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On this week's episode, Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D., founder, CEO, and chairman of the board at RadioMedix talks about his personal journey standing up and growing a radiopharmaceutical company focused on oncology. Dr. Delpassand discusses the current trends in radiopharmaceutical drug development, the differences between alpha- and beta-emitting isotopes, overcoming manufacturing and supply chain challenges and restraints, and building strategic partnerships with companies like Curium, Fusion (now part of AstraZeneca), and Sanofi. He also offers specific advice to physician-entrepreneurs interested in building their own drug development companies.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ben Comer (00:06):
Welcome back to the Business of Biotech.
I'm your host, Ben Comer, chiefEditor at Life Science Leader,
and today I'm speaking with DrEbrahim Delpassand, founder,
chairman and CEO at Radiomedics,a radiopharmaceutical oncology
company developing new therapiesand diagnostic imaging agents,
both internally and incollaboration with other
(00:29):
companies and organizations.
Dr Delpassand is a medicaldoctor in nuclear medicine and
pathology and worked at MDAnderson for more than a decade
as chief of clinical nuclearmedicine and deputy chairman in
the department of nuclearmedicine.
Nuclear medicine and deputychairman in the Department of
Nuclear Medicine.
Radio pharmaceuticals is a hotarea of therapeutic development
(00:52):
right now and I'm excited tospeak with Dr Del Passant about
how he built Radiomedix, thecompany's business model and
clinical programs, and why BigPharma is spending billions of
dollars to acquire radiopharmaceutical drug candidates
right now.
Thank you so much for beinghere, Dr.
Delpassand.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M (01:08):
Thank you so much, Ben, for the
invitation as well as kindintroduction.
Yes, I mean, as you mentioned,radiopharmaceutical space has
come a long way now and still alot of excitements in the future
has come a long way now andstill a lot of excitements in
the future.
This is an area that is growing, in oncology especially, and it
(01:34):
is based on significantknowledge and background that we
have right now related tooncology, the process of
oncological conditions and alsoimprovement in isotope
manufacturing,radiopharmaceutical
(01:55):
manufacturing, including findingvery specific ligands that can
reach to a specific moiety,whether it's an antigen receptor
or a metabolic pathway oncancer cells.
And, of course, another portionis technology on the chelation
technology, as we call it, whichis a sort of a chain that
(02:17):
attaches the radioisotope to theligand and create and forming a
diagnostic or therapeuticradiopharmaceuticals according
to the isotope that is attachedto the molecule.
Ben Comer (02:34):
Yeah, lots to talk about there.
We have a number of things todig into, but I want to start
with how you initially becameinterested in
radiopharmaceuticals.
You know why you chose thatfield nuclear medicine as a
physician.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M. (02:51):
Good question.
I mean, obviously I'm aphysician, nuclear medicine
physician.
We see patients every day andwe firsthand we see the need of
the patients for bettertreatments, better outcomes as
well as more sensitive andspecific diagnostic agents.
(03:11):
So the idea of radiomedicsreally came from our clinic,
seeing the patients every day,understanding the unmet needs
that we have an area that we canimprove.
So the idea came from clinicbut at the same time a good
understanding of our field,understanding how we can address
(03:36):
these unmet needs, going to ourscientists, essentially putting
the problem on the table andask them to see how we can
address this problem.
So very organically, I can say,the idea of radiomedics came
along.
Of course, initially we startedwith founding our clinic Excel
(03:59):
Diagnostics and Nuclear OncologyCenter in Houston to give us
the infrastructure needed toconduct any kind of research,
clinical research.
So we started with that fullmodality diagnostic medical
imaging as well as therapeuticnuclear medicine.
And then after that,Radiomedics was born with the
(04:22):
intention of a very intimatesort of communication and
understanding between our clinicas well as our researchers.
So they can, we can have frombed to bench as well as bench to
bed.
So whatever we invent at RadioMedics for the first time is
(04:45):
tried by our team at Excel inpatients.
So this created a very nicesynergy and dynamics between our
organizations which led to theactually approval of a drug by
FDA, as well as severalpromising drugs that now they
are maturing in terms ofregulatory path, hopefully
(05:09):
getting to the finish line verysoon.
Ben Comer (05:12):
So you noticed this clinical need.
That was while you were at MDAnderson and you mentioned Excel
Diagnostics and NuclearOncology Center, a research
center, what you know what kindof prompted you to set that up
as a practicing physician.
You know what was the kind ofcatalyst that got you started on
, you know, company formation.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D (05:33):
You know, I think part of my brain
was more thinking veryentrepreneurial and trying to be
thinking out of the box.
I mean, when I was at MDAnderson, I had a secure job and
you know I could easilyessentially do whatever I was
(05:55):
doing over there go to differentparts of the world, give a
lecture, et cetera, and, ofcourse, training residents,
which was very close to my heart.
That was probably the area ofthe work that I was most
(06:20):
interested in Anderson and theinstitutional capabilities.
I thought that probably outsideI can probably move faster and
more efficiently.
I should say this is what I did.
Initially Many of my friendsthey thought I'm crazy, but
while you're losing a very safeand secure position in a big
(06:45):
institution, one of the bestcancer centers in the world,
absolutely.
You know, I have this idea, Ihave this opportunity and I
would like to go after this andI think history of radiomedics
in the last close to 20 yearsproves that I was right.
(07:06):
But of course we have to know alot of work, a lot of weekends,
holidays, nights, more earlymorning.
This is what you need really toput down if you want to
accomplish this and, of course,anybody who, any of you you want
(07:28):
to go after your dreams, youneed to be prepared for that.
There is a lot of sacrificethat needs to do.
Ben Comer (07:34):
So you founded Excel Diagnostics and Nuclear Oncology
Center a couple of years later.
I believe was the founding ofRadiomedics.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow you actually started it up
and who your co-founders were?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M (07:51):
Right .
Well, I'm blessed to have avery supportive family.
My wife and I, we had an exitfrom another company that we had
, so we felt that, at least fora while, financially we can
afford to do this.
The rest of my family I havethree daughters.
(08:12):
They were all supportive of meand one of them right now is
working with me, aida.
Aida Del Pasen started with thequality assurance, setting our
QA department together and nowtransiting to more public
(08:35):
relation and businessdevelopment in our company.
For a while she was actuallythe head of our manufacturing
site, which is in north ofHouston.
So I think having, of course, afamily or, in some cases, even
friends that are supportive ofwhat you're doing and understand
(08:56):
your sort of idea, I think isextremely helpful, and I was
blessed to have to have this onmy side.
Ben Comer (09:06):
Are there any negatives to having a family
business, so to speak?
I mean any kind of tenseconversations at the holiday
dinner table, or is it all goodfor you?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (09:19):
No , it's not always rosy, as you
can imagine.
There is always.
You know, there are differencesin approach if you have
different issues that you wantto resolve in the company and
approaches that you want to have.
But one thing I've alwaysbelieved and my belief was that
(09:39):
none of us is as smart as all ofus, meaning that if you have
people that they care about agoal in this case about the
company, about its future, aslong as they are caring, as long
as they want the best for thecompany, I think we must listen
to everybody and try to gatherbasically all the information
(10:01):
before making any decision, andI think this is the highlights
of this.
You know, yes, it's not alwayseasy to work with family members
, but at the same time, if youlook at it from this aspect,
that they all want the best.
So why don't we be open-mindedand listen to everybody's mind
(10:27):
and then have a dialogue?
Have a dialogue, discuss it andat the end, when we make a
decision, everybody is going tobe aligned and everybody is
going to be, you know, supporterof what the decision you have
made.
Ben Comer (10:40):
So you had some exit money to get Radiomedics off the
ground and fortunately had sometalented family members that
could pitch in as well.
There were, you know, membersof just your network at MD
Anderson, so it's fairly easy toreach out.
Or if you had to do somethingelse to bring the right people
(11:08):
into the company at the righttime.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (11:10):
No , absolutely.
I mean no, actually not all ofthem from MD Anderson.
I think I had initially ourfour scientists One was from MD
Anderson, another one was fromRice University, another one was
from industry and another onefrom totally different areas.
(11:31):
That we thought is going to bea good fit.
So, yeah, I mean these are thepeople that made our initial
team, but at the same time,always I mean this is one of the
challenges of any companies youneed to have right talents with
the right knowledge and alsopassion.
(11:54):
I think it's very important whenyou interview people to come to
your company, describe to themyour intention of doing this.
I always tell whoever we arehiring that you know this
company is a patient-centered.
I'm a physician, my wife is aregistered nurse.
The company was born byclinicians who wanted to do
(12:16):
better for the patients, and weare looking for people with this
kind of a passion.
It doesn't matter what you'redoing, if you're doing only QA,
lots of paperwork, or if you'rejust hands-on and pipetting
certain drugs, or doing radiolabeling, or even somebody who
cleans the lab at the end of theday, et cetera.
All they need to understandwhat is their role in this, and
(12:44):
many times, actually I bringpatients that who have received
the therapy with theirpermission, to our team and say
talk to them, tell them aboutyour story, how you were feeling
before treatment and aftertreatment, and to me that's the
biggest sort of a motivation forpeople who are working in our
space.
Things don't happen overnight.
(13:06):
It takes time, it takes a lotof work and therefore you need
passionate people that they lookat the endpoint of this.
If you don't see that endpoint,sometimes the job might be
extremely difficult to conduct.
