July 24, 2025 • 35 mins
Julie's brand new Big Gorgeous Goals: Official Workbook can be ordered now! Grab your copy.
Dr. Joan Fallon shares her journey from clinical practice to founding Curemark, a biotech company developing novel therapies for Autism based on her discovery of enzyme deficiencies in children with the condition. Her innovative approach challenges traditional pharmaceutical development by addressing the physiological root causes of Autism rather than just treating symptoms.
Dr. Joan Fallon, Founder and CEO of Curemark, is a visionary scientist dedicated to improving the health and well-being of children globally. Under her leadership, Curemark has developed novel therapies for diseases with limited treatment options, including a Phase III clinical program for Autism and research on Parkinson’s Disease, schizophrenia, and addiction. The company’s first drug, CM-AT, targeting autism, has earned Fast Track status from the FDA. Dr. Fallon holds over 400 patents, has authored numerous scholarly articles, and is a sought-after lecturer. Recognized as one of Goldman Sachs' Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2020 and a recipient of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in 2017, she also published her first book, Goodbye, Status Quo: Reimagining the Landscape of Innovation, in 2022. A respected business leader, doctor, and academic, Joan is passionate about sharing her insights on entrepreneurship and innovation.
You can connect with Dr. Joan Fallon on LinkedIn. You can also learn more about Curemark on their website.
You can connect with Julie on LinkedIn or Instagram.
Find Julie's writing at her blog or by ordering her book Big Gorgeous Goals and the brand new official companion workbook!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Julie (00:04):
Welcome to Figure 8, where we feature inspiring
stories of women entrepreneurswho have grown their businesses
to seven and eight figuresrevenue.
If you're in the mix of growinga bigger business, these
stories are for you.
Join us as we explore where thetough spots are, how to
overcome them and how to prepareyourself for the next portion
(00:27):
of the climb.
I'm your host, Julie Ellis.
I'm an author, entrepreneur anda growth and leadership coach
who co-founded, grew and exitedan eight-figure business.
This led me to exploring whysome women achieve great things,
and that led to my book BigGorgeous Goals.
(00:47):
Let's explore the systems,processes and people that help
us grow our businesses to newheights.
If you're interested in growingyour business, this podcast
will help.
Now let's get going.
Hello and welcome to thisepisode of Figure 8.
(01:07):
Today, I'm in conversation withDr Joan Fallon, who is the
founder and CEO of Curemark.
She's a visionary scientistdedicated to improving health
and well-being of children allaround the world, and Curemark
is developing novel therapiesfor diseases and going through
the whole process of fundraisingand FDA approvals and all of
(01:30):
the different things.
They've got a fast track statuson one of their drugs and we're
going to talk about that today,and she has been widely
recognized for her work, both asa scientist and as an
entrepreneur, and I am veryexcited to talk to her today.
Welcome, Joan.
Joan (01:47):
Thank you, Julie.
I'm honored to be here today tohave this conversation.
Julie (01:51):
Thank you so much.
I'm delighted to have you andI'm so interested to hear, I
mean, how you embarked on thisjourney, which is now coming
into being a lot of years right.
The path to having, you know,seeing a problem building a drug
going through all the approvals, even with a fast track, is, is
(02:12):
many, many years long, and sowhy don't you start with what
you identified in the, in theresearch you were doing?
Joan (02:20):
Yeah, thank you so much.
It's interesting because formany years drugs were developed
by big pharma by looking atnovel compounds and looking at
their properties ones that youcould patent and then looking at
their properties and sort ofretrofitting them into diseases,
and some of them worked welland some of them didn't work
(02:42):
well.
This is a different pathway fordiscovery and it's really true
translational medicine.
So, being in practice late 80s,early 90s, I started to see
children who had differentsymptomatology than I had been
familiar with.
So they had delayed speech andsometimes significantly delayed
(03:06):
speech, expressive language, andthey had no eye contact.
A lot of them showed, you know,obsessive, compulsive, like
behaviors, but they fit apattern that was emerging, and
so what it turns out to be isthe beginning of all these cases
of autism.
And so it was intriguing to mebecause I had not seen them in
(03:36):
the years prior to that.
But as I started to see moreand more children, what emerged
was a pattern of symptoms that,while they're categorically the
same, were not the same child tochild.
So if a child didn't have goodexpressive language, for example
, some would not speak at all,some would recite whole I call
(04:00):
them the soliloquies whole partsof movies, right like Toy Story
, or they spoke a lot but didn'thave any meaning to it.
So it was a category, but itwas different child to child,
and that's true.
It was true for all of theirsymptoms.
So they had sensory issues.
(04:20):
Some didn't like the loudnoises, some didn't like the
seams on their clothing.
But what was more similar childto child was what they ate and I
thought, huh, that can'tnecessarily be by chance.
Why would they all eat the same?
And when I say the same, it'sof course not every child, but
(04:41):
the majority of them ate highlevels of carbohydrates.
Parents described it as whitediets and tan diets.
I say what did your child eat?
And they say, oh, it's onlywhite food.
And as I looked at all of thosenumbers as they accumulated, it
was, I called it the 10 thingdiet.
It was pastas without sauce, itwas French fries, it was chips,
(05:03):
it was bagels, it was allcarbohydrate and very little
protein.
And if they had protein, a lotof it was very processed protein
.
It's like a hot dog or achicken nugget.
And so I kept thinking thatcannot be by chance.
So I worked with five childrenand their families and we did
(05:25):
blood and urine and stoolexamination to see if there was
anything protein related.
And it turned out all five ofthose children had very low
levels, like almost nascentlevels, of a particular enzyme
that digests protein.
And we tested child after child.
(05:46):
My colleagues tested childrenand we assembled a large number
and you know if, let's say,depending on the lab, the levels
were 10 or 11 or 12.
These were like 0.5, 0.2, 1.0.
So there was no mistaking thisfinding.
Julie (06:08):
So they didn't want to eat protein because when they
did, it did not make them feelgood, because they didn't
process it.
Joan (06:13):
I think, if you can't, digest it, then it feels like a
rancid piece of meat in yourstomach.
And so they were very andparents described them being
like vehemently against eatingthose things.
And children, you know, they gothrough cycles of food eating
right when they're young.
So they'll eat all of this,only want this one day and for
(06:36):
like a month.
That's all they eat, and thenthey don't want it anymore.
They want something else, andthat's pretty classic.
This was the same over manyyears and that's pretty classic.
This was the same over manyyears.
And so that finding, which wasa low level of chymotrypsin,
(06:58):
which is a enzyme that digests agreat deal of the protein, but
it breaks off the most importantamino acids and they're called
essential amino acids, and thatalways takes people back to
their high school biology classand in an essential amino acid,
you can't make it in your body.
