, give me a, a oral peptide with 30% oral bioavailability against target X. It does have characteristics that I think lend itself lend themselves to the long term improvement of the scientific fundamentals here.
And so just the fact that you can leverage some of those things going forward, I think merits attention. But you know, we’re all sort of spot where, you know, I think the the real intersection of that is in the learning cycle of humans teaching the machine, not the machine just scraping and incorporating data from the World Wide Web. And I think that’s where Protagonist, as we, you know, trend softly into that arena because we have a great platform and a great team of people. We continue to generate compounds that we think have tremendous value through our own, you know, more traditional approaches. But I’m rare very much, you know, kind of I think maybe a little bit of the heretic in some ways of, well, hey guys, what about yes.
And what can those incredibly gifted scientists do with the assistance of a machine learning algorithm that never forgets the pattern of substitutions, deletions, additions into the chemical structure that you have explored for every program that you’ve ever worked on that’s relevant to the target that you’re working on today, right? I think there’s just an, there’s an intuitive appeal to that. It just hasn’t, no one has act necessarily like completely blown through that and go, Yep, here’s proof of concept. Like we can absolutely do this in a replicatable fashion. To me, I think that’s just a matter of time, right? There are really, really smart people working on this.
You see it going on with almost every major pharmaceutical company on the face of the planet. You see it going on, you know, at the at the early company formation stage here in the Silicon Valley. And so I think it’s just one of those things where if you are really interested in the future state of where our industry is headed, you know, you need to be mindful of the risks and opportunities there and you know and it. Participate in an appropriate fashion for your context. That’s our approach here.
Alan 40:23
Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I think that, you know, companies that know how to use the tool to drive value will displace companies that don’t know how to use the tool because they’d be able to move much, much faster and things like that. Of course, you have to do it in a way that is secure and especially, you know, for you guys who have highly confidential science and things like that, right? And in the in the high competitive competitive world, you’re going to make sure that you secure all of that. But those tools can really help you accelerate, you know, the development. But I think across the entire value chain can create even from that the ease of putting a dossier together, right?
Carter 41:09
Well, and, and that’s, that’s a great point, right, is even within that, like art, you know, BD organization, commercial arts of the organization here at Protagonist have been, you know, leading in that regard in terms of the implementation of AI tools to help us have better competitive intelligence, for example, because it’s really good at, Hey, Alert me when something happens here. Keep track of what’s going on with this target. Well, how about, you know, what’s, you know, make sure I’m aware of all the news of what’s going on with XY and Z. And, you know, then it also helps you a little bit in terms of, you know, ability to reach beyond look at literature publications that are non-english, right?
Like just the ability to immediately do translations and be able to stay on top of science that, you know, especially with the rise of Asia and innovation there. To be able to use those tools in order to kind of to be a bridge to have some visibility to, to what’s going on there. You know, it’s certainly not yet a, you know, entire replacement for, you know, boots on the ground and and being present, but it is synergistic and additive.
Alan 42:26
Well, Carter, we’re kind of running out of time here, but it’s been a fascinating conversation. Probably can talk to you for hours left to maybe have a second podcast to talk a little bit more about where peptides are going and things like that. But I thought as we we we’d wrap up here, it’d be great if you could maybe give you know, based on your decades long career now in the industry, if you had a person starting in the industry today. What are some of the advice you give him or her?
Carter 42:59
Thank you, Alan. And and before I forget, I really do want to thank all my colleagues here at Protagonist, our collaborators at J&J and Takeda. We have been incredibly fortunate to have both a great team of people here within our walls as well as those incredible collaborations outside. And so just would be remiss if I didn’t know that. It’s interesting because I think this industry has changed a lot since I kind of fell into it. Definitely always am an advocate of people getting into this because I’m, you know, frankly fell in love with it and will never, you know, do anything else. I think you have to look at the odds. To be completely honest with you, Alan, this industry is incredibly difficult.