So providing that kind ofvision and insight and
(13:28):
motivation to people who areworking for your company, I
think is one of the best ways tokeep your employees actually.
Ben Comer (13:39):
And to your point on finding passionate individuals
to join the company, and I guessI'm thinking you know at the
beginning I mentioned at the topof this conversation that radio
pharmaceuticals is a veryexciting area, lots of growth,
lots of deal making happening atthe moment.
I don't think that wasnecessarily the situation when
(14:01):
you got started with radiomedicsand I wonder you know what the
talent pool was like in terms ofindividuals that could actually
, you know, discover and developnew radiotherapeutics,
radiopharmaceuticals?
Was it difficult to find people, and is that talent pool
expanding now?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (14:21):
We had just started actually
understanding the, I think, thevalue and potential of nuclear
medicine, and especially on thetherapeutic side.
You know we had a PET scan atthe time, just a, you know, fdg
PET scan that is used for morethan 80%, 85% of the oncology
(14:41):
conditions right now.
But we had just started seeingdrugs like Zevalin, for instance
, bexar, so they were targetedtherapies against certain, let's
say, cd20 antigen for lymphomapatients, et cetera.
So with that kind ofintroduction, gradually you
(15:01):
could see that scientists, theyare getting interested in the
field.
Yes, initially the knowledge waslimited, but what we needed, we
needed, let's say,radiochemists that they knew how
to handle radioactive material,how to do radio labeling with
different ligands.
We needed obviously people,experts in quality assurance,
(15:27):
because one part is drugdevelopment.
I mean QA is the backbone ofdrug development.
So maybe the insight was notperfect at the time but at the
same time we knew what kind of atalent we need for this space.
And of course, on training, Imean one of the main emphases
(15:48):
that we have had at Radiomedicsis that we really would like our
team to take advantage of anyconferences.
I mean we haven't missed any,except during COVID.
We haven't missed any, let'ssay, major nuclear medicine
meetings in US or, you know, inthe entire North America or even
(16:13):
in Europe.
So and, of course, allowing ourscientists to get trained to
participate in these meetings,giving allocation financial help
so they can attend to thesemeetings, et cetera.
So learning and training is anintegral part of what we're
doing.
Ben Comer (16:34):
Excellent.
I want to ask you next aboutRadiomedics' business model, In
terms of you know what youdecide to develop internally and
what you license out.
There have been some big dealsand now collaboration deals with
Sanofi, with Fusion now, whichhas been bought out in a
blockbuster deal withAstraZeneca.
(16:55):
How do you think or how wouldyou describe Radiomedics as
business model and, I guess,specifically how you develop
what to out-license and what todevelop internally?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M. (17:07):
Yeah , good question and a very
important question.
You see, initially number oneyou have to see what you do best
and what you can collaborate,and you think some other doing,
some other companies, do thatbest.
In case of our first drug thatreceived approval by FDA in 2020
, the diagnostic drug copper 64,dotatate or Detecnet we knew
(17:33):
how to develop the study.
We knew how to perform theclinical trials.
We thought that for commerciallaunch of the drug, we need to
(17:54):
align and we need to partnerwith another big company that
has done this many times withother drugs.
This is why we went to Curium.
Curium had cyclotron facilitiesin San Luis that they could
make copper 64 for us and theyhad experience in commercial
launch.
You know, developing drug isone thing, but you know
navigating.
You know insurance companies,third party payers, contracting
(18:16):
with them, having a strategy interms of the public awareness of
the drug, as well as thenmanufacturing of the drugs and
making sure that you can deliverthe commercial phase.
It's a totally differentballgame than, let's say, you
make a drug duringinvestigational trial.
(18:36):
So this is why we didn't havecyclotron and we didn't have
experience in commercial launch.
This is why we went to acompany like Curium and told
them that we are willing tolicense this drug to you.
And they were very wellpositioned.
It's not like out of the bluewe found Curium or asked Curium
(18:58):
to do that.
This company had the first drugin neuroendocrine cancer
diagnostic, which I told them.
When I met first time with themI said that guess what?
You have been a gold standardfor diagnosis of neuroendocrine
cancer.
I have a news for you the G isdropping, so it's going to be an
(19:19):
old standard now.
So they were initially puzzledwhat I'm talking about and I
said, yes, we have a diagnosticpet agent which has much better
contrast resolution.
It's a better, you know drugfor this same condition.
But at the same time why I wentto Curium?
(19:39):
Because they already had theirboots on the ground.
They had their people alreadyselling Oxyurea scan, which was
for neuroendocrine cancer.
So this was the best fit andthis is why the commercial
launch was so successful and nowactually Detecnet has more than
(20:00):
70% of the market, althoughthere was another competing drug
which was approved much earlier, but now we have a majority of
the market.
Although there was anothercompeting drug which was
approved much earlier, but nowwe have a majority of the market
because of its ease of usecentrally manufactured and
available throughout the country.
Wherever there is a PET scannerthey can ship the drug and
patients can benefit from that.
(20:22):
The other deals we were kind oflooking at again our
capabilities, I think Fusiondeal.
We looked at Fusion as acompany that has already secured
several contracts for procuringActinium-225.
Procuring Actinium-225.
(20:50):
And at the same time ourcompany was kind of more partial
to what led to 1,2 because ofother reasons that we had and we
thought they're going to bemost suitable company because
they had Actinium.
Having the source of Actiniumavailable is a big and very
important factor in developingActinium therapies.
So this is why we agreed totalk to them and license the
(21:10):
drug and I'm very happy for themthat they had a great exit
actually with, as you mentioned,blockbuster deal with
AstraZeneca and we are waitingfor the phase three clinical
trial.
That of course Radiomedics hasits own incentive and milestone
(21:31):
payments et cetera for thatlicensing.
On the Sanofi side, theAlphamedics drug that we
licensed to Sanofi was againlicensed to Sanofi was again the
(21:51):
result of our collaborationwith Oranomed, a French company
with presence in Texas.
They were the manufacturer ofthe drug and they had a good
source of lead 212 at the time.
And of course, phase threetrials comes with a lot of
expenses.
It doesn't come cheap and wethought that this is very good,
that again we partner with a bigpharma that they have a lot, of
(22:15):
, a lot of good experience inthe phase conducting phase three
trial trial and at the sametime financially can back this
effort.
The whole idea was to have thedrug the sooner the better,
available to the patientsbecause of the results were so
promising as compared to astandard of care that is
(22:36):
available.
So this is why we did that.
We have other drugs in ourpipeline that we think we can do
it ourselves, taking it tohigher phases, even conducting a
phase three if necessary.
So a combination of those.
I think you have to know yourstrength and you know your
(22:58):
weaknesses and, based on that,make a decision how you want to
approach and design yourstrategy basically for drug
development.
Ben Comer (23:09):
Yeah, and I want to ask you about your internal
development candidates.
But before I do, you've alludedto you know the sourcing issue
with Actinium short half-life,inconsistent sourcing issues
those have been long-standingchallenges you know, for the
field of radiopharmaceuticalsI'm curious about.
You know what is changing andmaybe what you might say about
(23:33):
how radiomedics is managingsource materials and supply
chains?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D (23:38):
you know, with that kind of
forward-looking view Of course,yeah, we have three armaments
needs in nuclear medicine as oftoday.
One is sourcing of radioisotope.
Another one is basically havingsites for conducting clinical
(23:59):
trials because, as you know,there are lots of clinical
trials ongoing, so you need tohave good sites that they know
how to run these clinical trialsand, of course, you know.
The third one is manpower.
We really need good experience,knowledgeable manpower.
So, on the supply of theradioisotopes, yes, nuclear
(24:24):
medicine always has hadchallenges about the half-life,
and this is something you cannotchange it.
You cannot change it hadchallenges about the half-life,
and this is something you cannotchange it.
You cannot change gallium-68half-life, or, you know, lead-2,
1, 2's half-life, et cetera.
So, but we have addressed thischallenge.
The most common isotopes thatlet's say fluorine-18 for doing
a PET scan, has a half-life ofabout two hours.
(24:46):
This has the challenge has beenresponded by having a regional
sort of a cyclotron facilitiesthat they can manufacture the
isotope to the radio labelingand deliver within about two,
two and a half to three hoursdistance, driving distance.
You can deliver the dose easily.
In case of, of course, actiniumhalf-life is very accommodating
(25:10):
.
I mean, it's more than 10 dayshalf-life, so that's no problem.
There are other issues aboutactinium which we can talk later
.
In case of lead 2.1.2,specifically, we are talking
about a 10.5, 10.6 hourshalf-life.
So you need to have enoughactivity at the dispensing time
and you can calculate that, howmuch at the calibration time at
(25:34):
the end user, how much activityyou're going to have, and then,
if you can solve this problem,you can easily have a
centralized manufacturing andship it by even commercial
carriers like FedEx and the nextday end users.
They're going to have that andthey're going to have enough
activity to give to the patients.
(25:55):
So these have been solved.
There are shielding issues thatwe have resolved that.
And then there are other issues.
Let's say, in case of lead2.1.2, parent isotopes, you want
to make sure that they areavailable.
In case of lead 2,1,2, there isabundant availability of
(26:20):
thorium 2,2,8.
Of course you need to secureyour sources for this still, but
there is no shortage, like Ithink, like actinium-225,
especially the pure actinium-225.
So each of these isotopes, theyhave challenges I'm pleased to.