There are other amino acidsthat you can make, but these you
can't make, and there areimportant ones like tryptophan,
(07:18):
which forms the basis ofserotonin, and phenylalanine,
which forms the basis ofdopamine, and norepinephrine,
epinephrine.
So without that, you'retheoretically at a lack of those
neurotransmitters, because youneed those things to make it.
And so it was an interestingfinding.
(07:43):
I, uh, early in that journey Iwas um at a family dinner and my
brother says to me so what'snew?
I said well, and I literallywhat I said was I found this
funky thing in these children.
He's like well, what does thatmean?
And I explained to him and hesaid well, do you think that
replacing it could help?
And I said I, I don't know, wecould test it, I don't know.
(08:06):
And he said well, look, if youthink it can help the children
with autism, you need to patentit so that it has a value, so
people will ultimately use it.
So I went down that road- whichI had never thought I would,
find myself patenting things.
But then we saw, and then, whenI've had that finding, there are
(08:28):
a lot of related conditions,such as Parkinson's, which is a
neurodegenerative condition, butit also has its origins in the
gut, and so we tested peoplewith that and, sure enough, mid
to late stage Parkinson's had asimilar finding and only, I
(08:51):
think, earlier this week or lastweek there was this big
breakthrough.
We think Autism and Parkinson'sare related.
Well, I've known that for yearsthat they're highly related,
along with other conditions,right so, like Schizophrenia and
other things.
So I think that people payattention to neurodegenerative
(09:13):
conditions.
So if you have a parent or afriend or someone who
degenerates from their normal soParkinson's, Alzheimer's, those
things people get panicked overit.
There's a lot of money thrownat research, but when there's a
neuro-developmental condition,the thing is well that kid's
(09:34):
never going to have the normaldevelopment.
So therefore, why would we putall the money into researching?
And I've written a piece, Ithink it was in Fast Company,
researching that.
And I've written a piece, Ithink it was in Fast Company,
talking about the disparity inthe NIH monies that are directed
to these conditions.
And so you know, I made thebold jump to form a company and
(10:04):
I founded the company when I hada couple of things.
One was an okay from FDA to goforward.
I hired an FDA expert and wemet with them.
I had two patents, right.
So I had the two patents and Ihad all these tests that showed
(10:26):
that these kids had thisdeficiency and again, it's not
everyone and this is not a cureto treatment.
But I embarked on looking tosee if we can help these
children.
So I formed a company and thenI had to raise money, right.
Yes, and you had to raise a lotof money right, that's right and
um, you know, fortunately thetrials for something like this,
(10:50):
which don't involve multipleblood tests and other things,
are less expensive, butnonetheless I had to raise
significant money.
And so, um I, I met a womanthrough Springboard who now
actually works for us, and shetook me up and down Sand Hill
(11:12):
Road in San Francisco, in PaloAlto, to meet with all the
venture capital people and theywere like look, we don't know
what causes autism, we don'tknow what even the outcome
measures that are the right ones.
So therefore, we're not goingto invest in autism.
And they haven't, and theystill haven't, invested in
(11:32):
treatment.
They invest in behavioraltreatments.
They buy all these centers.
Now it's a big money-makingbusiness.
But, in terms of drug, becausethere's been so much, so many
failures, big, big companieshave tried to crack that thing
and they, they haven't.
They haven't.
Mostly, I think, because theythink of it as a psychological
(11:55):
and a mental issue, and I thinkit's more of a physiological
issue.
And so, as a result of that, weembarked on these trials.
And so, as a result of that, weembarked on these trials and at
first, when I went to thedoctors who were the experts, I
thought you know I'm looking ata gut brain mechanism.
Are these psychiatrists?
Are they going to understandthat they were like yes,
(12:15):
absolutely.
We think there's other originsin the body for this, and so
they enthusiastically went intothe trials with us.
Julie (12:25):
Well, what's it like?
I mean, here you are, you knowyou're a clinician with a
practice and you know, suddenlyyou're patenting things and
becoming an entrepreneur andraising a lot of capital.
I mean, that's a really, reallybig shift.
You know, just fundamentally interms of, like, how you see
something and it kind of becomesyour life's work, and yet the
(12:49):
role changes that that's brought.
Joan (12:52):
Right.
So I had to.
I took sort of a pragmatic viewof that, and the thing about me
is that I know what I don'tknow, and I think that was very
helpful in this, because I,although I have a background in
physiology as well, I didn'tknow how to do a clinical trial,
(13:12):
and even though I wasn't goingto be we have a CRO and all of
those things I knew that ifthere were, you know, people
that were not doing well intreatment in clinical trials for
these children, I needed toknow the ethics of clinical
trials.
I needed to know a lot ofthings.
(13:32):
So Harvard mass general had aprogram that I went to.
So at one point in my life I waspracticing, I was writing
patents and I was going toschool in Boston two days a week
and, uh, and using myretirement money, yeah, right,
and to use my retirement moneyto do all of that, right, it was
all in if I was going to go in.
(13:53):
I was all in.
And and then, uh, you know, oneevening I was at friends, uh,
who I've known for years.
I was at their house and herhusband got up and went to the
drawer in the kitchen, took outa checkbook, wrote me a check
for like $300,000 and said justleave practice and go for it.
And I said okay and I did, andso, um, and it was daunting at
(14:19):
times, right, it's like I didn'tknow how to do many things.
But I had great mentors, peoplewho saw what I did, who
understood what it took to kindof leave what I was doing, what
I loved, and start something new.
And so I had terrific lawyers.
And you know, I'm not from thatbusiness world or from that
(14:43):
farmer world.
So there are things that aredone in those worlds that are
not intuitive to me.
They just weren't intuitive.
Like the later you invest money,the more preferences you get
with that money.
And in my mind, the people whoinvested in the beginning took
all the risk.
Why don't they get thepreference?
(15:05):
So I did it backwards.
I mean it's, it's really.
They get the return of theirmoney first and it's a small
amount compared to what we sortof now have a valuation of.
But I just felt like why wouldthey get rewarded later when
they didn't take the risk?
And I had phenomenal lawyersand I would say to them is there
any reason why I can't do that?
Is there something like, uh,not kosher's, something not
(15:28):
right about that?
And they're like no, it's justhow I.
You know, convention doesn'tmean anything to me If there's a
better way to do something.
Julie (15:37):
Yeah Well, and that kind of speaks to what the research
is and what it is you're doing.
So let's talk about a littlebit about patents.
So in those early days you hadthat conversation with your
brother who said patent that,and we talked about how lots of
times women if you look at thenumber of women who are pursuing
(15:59):
patents and think aboutpatenting things, it can be
quite low, right.
Joan (16:04):
That's right.
So just before the pandemic Iactually testified in front of
Congress about this and Ibelieve that that there is a
issue with women ownership oftheir own things and there's
lots of.
