October 1, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode, we discuss the 2025 MassBio Industry Snapshot — an annual report tracking employment trends, investment, real estate, and pipeline activity across the life sciences ecosystem.
With talent displacement, funding cuts, and lab vacancies reshaping the landscape, the conversation zeroes in on how biopharma companies should rethink efficiency. Instead of defaulting to layoffs and budget slashing, Lawrence and Oscar explore how operational clarity, thoughtful prioritization, and workflow discipline can unlock more resilient organizations.
Key topics include:
- What efficiency actually means in a biopharma context (hint: it’s not just spending less)
- How real estate patterns reveal deeper shifts in R&D priorities
- The ripple effects of NIH cuts and disappearing IPOs on the innovation pipeline
- Why “free agent” scientists might drive the next wave of value creation
- Strategic considerations for biopharma teams navigating funding volatility
Whether you’re an operator, executive, or early-career scientist, this episode offers a grounded yet hopeful take on where the industry is headed — and how to adapt.
🔗 Listen now to learn why the next generation of leaders will need more than scientific chops — they’ll need systems thinking.
Join the book waitlist: https://mailchi.mp/sigmalabconsulting/nexus-email-series-lander-2
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
So I I I think most people know what Mass Bio does.
I I thought they were forprofit, but they're nonprofit,
and they charge like asubscription and they have these
events and conferences.
So they do a lot of reportsaround stuff that's happening in
the industry.
And so this one was specificallyaround employment, investment,
the drug development pipeline,real estate, and regional
(00:21):
metrics.
So we're in New England, whichis a hub, and then you have San
Francisco and then San Diego.
And I think Raleigh down southis another hub.
The research triangle.
Yeah.
Research triangle.
And I think even to a lesserextent, the Chicago area is also
a place.
And so I I think they try topaint a really uh at least from
(00:46):
what I read, I don't know whatyou thought of it.
It seemed like they were very uhpessimistic about some things,
but also optimistic about otherthings.
There was a lot of it pointingto funding, a lot of buildings
being empty, and then there'sall this uncertainty over the
workforce.
We've seen how many layoffs likeevery week.
(01:07):
There's always some headline.
The numbers are way differentthan a couple years ago when
people started getting laid offin this post-COVID era.
SPEAKER_00 (01:16):
So we are talking about the 2025 industry snapshot
released by Mass Bio.
This was released um justearlier this summer, and it
really takes a look at what 2024has done.
And in some of these uh areasalso takes a look at what has
transpired in the first half of2025 uh in a few of these
(01:39):
categories.
And I think what you arehighlighting here is that
sometimes there is a lag,especially with relation to the
federal funding and those sortof cuts that have been
happening.
This is addressed by the CEO andpresident Kendall O'Connell,
where it looks to be that thingsare holding steady.
However, we have not yet reallyfelt the full impact of what the
(02:02):
reduction in federal fundingthat has happened earlier this
year as a result of uh changingfederal administration policies.
We haven't quite fully capturedhow big of an issue this is
going to be.
You know, there's a lot ofestimates.
There's uh some people have somecompanies have preemptively laid
off large amounts of staff foreither reasons specific to, hey,
(02:25):
we're jumping into AI and we'recutting out this whole arm, or
other groups that havecompletely shifted uh their
research.
And then you have a number thatjust don't have the pipeline to
maintain their current employeestatus, their level of employee
engagement, when they'reexpecting federal funding to
(02:47):
disappear.
I mean, that's really what'shappening.
They they happen so quickly.
I'm I have friends that havebeen caught in this from early
doge cuts to tantrist withvarious organizations and
academic sites that have reallycontributed to this.
And there's lack of funding whenwe stop looking at the federal
government, we start looking atVC funding.
There's even been a lack of thatkind of funding.
(03:09):
There's not a lot of VCs, IPOsshrank last year.
So that's usually a sign of howhealthy the pipeline is of new
companies, new research, newinvestments.
Um, we've talked about thisbefore.
There was at one point a hugeboom related to selling gene
therapy, and then it's tooexpensive, it's too complicated,
(03:31):
it's too hard, we don't have theright the right resources.
There's not enough of it.
So people start shedding thosethings out and renting out those
facilities.
I think there's a lot of to takein here.
And like you said, it thissnapshot tackles industry
employment, industry investment,drug development pipeline, and
in the real estate.
Low points are not understated.
(03:54):
Uh, you know, the the job growthis virtually non existent.
Increases in vacancies inlaboratories and facilities
across the state, across theregion, but but that also gives
people hope that when it doesbounce back, and there have been
some recent acquisitions andrecent mergers, which I don't
(04:16):
know, we'll see how that affectsthe workforce.
Um, it's a really importantsnapshot that we're lucky that
we were able to acquire this.
This is something that they doprovide as part of their
contribution to science.
It is a nonprofit.
So you can look this up anddownload a copy of it yourself.
Why don't we go through some ofthis industry uh employment
here?
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
Yeah, so there are a couple of different areas that
we can talk about.
Let's talk about talent andsustainability.
We'll we'll mix up the order ofthe topics that then MassBio's
view is that the state ofMassachusetts is obviously the
the hub of the majority of thetalent in the industry.
Um, you know, there are just aton of companies out here, a lot
(04:59):
of universities, a lot ofhospitals, and for a long time
the state has just been knownfor that, right?
One of the things as I wasreading through the report is is
the state set up in a way thatit will continuously retain the
talent that exists in this area?