(26:41):
I'm sure you have seen ourpress release.
We just introduced a desktop orbenchtop lead 212 generator at
the society of nuclear medicinein the orleans and this is
essentially, by the way, theraha raha word of raha in
persian means freedom and okay,having a freedom to have
(27:05):
availability of lead 212 in yourlaboratory.
This is an automated generator,automated synthesizer included
in the generator, and you canrefill the generator of lead
(27:29):
just as needed on demand.
Basically, you can fill up thecolumn and ship it to the end
user.
So in this way, researchers orpeople even conducting phase one
, phase two clinical trials,they will have access to lead
212 for radio labeling and thisreally opens up a great
(27:52):
opportunity for our researchers.
We wanted to democratizeavailability of lead 212 for the
researchers.
We experienced the sort oflimitation when we started
working with our partner,oranomet, that we were limited,
of course, to theirmanufacturing, and this is why
(28:14):
we embarked on a project to makeit more available for our own
preclinical and clinical studies, as well as sharing this
technology with other companiesand academic centers.
So they have availability oflead 2.
1, 2 for developing of any ofthese exciting drugs that they
(28:34):
have.
They have very promisingligands that they need isotope.
Isotope is like you know, theligands are like a gun, isotope
is like a bullet.
So you make more sophisticatedguns, but if there is no bullet
it's not going to be useful.
Ben Comer (28:50):
So this is why and this is an example coming from
Texas, of course- and I did notethe announcement of the
Benchtop LED 212 generator,which is a unique innovation In
terms of sharing it with othercompanies.
Will they be able toessentially kind of pay for
(29:10):
access to that, and is itsomething that you can give to
multiple different organizations?
Is it modular in a sense?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M. (29:17):
Sure , yeah, we have different,
basically, strategies for makingthis available to interested
parties.
This is modular, so you canscale up the amount of activity
that you need for the projectthat you have.
Typically for preclinicalstudies, you don't need as much
(29:39):
activity as, let's say, if youwant to manufacture several
doses every week.
You need a bigger generator.
You need more of those modulesthat you need to order to have
enough activity for making dosesfor human clinical trials.
In terms of our businessstrategy, we will be somewhat
(30:04):
selective, in a sense that wewould like to see the promise of
the ligand that companies oracademic centers are working on
but still is in the form of moreguidance and partnership.
We want to see if we can alsotransfer our experience to them
(30:26):
in using this radioisotope, inusing this radioisotope.
But you know, the main thing isif we can expand the
availability of this isotope,which, in our hand, has shown
significant you know promise.
I think it's going to be goodnot only for the field but, at
(30:48):
the end, for the patients whoneed these drugs in the future.
Ben Comer (30:53):
Right, and we're talking about the lead 212
radioisotope right now.
You mentioned at the verybeginning, with your first
product, going to copper 64,away from gallium 68.
What can you say about how youessentially choose new isotopes
and evaluate them and how youkind of landed on copper 64?
(31:15):
And I'll use that to you know.
Move forward into a debate thatI really want to get to, which
is about, you know, beta versusalpha emitters.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, (31:24):
Awesome , yeah, of course.
Again, this is a prime exampleof learning from the clinic and
then going to the scientists toaddress a shortcoming of one
isotope.
For instance, in case ofgallium, gallium-68 comes from
germanium-gallium generator.
(31:44):
Half-life is only 68 minutes,so the manufacturing is very
fragmented.
I mean you cannot make the drugand then ship it from Texas to
California.
That is impossible.
At the time when it gets toCalifornia, no activity is going
to be there.
So it's a very, you know, asmall radius, as I mentioned,
(32:05):
maybe two hours driving distance.
If you manufacture it, you cansend it.
Also, the number of doses thatyou can make from one single
generator is very limited whenyou're using gallium.
There were three times in a daythat you could get only one
dose in Houston, when this isthe biggest medical center in
(32:27):
the world.
Just you can imagine.
I mean they were delivering onedose at seven o'clock, another
one at 12, another one at threeto four o'clock.
So, and also when we weregetting the doses.
Just imagine patient doesn'tshow up on time, or you have a
problem starting IV for thepatient which are common things,
I mean or you have to rebootyour PET scanner computer.
(32:49):
All these things were causingso much anxiety and so much
stress for our technologists andour staff when they were
dealing with Gallium 68 labeledagents.
We went to copper because ofcopper half-life, which is 12
and a half hours, almost halfhours, almost.
(33:15):
So that allowed us to have acentralized manufacturing,
robust, high qualitymanufacturing and distribution
across the country.
And then, when they receive itour technologies they can wait
three hours, even beforeinjection of the patients or
after injection.
They have more time if theywant to repeat PET scan, for
whatever reason, if they want tohave multiple time points on
the patients, you can still usecopper.
(33:37):
So this was, although for thesame indication, but this was
superior to gallium and I thinkbecause of all these facts,
because being so user friendly.
So this is why we have amajority of the market now, and
so these are the things that youlearn from the clinic, you
(33:58):
learn from your technologists.
They come and talk to you thatyou know.
Is there anything better thanthis?
This is causing a lot of, youknow, anxiety for us, and it's.
These are expensive doses.
I mean, if you can't use thedrug, you're going to lose
several thousands of dollars forthat drug and of course, I
(34:18):
don't think any administrationwould like that, so right.
So these are.
This is an example I'm gladthat you brought it up that you
can actually use the clinicexperience toward making better
drugs.
Ben Comer (34:34):
So, going back to lead 212, which is an alpha
emitter, and my sense is thatthat is the direction that
radiopharmaceuticals is movingto toward alpha emitters and
away from beta emitters ismoving to toward alpha emitters
and away from beta emitters.
You know way more about this,so I'd love to hear your
(35:02):
explanation as to why alphaemitters may be an improvement
upon beta emitters.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D (35:06):
How are they different?
Yes, the differences are in twofolds.
One in terms of path length, ofbetween 10 to 80 microns.
So if you look at thesedifferences, it tells you that
(35:40):
you know when you have a twomillimeter in case of lutetium.
There are other beta emitterslike yttrium-90, it's more than
a centimeter actually.
So you're going to have a lotof side effects or, you know,
(36:00):
radiation to the cells that arenot necessarily abnormal.
So that is one difference.
The other difference is inenergy.
The energy of alphas arebetween 100 to 400 times higher
than different beta emitters.
So you're talking about highlyenergetic with the short path
(36:23):
length versus lower energy andlonger path length in the case
of beta emitters.
Therefore, how this plays intreating cancer, the importance
of alphas because of a higherenergy and shorter path length
it's more targeted and with thehigher energy it can break the
(36:48):
DNA more effectively.
Typically, majority of thebreakage of the DNA caused by
alpha emitters are double strandDNA damage, which leads to the
apoptosis and cell deathmajority of the cells.
On the other hand, on the betaemission you have more single
strand DNA damage.
That gives the opportunity tothe cancer cells to repair
(37:11):
themselves and therefore we seemore, you know, recurrence in
the patients who are treatingwith beta emitters as well, as
obviously it can translate intoless effectiveness, if you will.
The objective response, forinstance, in the case that we
have, which is very parallelcomparison, comparing lutetium
(37:34):
dotatate, which is a betaemitter for neuroendocrine
cancers, with lead 2,1,2dotamtate, which is a
lead-labeled alpha therapy forneuroendocrine cancer.
In the same cohort, in thepatients who have not received
prior any kind of radionuclidetherapy, the beta version has
(37:54):
objective response of 13%, ourshas more close to 70%.
So all these talks that I saidearlier might be hypothetical,
but here we have objectiveevidence in patients to see the
difference.
I don't want to go into too muchdetail about activation of
(38:15):
immune response et cetera, whichis so fascinating actually,
that part.
We think that alpha emitterslike lead 212 actually
stimulates and activates theimmune system which can actually
continue the effectiveness of adrug.
We have patients that sixmonths after the last treatment
still they show response totherapy.
(38:37):
That's not radioactivity forsure.
I mean the radioactivity isalready decayed.
This is the radioactivity isalready decayed.
This is the response of immunecells into the cancer after
damage of the cancer cells andthis is continued actually.
So it's a very fascinatingfield, multifactorial.
But in summary, these are thedifferences between beta and
(38:59):
alpha.
Ben Comer (39:01):
Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the
vast majority of approvedradiopharmaceuticals in the past
have been beta emitters.
Now you know there's someincredible data coming out about
alpha emitters.
Is there still a role for betaemitting therapies?
You know new ones going forward, or is it your sense that
(39:22):
alpha-emitting therapies willcompletely supplant the use of
beta-emitting therapies in thenext what couple of years?
So here is my bias.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (39:33):
I feel that beta-emitters are a
stepping stone coming toalpha-emitters.
However, having said this, Ithink both isotopes will have a
role in the near future.
Definitely the amount ofresearch that is ongoing on beta
emitter drugs lutetium-177,even terbium is coming right now
(39:54):
.
These are beta.
You know, copper-67, forinstance.
These are all beta emitters andthey will have a role in
medicine, but alpha emitters forsure.
I mean, because of what I justdescribed, it is very exciting
If we can resolve the issue ofsupply of the alpha ameters,
different alpha ameters, whetherit's acetine-211 or
(40:18):
actinium-225 or lead-212, weneed to have a good supply
supply and we need to expand theresearch in this area.
And, of course, there areseveral mature clinical trials
ongoing in the phase two, latephase two, completion, starting
phase three.