You know there's lots ofanecdotes out there about, for
(16:27):
example, Watson and Crick beingnot the ones who actually saw
the double helix.
You know it was the woman whoran the microscope, who
identified and wrote about itfirst, so and didn't get part of
the patent or part of the NobelPrize.
So there's a lot of that outthere.
But I think, just even on a ona regular note, women don't own
(16:50):
their own ideas, inventions,those kinds of things, and I
think it's historical.
So while patents are one of themost egalitarian processes in
this country and it's in theConstitution, right, so you can
invent something, you willforever be the inventor.
(17:12):
But there's also a person whowas the assignee who basically
owns it.
And when women patented earlyon and it was only a couple of
years after the first patent wasdone in this country that a
woman did a patent, she couldn'town it.
(17:34):
She couldn't get any of themoney from the invention.
Some male person had to do thatin her family and that lasted
until the mid-1800s, and thenthey could own their invention
as well and reap the benefitsfinancially from it.
But if that's our historicallegacy, if that's what's in our
(17:55):
past and our mother's past andtheir past and their past,
ownership of that kind of thingis not intuitive.
It wasn't intuitive to me and Ihave a brother that's, you know
, invented something very youngand then retired and you know
and did other things.
So I feel like I was exposed toit and yet it wasn't something
that I could own.
(18:16):
So I think it's very importantand also when women and
entrepreneurs in general, it's avery expensive process, so
oftentimes they leave it to thelast, to the end.
But when I went out to raisemoney, it was very important
that I had two patents.
Julie (18:36):
Yeah, I believe that, because then they know that
you're building a moat aroundwhat it is, you're protecting
what it is you've discovered.
Joan (18:44):
Yes, exactly, and even more basic than that.
Some other regulatory bodyrecognize that it's unique.
Julie (19:00):
Yes, it's not just unique in your own view and in you
know what you in the researchyou've done, it has also been
there.
But how did that organizationreally help you, in terms of
both the IP piece but thefundraising piece, especially
right?
Joan (19:18):
So the the IP piece, you know my brother was he.
He works for me now and hekeeps track of all of that,
which is great.
Keeps track of all of that,which is great.
But Springboard was founded bya woman named Kay Koplovitz, and
Kay was one of the verysuccessful women entrepreneurs
who she herself had troubleraising money.
(19:39):
She started the Madison SquareGarden Network and the USA
Network and has served on theboard from everything from you
know, from HBO to Liz Claiborne,so she's been a very prominent
woman, now investor and boardmember.
But she started this to exposewomen to sort of the right way
(20:03):
to raise money for your company,to help with your pitch deck
and all of those things.
And one of the most valuableparts of Springboard that I have
(20:43):
found is that the same thingand going through the same
struggles and you know it was avery it's been a you find
yourself in that space.
You really should go throughthe springboard training and go
to their events.
You'll learn a tremendousamount.
Julie (20:57):
Yeah, and you really do need to build that network,
because I think, also, you knowit's harder to get funding all
of the things that you talkedabout.
Get funding all of the thingsthat you talked about.
It's also like when you're awoman with a business, you're
still wearing all the other hatsthat we wear in our lives,
right, whether it's with yourparents or your kids, or you
(21:18):
know family obligations of otherkinds, and you know you're the
CEO of many things, not justyour business.
Joan (21:24):
Right, that's absolutely true and I think that the, the
camaraderie that comes from thatis very helpful.
And you know, like I have one,one person who say I have this
great investor who just made aninvestment.
I think he'd be perfect for youor she'd be perfect for you.
Let me make an intro.
And you know, and alwayslooking out for the other one
(21:47):
which I think is really reallyimportant, yeah, well, and the
other thing you know, and alwayslooking out for the other one
which I think is really reallyimportant.
Julie (21:50):
Yeah, well, and the other thing of course that happens is
you know.
You have, then an awareness ofwho's coming up behind you, and
when do you get to a point whereyou can start investing in the
people that are coming up?
To right, I mean there's acycle that starts to be able to
develop.
Joan (22:04):
Yeah, and that's a very important thing.
And so people ask me all thetime to invest in their
companies, which I'm able to doin little bits.
I'm like I'm still anentrepreneur.
I get it, I got this big thinggoing on, but it's, I'm still an
entrepreneur.
Julie (22:21):
So yeah, and so take us back now to you.
Started with clinical trialsand you've been jumping through
all of the many hoops on yourway to an approval, but it is.
It's a very long road that isvery expensive.
Joan (22:36):
Right, it's very expensive , it's very long, and the the
thing that you need to keep inmind is that entrepreneurship is
full of ups and downs,constantly, right, and so if
you're on the down, you know theup is coming, and I've learned
to ride that kind of wavebecause it's happened over and
(22:56):
over and over again for me, andyou need to have a lot of
tenacity.
I mean people.
I've heard in the last twoweeks more people say to me you
have perseverance like I haven'tseen.
I said, well, I have a mission,right, I see that this is.
I've done the clinical trial, Isee that it's helpful and now
(23:18):
we have to get it approved andwe have to get it out to the
kids.
My thing is has always beencause I would never want to see
myself as a pharma person or abiotech.
I would never want to seemyself as a pharma person or a
biotech.
I always said I went kickingand screaming into biotech and
so.
But now I've traveled the globeand I was, you know, in the
last eight weeks I was in Qatarand China, where the problem is
(23:42):
the same, and so they need thathelp as well.
So our tagline in the companyis it's all about the kids and
it's about getting this to them.
Yeah.
Julie (23:56):
And how does it work in terms of like?
Obviously the FDA is regulatingthe drug within the United
States, but it's also a worldknown body.
Is it like the gateway for drugapprovals or like how does that
part work for you?
Joan (24:12):
That's a great question.
In some countries it's thegateway.
In other countries they requireyou to do some level of trial
there, depending on the on whereyou're going, and so I think
that getting this approved herewill be helpful in many
(24:34):
countries and some.
We need to help them go throughthe approval.
So there's some countries, likeChina, where we can't go in and
do clinical trials.
We need a Chinese pharmacompany to do that and we would
have a partner and and and uh,and we're in the process of
doing that now and is meetingwith the companies and selecting
a partner and picking up, yeahyeah, picking a partner who can
(24:57):
get it to their children.
I've met with the physiciansthere.
I met with physicians in themiddle east, where there's a
very high number of kids withAutism and um, they understand
this and they, they want thismore than anything for their
kids.
Julie (25:13):
Well, and I think I have some notes of those Autism rates
, from 1 in 500, down to 1 in350, to now 1 in 31.
I mean, that's pretty startlingreally.
Joan (25:26):
It is.
It is, and I think that many ofthe other countries that report
lower rates actually arecatching up and they recognize
that.
Julie (25:37):
Yeah, and so now, how do drugs go to market?