(05:21):
Do people live here and work atthese companies because the
companies reside here?
And if that's not the case, ifthe companies start to drift out
of the state, or is the talentpool going to start to diminish
or are people going to move out?
We have an extremely high costof living in this area.
I don't think it's to anybody'ssurprise that Massachusetts is
(05:45):
one of the most expensive statesto live in.
When we think about even peoplein in our generation,
millennials, a lot of usstruggled to buy a home.
Um, a lot of us are stillrenting, you know, there's a lot
of student debt out there.
Then you have the the generationbelow us that's struggling
(06:05):
through this as well.
Tuition has only gone up, thecost of living has gone up.
And so the the question is, whatis the trajectory of the state
as it as it relates to talentwhen when we consider all of
these factors, right?
So do you think that the talentsfollow the company or is it the
other way around?
And and how do you see this highcost of living really impacting
(06:28):
the long-term sustainability ofthe state?
Because it's not making it anyeasier for people to live here,
I think, is is what I have felt.
SPEAKER_00 (06:35):
I think there's a couple perspectives to answer
that question.
I think right now,Massachusetts, based on this
report, basically controls 23%of the RD workforce in the U.S.
It's huge.
23% of the people that work inRD biopharma are working within
Massachusetts.
Now, we've seen some of thesereturn to office policies.
(06:57):
There have been some emptylaboratories, empty office
buildings.
Um, I've been to some of thosewith the clients that we have,
uh, where you go in there andmaybe experience, you know, 30
to 40% of the workforce actuallybeing in office.
And so you're starting to seesome of these mandates come in,
some with new rules with how faryou live away, et cetera.
But I think what what wasinteresting to me was to examine
(07:22):
the real estate related toregions within Massachusetts.
So there are, they haveidentified rating system
developed to determine uh amunicipality's readiness to host
biotechnology facilities basedon the community's zoning
practices and infrastructurecapacity.
So when you start to look atthat, the amount of areas, the
(07:45):
amount of towns that have beenidentified as different metals,
platinum, gold, silver, bronze,they are expansive far beyond
Boston, Cambridge, maybeBurlington.
I mean, we're talking areas,even out here toward Devons.
I live close to Devons, where uhthere's Bristol Meyer Squib and
(08:05):
a couple of other folks outthere, that is continuing to
expand.
There is sort of thisavailability that seems to be
expanding outside of the greaterBoston area.
You do bring a very good pointthat the cost of living, and not
even just the cost of living,but the cost of maintaining a
business over there in the cityof Boston or the city of
(08:27):
Cambridge is far more expensivethan any of the surrounding
regions.
But you can even see as you lookinto some of the largest leases
for 2024, out there's Bostondoesn't show up.
Cambridge shows up a few times.
Then you talk Waltham,Lexington, Somerville,
Watertown.
(08:49):
These are areas that are nowstarting to bleed outside of the
Boston area.
So perhaps we may see morecompanies start sprouting in
various areas of the state,there's at least some
opportunity there that allowsyou to live in the suburbs like
I do and still be able to have auh a decent commute that doesn't
(09:10):
take you two hours to get toyour job or to get to a client.
So although academic research uhfunding, uh federal funding has
um in some ways completelystopped, I don't believe that
that is enough to halt academicresearch.
(09:30):
I think we'll see a big dip inthe workforce that comes from
academic research, which couldbe bad right now.
There are, you know, when arethe days going to be coming
where we see uh PhDs inbiopharma artificial
intelligence, for example, orwhat's the next technology that
(09:51):
Harvard, MIT, Boston University,uh uh University of
Massachusetts, like all ofthese, how how many universities
are in that Boston area?
It's like 20, 23, 24, somethinglike that.
All of these universities areour source of the academic
research that ultimatelybusinesses end up pulling into
(10:12):
more lucrative and and moreinnovative RD programs and
projects.
So um I think people are gonnacontinue to come here.
I think the availability forwhere you can live, I think is
gonna start to open up.
I think the challenge that we'rehaving is seeing the, and I
don't have the data to show it,but the types of workforce that
(10:34):
has been eliminated.
If you go for cell and genetherapy, now your options are
very limited.
If you are working on anything,unfortunately, even if you're
working with chain transgenicmice, apparently, funding has
disappeared for that, eventhough it has no nothing to do
with the LGBTQ community.
You know, there are things thatjust have shaken the industry.
(10:57):
And there's a lot of people outthere that have moved into
consulting and are trying to usetheir experience to turn
directly into a consultant.
But as you and I know from ourthree years of doing this, it
takes more than just you beingan expert in your field.
So I think there is a lot moreopportunity that could be coming
(11:21):
into this region.
I know that there's also beengrants being made available by
the likes of the UK to allow forvisas for scientists to go
across the water.
That may be a source foracademic research for the next
couple of years.
However, recognizing thepressure that the current
(11:42):
administration is putting on thecost of drugs within the UK,
which has their own set ofregulations, has their own set
of caps for how much medicinescan cost, is actually not the
best business move for theselarger organizations to have
sites out there.
That's going to be reallyinteresting to see what that
(12:04):
really turns out to.
SPEAKER_01 (12:05):
I'll just make this last point about the talent pool
before we move on toinfrastructure and commercial
real estate.
So I think a lot of it is reallytied to housing.
And then obviously, I think ascompanies open up positions in
certain areas, we all know thatthere's a massive pool of people
that are on the sidelines thatare, you know, if there's an
opportunity somewhere, they'rethey're going to apply for it,
(12:25):
they're going to be workingthere.