These are going on in alphaemitters.
But to me this is the optimaltool that we have.
(40:39):
I think we need to have higherenergy to deliver any cancer
cell.
If you can safely deliverenough radiation, you can kill
cancer cells.
The issue is that safely, Imean we need to have basically
to design theradiopharmaceutical that be so
effective on the cancer cellsbut spares the normal cells,
(41:03):
basically normal organs, etcetera.
So this is something that Ithink the field is going to go
toward more alpha therapy, butdefinitely there is a role for
beta-amino therapies as well.
Ben Comer (41:18):
And radiopharmaceuticals,
historically, you know, havetargeted a specific set of
cancers, specific type ofcancers thyroid cancer, prostate
cancer, specific neuroendocrinetumors, which you've mentioned.
But you're taking some bigswings, you know.
Beyond those specific cancertypes, what you know, what can
(41:39):
you say about the nexttherapeutic frontiers for
radiopharmaceuticals and whatyou're working on?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M. (41:46):
Well , radiomedic and Radiomedics, we
are working on several unmetneeds in oncology and the
basically top one is brain tumorthat we are working right now.
I sincerely hope that we canmake a big difference for these
patients.
Whatever we have done in thelast 20 years for brain cancer
(42:12):
patients has not reallysignificantly changed the
outcome or quality of life ofour patients.
Unfortunately, in the moreaggressive type of brain cancer
we lose the patients maybe inabout two years, in spite of
significantly affecting on theirquality of life after surgery,
chemotherapy and radiationtherapy the brain by simple IV
(42:46):
administration and deliver a bigload of radiation to the tumor
inside the body, without cuttingthe patient, without causing a
lot of side effects for thepatients.
That is sometimes worse thanthe disease itself.
So this is our goal.
We have a drug that can crossbroad brain barrier.
This is one of the challengesof treating brain tumors.
I mean it's different fromsolid tumors in the rest of the
(43:09):
body.
Brain has its own sort of aprotective layer that makes it
difficult for many drugs tocross that and gets to the brain
tumor.
So this drug that we areworking on has this capability
of crossing blood brain barrier.
We are using our best availableisot of crossing blood-brain
barrier.
We are using our best availableisotope, which is lead 2,1,2,
(43:33):
and the best ligand that hashigh affinity for GBM or brain
tumor.
So this is one.
Interestingly, the same drughas affinity for pancreatic
cancer.
So this is the next unmet needthat we have in oncology Again,
very difficult disease to treat,and I'm talking about
adenocarcinoma of the pancreas.
There is a neuroendocrineversion which is totally
(43:56):
different than this type.
So we are hoping that the nextstep to work on that.
And of course we have otherligands, like GPC3, for instance
, which works on hepatocellularcancer and some urogenital
cancers, and also we have aligand proprietary ligand for
(44:18):
prostate cancer as well that wewould like to radio label with
L212 and use that for.
So these are some of the areasthat we are working and of
course there are very excitingtargets that scientists are
looking at and we are hoping toimprove that portion the ligand,
(44:41):
the carrier of the isotope more, and I think that will be the
future frontier of nuclearmedicine.
We need to have more ligandswith more affinity to the target
and higher residence time inthe target.
I think that will be the areaof growth in nuclear medicine.
Ben Comer (45:02):
Right and which internal candidate would you say
is your lead candidate or isfurthest along at this point?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (45:10):
I mean, of course, AlphaMedix,
which we have licensed to Sanofi, that is further along.
But internally, the drug that Imentioned, we call it RMXVH.
It has affinity for low-densitylipoprotein receptor in GBM and
pancreatic cancer.
That is the highest one,followed by, you know, GPC3 and
(45:33):
prostate cancer.
Ben Comer (45:34):
At this point, and how are you thinking about scale
up?
I wanted to ask you about yourSpica manufacturing center that
you've built in Houston andmaybe you could talk a little
bit about how you think you know, how you think about scaling
these programs up as theyprogress into, you know, larger
clinical studies.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassa (45:53):
Absolutely .
I mean, that is another, as Imentioned, the third on my team,
yes, besides the, you knowpeople that really need to have
knowledgeable and manpower inthe field.
Another one is actuallymanufacturing site.
That's another thing that weneed.
(46:14):
Radio Medics started addressingthis issue in 2019.
We put together our SpicaCenter manufacturing site, which
is close to the airport inHouston 27,500 square feet of
manufacturing, seven large cleanrooms equipped with all
(46:38):
analytical.
So that's the place that we doa scale up.
That's the place that we runour let's say, we will have
enough bandwidth to make ourdrugs required for, let's say,
phase three trials.
Of course, all ourmanufacturing, all the drugs
that goes into human at thispoint, is manufactured at Spiker
(46:59):
Center, but definitelysomething like this is needed
when you're talking about tensof doses every day that you need
to do for clinical trials,phase three trials, as well as,
down the road, commercial launch.
Ben Comer (47:15):
Would you potentially consider commercializing your
own therapies?
Would you need to partner atthat point, or have you mapped
that out?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (47:26):
It depends.
Now we are, we have learned alot, of course, in what it takes
to commercialize the drug, butstill we are very open to
collaboration.
We like to see that.
You know companies that theyhave more experience than us.
Come, and we definitely welcomeyou know companies that they
have more experience than us.
Come, and we definitely welcomeyou know communication with
(47:48):
these companies and workingtogether for the commercial
phase.
We have a lot of experience inconducting clinical trials, both
on the regulatory strategy,both on the regulatory strategy,
as well as enrollment of thepatients, et cetera.
Ben Comer (48:07):
But definitely we welcome any collaboration by big
pharmas, by companies that theyhave a lot of experience in
that area.
Right, we've talked about thisa little bit, but Radiomedics is
now 20 years old as a company.
Put yourselves in the shoes ofa physician or an academic
(48:32):
scientist, you know, with a boldidea for a new therapeutic
approach, who wants to start up,you know, a biotech or a pharma
, a life sciences company?
Just thinking about your, youknow, thinking back over your
20-year journey, the challengesyou've had to overcome.
What kind of advice would yougive to someone like that, who
(48:54):
maybe has, you know, a safe andcomfortable academic job but
really sees a need out there forpatients?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D (49:02):
Ben , this is a loaded question.
I mean a lot of stuff but Ican't do it.
Is that what you're going tosay?
But you know I can summarizesome of my experience in the
last 20 years since theinception of Radiomedic.
So number one I think I wouldlike to advise my young
colleagues start by a good legalstructure for your company.
(49:26):
Think about because this is veryimportant you need to align
yourself with a legal firm.
I know, initially, when youstart, things are you know money
is in shortage and these thingsare.
They don't come cheap.
These things are they don'tcome cheap.
(49:47):
But there are good firms thatactually understands our field
and understand their startupsand challenges that the CEO or a
CFO of a startup company has.
So they cooperate, they want toessentially lay the seeds so in
the future actually be yourpartner and then at that time
obviously there's not going tobe a problem with money.
So this is very important foryour.
(50:08):
You need to have a very solidstructure.
Think about where you want to,for instance, register your
company and what would be thestructure If you are, you know,
having stock options, forinstance.
It should be all written, allvery, you know, organized.
Basically, this is one thing.
(50:28):
The other thing is that youknow, do not sign any agreement
without really legal oversight.
I think you will see that themoney that you spent to build
that agreement, you know,whatever you pay to the
attorneys, 10 times higher foryou if you have done a good job
(50:51):
in terms of the legal agreementsand having a nice, solid
oversight by a legal counselthat they have experience in
doing these things.
Second, I think you know, hiretalented and right knowledge
people.
These are the backbone of anycompany.
This is the most valuable assetof any company People who are
(51:13):
knowledgeable.
They have good talent and also,as we discussed, passionate
passionate about your goal.
They understand, they shareyour vision, they share your you
know future that you'rethinking about.
I think the other thing is that, as the owner of the business,
(51:34):
I should say be ready to comefirst, to leave last and get
paid last.
That's the rule of the game.
If you don't want to do that, Idon't think you are right.
For this, there is a need for acertain sacrifice and, of course
, you need to have funding to dothat.
Look at the funding that isavailable to you and look at
(51:57):
your goals and the sort ofrunway that you can have.
Also, understand the unmetneeds on your field.
As we mentioned, it's veryimportant to know where is
itching to a scratch.
You need to know the unmetneeds and this is very important
(52:18):
to be successful.
We don't do in drug development.
You don't do research forresearch.
You do research to solve aproblem for the patients and
always have the end point insidewhat would label of your drug
would look like?
You need to go toward that andyou need to look at it day one
that you have this understandingyour competition extremely
(52:43):
important and also the last butnot the least, patient's welfare
.
This is a business of helpingpatients with catastrophic
illnesses.
Always have that in mind.
You want to help the patientsand always when you are
designing a clinical trial, whenyou are essentially even hiring
people, when you are allocatingresources, financial resources,
(53:07):
look at see where you can useyour dollars to the best of the
way to help the patients.
Ben Comer (53:15):
Excellent advice and, dr Delpasan, thank you so much
for coming on the show.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (53:20):
My pleasure, my pleasure, ben.
Thank you for invitation andhappy to come to your show
anytime you feel appropriate.
Ben Comer (53:29):
We've been speaking with Dr Abraham DelPassan,
founder, chairman and CEO atRadiomedics.
I'm Ben Comer and you've justlistened to the Business of
Biotech.