I mean, obviously, once you,once you get that approval,
somebody's got to make the drug,right.
So is that another partnershipfor you.
Joan (25:52):
Well, it's a partnership now in any case.
So we don't make the drug right.
We, we outsource thismanufacturing.
We had a lot of challenges inthe beginning because of the
kids.
The kids have lots of sensoryissues, right.
So they're, you know, so sortof the thickness of the drug
(26:12):
it's a sprinkle on food, it's alittle packet you sprinkle on
the food so they can't swallow apill.
So when you're giving it to athree-year-old that they can
sprinkle on their food, thesizing of the particles had to
be such that they couldn'tdetect it on their tongue.
We had to have it tasteless andwe had to have it delivered in a
(26:33):
part of the gut that priorthere's been no drug to do that
right.
So we had it because we weretargeting protein digestion.
It had to be done very early inthe GI tract and so it had to
get through stomach acid andthen be able to be released.
So it had to get throughstomach acid and then be able to
be released.
So we had to kind of scour theglobe to find a coating that
(26:56):
would work.
But the other thing is that wedon't have any extraneous with
the enzyme and we have thislipid coating, so it's a oil
coating and when it's spun athigh speeds and high
temperatures becomes a solidaround the enzyme.
And so we solved a lot ofproblems in the very early time
(27:16):
because I didn't want a drugthat had like dyes and extenders
and all those things that arein every drug, not ours.
And we have given, in theseclinical trials and the
extension of the clinical trial,which still goes on today, over
1.2 million doses of the drugand with you know, we had no, no
(27:38):
related serious adverse eventsat all in over 12 years of
giving this drug.
So it's safe.
I mean, I couldn't sleep thewhole time we were doing trials
because I was always worried,you don't know.
You know we believed it wassafe, we believe that we had,
but you don't know.
Julie (27:56):
Yeah, and now you talk about so do you have
participants who have actuallybeen involved over a lot of
years at that point?
That must be really interestingto track them.
I mean, you're not intolongitudinal studies yet, but
like you will get there.
Joan (28:14):
Right, yeah, so as you bring that up, we did what they
call a delayed start analysis,and so what that does is look at
long-term results.
So very often you go throughthe double blind and you get
efficacy, but if you go out alittle further it reverts back,
and that's true with a lot ofdrugs that they found.
(28:36):
So this particular analysis,which tracks the drug over time,
delineates between symptommodifying and disease, or we
call disorder modifying.
So if you have a double blindwhere the drug has more efficacy
and then you give the placebosthe drug, sometimes they then
(29:02):
look exactly like thedrug-treated children.
That's a symptom modifying.
But if you have a result wherethe continuation of the
improvement is there but theplacebo lags behind the
drug-treated children from theearlier part of the study, then
(29:22):
you know you have a diseasemodifying, and we published
those results in JAMA at the endof 2023.
Julie (29:30):
Oh, that's so interesting , so we know that it's a lasting
effect.
Joan (29:34):
And again, these kids are all different, right, and they
all started different kinds of.
Some are very severe, some hadless severe, but they all had
Autism.
We had to triple screen them toget them in, so we paid a lot
of attention to who they wereand what they had to not take
during the trial.
(29:54):
So, for example, we counted 37off-label prescription drugs
that these kids were taking whenthey showed up for the trial.
And then they come off of thembecause we couldn't a lot of
ADHD drugs and other things, sothey had to wash out and then
they can come into the trial.
Julie (30:12):
So right, because otherwise your results are
modified potentially right.
So fascinating, so fascinatingand so I think, world changing
really.
I mean getting into this final.
You know you're in the finalstretch now and I think it's
going to be really interestingto see how this can change and
(30:33):
improve lives for people.
Joan (30:37):
And it's a different paradigm and I think that that
paradigm not only will helpthese children but will help
other biotechs and other pharmasto look at things a little bit
differently.
Because you know, traditionallypsychiatric drugs are like one
molecule, one receptor.
They go in there and that's itWith a lot of off.
(30:59):
You know off target sideeffects, right, and so this is a
improving a lack or a missingpart of the biology, the
physiology of the child.
So looking at that in adifferent way, I think is really
important.
Julie (31:16):
Yeah, and I mean, and I don't know, is it you know?
Is it that as women, we look atthe world a little differently?
And and your curiosity aboutyou know that connection that
was different than how otherpeople would have looked at it.
I mean, it started a greatjourney, that's for sure, but it
is that interesting piece right.
Of what does it take forsomeone to have that different
(31:38):
viewpoint.
Joan (31:40):
So I think there are two things.
One is that I looked at it froma deductive viewpoint rather
than an inductive.
So allopathic medicine is allinductive.
You have symptoms, you put themtogether, you have a diagnosis,
you get a treatment.
But here were these kids whohad deficits or differences.
Why did they have thosedifferences is a deductive model
(32:04):
, so we took a deductive findingand put it through a very
inductive clinical trial process, and so that's different.
And the other thing is thatvery often entrepreneurs are
afraid of risk.
We're all afraid of risk,period right, and so I think
it's something that guides allof our behaviors.
(32:25):
But both of my parents someoneasked me a long time ago why are
you and your brother bothentrepreneurs?
How did that happen?
Him very early and me very late?
And I said, you know, myparents were both.
My mother was an actuary and myfather was a big lines
underwriter for like Lloyds ofLondon and AIG, and so risk was
(32:49):
something you managed.
It wasn't something you wereafraid of In those professions.
You are managing risk.
So they were never afraid ofrisk, right?
They just knew that you had tomanage it correctly.
Julie (33:03):
That's so interesting.
Joan (33:04):
It's very important.
I try to teach people otherentrepreneurs about risk.
Julie (33:08):
Yes, well, and I mean certainly you know the risk of
not taking the risk Right Likethere is that you know that it
never can happen, right Like ifyou had not been able to, you
know take that investment andleave clinical practice if you
had not like that.
Just that risk of you know it'staken you out with a very full
(33:32):
time effort this long to getthis far.
You know you would have not madethat progress if you hadn't
taken those calculated risks.
Joan (33:40):
Yeah, right, and you know I, as I said, I went kicking and
screaming into biotech but Ihad to do it because if I didn't
do it I would never know right,you would never know if it
could have helped these childrenno and I'm sure, it's changed
your life also oh, completely,yeah, completely.
And and I think that the journey, you know, doors open all the
(34:04):
time.
Like you're thinking, I'm onthe down cycle, what happens?
And the next thing, you know, Iget a call or an email from
someone saying, hey, I wouldreally like to meet you.
I heard about what you're doingor I'm somewhere, so it just
it's in a bit.
It's been an amazing journeyand and the people I have met
throughout this time have beenhave taught me something all the
(34:25):
time.
Julie (34:26):
So good, so good.