And then this idea that peopleare going to leave the state, I
think, is probably not as likelybecause when you consider the
alternatives, okay, are theygoing to move to the other hubs?
Right?
Probably not, because that's areally big commitment to move
down south to the West Coast.
And it's it's more of a factthat it's the hub is expanding
and maybe not so much condensedin the greater area of Boston
(12:49):
and and also Cambridge, right?
And then let's move on to uhinfrastructure and real estate.
So I think one of the uhfindings that uh they reported
is that there's an additional1.1 million square feet of lab
and GMP space that came onlinesince the the last snapshot
(13:09):
report, which brings the totalto about 63 million square feet.
And the vacancy rate is around27.8% as at the time of this uh
report being put out.
And so, you know, the the waythat I look at it is, you know,
do companies needs need thismuch space, or were developers
overcompensating for what theirprojections were and basically
(13:34):
purchasing large plots of land,creating these spaces where um
companies could lease it out oror even perhaps purchase the
property.
And for for the companies thatare in their spaces now, are
they less likely to move becausetheir lease contracts are more
favorable than the the newerones that are out?
(13:56):
So maybe that's a reason whypeople are moving into these
updated spaces.
There's some tie-in to thefunding piece, right?
Because as companies are layingoff, technically you need less
space.
So that explains some of thevacancy.
But it's cheaper rent.
It's it's really hard to figureout if the vacancy is a result
of the developers building toomuch, or is it really that the
(14:20):
capacity of the area isdecreasing, right?
Because you can you can havegreater vacancy if you just
build more, but you can alsohave greater vacancy because you
don't need as much space.
And so it's it's it's a verytricky thing to look at.
So when we think about companiesmoving into a space or e even
working in their own space, howhow much of it has to do with
(14:42):
whatever they're researching orwhatever they're manufacturing?
But are they looking at otheropportunities again outside of
the city to move out and and andmaybe that explains some of the
vacancy that you're seeing?
Right.
So how do you see the the realestate piece of of this snapshot
as it relates to the industry?
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
So that's a good question.
You know, one one of the one ofthe challenges of this report is
that many of the numbers areeither in relation to uh what
are they seeing potentiallytrending in 2025 based on the
things that have happened in2024.
So a lot of the facts andfigures that you're finding in
this report are looking at theearliest 2023, 2024, 2025.
(15:30):
Now, when we look at the realestate component of it, they're
showing graphs that go all theway far back as 2015.
So when you look and understandthe vacancy rate, part of the
questions that I had for thiswas understanding during this
time, what did the rate of IPOslook like?
(15:50):
What did the rate of new uhfunding look like?
You know, we're pretty steady umover the last uh two years.
And and I say pretty steady, Imean if you're talking about
shifts, you may realize thatwe're talking about shifts of
like a percent, uh maybe apercent or two or a percent and
a half, something like that.
(16:11):
Um, but depending on what valueyou're talking about, that could
be a couple thousand in theworkforce or you know, five new
vacancies, for example.
Um, but what I noticed here isuh there was there was a dip,
right?
There was a vacancy dip aroundCOVID and just after COVID.
And then that vacancy justcontinued to climb.
(16:32):
So what is there's gonna be afactor of that?
Well, clearly working from homeis gonna change that.
Probably not for the RD space.
I mean, this is specific to GMPinventory.
Uh, the shift from the uh celland gene therapy, the shift from
other manufacturing intensivedrugs.
(16:54):
Uh, you know, these are theseare systems that are built out,
and if they work out, they workout great.
If they don't work out, you shutit down and you try to rent out
the space.
You know, I think from myexperience of living in this
area since 2013, there has beenthis steady increase of
companies that split and developother entities, new mergers, new
(17:19):
acquisitions.
It was a little bit of a spike,but roughly from 2015 all the
way through the end of 2022,this region did not experience
more than 5% vacancy.
And then it shot up to right nowwhere it is at almost a 30%
vacancy.
(17:39):
There's a couple things thatcould have happened in there
working from home, eliminatingtherapeutics from a pipeline
that they are now not using, notleveraging.
As you mentioned before, sort ofuh these real estates.
Um, what is the average termwe're talking about?
Um, you know, three, maybe fiveyears.
So where were those businesses?
(18:02):
You know, when did thosebusinesses start?
Um were there a lot of 2017,2018, boom, they got into places
and it didn't really work outafter five years, so it just
sort of became vacant.
Um, there's a lot of newlaboratory spaces that have
started to sprout outside of theBoston area.
Waltham, Watertown, Lexington,and some of those, to your
(18:27):
point, from developers are stillyet to be filled.
There are available spaces, andI think people are battling with
the desire to be in the thick ofit.
Why?
Because there are events thathappen, there are communities
that happen within KendallSquare, within areas of
(18:47):
Cambridge, you know, things likethat where you don't really
experience if you have a lab inNewton.
You're by yourself.
Lexington's starting to have alittle bit of a hub.
Worcester is starting to grow,especially through uh the MBI,
the the mess um biotechinitiatives that are supporting
early budding.
(19:08):
It's an incubator spacesupporting those uh those
businesses.
We see the inventory has alsogone up in that time frame.
Looks like here around 60%, andthe vacancy rate has gone up
like 80.
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
You brought up another point.
As companies are changing theirpipelines, the space
requirements are gonna changetoo, right?