Find us and subscribe anywhereyou listen to podcasts and be
sure to check out new weeklyvideocasts of these
conversations every Monday underthe Business of Biotech tab at
(53:50):
lifescienceleadercom.
We'll see you next week andthanks for listening.
Welcome back to the Business of Biotech.
I'm your host, Ben Comer, chiefEditor at Life Science Leader,
and today I'm speaking with DrEbrahim Delpassand, founder,
chairman and CEO at Radiomedics,a radiopharmaceutical oncology
company developing new therapiesand diagnostic imaging agents,
both internally and incollaboration with other
(00:29):
companies and organizations.
Dr Delpassand is a medicaldoctor in nuclear medicine and
pathology and worked at MDAnderson for more than a decade
as chief of clinical nuclearmedicine and deputy chairman in
the department of nuclearmedicine.
Nuclear medicine and deputychairman in the Department of
Nuclear Medicine.
Radio pharmaceuticals is a hotarea of therapeutic development
(00:52):
right now and I'm excited tospeak with Dr Del Passant about
how he built Radiomedix, thecompany's business model and
clinical programs, and why BigPharma is spending billions of
dollars to acquire radiopharmaceutical drug candidates
right now.
Thank you so much for beinghere, Dr.
Delpassand.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M (01:08):
Thank you so much, Ben, for the
invitation as well as kindintroduction.
Yes, I mean, as you mentioned,radiopharmaceutical space has
come a long way now and still alot of excitements in the future
has come a long way now andstill a lot of excitements in
the future.
This is an area that is growing, in oncology especially, and it
(01:34):
is based on significantknowledge and background that we
have right now related tooncology, the process of
oncological conditions and alsoimprovement in isotope
manufacturing,radiopharmaceutical
(01:55):
manufacturing, including findingvery specific ligands that can
reach to a specific moiety,whether it's an antigen receptor
or a metabolic pathway oncancer cells.
And, of course, another portionis technology on the chelation
technology, as we call it, whichis a sort of a chain that
(02:17):
attaches the radioisotope to theligand and create and forming a
diagnostic or therapeuticradiopharmaceuticals according
to the isotope that is attachedto the molecule.
Ben Comer (02:34):
Yeah, lots to talk about there.
We have a number of things todig into, but I want to start
with how you initially becameinterested in
radiopharmaceuticals.
You know why you chose thatfield nuclear medicine as a
physician.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M. (02:51):
Good question.
I mean, obviously I'm aphysician, nuclear medicine
physician.
We see patients every day andwe firsthand we see the need of
the patients for bettertreatments, better outcomes as
well as more sensitive andspecific diagnostic agents.
(03:11):
So the idea of radiomedicsreally came from our clinic,
seeing the patients every day,understanding the unmet needs
that we have an area that we canimprove.
So the idea came from clinicbut at the same time a good
understanding of our field,understanding how we can address
(03:36):
these unmet needs, going to ourscientists, essentially putting
the problem on the table andask them to see how we can
address this problem.
So very organically, I can say,the idea of radiomedics came
along.
Of course, initially we startedwith founding our clinic Excel
(03:59):
Diagnostics and Nuclear OncologyCenter in Houston to give us
the infrastructure needed toconduct any kind of research,
clinical research.
So we started with that fullmodality diagnostic medical
imaging as well as therapeuticnuclear medicine.
And then after that,Radiomedics was born with the
(04:22):
intention of a very intimatesort of communication and
understanding between our clinicas well as our researchers.
So they can, we can have frombed to bench as well as bench to
bed.
So whatever we invent at RadioMedics for the first time is
(04:45):
tried by our team at Excel inpatients.
So this created a very nicesynergy and dynamics between our
organizations which led to theactually approval of a drug by
FDA, as well as severalpromising drugs that now they
are maturing in terms ofregulatory path, hopefully
(05:09):
getting to the finish line verysoon.
Ben Comer (05:12):
So you noticed this clinical need.
That was while you were at MDAnderson and you mentioned Excel
Diagnostics and NuclearOncology Center, a research
center, what you know what kindof prompted you to set that up
as a practicing physician.
You know what was the kind ofcatalyst that got you started on
, you know, company formation.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D (05:33):
You know, I think part of my brain
was more thinking veryentrepreneurial and trying to be
thinking out of the box.
I mean, when I was at MDAnderson, I had a secure job and
you know I could easilyessentially do whatever I was
(05:55):
doing over there go to differentparts of the world, give a
lecture, et cetera, and, ofcourse, training residents,
which was very close to my heart.
That was probably the area ofthe work that I was most
(06:20):
interested in Anderson and theinstitutional capabilities.
I thought that probably outsideI can probably move faster and
more efficiently.
I should say this is what I did.
Initially Many of my friendsthey thought I'm crazy, but
while you're losing a very safeand secure position in a big
(06:45):
institution, one of the bestcancer centers in the world,
absolutely.
You know, I have this idea, Ihave this opportunity and I
would like to go after this andI think history of radiomedics
in the last close to 20 yearsproves that I was right.
(07:06):
But of course we have to know alot of work, a lot of weekends,
holidays, nights, more earlymorning.
This is what you need really toput down if you want to
accomplish this and, of course,anybody who, any of you you want
(07:28):
to go after your dreams, youneed to be prepared for that.
There is a lot of sacrificethat needs to do.
Ben Comer (07:34):
So you founded Excel Diagnostics and Nuclear Oncology
Center a couple of years later.
I believe was the founding ofRadiomedics.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow you actually started it up
and who your co-founders were?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M (07:51):
Right .
Well, I'm blessed to have avery supportive family.
My wife and I, we had an exitfrom another company that we had
, so we felt that, at least fora while, financially we can
afford to do this.
The rest of my family I havethree daughters.
(08:12):
They were all supportive of meand one of them right now is
working with me, aida.
Aida Del Pasen started with thequality assurance, setting our
QA department together and nowtransiting to more public
(08:35):
relation and businessdevelopment in our company.
For a while she was actuallythe head of our manufacturing
site, which is in north ofHouston.
So I think having, of course, afamily or, in some cases, even
friends that are supportive ofwhat you're doing and understand
(08:56):
your sort of idea, I think isextremely helpful, and I was
blessed to have to have this onmy side.
Ben Comer (09:06):
Are there any negatives to having a family
business, so to speak?
I mean any kind of tenseconversations at the holiday
dinner table, or is it all goodfor you?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (09:19):
No , it's not always rosy, as you
can imagine.
There is always.
You know, there are differencesin approach if you have
different issues that you wantto resolve in the company and
approaches that you want to have.
But one thing I've alwaysbelieved and my belief was that
(09:39):
none of us is as smart as all ofus, meaning that if you have
people that they care about agoal in this case about the
company, about its future, aslong as they are caring, as long
as they want the best for thecompany, I think we must listen
to everybody and try to gatherbasically all the information
(10:01):
before making any decision, andI think this is the highlights
of this.
You know, yes, it's not alwayseasy to work with family members
, but at the same time, if youlook at it from this aspect,
that they all want the best.
So why don't we be open-mindedand listen to everybody's mind
(10:27):
and then have a dialogue?
Have a dialogue, discuss it andat the end, when we make a
decision, everybody is going tobe aligned and everybody is
going to be, you know, supporterof what the decision you have
made.
Ben Comer (10:40):
So you had some exit money to get Radiomedics off the
ground and fortunately had sometalented family members that
could pitch in as well.
There were, you know, membersof just your network at MD
Anderson, so it's fairly easy toreach out.
Or if you had to do somethingelse to bring the right people
(11:08):
into the company at the righttime.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (11:10):
No , absolutely.
I mean no, actually not all ofthem from MD Anderson.
I think I had initially ourfour scientists One was from MD
Anderson, another one was fromRice University, another one was
from industry and another onefrom totally different areas.
(11:31):
That we thought is going to bea good fit.
So, yeah, I mean these are thepeople that made our initial
team, but at the same time,always I mean this is one of the
challenges of any companies youneed to have right talents with
the right knowledge and alsopassion.
(11:54):
I think it's very important whenyou interview people to come to
your company, describe to themyour intention of doing this.
I always tell whoever we arehiring that you know this
company is a patient-centered.
I'm a physician, my wife is aregistered nurse.
The company was born byclinicians who wanted to do
(12:16):
better for the patients, and weare looking for people with this
kind of a passion.
It doesn't matter what you'redoing, if you're doing only QA,
lots of paperwork, or if you'rejust hands-on and pipetting
certain drugs, or doing radiolabeling, or even somebody who
cleans the lab at the end of theday, et cetera.
All they need to understandwhat is their role in this, and
(12:44):
many times, actually I bringpatients that who have received
the therapy with theirpermission, to our team and say
talk to them, tell them aboutyour story, how you were feeling
before treatment and aftertreatment, and to me that's the
biggest sort of a motivation forpeople who are working in our
space.
Things don't happen overnight.
(13:06):
It takes time, it takes a lotof work and therefore you need
passionate people that they lookat the endpoint of this.
If you don't see that endpoint,sometimes the job might be
extremely difficult to conduct.
So providing that kind ofvision and insight and
(13:28):
motivation to people who areworking for your company, I
think is one of the best ways tokeep your employees actually.
Ben Comer (13:39):
And to your point on finding passionate individuals
to join the company, and I guessI'm thinking you know at the
beginning I mentioned at the topof this conversation that radio
pharmaceuticals is a veryexciting area, lots of growth,
lots of deal making happening atthe moment.