Well, it's been really greattalking to you and I can't wait
to hear when the drug getsapproved and how you are making
a difference for even morepeople in this world.
It's a great story and thankyou for sharing.
Thank you.
Joan (34:42):
Yeah, I'll come back on here after it's approved.
Julie (34:43):
I would love that very much.
All right.
Thanks, Joan.
Joan (34:48):
Great.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Julie (34:52):
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Please remember to hitsubscribe on your favorite
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(35:13):
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(35:34):
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See you again soon for anotherepisode of Figure 8.
Welcome to Figure 8, where we feature inspiring
stories of women entrepreneurswho have grown their businesses
to seven and eight figuresrevenue.
If you're in the mix of growinga bigger business, these
stories are for you.
Join us as we explore where thetough spots are, how to
overcome them and how to prepareyourself for the next portion
(00:27):
of the climb.
I'm your host, Julie Ellis.
I'm an author, entrepreneur anda growth and leadership coach
who co-founded, grew and exitedan eight-figure business.
This led me to exploring whysome women achieve great things,
and that led to my book BigGorgeous Goals.
(00:47):
Let's explore the systems,processes and people that help
us grow our businesses to newheights.
If you're interested in growingyour business, this podcast
will help.
Now let's get going.
Hello and welcome to thisepisode of Figure 8.
(01:07):
Today, I'm in conversation withDr Joan Fallon, who is the
founder and CEO of Curemark.
She's a visionary scientistdedicated to improving health
and well-being of children allaround the world, and Curemark
is developing novel therapiesfor diseases and going through
the whole process of fundraisingand FDA approvals and all of
(01:30):
the different things.
They've got a fast track statuson one of their drugs and we're
going to talk about that today,and she has been widely
recognized for her work, both asa scientist and as an
entrepreneur, and I am veryexcited to talk to her today.
Welcome, Joan.
Joan (01:47):
Thank you, Julie.
I'm honored to be here today tohave this conversation.
Julie (01:51):
Thank you so much.
I'm delighted to have you andI'm so interested to hear, I
mean, how you embarked on thisjourney, which is now coming
into being a lot of years right.
The path to having, you know,seeing a problem building a drug
going through all the approvals, even with a fast track, is, is
(02:12):
many, many years long, and sowhy don't you start with what
you identified in the, in theresearch you were doing?
Joan (02:20):
Yeah, thank you so much.
It's interesting because formany years drugs were developed
by big pharma by looking atnovel compounds and looking at
their properties ones that youcould patent and then looking at
their properties and sort ofretrofitting them into diseases,
and some of them worked welland some of them didn't work
(02:42):
well.
This is a different pathway fordiscovery and it's really true
translational medicine.
So, being in practice late 80s,early 90s, I started to see
children who had differentsymptomatology than I had been
familiar with.
So they had delayed speech andsometimes significantly delayed
(03:06):
speech, expressive language, andthey had no eye contact.
A lot of them showed, you know,obsessive, compulsive, like
behaviors, but they fit apattern that was emerging, and
so what it turns out to be isthe beginning of all these cases
of autism.
And so it was intriguing to mebecause I had not seen them in
(03:36):
the years prior to that.
But as I started to see moreand more children, what emerged
was a pattern of symptoms that,while they're categorically the
same, were not the same child tochild.
So if a child didn't have goodexpressive language, for example
, some would not speak at all,some would recite whole I call
(04:00):
them the soliloquies whole partsof movies, right like Toy Story
, or they spoke a lot but didn'thave any meaning to it.
So it was a category, but itwas different child to child,
and that's true.
It was true for all of theirsymptoms.
So they had sensory issues.
(04:20):
Some didn't like the loudnoises, some didn't like the
seams on their clothing.
But what was more similar childto child was what they ate and I
thought, huh, that can'tnecessarily be by chance.
Why would they all eat the same?
And when I say the same, it'sof course not every child, but
(04:41):
the majority of them ate highlevels of carbohydrates.
Parents described it as whitediets and tan diets.
I say what did your child eat?
And they say, oh, it's onlywhite food.
And as I looked at all of thosenumbers as they accumulated, it
was, I called it the 10 thingdiet.
It was pastas without sauce, itwas French fries, it was chips,
(05:03):
it was bagels, it was allcarbohydrate and very little
protein.
And if they had protein, a lotof it was very processed protein
.
It's like a hot dog or achicken nugget.
And so I kept thinking thatcannot be by chance.
So I worked with five childrenand their families and we did
(05:25):
blood and urine and stoolexamination to see if there was
anything protein related.
And it turned out all five ofthose children had very low
levels, like almost nascentlevels, of a particular enzyme
that digests protein.
And we tested child after child.
(05:46):
My colleagues tested childrenand we assembled a large number
and you know if, let's say,depending on the lab, the levels
were 10 or 11 or 12.
These were like 0.5, 0.2, 1.0.
So there was no mistaking thisfinding.
Julie (06:08):
So they didn't want to eat protein because when they
did, it did not make them feelgood, because they didn't
process it.
Joan (06:13):
I think, if you can't, digest it, then it feels like a
rancid piece of meat in yourstomach.
And so they were very andparents described them being
like vehemently against eatingthose things.
And children, you know, they gothrough cycles of food eating
right when they're young.
So they'll eat all of this,only want this one day and for
(06:36):
like a month.
That's all they eat, and thenthey don't want it anymore.
They want something else, andthat's pretty classic.
This was the same over manyyears and that's pretty classic.
This was the same over manyyears.
And so that finding, which wasa low level of chymotrypsin,
(06:58):
which is a enzyme that digests agreat deal of the protein, but
it breaks off the most importantamino acids and they're called
essential amino acids, and thatalways takes people back to
their high school biology classand in an essential amino acid,
you can't make it in your body.
There are other amino acidsthat you can make, but these you
can't make, and there areimportant ones like tryptophan,
(07:18):
which forms the basis ofserotonin, and phenylalanine,
which forms the basis ofdopamine, and norepinephrine,
epinephrine.
So without that, you'retheoretically at a lack of those
neurotransmitters, because youneed those things to make it.
And so it was an interestingfinding.
(07:43):
I, uh, early in that journey Iwas um at a family dinner and my
brother says to me so what'snew?
I said well, and I literallywhat I said was I found this
funky thing in these children.
He's like well, what does thatmean?
And I explained to him and hesaid well, do you think that
replacing it could help?
And I said I, I don't know, wecould test it, I don't know.
(08:06):
And he said well, look, if youthink it can help the children
with autism, you need to patentit so that it has a value, so
people will ultimately use it.
So I went down that road- whichI had never thought I would,
find myself patenting things.
But then we saw, and then, whenI've had that finding, there are
(08:28):
a lot of related conditions,such as Parkinson's, which is a
neurodegenerative condition, butit also has its origins in the
gut, and so we tested peoplewith that and, sure enough, mid
to late stage Parkinson's had asimilar finding and only, I
(08:51):
think, earlier this week or lastweek there was this big
breakthrough.