So if you're developing a spacespecific for, say, cell engine
therapy, would be clean roomsand other support areas are set
up in that way versus if you'redoing something related to
biologics or or small molecule,those spaces are gonna change.
(19:45):
And we have like newer platformscoming out.
So perhaps the vacancy isattributed to these spaces not
being designed for these thingsthat are coming out, or maybe a
shift in where the industry isgoing.
And so people are looking atthese spaces and going, well, I
don't need this space because itdoesn't meet the needs of what
my portfolio is moving towards.
(20:05):
So that's another explanationfor why we're seeing this.
Portfolios are changing.
This is obviously directly tiedto funding, right?
So you brought up in in thebeginning about the NIH cuts and
and so this funding versusproductivity thing.
I think MassBio's view, and itsounds like your view too, is
that when we have less funding,there's less innovation.
(20:27):
I have a different viewpoint.
Obviously, funding is good forthe ecosystem because it allows
us to uh attach dollars tocertain initiatives and
projects, and so people cancontinue doing their research
and other things that indirectlyor directly contribute to the
progress of the industry.
But how, you know, I think myquestion here is how do we
(20:49):
measure productivity, not justin the funding of dollars, but
when we look at drug approvals,we look at rejections, we look
at how many companies arereceiving citations or
inspections from the FDA andthey find something.
That isn't so much measured indollars, but if you're doing
research and the the ultimategoal is to get something to
market, right?
(21:09):
And so how do we look at thatfrom the lens of funding?
Because funding could be itrequires people to be more
disciplined about the spendingitself.
And so you're able to narrow thefocus on your priorities, right?
Because when you give peoplelots of money, they're not gonna
be spending it correctly.
SPEAKER_00 (21:28):
Yeah.
That's part of where I was gonnago with this, is that there's a
couple different areas here infunding.
They talk about, you know, someof the VC backed financing
rounds.
I mean, it looks like the at thehighest of last year was uh 207
uh million C.
Uh, and then there's a coupleSeries A's around 50 million.
So the funding is happening.
(21:48):
It's going to some newbusinesses.
I don't see anything really, butfrom my engagement with some of
these really complex businessesthat have large portfolios,
there is this rat race thatstill exists in various
capacities across varioustherapeutics, where you're
(22:09):
trying to build a big portfolioin the beginning and hopefully
have the discipline to start toshave off some of these programs
that are not in line with thatend goal of being in a clinic,
being an asset that you can sellor license or partner, uh,
(22:31):
because that's ultimately wherea lot of these businesses are
looking to do.
The big businesses, hey, if wecan eliminate all that RD stuff
that doesn't get us money andjust buy one of these that's
already, you know, 90% waythrough the development process,
we're gonna choose to do that.
So we're looking at smallcompanies getting big funding.
(22:54):
And unless you have thediscipline to really stay
focused on the one or two thatcan really drive, um, but that
doesn't really happen.
We want to hedge our bet.
So what do we do?
We start seven projects, eightprojects, nine projects.
What do you think happens tothose budgets as they move along
(23:17):
through the different phases ofdevelopment?
You rarely have enough to do thethings that you need to do.
So as you mentioned, these youknow, FDA, these these issues
that prevent companies fromreaching that next stage, are
those things due to not havinggood budget practices at the
(23:39):
organization?
Have you measured up against,well, we said we were gonna do
10 million and we spent 11.5?
Or is it we said we're gonnaspend 10 million and we added a
year and another six million?
And so what happens at the veryend, your data is only as strong
as the things that you've beenable to actually do.
(23:59):
And of course the science has towork out.
But how often do you find thatbusinesses are in projects deep
into the into the phases ofdevelopment, and you start
shaving experiments because,well, we can't do that because
that's too much, or the leadtime's too long, and we have to
(24:21):
get something by this time.
So you scrape together whatcould be a package and hopefully
get that through.
But then you miss those criticalpoints that you could have done,
you know, before.
I think sometimes we look atresearch and saying, what can we
do with this with the money thatwe have?
And it needs to be a little bitmore of like what has to happen.
(24:43):
If you have a focus and thethings that have to happen to
really give that the best shotof going into the clinic, of
getting a partner, of getting alicensor, if your funding isn't
there, are we taking too manyrisks by saying let's get
started and then we'll find morefunding for it?
I've seen that fall through thecracks.
Uh, I was just talking to aformer colleague.
(25:04):
I didn't even get my severancebecause the VC wanted their
money back.
So instead of moving through thepipeline and adding more
funding, we had to liquidate andgive them all of our money.
That just happened.
SPEAKER_01 (25:16):
Yeah, and I'm I'm I'm torn in I could see what you
mean by if if you're continuingdown this road and and you need
the funds to further thedevelopment of the research.
I think the question that thatcomes to mind is when I look at
the the private industry, right?
We don't we would never toleratehere's a bunch of funding for
(25:39):
certain projects, and the goalis to develop it and so that the
idea is that it becomes tomarket, right?
That is not the incentive forthe academia side.
Because they're they're notlooking for a return on
investment.
What is the goal then of, youknow, let's say you do get a
grant from the NIH forresearching a specific uh
(26:01):
modality and whatevertherapeutic, like what is the
goal of the funding then?
SPEAKER_00 (26:07):
Well, it's usually going to depend on the series.
So is it a seed fund where youhave 50 million and you need
that to build your workforce andto establish your processes and
start to create some of that,some of those assets that you
want to develop?