I don't think that wasnecessarily the situation when
(14:01):
you got started with radiomedicsand I wonder you know what the
talent pool was like in terms ofindividuals that could actually
, you know, discover and developnew radiotherapeutics,
radiopharmaceuticals?
Was it difficult to find people, and is that talent pool
expanding now?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (14:21):
We had just started actually
understanding the, I think, thevalue and potential of nuclear
medicine, and especially on thetherapeutic side.
You know we had a PET scan atthe time, just a, you know, fdg
PET scan that is used for morethan 80%, 85% of the oncology
(14:41):
conditions right now.
But we had just started seeingdrugs like Zevalin, for instance
, bexar, so they were targetedtherapies against certain, let's
say, cd20 antigen for lymphomapatients, et cetera.
So with that kind ofintroduction, gradually you
(15:01):
could see that scientists, theyare getting interested in the
field.
Yes, initially the knowledge waslimited, but what we needed, we
needed, let's say,radiochemists that they knew how
to handle radioactive material,how to do radio labeling with
different ligands.
We needed obviously people,experts in quality assurance,
(15:27):
because one part is drugdevelopment.
I mean QA is the backbone ofdrug development.
So maybe the insight was notperfect at the time but at the
same time we knew what kind of atalent we need for this space.
And of course, on training, Imean one of the main emphases
(15:48):
that we have had at Radiomedicsis that we really would like our
team to take advantage of anyconferences.
I mean we haven't missed any,except during COVID.
We haven't missed any, let'ssay, major nuclear medicine
meetings in US or, you know, inthe entire North America or even
(16:13):
in Europe.
So and, of course, allowing ourscientists to get trained to
participate in these meetings,giving allocation financial help
so they can attend to thesemeetings, et cetera.
So learning and training is anintegral part of what we're
doing.
Ben Comer (16:34):
Excellent.
I want to ask you next aboutRadiomedics' business model, In
terms of you know what youdecide to develop internally and
what you license out.
There have been some big dealsand now collaboration deals with
Sanofi, with Fusion now, whichhas been bought out in a
blockbuster deal withAstraZeneca.
(16:55):
How do you think or how wouldyou describe Radiomedics as
business model and, I guess,specifically how you develop
what to out-license and what todevelop internally?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M. (17:07):
Yeah , good question and a very
important question.
You see, initially number oneyou have to see what you do best
and what you can collaborate,and you think some other doing,
some other companies, do thatbest.
In case of our first drug thatreceived approval by FDA in 2020
, the diagnostic drug copper 64,dotatate or Detecnet we knew
(17:33):
how to develop the study.
We knew how to perform theclinical trials.
We thought that for commerciallaunch of the drug, we need to
(17:54):
align and we need to partnerwith another big company that
has done this many times withother drugs.
This is why we went to Curium.
Curium had cyclotron facilitiesin San Luis that they could
make copper 64 for us and theyhad experience in commercial
launch.
You know, developing drug isone thing, but you know
navigating.
You know insurance companies,third party payers, contracting
(18:16):
with them, having a strategy interms of the public awareness of
the drug, as well as thenmanufacturing of the drugs and
making sure that you can deliverthe commercial phase.
It's a totally differentballgame than, let's say, you
make a drug duringinvestigational trial.
(18:36):
So this is why we didn't havecyclotron and we didn't have
experience in commercial launch.
This is why we went to acompany like Curium and told
them that we are willing tolicense this drug to you.
And they were very wellpositioned.
It's not like out of the bluewe found Curium or asked Curium
(18:58):
to do that.
This company had the first drugin neuroendocrine cancer
diagnostic, which I told them.
When I met first time with themI said that guess what?
You have been a gold standardfor diagnosis of neuroendocrine
cancer.
I have a news for you the G isdropping, so it's going to be an
(19:19):
old standard now.
So they were initially puzzledwhat I'm talking about and I
said, yes, we have a diagnosticpet agent which has much better
contrast resolution.
It's a better, you know drugfor this same condition.
But at the same time why I wentto Curium?
(19:39):
Because they already had theirboots on the ground.
They had their people alreadyselling Oxyurea scan, which was
for neuroendocrine cancer.
So this was the best fit andthis is why the commercial
launch was so successful and nowactually Detecnet has more than
(20:00):
70% of the market, althoughthere was another competing drug
which was approved much earlier, but now we have a majority of
the market.
Although there was anothercompeting drug which was
approved much earlier, but nowwe have a majority of the market
because of its ease of usecentrally manufactured and
available throughout the country.
Wherever there is a PET scannerthey can ship the drug and
patients can benefit from that.
(20:22):
The other deals we were kind oflooking at again our
capabilities, I think Fusiondeal.
We looked at Fusion as acompany that has already secured
several contracts for procuringActinium-225.
Procuring Actinium-225.
(20:50):
And at the same time ourcompany was kind of more partial
to what led to 1,2 because ofother reasons that we had and we
thought they're going to bemost suitable company because
they had Actinium.
Having the source of Actiniumavailable is a big and very
important factor in developingActinium therapies.
So this is why we agreed totalk to them and license the
(21:10):
drug and I'm very happy for themthat they had a great exit
actually with, as you mentioned,blockbuster deal with
AstraZeneca and we are waitingfor the phase three clinical
trial.
That of course Radiomedics hasits own incentive and milestone
(21:31):
payments et cetera for thatlicensing.
On the Sanofi side, theAlphamedics drug that we
licensed to Sanofi was againlicensed to Sanofi was again the
(21:51):
result of our collaborationwith Oranomed, a French company
with presence in Texas.
They were the manufacturer ofthe drug and they had a good
source of lead 212 at the time.
And of course, phase threetrials comes with a lot of
expenses.
It doesn't come cheap and wethought that this is very good,
that again we partner with a bigpharma that they have a lot, of
(22:15):
, a lot of good experience inthe phase conducting phase three
trial trial and at the sametime financially can back this
effort.
The whole idea was to have thedrug the sooner the better,
available to the patientsbecause of the results were so
promising as compared to astandard of care that is
(22:36):
available.
So this is why we did that.
We have other drugs in ourpipeline that we think we can do
it ourselves, taking it tohigher phases, even conducting a
phase three if necessary.
So a combination of those.
I think you have to know yourstrength and you know your
(22:58):
weaknesses and, based on that,make a decision how you want to
approach and design yourstrategy basically for drug
development.
Ben Comer (23:09):
Yeah, and I want to ask you about your internal
development candidates.
But before I do, you've alludedto you know the sourcing issue
with Actinium short half-life,inconsistent sourcing issues
those have been long-standingchallenges you know, for the
field of radiopharmaceuticalsI'm curious about.
You know what is changing andmaybe what you might say about
(23:33):
how radiomedics is managingsource materials and supply
chains?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D (23:38):
you know, with that kind of
forward-looking view Of course,yeah, we have three armaments
needs in nuclear medicine as oftoday.
One is sourcing of radioisotope.
Another one is basically havingsites for conducting clinical
(23:59):
trials because, as you know,there are lots of clinical
trials ongoing, so you need tohave good sites that they know
how to run these clinical trialsand, of course, you know.
The third one is manpower.
We really need good experience,knowledgeable manpower.
So, on the supply of theradioisotopes, yes, nuclear
(24:24):
medicine always has hadchallenges about the half-life,
and this is something you cannotchange it.
You cannot change it hadchallenges about the half-life,
and this is something you cannotchange it.
You cannot change gallium-68half-life, or, you know, lead-2,
1, 2's half-life, et cetera.
So, but we have addressed thischallenge.
The most common isotopes thatlet's say fluorine-18 for doing
a PET scan, has a half-life ofabout two hours.
(24:46):
This has the challenge has beenresponded by having a regional
sort of a cyclotron facilitiesthat they can manufacture the
isotope to the radio labelingand deliver within about two,
two and a half to three hoursdistance, driving distance.
You can deliver the dose easily.
In case of, of course, actiniumhalf-life is very accommodating
(25:10):
.
I mean, it's more than 10 dayshalf-life, so that's no problem.
There are other issues aboutactinium which we can talk later
.
In case of lead 2.1.2,specifically, we are talking
about a 10.5, 10.6 hourshalf-life.
So you need to have enoughactivity at the dispensing time
and you can calculate that, howmuch at the calibration time at
(25:34):
the end user, how much activityyou're going to have, and then,
if you can solve this problem,you can easily have a
centralized manufacturing andship it by even commercial
carriers like FedEx and the nextday end users.
They're going to have that andthey're going to have enough
activity to give to the patients.
(25:55):
So these have been solved.
There are shielding issues thatwe have resolved that.
And then there are other issues.
Let's say, in case of lead2.1.2, parent isotopes, you want
to make sure that they areavailable.
In case of lead 2,1,2, there isabundant availability of
(26:20):
thorium 2,2,8.
Of course you need to secureyour sources for this still, but
there is no shortage, like Ithink, like actinium-225,
especially the pure actinium-225.
So each of these isotopes, theyhave challenges I'm pleased to.
(26:41):
I'm sure you have seen ourpress release.
We just introduced a desktop orbenchtop lead 212 generator at
the society of nuclear medicinein the orleans and this is
essentially, by the way, theraha raha word of raha in
persian means freedom and okay,having a freedom to have
(27:05):
availability of lead 212 in yourlaboratory.