We think Autism and Parkinson'sare related.
Well, I've known that for yearsthat they're highly related,
along with other conditions,right so, like Schizophrenia and
other things.
So I think that people payattention to neurodegenerative
(09:13):
conditions.
So if you have a parent or afriend or someone who
degenerates from their normal soParkinson's, Alzheimer's, those
things people get panicked overit.
There's a lot of money thrownat research, but when there's a
neuro-developmental condition,the thing is well that kid's
(09:34):
never going to have the normaldevelopment.
So therefore, why would we putall the money into researching?
And I've written a piece, Ithink it was in Fast Company,
researching that.
And I've written a piece, Ithink it was in Fast Company,
talking about the disparity inthe NIH monies that are directed
to these conditions.
And so you know, I made thebold jump to form a company and
(10:04):
I founded the company when I hada couple of things.
One was an okay from FDA to goforward.
I hired an FDA expert and wemet with them.
I had two patents, right.
So I had the two patents and Ihad all these tests that showed
(10:26):
that these kids had thisdeficiency and again, it's not
everyone and this is not a cureto treatment.
But I embarked on looking tosee if we can help these
children.
So I formed a company and thenI had to raise money, right.
Yes, and you had to raise a lotof money right, that's right and
um, you know, fortunately thetrials for something like this,
(10:50):
which don't involve multipleblood tests and other things,
are less expensive, butnonetheless I had to raise
significant money.
And so, um I, I met a womanthrough Springboard who now
actually works for us, and shetook me up and down Sand Hill
(11:12):
Road in San Francisco, in PaloAlto, to meet with all the
venture capital people and theywere like look, we don't know
what causes autism, we don'tknow what even the outcome
measures that are the right ones.
So therefore, we're not goingto invest in autism.
And they haven't, and theystill haven't, invested in
(11:32):
treatment.
They invest in behavioraltreatments.
They buy all these centers.
Now it's a big money-makingbusiness.
But, in terms of drug, becausethere's been so much, so many
failures, big, big companieshave tried to crack that thing
and they, they haven't.
They haven't.
Mostly, I think, because theythink of it as a psychological
(11:55):
and a mental issue, and I thinkit's more of a physiological
issue.
And so, as a result of that, weembarked on these trials.
And so, as a result of that, weembarked on these trials and at
first, when I went to thedoctors who were the experts, I
thought you know I'm looking ata gut brain mechanism.
Are these psychiatrists?
Are they going to understandthat they were like yes,
(12:15):
absolutely.
We think there's other originsin the body for this, and so
they enthusiastically went intothe trials with us.
Julie (12:25):
Well, what's it like?
I mean, here you are, you knowyou're a clinician with a
practice and you know, suddenlyyou're patenting things and
becoming an entrepreneur andraising a lot of capital.
I mean, that's a really, reallybig shift.
You know, just fundamentally interms of, like, how you see
something and it kind of becomesyour life's work, and yet the
(12:49):
role changes that that's brought.
Joan (12:52):
Right.
So I had to.
I took sort of a pragmatic viewof that, and the thing about me
is that I know what I don'tknow, and I think that was very
helpful in this, because I,although I have a background in
physiology as well, I didn'tknow how to do a clinical trial,
(13:12):
and even though I wasn't goingto be we have a CRO and all of
those things I knew that ifthere were, you know, people
that were not doing well intreatment in clinical trials for
these children, I needed toknow the ethics of clinical
trials.
I needed to know a lot ofthings.
(13:32):
So Harvard mass general had aprogram that I went to.
So at one point in my life I waspracticing, I was writing
patents and I was going toschool in Boston two days a week
and, uh, and using myretirement money, yeah, right,
and to use my retirement moneyto do all of that, right, it was
all in if I was going to go in.
(13:53):
I was all in.
And and then, uh, you know, oneevening I was at friends, uh,
who I've known for years.
I was at their house and herhusband got up and went to the
drawer in the kitchen, took outa checkbook, wrote me a check
for like $300,000 and said justleave practice and go for it.
And I said okay and I did, andso, um, and it was daunting at
(14:19):
times, right, it's like I didn'tknow how to do many things.
But I had great mentors, peoplewho saw what I did, who
understood what it took to kindof leave what I was doing, what
I loved, and start something new.
And so I had terrific lawyers.
And you know, I'm not from thatbusiness world or from that
(14:43):
farmer world.
So there are things that aredone in those worlds that are
not intuitive to me.
They just weren't intuitive.
Like the later you invest money,the more preferences you get
with that money.
And in my mind, the people whoinvested in the beginning took
all the risk.
Why don't they get thepreference?
(15:05):
So I did it backwards.
I mean it's, it's really.
They get the return of theirmoney first and it's a small
amount compared to what we sortof now have a valuation of.
But I just felt like why wouldthey get rewarded later when
they didn't take the risk?
And I had phenomenal lawyersand I would say to them is there
any reason why I can't do that?
Is there something like, uh,not kosher's, something not
(15:28):
right about that?
And they're like no, it's justhow I.
You know, convention doesn'tmean anything to me If there's a
better way to do something.
Julie (15:37):
Yeah Well, and that kind of speaks to what the research
is and what it is you're doing.
So let's talk about a littlebit about patents.
So in those early days you hadthat conversation with your
brother who said patent that,and we talked about how lots of
times women if you look at thenumber of women who are pursuing
(15:59):
patents and think aboutpatenting things, it can be
quite low, right.
Joan (16:04):
That's right.
So just before the pandemic Iactually testified in front of
Congress about this and Ibelieve that that there is a
issue with women ownership oftheir own things and there's
lots of.
You know there's lots ofanecdotes out there about, for
(16:27):
example, Watson and Crick beingnot the ones who actually saw
the double helix.
You know it was the woman whoran the microscope, who
identified and wrote about itfirst, so and didn't get part of
the patent or part of the NobelPrize.
So there's a lot of that outthere.
But I think, just even on a ona regular note, women don't own
(16:50):
their own ideas, inventions,those kinds of things, and I
think it's historical.
So while patents are one of themost egalitarian processes in
this country and it's in theConstitution, right, so you can
invent something, you willforever be the inventor.
(17:12):
But there's also a person whowas the assignee who basically
owns it.
And when women patented earlyon and it was only a couple of
years after the first patent wasdone in this country that a
woman did a patent, she couldn'town it.
(17:34):
She couldn't get any of themoney from the invention.
Some male person had to do thatin her family and that lasted
until the mid-1800s, and thenthey could own their invention
as well and reap the benefitsfinancially from it.
But if that's our historicallegacy, if that's what's in our
(17:55):
past and our mother's past andtheir past and their past,
ownership of that kind of thingis not intuitive.