Is it a series A B C thateventually you want to get that
to land you into a clinicaltrial?
(26:29):
Or the other question is, isthat even in your in your remit
as a company, as a business?
Because once you enter clinicaloperations, your budget just
explodes with the amount ofresources needed to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (26:44):
So these people, hey, I'm not talking about the
funding as it relates to aprivate company.
I'm talking about when when a PIgets a grant from the NIH.
What is the like goal of that,right?
Because at a company level, weunderstand what that is.
Like you're scaling, you'retrying to grow the product, and
you go into the clinic and thenyou become commercial and then
(27:05):
you you make more product,right?
For the patients out there.
But I think it's a little bitmore obscure, at least to me,
from when you receive federalfunding, like the academic
institution receives it.
You probably have a handful ofvery well-known PIs that take
this money and then decide whatareas they want to do the
research in.
(27:26):
And then perhaps there's abridge between the university
and the VC community thatbridges the academic institution
with the industry, right?
So that you can actually bringit to market.
And that that makes total sense.
It's it in academia, when thegovernment says, hey, here's a
bunch of money to spend on thisthing, what is the goal of that
PI?
It's not building, it's notbuilding a product.
(27:48):
It's not building a product.
SPEAKER_00 (27:50):
Unfortunately, unfortunately, I think I think
that is the current mentality ofgovernment spending, that it
should, although government'sfor the people, it's not
supposed to be for-profit.
Neither is public funding,neither is academic funding.
Academic funding is usually asource to develop more insights,
to develop an understanding ofhow this system actually
(28:13):
function with a treatment thatI'm developing.
I was working on a project onHIV work, and there are uh two
receptors where HIV actually uhcan turn into a more aggressive
form of HIV because it willspecifically bind to a certain
receptor and creates thisexplosion of disease that
(28:36):
eventually turns into AIDS.
There's nothing that is set instone that says, oh, HIV gets
worse when you try to treat it.
And we were exploring like whatis happening with why people's
uh disease is converting to nowreally target this other
(28:56):
receptor.
It's a CCR5 receptor and a CXCR4receptor.
Some of the research hasadvanced since then.
This was uh years ago when I wasdoing academic research.
Um, but the work that I wasdoing was trying to pressure the
virus to evolve on its own as aform of survival.
(29:16):
So I would treat a specificvirus that only targeted CXCR5,
uh CCR5 receptor, and I wouldcontinue to treat it and I would
treat it enough that I didn'tkill it.
And then what happened?
We saw this switch for receptorpreference.
Much more research was neededafter that, but it started to
show there is a possibility thatwhen you are treating, that you
(29:40):
are not killing the virus, youare giving it the opportunity to
evolve into a more aggressiveform.
So HIV is something that has uhbetter treatments now, um, which
are usually a cocktail toprevent a couple of different
things from happening.
Um, but that's much of academicresearch, whether it's federally
funded.
Or coming from cancerorganizations, men's health,
(30:03):
women's health, et cetera, is onthat level of discovery.
And then where does Big Pharmapick it up?
Big Pharma scrapes all theresearch that's available,
figures out what's hot, what'snot, what is potentially going
to be coming down the pipeline,what's going to be a therapeutic
area that people are sleeping onthat has a lot of potential.
(30:23):
And we found the research thatreally positions this project as
a worthwhile endeavor for us tocreate a therapeutic, a drug,
uh, you know, a medicine for it.
Uh so when when you're lookingat that academic research, it is
more on the understanding ratherthan we're gonna produce an
(30:46):
asset at the end of it.
You may do that at some point,but you can definitely have
figured out well, when wedeactivate this ligand receptor
complex, the cell dies, it doesthis, or it stops moving or
something.
And so there's a variety ofthings, but I I think a lot of
it is is in discovery of theseare we these grants are for
foundational science that uh forthings that we don't know, we
(31:10):
don't have any clue.
We need those foundations inorder for the businesses to pull
them into assets.
SPEAKER_01 (31:17):
Right.
So there's there's definitelyvalue in the information
bridging that um the theresearch that these companies
aren't able to do, and a lot ofthat basic science is developed
at the university level.
These they get funding from thefrom the government or or any of
these organizations that arenonprofits that are funneling uh
funds to these PIs that aredoing very meaningful research
(31:38):
that ends up um going into theindustry at at some point if if
if it's something that they canuse.
Maybe the incentive is reallythese um reproducible studies
that have some sort ofconclusion or maybe not a
conclusion about whatever theythey worked on.
And then the question is for me,how much funding is enough?
(32:00):
Because we say that, okay, thecuts are gonna really
drastically impact the industry.
So what is enough funding?
Now the it's the bigger picture,right?
Because it the NIH funding is istaxpayer money.
You have this newadministration, they have
different priorities, you havedifferent things you want to
(32:22):
spend your money on.
I think that's why Doge came in,because they're spending way too
much money.
We need to figure out where tocut things and and where to
allocate the resources for otherinitiatives that is is on the
agenda for the administration,right?
That's such a hard question toanswer, which is how much
funding is is needed.
And then the other thing is ifthere's more funding for this,
(32:44):
then we have to sacrificesomewhere else.
It's been all over the the news,the the national uh deficit.
Yeah.
We owe a lot of money and andit's growing.
So we have to take these cuts.
When these cuts happen, are weto be more disciplined about how
we spend the money, or is therenothing that we can do?
We gotta be very selective aboutthe research that go that goes
(33:07):
on because when we ask formoney, it just takes away from
other things, right?