This is an automated generator,automated synthesizer included
in the generator, and you canrefill the generator of lead
(27:29):
just as needed on demand.
Basically, you can fill up thecolumn and ship it to the end
user.
So in this way, researchers orpeople even conducting phase one
, phase two clinical trials,they will have access to lead
212 for radio labeling and thisreally opens up a great
(27:52):
opportunity for our researchers.
We wanted to democratizeavailability of lead 212 for the
researchers.
We experienced the sort oflimitation when we started
working with our partner,oranomet, that we were limited,
of course, to theirmanufacturing, and this is why
(28:14):
we embarked on a project to makeit more available for our own
preclinical and clinical studies, as well as sharing this
technology with other companiesand academic centers.
So they have availability oflead 2.
1, 2 for developing of any ofthese exciting drugs that they
(28:34):
have.
They have very promisingligands that they need isotope.
Isotope is like you know, theligands are like a gun, isotope
is like a bullet.
So you make more sophisticatedguns, but if there is no bullet
it's not going to be useful.
Ben Comer (28:50):
So this is why and this is an example coming from
Texas, of course- and I did notethe announcement of the
Benchtop LED 212 generator,which is a unique innovation In
terms of sharing it with othercompanies.
Will they be able toessentially kind of pay for
(29:10):
access to that, and is itsomething that you can give to
multiple different organizations?
Is it modular in a sense?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M. (29:17):
Sure , yeah, we have different,
basically, strategies for makingthis available to interested
parties.
This is modular, so you canscale up the amount of activity
that you need for the projectthat you have.
Typically for preclinicalstudies, you don't need as much
(29:39):
activity as, let's say, if youwant to manufacture several
doses every week.
You need a bigger generator.
You need more of those modulesthat you need to order to have
enough activity for making dosesfor human clinical trials.
In terms of our businessstrategy, we will be somewhat
(30:04):
selective, in a sense that wewould like to see the promise of
the ligand that companies oracademic centers are working on
but still is in the form of moreguidance and partnership.
We want to see if we can alsotransfer our experience to them
(30:26):
in using this radioisotope, inusing this radioisotope.
But you know, the main thing isif we can expand the
availability of this isotope,which, in our hand, has shown
significant you know promise.
I think it's going to be goodnot only for the field but, at
(30:48):
the end, for the patients whoneed these drugs in the future.
Ben Comer (30:53):
Right, and we're talking about the lead 212
radioisotope right now.
You mentioned at the verybeginning, with your first
product, going to copper 64,away from gallium 68.
What can you say about how youessentially choose new isotopes
and evaluate them and how youkind of landed on copper 64?
(31:15):
And I'll use that to you know.
Move forward into a debate thatI really want to get to, which
is about, you know, beta versusalpha emitters.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, (31:24):
Awesome , yeah, of course.
Again, this is a prime exampleof learning from the clinic and
then going to the scientists toaddress a shortcoming of one
isotope.
For instance, in case ofgallium, gallium-68 comes from
germanium-gallium generator.
(31:44):
Half-life is only 68 minutes,so the manufacturing is very
fragmented.
I mean you cannot make the drugand then ship it from Texas to
California.
That is impossible.
At the time when it gets toCalifornia, no activity is going
to be there.
So it's a very, you know, asmall radius, as I mentioned,
(32:05):
maybe two hours driving distance.
If you manufacture it, you cansend it.
Also, the number of doses thatyou can make from one single
generator is very limited whenyou're using gallium.
There were three times in a daythat you could get only one
dose in Houston, when this isthe biggest medical center in
(32:27):
the world.
Just you can imagine.
I mean they were delivering onedose at seven o'clock, another
one at 12, another one at threeto four o'clock.
So, and also when we weregetting the doses.
Just imagine patient doesn'tshow up on time, or you have a
problem starting IV for thepatient which are common things,
I mean or you have to rebootyour PET scanner computer.
(32:49):
All these things were causingso much anxiety and so much
stress for our technologists andour staff when they were
dealing with Gallium 68 labeledagents.
We went to copper because ofcopper half-life, which is 12
and a half hours, almost halfhours, almost.
(33:15):
So that allowed us to have acentralized manufacturing,
robust, high qualitymanufacturing and distribution
across the country.
And then, when they receive itour technologies they can wait
three hours, even beforeinjection of the patients or
after injection.
They have more time if theywant to repeat PET scan, for
whatever reason, if they want tohave multiple time points on
the patients, you can still usecopper.
(33:37):
So this was, although for thesame indication, but this was
superior to gallium and I thinkbecause of all these facts,
because being so user friendly.
So this is why we have amajority of the market now, and
so these are the things that youlearn from the clinic, you
(33:58):
learn from your technologists.
They come and talk to you thatyou know.
Is there anything better thanthis?
This is causing a lot of, youknow, anxiety for us, and it's.
These are expensive doses.
I mean, if you can't use thedrug, you're going to lose
several thousands of dollars forthat drug and of course, I
(34:18):
don't think any administrationwould like that, so right.
So these are.
This is an example I'm gladthat you brought it up that you
can actually use the clinicexperience toward making better
drugs.
Ben Comer (34:34):
So, going back to lead 212, which is an alpha
emitter, and my sense is thatthat is the direction that
radiopharmaceuticals is movingto toward alpha emitters and
away from beta emitters ismoving to toward alpha emitters
and away from beta emitters.
You know way more about this,so I'd love to hear your
(35:02):
explanation as to why alphaemitters may be an improvement
upon beta emitters.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D (35:06):
How are they different?
Yes, the differences are in twofolds.
One in terms of path length, ofbetween 10 to 80 microns.
So if you look at thesedifferences, it tells you that
(35:40):
you know when you have a twomillimeter in case of lutetium.
There are other beta emitterslike yttrium-90, it's more than
a centimeter actually.
So you're going to have a lotof side effects or, you know,
(36:00):
radiation to the cells that arenot necessarily abnormal.
So that is one difference.
The other difference is inenergy.
The energy of alphas arebetween 100 to 400 times higher
than different beta emitters.
So you're talking about highlyenergetic with the short path
(36:23):
length versus lower energy andlonger path length in the case
of beta emitters.
Therefore, how this plays intreating cancer, the importance
of alphas because of a higherenergy and shorter path length
it's more targeted and with thehigher energy it can break the
(36:48):
DNA more effectively.
Typically, majority of thebreakage of the DNA caused by
alpha emitters are double strandDNA damage, which leads to the
apoptosis and cell deathmajority of the cells.
On the other hand, on the betaemission you have more single
strand DNA damage.
That gives the opportunity tothe cancer cells to repair
(37:11):
themselves and therefore we seemore, you know, recurrence in
the patients who are treatingwith beta emitters as well, as
obviously it can translate intoless effectiveness, if you will.
The objective response, forinstance, in the case that we
have, which is very parallelcomparison, comparing lutetium
(37:34):
dotatate, which is a betaemitter for neuroendocrine
cancers, with lead 2,1,2dotamtate, which is a
lead-labeled alpha therapy forneuroendocrine cancer.
In the same cohort, in thepatients who have not received
prior any kind of radionuclidetherapy, the beta version has
(37:54):
objective response of 13%, ourshas more close to 70%.
So all these talks that I saidearlier might be hypothetical,
but here we have objectiveevidence in patients to see the
difference.
I don't want to go into too muchdetail about activation of
(38:15):
immune response et cetera, whichis so fascinating actually,
that part.
We think that alpha emitterslike lead 212 actually
stimulates and activates theimmune system which can actually
continue the effectiveness of adrug.
We have patients that sixmonths after the last treatment
still they show response totherapy.
(38:37):
That's not radioactivity forsure.
I mean the radioactivity isalready decayed.
This is the radioactivity isalready decayed.
This is the response of immunecells into the cancer after
damage of the cancer cells andthis is continued actually.
So it's a very fascinatingfield, multifactorial.
But in summary, these are thedifferences between beta and
(38:59):
alpha.
Ben Comer (39:01):
Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the
vast majority of approvedradiopharmaceuticals in the past
have been beta emitters.
Now you know there's someincredible data coming out about
alpha emitters.
Is there still a role for betaemitting therapies?
You know new ones going forward, or is it your sense that
(39:22):
alpha-emitting therapies willcompletely supplant the use of
beta-emitting therapies in thenext what couple of years?
So here is my bias.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (39:33):
I feel that beta-emitters are a
stepping stone coming toalpha-emitters.
However, having said this, Ithink both isotopes will have a
role in the near future.
Definitely the amount ofresearch that is ongoing on beta
emitter drugs lutetium-177,even terbium is coming right now
(39:54):
.
These are beta.
You know, copper-67, forinstance.
These are all beta emitters andthey will have a role in
medicine, but alpha emitters forsure.
I mean, because of what I justdescribed, it is very exciting
If we can resolve the issue ofsupply of the alpha ameters,
different alpha ameters, whetherit's acetine-211 or
(40:18):
actinium-225 or lead-212, weneed to have a good supply
supply and we need to expand theresearch in this area.
And, of course, there areseveral mature clinical trials
ongoing in the phase two, latephase two, completion, starting
phase three.
These are going on in alphaemitters.
But to me this is the optimaltool that we have.
(40:39):
I think we need to have higherenergy to deliver any cancer
cell.
If you can safely deliverenough radiation, you can kill
cancer cells.