Failure is much more common than success. Oddly, the way my brain is wired that’s, you know, speaks to me, right? It’s like, let’s go do that challenge that no one thinks that you can do. That’s not for everyone. So I think if you, you know, are a young person and you look at yourself and you go, I love a really big challenge where people are like, are you crazy? Biotech might be for you. You have to be incredibly resilient, right? You have to be able to, you know, to weather the ups and downs of these things and have that, you know, natural curiosity and just be willing to continue to learn because that’s one of the great things here. And so if you’re like a lifelong learner, you know, and you like a big challenge, I would absolutely encourage you, right?
We need people to continue to do these things. I would tell people that it’s incredibly important to spend some time in a little larger organization and get the opportunity to see how big companies run their things and what the process and how it works. You know, not for me, right? I, I spent my time there. I learned a lot from it and you know, but it wasn’t the right environment for me. But I would definitely advise people to just think about that and spend some time there because it has tremendous benefit if you’re going to be in a smaller organization to know how those parties do business and how they think. The last piece, especially in the BD realm, right, is to learn how to be a good listener, right?
So many people focus on how do I do my pitch and what do, you know, learn to be a good listener and almost as importantly, learn to observe and interpret what people do rather than what they say. And that’s really more on the deal side where it’s just like, you know, you’ll have people say, oh, well, we’re really, you know, this, that another thing. And then you’re like, so why have you behaved in the fashion that you are? And so I think part of, you know, being in, in BD is, you know, a study of human nature, right? And, and don’t forget that fact. But, you know, I, I think it’s honestly, it’s one of those great places where you see this integration of science, math and human interaction that is, you know, incredibly gratifying when it all comes together.
But does take that ability to be incredibly resilient, operate on very little sleep across multiple time zones and and pick yourself up, you know, after you’ve been kicked in the teeth 10 times straight. But that makes it even more rewarding when you arrive at a place like Protagonist has today.
Alan 46:22
It’s wonderful advice. I agree with you. I mean, I think the, I always say that the greatest joy for me of having, you know, built KYBORA over 15 years is, is really in the relationships that I’ve built over the, over that period, right? And counting you as a friend and things like that. And, and I often tell people I can go anywhere in the world, don’t stay for free because I’m here, you know, can I surf couch? And then we’d say, yeah, absolutely. Come on in. Right. And so I think that’s and I think that’s that is also a little bit specific to our industry. I mean, I think that people in general have this kind of wanting to do good for the world and, you know, and most are focused on that.
So that’s, so that’s great. I just had, you know, one more quick question for you. So when you were growing up in your rural area, I think it was in California, why did you want to be? Did you, did you think of yourself as being that the head of BD at biotech or what? Did you have other aspirations?
Carter 47:29
I mean, it’s funny you say that, right, Because it’s like I, you know, I grew up on, you know, in a very rural area. My parents were like horse and cattle people and, you know, and, but I always love science and, you know, but I was like, so I’m going to be a biologist and I’m going to live on a boat and study dolphins. Like literally just had, you know, I had, I had no idea. I’m like, I love the scientific stuff. But like, I didn’t know you could like go and work in a lab or anything like that. It was just, you know, not even, you know, not even in the possible set of opportunities. You know, I was like, Oh, well, you’re just going to become a businessman, right?
And, and see where, see where that goes. You know, I think the world today has gotten a lot smaller, right? Like there was no Internet back then. I mean, if there have been an Internet, I might have known about biotechnology. You know, I, I, I think that’s a good thing for us on, on the whole, because, you know, if a kid from the, you know, backwaters of Northern California can find his way to, you know, the San Francisco Bay Area and become part of the biotech community and spend 25 years of your life developing, you know, new drugs for, for patients in need. Like, you know, that’s a journey worth taking.
Alan 48:42
Absolutely I mean, there’s brains come from everywhere, right? And it’s it’s good to to bring them together. So listen, we’re out of time, but I really appreciate it. This was great, really informational. And I think that, you know, across multiple areas, right, not only about, you know, what you’re doing at Protagonist, but also how you put some of these deals together, the considerations and then, you know, your career as well. So I think I’m, I’m confidence our audience, we really enjoy it. So thank you so much for your time Carter and I look forward to, you know, continuing our our friendship and and conversation in in the near future.
Carter 49:23
Absolutely, Alan, thank you for having me on.