Yes, we're probably spendingmoney on things that we
shouldn't be spending money onfrom the federal level.
The other point I'll make is isit transparent how the funding
gets distributed from the NIH?
Are they looking at all thedifferent grants and they're
going, okay, I think we need tofocus more on this rather than
(33:28):
these things?
How is it at a portfolio level?
Is that how it's managed, or isit not managed like that at all?
And it's really just submittedapplication, and then there's a
panel of scientists that figureout if this is feasible and then
they give the grant.
Like, how does that work?
SPEAKER_00 (33:42):
I don't have the exact answer for that, but I I
can say that um the the way thatthe NIH is structured is that
they are split based on the typeof science.
Is this a biologic, is this amedical device, is this for
cancer, is this, you know,infectious diseases has a whole
different group.
So um it's possible that theycome together and then they say,
(34:04):
okay, infectious diseases, youget 10%.
Whatever our full budget is, youget 10%, you get, you know, 6%,
you get five, you get, you know,nine.
Um, but there are different secthere there are different
sections within the NIH thatmanage all the grants that are
coming for that purpose and andand where the money is going.
(34:25):
Um I think if I could just addone of the interesting points of
this report is how they definethe biopharma industry.
Um, it's not just RD andmanufacturing.
There are um testinglaboratories, there are RD and
physical engineering, lifesciences, biotechnology and
nanotechnology, colleges anduniversities, medical
(34:45):
laboratories, general medicaland surgical hospitals,
psychiatric and substance abusehospitals, and other specialty
hospitals as well.
So the the range in which thefunding is going out, there's a
spray impact of what happenedwhen this funding disappeared.
It affected all of them, really,depending on if their research
(35:06):
aligned with with the thecurrent administration's
perspective of what researchshould be done.
Um what is that based on?
Who knows?
Gut, perhaps.
SPEAKER_01 (35:17):
Like, how do we how do we look at how these
different organizations aresupposed to respond as as a
result of these cuts, right?
Do you step back and you startcutting programs?
Like how do you as a a PI or anacademic institution, how do you
prioritize where you're puttingyour money, even at a company
level, if there's less researchbeing done in this area, does
(35:40):
that mean the future of yourpipeline is now at risk because
you don't have that foundationalscience available for you to
further develop your product,right?
Like all of these things areinterrelated in some way.
There's there's gotta be, Iwould hope, that each one of
these pieces in the in the valuechain is looking at a way to
(36:00):
prioritize how they're spendingtheir money.
And when there are cuts, theyknow when to dial back, and then
when there's more funding, theyknow when to dial up.
And it's not just this superfragmented system where people
aren't really disciplined abouthow they're spending their
money, I guess is my point here.
SPEAKER_00 (36:17):
Well, where would you expect to spend your money?
Think about a personal thinkabout you have all this money
and all of a sudden your salarygot cut or you got laid off and
now you have a new job.
And now you have a new job thatdoesn't pay as much.
So what do you do?
Well, the essential stuff.
So what would you consideressential research?
Probably the things that arefurther along.
(36:39):
Why?
Because they're the closest inthe pathway to becoming an asset
that generates revenue.
Okay, if we just think aboutthis from a business
perspective.
So you'll see that money and andwhat happens from the beginning,
from an ideation, from an ideato run a project with an asset
all the way through clinics, uh,it it is it is a ramp that
(37:03):
continues to get steeper interms of how much capital you
need to get to that next stage.
And that's sort of what you canexpect with these different
funding rounds.
It's like, okay, well, we have,you know, one read in ideation,
we have three that um areconcepts, and we have two, one's
(37:24):
getting close to an IND, andwe're almost close to
determining if this is acandidate for us.
So you have to split the moneyamongst that.
You can the bulk of your moneyis gonna go to the stuff that's
downstream.
But you still need a lot ofmoney to get things off the
ground.
It's not you're not gonna do it.
You're not gonna do it with amillion dollars.
(37:45):
You know, so the the reality isthat you you'll need the
additional funding.
Do not like the way that theword efficiency has been thrown
around because efficiency is notcutting it off.
That's like saying, hey, I'mgonna be efficient with my home
expenses and we're just gonnaget rid of our uh air
conditioning and heating units.
That's not being efficient,that's cutting an arm off and
(38:08):
saying, okay, well, now I'm justgonna take care of everything
else.
Like, well, you havefoundational things that you
have to have, where we are theindustry of free lunches and
cafeteria spending and andcoffee, which can obviously send
people into an uproar if youtake their coffee.
So this is not suggesting that.
Um, but when you start to lookaround and you say, okay, well,
(38:32):
what budget do you put formarketing?
How many people are you sendingto those conferences?
Are those conferences reallywhat's driving the brand
recognition?
You know, start to reallyexamine where are you spending
the money and why does thatmatter?
Why, why is that important tothe end goal?
(38:54):
And you have to have alignmentfor that.
It's not just determining what'staking the most money and
cutting it.
SPEAKER_01 (39:03):
Yeah, I think to your point, yes, money is not
the only thing that is relatedto efficiency.
And this is the business thatwe're in, is how people work
together.
And I would think that there area lot of workflows that need to
be tightened up and they need tobe simplified in a way that you
can do more with less money andless time to drive some of those
(39:27):
additional funding rounds andand and again being more
disciplined about where you'reputting your money.
At a macro level, I think whenthose cuts come, and and they
have come to different parts ofour industries, to do nothing
and to wait for more funding isthe worst thing you can do.