It wasn't intuitive to me and Ihave a brother that's, you know
, invented something very youngand then retired and you know
and did other things.
So I feel like I was exposed toit and yet it wasn't something
that I could own.
(18:16):
So I think it's very importantand also when women and
entrepreneurs in general, it's avery expensive process, so
oftentimes they leave it to thelast, to the end.
But when I went out to raisemoney, it was very important
that I had two patents.
Julie (18:36):
Yeah, I believe that, because then they know that
you're building a moat aroundwhat it is, you're protecting
what it is you've discovered.
Joan (18:44):
Yes, exactly, and even more basic than that.
Some other regulatory bodyrecognize that it's unique.
Julie (19:00):
Yes, it's not just unique in your own view and in you
know what you in the researchyou've done, it has also been
there.
But how did that organizationreally help you, in terms of
both the IP piece but thefundraising piece, especially
right?
Joan (19:18):
So the the IP piece, you know my brother was he.
He works for me now and hekeeps track of all of that,
which is great.
Keeps track of all of that,which is great.
But Springboard was founded bya woman named Kay Koplovitz, and
Kay was one of the verysuccessful women entrepreneurs
who she herself had troubleraising money.
(19:39):
She started the Madison SquareGarden Network and the USA
Network and has served on theboard from everything from you
know, from HBO to Liz Claiborne,so she's been a very prominent
woman, now investor and boardmember.
But she started this to exposewomen to sort of the right way
(20:03):
to raise money for your company,to help with your pitch deck
and all of those things.
And one of the most valuableparts of Springboard that I have
(20:43):
found is that the same thingand going through the same
struggles and you know it was avery it's been a you find
yourself in that space.
You really should go throughthe springboard training and go
to their events.
You'll learn a tremendousamount.
Julie (20:57):
Yeah, and you really do need to build that network,
because I think, also, you knowit's harder to get funding all
of the things that you talkedabout.
Get funding all of the thingsthat you talked about.
It's also like when you're awoman with a business, you're
still wearing all the other hatsthat we wear in our lives,
right, whether it's with yourparents or your kids, or you
(21:18):
know family obligations of otherkinds, and you know you're the
CEO of many things, not justyour business.
Joan (21:24):
Right, that's absolutely true and I think that the, the
camaraderie that comes from thatis very helpful.
And you know, like I have one,one person who say I have this
great investor who just made aninvestment.
I think he'd be perfect for youor she'd be perfect for you.
Let me make an intro.
And you know, and alwayslooking out for the other one
(21:47):
which I think is really reallyimportant, yeah, well, and the
other thing you know, and alwayslooking out for the other one
which I think is really reallyimportant.
Julie (21:50):
Yeah, well, and the other thing of course that happens is
you know.
You have, then an awareness ofwho's coming up behind you, and
when do you get to a point whereyou can start investing in the
people that are coming up?
To right, I mean there's acycle that starts to be able to
develop.
Joan (22:04):
Yeah, and that's a very important thing.
And so people ask me all thetime to invest in their
companies, which I'm able to doin little bits.
I'm like I'm still anentrepreneur.
I get it, I got this big thinggoing on, but it's, I'm still an
entrepreneur.
Julie (22:21):
So yeah, and so take us back now to you.
Started with clinical trialsand you've been jumping through
all of the many hoops on yourway to an approval, but it is.
It's a very long road that isvery expensive.
Joan (22:36):
Right, it's very expensive , it's very long, and the the
thing that you need to keep inmind is that entrepreneurship is
full of ups and downs,constantly, right, and so if
you're on the down, you know theup is coming, and I've learned
to ride that kind of wavebecause it's happened over and
(22:56):
over and over again for me, andyou need to have a lot of
tenacity.
I mean people.
I've heard in the last twoweeks more people say to me you
have perseverance like I haven'tseen.
I said, well, I have a mission,right, I see that this is.
I've done the clinical trial, Isee that it's helpful and now
(23:18):
we have to get it approved andwe have to get it out to the
kids.
My thing is has always beencause I would never want to see
myself as a pharma person or abiotech.
I would never want to seemyself as a pharma person or a
biotech.
I always said I went kickingand screaming into biotech and
so.
But now I've traveled the globeand I was, you know, in the
last eight weeks I was in Qatarand China, where the problem is
(23:42):
the same, and so they need thathelp as well.
So our tagline in the companyis it's all about the kids and
it's about getting this to them.
Yeah.
Julie (23:56):
And how does it work in terms of like?
Obviously the FDA is regulatingthe drug within the United
States, but it's also a worldknown body.
Is it like the gateway for drugapprovals or like how does that
part work for you?
Joan (24:12):
That's a great question.
In some countries it's thegateway.
In other countries they requireyou to do some level of trial
there, depending on the on whereyou're going, and so I think
that getting this approved herewill be helpful in many
(24:34):
countries and some.
We need to help them go throughthe approval.
So there's some countries, likeChina, where we can't go in and
do clinical trials.
We need a Chinese pharmacompany to do that and we would
have a partner and and and uh,and we're in the process of
doing that now and is meetingwith the companies and selecting
a partner and picking up, yeahyeah, picking a partner who can
(24:57):
get it to their children.
I've met with the physiciansthere.
I met with physicians in themiddle east, where there's a
very high number of kids withAutism and um, they understand
this and they, they want thismore than anything for their
kids.
Julie (25:13):
Well, and I think I have some notes of those Autism rates
, from 1 in 500, down to 1 in350, to now 1 in 31.
I mean, that's pretty startlingreally.
Joan (25:26):
It is.
It is, and I think that many ofthe other countries that report
lower rates actually arecatching up and they recognize
that.
Julie (25:37):
Yeah, and so now, how do drugs go to market?
I mean, obviously, once you,once you get that approval,
somebody's got to make the drug,right.
So is that another partnershipfor you.
Joan (25:52):
Well, it's a partnership now in any case.
So we don't make the drug right.
We, we outsource thismanufacturing.
We had a lot of challenges inthe beginning because of the
kids.
The kids have lots of sensoryissues, right.
So they're, you know, so sortof the thickness of the drug
(26:12):
it's a sprinkle on food, it's alittle packet you sprinkle on
the food so they can't swallow apill.
So when you're giving it to athree-year-old that they can
sprinkle on their food, thesizing of the particles had to
be such that they couldn'tdetect it on their tongue.
We had to have it tasteless andwe had to have it delivered in a
(26:33):
part of the gut that priorthere's been no drug to do that
right.
So we had it because we weretargeting protein digestion.
It had to be done very early inthe GI tract and so it had to
get through stomach acid andthen be able to be released.
So it had to get throughstomach acid and then be able to
be released.
So we had to kind of scour theglobe to find a coating that
(26:56):
would work.