The issue is that safely, Imean we need to have basically
to design theradiopharmaceutical that be so
effective on the cancer cellsbut spares the normal cells,
(41:03):
basically normal organs, etcetera.
So this is something that Ithink the field is going to go
toward more alpha therapy, butdefinitely there is a role for
beta-amino therapies as well.
Ben Comer (41:18):
And radiopharmaceuticals,
historically, you know, havetargeted a specific set of
cancers, specific type ofcancers thyroid cancer, prostate
cancer, specific neuroendocrinetumors, which you've mentioned.
But you're taking some bigswings, you know.
Beyond those specific cancertypes, what you know, what can
(41:39):
you say about the nexttherapeutic frontiers for
radiopharmaceuticals and whatyou're working on?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M. (41:46):
Well , radiomedic and Radiomedics, we
are working on several unmetneeds in oncology and the
basically top one is brain tumorthat we are working right now.
I sincerely hope that we canmake a big difference for these
patients.
Whatever we have done in thelast 20 years for brain cancer
(42:12):
patients has not reallysignificantly changed the
outcome or quality of life ofour patients.
Unfortunately, in the moreaggressive type of brain cancer
we lose the patients maybe inabout two years, in spite of
significantly affecting on theirquality of life after surgery,
chemotherapy and radiationtherapy the brain by simple IV
(42:46):
administration and deliver a bigload of radiation to the tumor
inside the body, without cuttingthe patient, without causing a
lot of side effects for thepatients.
That is sometimes worse thanthe disease itself.
So this is our goal.
We have a drug that can crossbroad brain barrier.
This is one of the challengesof treating brain tumors.
I mean it's different fromsolid tumors in the rest of the
(43:09):
body.
Brain has its own sort of aprotective layer that makes it
difficult for many drugs tocross that and gets to the brain
tumor.
So this drug that we areworking on has this capability
of crossing blood brain barrier.
We are using our best availableisot of crossing blood-brain
barrier.
We are using our best availableisotope, which is lead 2,1,2,
(43:33):
and the best ligand that hashigh affinity for GBM or brain
tumor.
So this is one.
Interestingly, the same drughas affinity for pancreatic
cancer.
So this is the next unmet needthat we have in oncology Again,
very difficult disease to treat,and I'm talking about
adenocarcinoma of the pancreas.
There is a neuroendocrineversion which is totally
(43:56):
different than this type.
So we are hoping that the nextstep to work on that.
And of course we have otherligands, like GPC3, for instance
, which works on hepatocellularcancer and some urogenital
cancers, and also we have aligand proprietary ligand for
(44:18):
prostate cancer as well that wewould like to radio label with
L212 and use that for.
So these are some of the areasthat we are working and of
course there are very excitingtargets that scientists are
looking at and we are hoping toimprove that portion the ligand,
(44:41):
the carrier of the isotope more, and I think that will be the
future frontier of nuclearmedicine.
We need to have more ligandswith more affinity to the target
and higher residence time inthe target.
I think that will be the areaof growth in nuclear medicine.
Ben Comer (45:02):
Right and which internal candidate would you say
is your lead candidate or isfurthest along at this point?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (45:10):
I mean, of course, AlphaMedix,
which we have licensed to Sanofi, that is further along.
But internally, the drug that Imentioned, we call it RMXVH.
It has affinity for low-densitylipoprotein receptor in GBM and
pancreatic cancer.
That is the highest one,followed by, you know, GPC3 and
(45:33):
prostate cancer.
Ben Comer (45:34):
At this point, and how are you thinking about scale
up?
I wanted to ask you about yourSpica manufacturing center that
you've built in Houston andmaybe you could talk a little
bit about how you think you know, how you think about scaling
these programs up as theyprogress into, you know, larger
clinical studies.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassa (45:53):
Absolutely .
I mean, that is another, as Imentioned, the third on my team,
yes, besides the, you knowpeople that really need to have
knowledgeable and manpower inthe field.
Another one is actuallymanufacturing site.
That's another thing that weneed.
(46:14):
Radio Medics started addressingthis issue in 2019.
We put together our SpicaCenter manufacturing site, which
is close to the airport inHouston 27,500 square feet of
manufacturing, seven large cleanrooms equipped with all
(46:38):
analytical.
So that's the place that we doa scale up.
That's the place that we runour let's say, we will have
enough bandwidth to make ourdrugs required for, let's say,
phase three trials.
Of course, all ourmanufacturing, all the drugs
that goes into human at thispoint, is manufactured at Spiker
(46:59):
Center, but definitelysomething like this is needed
when you're talking about tensof doses every day that you need
to do for clinical trials,phase three trials, as well as,
down the road, commercial launch.
Ben Comer (47:15):
Would you potentially consider commercializing your
own therapies?
Would you need to partner atthat point, or have you mapped
that out?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (47:26):
It depends.
Now we are, we have learned alot, of course, in what it takes
to commercialize the drug, butstill we are very open to
collaboration.
We like to see that.
You know companies that theyhave more experience than us.
Come, and we definitely welcomeyou know companies that they
have more experience than us.
Come, and we definitely welcomeyou know communication with
(47:48):
these companies and workingtogether for the commercial
phase.
We have a lot of experience inconducting clinical trials, both
on the regulatory strategy,both on the regulatory strategy,
as well as enrollment of thepatients, et cetera.
Ben Comer (48:07):
But definitely we welcome any collaboration by big
pharmas, by companies that theyhave a lot of experience in
that area.
Right, we've talked about thisa little bit, but Radiomedics is
now 20 years old as a company.
Put yourselves in the shoes ofa physician or an academic
(48:32):
scientist, you know, with a boldidea for a new therapeutic
approach, who wants to start up,you know, a biotech or a pharma
, a life sciences company?
Just thinking about your, youknow, thinking back over your
20-year journey, the challengesyou've had to overcome.
What kind of advice would yougive to someone like that, who
(48:54):
maybe has, you know, a safe andcomfortable academic job but
really sees a need out there forpatients?
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D (49:02):
Ben , this is a loaded question.
I mean a lot of stuff but Ican't do it.
Is that what you're going tosay?
But you know I can summarizesome of my experience in the
last 20 years since theinception of Radiomedic.
So number one I think I wouldlike to advise my young
colleagues start by a good legalstructure for your company.
(49:26):
Think about because this is veryimportant you need to align
yourself with a legal firm.
I know, initially, when youstart, things are you know money
is in shortage and these thingsare.
They don't come cheap.
These things are they don'tcome cheap.
(49:47):
But there are good firms thatactually understands our field
and understand their startupsand challenges that the CEO or a
CFO of a startup company has.
So they cooperate, they want toessentially lay the seeds so in
the future actually be yourpartner and then at that time
obviously there's not going tobe a problem with money.
So this is very important foryour.
(50:08):
You need to have a very solidstructure.
Think about where you want to,for instance, register your
company and what would be thestructure If you are, you know,
having stock options, forinstance.
It should be all written, allvery, you know, organized.
Basically, this is one thing.
(50:28):
The other thing is that youknow, do not sign any agreement
without really legal oversight.
I think you will see that themoney that you spent to build
that agreement, you know,whatever you pay to the
attorneys, 10 times higher foryou if you have done a good job
(50:51):
in terms of the legal agreementsand having a nice, solid
oversight by a legal counselthat they have experience in
doing these things.
Second, I think you know, hiretalented and right knowledge
people.
These are the backbone of anycompany.
This is the most valuable assetof any company People who are
(51:13):
knowledgeable.
They have good talent and also,as we discussed, passionate
passionate about your goal.
They understand, they shareyour vision, they share your you
know future that you'rethinking about.
I think the other thing is that, as the owner of the business,
(51:34):
I should say be ready to comefirst, to leave last and get
paid last.
That's the rule of the game.
If you don't want to do that, Idon't think you are right.
For this, there is a need for acertain sacrifice and, of course
, you need to have funding to dothat.
Look at the funding that isavailable to you and look at
(51:57):
your goals and the sort ofrunway that you can have.
Also, understand the unmetneeds on your field.
As we mentioned, it's veryimportant to know where is
itching to a scratch.
You need to know the unmetneeds and this is very important
(52:18):
to be successful.
We don't do in drug development.
You don't do research forresearch.
You do research to solve aproblem for the patients and
always have the end point insidewhat would label of your drug
would look like?
You need to go toward that andyou need to look at it day one
that you have this understandingyour competition extremely
(52:43):
important and also the last butnot the least, patient's welfare
.
This is a business of helpingpatients with catastrophic
illnesses.
Always have that in mind.
You want to help the patientsand always when you are
designing a clinical trial, whenyou are essentially even hiring
people, when you are allocatingresources, financial resources,
(53:07):
look at see where you can useyour dollars to the best of the
way to help the patients.
Ben Comer (53:15):
Excellent advice and, dr Delpasan, thank you so much
for coming on the show.
Dr. Ebrahim Delpassand, M.D. (53:20):
My pleasure, my pleasure, ben.
Thank you for invitation andhappy to come to your show
anytime you feel appropriate.
Ben Comer (53:29):
We've been speaking with Dr Abraham DelPassan,
founder, chairman and CEO atRadiomedics.
I'm Ben Comer and you've justlistened to the Business of
Biotech.
Find us and subscribe anywhereyou listen to podcasts and be
sure to check out new weeklyvideocasts of these
conversations every Monday underthe Business of Biotech tab at
(53:50):
lifescienceleadercom.
We'll see you next week andthanks for listening.
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