Right?
You you have to start lookinginternally and going, okay, this
(39:47):
just happened.
We gotta strap ourselves in andjust be very disciplined about
how we're spending our money.
SPEAKER_00 (39:52):
What's your plan if this happens again before you
get more funding?
Yeah.
Are you gonna change yourresearch trajectory because it
supports the direction of theadministration and you might
have an opportunity to getfunding during this four-year
(40:12):
timeframe?
Or do you continue going basedon your mission and vision for
your business, for your companyof what you guys stood for?
You know, and then therein lies,are we dealing with shareholders
or VC, or is this a publicly runcompany that now is dealing with
more stuff?
All of those have to be takeninto consideration.
(40:35):
When I go back and I look atthis report, um, when it comes
to the infrastructure to take inwhenever the science boom
happens, I think we have most ofit there.
When is that boom gonna happen?
When we are almost 30% capacity,and I went back and I looked at
the report.
The funding from the NIH, theIPOs, all of these things spiked
(41:00):
around 2019, 2020, 2021, whichis when vacancies were at their
lowest.
IPOs over the last three years,including 2020, there have been
one IPO in 2025 in the firsthalf.
Six all of 2024, two of 2023,eight in all of 2022.
(41:22):
And in 2020 and 2021, there were21 and 25 IPOs, respectively.
So a sharp decrease right afterthis explosion, right when the
vacancies were at their lowest.
(41:46):
So perhaps we had differentexpectations of what was going
to happen in the industry andCOVID, research challenges,
funding challenges.
I don't think there's really achallenge in the workforce
because it's there.
There's programs out there thatare training people.
(42:07):
There's thousands of people inthe Boston area that are
positioned, that areintelligent, that have
successful research, um, thatmay have been just caught in the
crossfire.
That's gonna take time to getthe trade moving again.
SPEAKER_01 (42:23):
Right, recovering.
When you were reading thisreport at the end of it, are you
more optimistic or pessimistic?
We have what, a couple moremonths to the end of the year,
and then 2026 is around thecorner.
I know when I read the beginningof this report, I think I was
(42:44):
skeptical in a sense because itit really paints a gloom
picture, and and there's alittle narrative around look,
less funding, things areexpensive, people are getting
laid off.
And it's it's not even just areport, it's we're bombarded
with this on LinkedIn, likeeverywhere, right?
You always see these headlines,and and then so-and-so is at a
(43:04):
hearing, and they're notdeciding to overturn this, or
this is not getting fundedanymore.
And it can get really um achange in vaccine mandate?
SPEAKER_00 (43:13):
You don't think that's gonna change all these
businesses that thrive on beingable to produce vaccines for so
many people in this country?
SPEAKER_01 (43:24):
To end the this this episode here, what are you most
positive about as a result ofyou know, looking at the
snapshot and and looking at theother things that are going on
in the industry and theheadlines and even your clients?
Because I I want to leave on apositive note and just not you
know paint this picture of, oh,everything is terrible.
And and I'll go first and tellyou that I think that yes,
(43:48):
there's there's less funding,yeah, there are a lot of people
getting laid off, yes, there's alot of vacancies, but the story
that isn't being told enough isthat we have a lot of talent on
the sidelines.
I I think when people are putinto a corner, they're they're
gonna respond by creating thingsof their own.
(44:09):
And I think there's gonna be alot of value creation that comes
from people that are in thosepositions now that maybe you are
applying to jobs, maybe you'reworking in a smaller company now
and it's a change.
But it's the the fact thatthings are being changed and and
the outlook isn't as as positiveas it once was, is that it's
forcing people to be reflectiveof what do I want to do with my
(44:30):
career?
What do I want to do with thisidea that I have?
Am I gonna build a business?
Am I gonna sit on the sidelines?
You can decide on what you wantto do, and that's something that
I think is gonna be reallypositive coming out of this, is
that there's gonna be a swarm ofnew companies that are gonna be
more disciplined, they're gonnabe using AI-driven tools to grow
(44:51):
their companies that are we'regonna need less funding than
before to develop what we needto develop because of all these
new tools that are out.
And I think that is somethingthat I'm very positive on,
despite all of the negativeheadlines that you're seeing.
SPEAKER_00 (45:05):
What am I feeling positive on?
I think um I think Massachusettsis gonna continue to be a major
contender, uh, not just in theUS, but globally.
The infrastructure is here, theinnovation is here.
I agree with you in the sensethat uh this gives the
opportunity for people to startquestioning things, start trying
(45:27):
to find out what what what arewhat are you beyond the the
science that you know?
There's more to you as a personthan the letters that come after
your name, your thought process,your uh capability to understand
you know large complex datasets.
Like this is all beyond justhaving a specific skill set or
(45:49):
knowledge base um, you know,type of science.
Uh I think there's anopportunity to explore other
funding mechanisms.
Now, this would actually besomewhat difficult.
What's happening now is thatit's not so much that VCs are
stopping funding because we'veheard recently this year, I
(46:10):
don't remember who it wasexactly, but they're putting$400
million in opportunity fund,which basically funds all of
these smaller starting companiesto really start to generate
things.
And and when you start to seethese things come out of one VC,
you start to gradually see otherother ones coming into playing
in the same space.
Now there might be more relianceon VC backed.
(46:31):
And and the the danger of reallycutting this federally funded
research is that academicresearch does not give you
money.
Academic research does notprovide something at the end.