But the other thing is that wedon't have any extraneous with
the enzyme and we have thislipid coating, so it's a oil
coating and when it's spun athigh speeds and high
temperatures becomes a solidaround the enzyme.
And so we solved a lot ofproblems in the very early time
(27:16):
because I didn't want a drugthat had like dyes and extenders
and all those things that arein every drug, not ours.
And we have given, in theseclinical trials and the
extension of the clinical trial,which still goes on today, over
1.2 million doses of the drugand with you know, we had no, no
(27:38):
related serious adverse eventsat all in over 12 years of
giving this drug.
So it's safe.
I mean, I couldn't sleep thewhole time we were doing trials
because I was always worried,you don't know.
You know we believed it wassafe, we believe that we had,
but you don't know.
Julie (27:56):
Yeah, and now you talk about so do you have
participants who have actuallybeen involved over a lot of
years at that point?
That must be really interestingto track them.
I mean, you're not intolongitudinal studies yet, but
like you will get there.
Joan (28:14):
Right, yeah, so as you bring that up, we did what they
call a delayed start analysis,and so what that does is look at
long-term results.
So very often you go throughthe double blind and you get
efficacy, but if you go out alittle further it reverts back,
and that's true with a lot ofdrugs that they found.
(28:36):
So this particular analysis,which tracks the drug over time,
delineates between symptommodifying and disease, or we
call disorder modifying.
So if you have a double blindwhere the drug has more efficacy
and then you give the placebosthe drug, sometimes they then
(29:02):
look exactly like thedrug-treated children.
That's a symptom modifying.
But if you have a result wherethe continuation of the
improvement is there but theplacebo lags behind the
drug-treated children from theearlier part of the study, then
(29:22):
you know you have a diseasemodifying, and we published
those results in JAMA at the endof 2023.
Julie (29:30):
Oh, that's so interesting , so we know that it's a lasting
effect.
Joan (29:34):
And again, these kids are all different, right, and they
all started different kinds of.
Some are very severe, some hadless severe, but they all had
Autism.
We had to triple screen them toget them in, so we paid a lot
of attention to who they wereand what they had to not take
during the trial.
(29:54):
So, for example, we counted 37off-label prescription drugs
that these kids were taking whenthey showed up for the trial.
And then they come off of thembecause we couldn't a lot of
ADHD drugs and other things, sothey had to wash out and then
they can come into the trial.
Julie (30:12):
So right, because otherwise your results are
modified potentially right.
So fascinating, so fascinatingand so I think, world changing
really.
I mean getting into this final.
You know you're in the finalstretch now and I think it's
going to be really interestingto see how this can change and
(30:33):
improve lives for people.
Joan (30:37):
And it's a different paradigm and I think that that
paradigm not only will helpthese children but will help
other biotechs and other pharmasto look at things a little bit
differently.
Because you know, traditionallypsychiatric drugs are like one
molecule, one receptor.
They go in there and that's itWith a lot of off.
(30:59):
You know off target sideeffects, right, and so this is a
improving a lack or a missingpart of the biology, the
physiology of the child.
So looking at that in adifferent way, I think is really
important.
Julie (31:16):
Yeah, and I mean, and I don't know, is it you know?
Is it that as women, we look atthe world a little differently?
And and your curiosity aboutyou know that connection that
was different than how otherpeople would have looked at it.
I mean, it started a greatjourney, that's for sure, but it
is that interesting piece right.
Of what does it take forsomeone to have that different
(31:38):
viewpoint.
Joan (31:40):
So I think there are two things.
One is that I looked at it froma deductive viewpoint rather
than an inductive.
So allopathic medicine is allinductive.
You have symptoms, you put themtogether, you have a diagnosis,
you get a treatment.
But here were these kids whohad deficits or differences.
Why did they have thosedifferences is a deductive model
(32:04):
, so we took a deductive findingand put it through a very
inductive clinical trial process, and so that's different.
And the other thing is thatvery often entrepreneurs are
afraid of risk.
We're all afraid of risk,period right, and so I think
it's something that guides allof our behaviors.
(32:25):
But both of my parents someoneasked me a long time ago why are
you and your brother bothentrepreneurs?
How did that happen?
Him very early and me very late?
And I said, you know, myparents were both.
My mother was an actuary and myfather was a big lines
underwriter for like Lloyds ofLondon and AIG, and so risk was
(32:49):
something you managed.
It wasn't something you wereafraid of In those professions.
You are managing risk.
So they were never afraid ofrisk, right?
They just knew that you had tomanage it correctly.
Julie (33:03):
That's so interesting.
Joan (33:04):
It's very important.
I try to teach people otherentrepreneurs about risk.
Julie (33:08):
Yes, well, and I mean certainly you know the risk of
not taking the risk Right Likethere is that you know that it
never can happen, right Like ifyou had not been able to, you
know take that investment andleave clinical practice if you
had not like that.
Just that risk of you know it'staken you out with a very full
(33:32):
time effort this long to getthis far.
You know you would have not madethat progress if you hadn't
taken those calculated risks.
Joan (33:40):
Yeah, right, and you know I, as I said, I went kicking and
screaming into biotech but Ihad to do it because if I didn't
do it I would never know right,you would never know if it
could have helped these childrenno and I'm sure, it's changed
your life also oh, completely,yeah, completely.
And and I think that the journey, you know, doors open all the
(34:04):
time.
Like you're thinking, I'm onthe down cycle, what happens?
And the next thing, you know, Iget a call or an email from
someone saying, hey, I wouldreally like to meet you.
I heard about what you're doingor I'm somewhere, so it just
it's in a bit.
It's been an amazing journeyand and the people I have met
throughout this time have beenhave taught me something all the
(34:25):
time.
Julie (34:26):
So good, so good.
Well, it's been really greattalking to you and I can't wait
to hear when the drug getsapproved and how you are making
a difference for even morepeople in this world.
It's a great story and thankyou for sharing.
Thank you.
Joan (34:42):
Yeah, I'll come back on here after it's approved.
Julie (34:43):
I would love that very much.
All right.
Thanks, Joan.
Joan (34:48):
Great.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Julie (34:52):
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Please remember to hitsubscribe on your favorite
podcast platform so you won'tmiss any episodes.
Figure 8 isn't just a podcast.
It's a way of seeing the big,gorgeous goals of women
entrepreneurs coming to life.
If you're interested inlearning more, you can find my
(35:13):
book Big Gorgeous Goals onAmazon, anywhere you might live.
For more about my growth andleadership training programs,
visit www.
juliellis.
ca to see how we might worktogether.
Read my blog or sign up to getyour free diagnostic.
Are you ready for growth?
(35:34):
Once again, that's www.
julieellis.
ca.
When we work together, we allwin.
See you again soon for anotherepisode of Figure 8.
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