This is establishing, again,foundations for the additional
research to go through for themulti-million dollar projects
(46:53):
that and programs that thebiopharma space typically
tackles.
The money's here.
I do believe that it's gonna bea little bit of a rough road,
but if there's anywhere that'sgonna start back up the
quickest, it's gonna be thisregion.
Well, Lawrence, thank you.
And uh thanks again um forsticking with us in this episode
(47:14):
where we reviewed the uhMassBio, MassBio 2025 Industry
Snapshot.
Um they put together um pullingin input from their membership
of companies.
So um we're grateful that wehave this perspective to help us
on our end learn learn moreabout the industry.
(47:35):
We will put this in the shownotes also.
We have some earlier episodesthat discuss a product line that
we are launching in early 2026.
We also have a book thatoutlines our process and how we
got there, the experiences thatwe've had over the last 15 years
(47:57):
within this space that bridgeslaboratories, research, and
business all into one space,pointing directly to how we
become more efficient, how webecome more responsible, how we
can plan better and connect oursystems with teams across the
company.
(48:17):
Thanks again for sticking withus, and uh we'll catch you next
time.
So I I I think most people know what Mass Bio does.
I I thought they were forprofit, but they're nonprofit,
and they charge like asubscription and they have these
events and conferences.
So they do a lot of reportsaround stuff that's happening in
the industry.
And so this one was specificallyaround employment, investment,
the drug development pipeline,real estate, and regional
(00:21):
metrics.
So we're in New England, whichis a hub, and then you have San
Francisco and then San Diego.
And I think Raleigh down southis another hub.
The research triangle.
Yeah.
Research triangle.
And I think even to a lesserextent, the Chicago area is also
a place.
And so I I think they try topaint a really uh at least from
(00:46):
what I read, I don't know whatyou thought of it.
It seemed like they were very uhpessimistic about some things,
but also optimistic about otherthings.
There was a lot of it pointingto funding, a lot of buildings
being empty, and then there'sall this uncertainty over the
workforce.
We've seen how many layoffs likeevery week.
(01:07):
There's always some headline.
The numbers are way differentthan a couple years ago when
people started getting laid offin this post-COVID era.
SPEAKER_00 (01:16):
So we are talking about the 2025 industry snapshot
released by Mass Bio.
This was released um justearlier this summer, and it
really takes a look at what 2024has done.
And in some of these uh areasalso takes a look at what has
transpired in the first half of2025 uh in a few of these
(01:39):
categories.
And I think what you arehighlighting here is that
sometimes there is a lag,especially with relation to the
federal funding and those sortof cuts that have been
happening.
This is addressed by the CEO andpresident Kendall O'Connell,
where it looks to be that thingsare holding steady.
However, we have not yet reallyfelt the full impact of what the
(02:02):
reduction in federal fundingthat has happened earlier this
year as a result of uh changingfederal administration policies.
We haven't quite fully capturedhow big of an issue this is
going to be.
You know, there's a lot ofestimates.
There's uh some people have somecompanies have preemptively laid
off large amounts of staff foreither reasons specific to, hey,
(02:25):
we're jumping into AI and we'recutting out this whole arm, or
other groups that havecompletely shifted uh their
research.
And then you have a number thatjust don't have the pipeline to
maintain their current employeestatus, their level of employee
engagement, when they'reexpecting federal funding to
(02:47):
disappear.
I mean, that's really what'shappening.
They they happen so quickly.
I'm I have friends that havebeen caught in this from early
doge cuts to tantrist withvarious organizations and
academic sites that have reallycontributed to this.
And there's lack of funding whenwe stop looking at the federal
government, we start looking atVC funding.
There's even been a lack of thatkind of funding.
(03:09):
There's not a lot of VCs, IPOsshrank last year.
So that's usually a sign of howhealthy the pipeline is of new
companies, new research, newinvestments.
Um, we've talked about thisbefore.
There was at one point a hugeboom related to selling gene
therapy, and then it's tooexpensive, it's too complicated,
(03:31):
it's too hard, we don't have theright the right resources.
There's not enough of it.
So people start shedding thosethings out and renting out those
facilities.
I think there's a lot of to takein here.
And like you said, it thissnapshot tackles industry
employment, industry investment,drug development pipeline, and
in the real estate.
Low points are not understated.
(03:54):
Uh, you know, the the job growthis virtually non existent.
Increases in vacancies inlaboratories and facilities
across the state, across theregion, but but that also gives
people hope that when it doesbounce back, and there have been
some recent acquisitions andrecent mergers, which I don't
(04:16):
know, we'll see how that affectsthe workforce.
Um, it's a really importantsnapshot that we're lucky that
we were able to acquire this.
This is something that they doprovide as part of their
contribution to science.
It is a nonprofit.
So you can look this up anddownload a copy of it yourself.
Why don't we go through some ofthis industry uh employment
here?
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
Yeah, so there are a couple of different areas that
we can talk about.
Let's talk about talent andsustainability.
We'll we'll mix up the order ofthe topics that then MassBio's
view is that the state ofMassachusetts is obviously the
the hub of the majority of thetalent in the industry.
Um, you know, there are just aton of companies out here, a lot
(04:59):
of universities, a lot ofhospitals, and for a long time
the state has just been knownfor that, right?
One of the things as I wasreading through the report is is
the state set up in a way thatit will continuously retain the
talent that exists in this area?
(05:21):
Do people live here and work atthese companies because the
companies reside here?
And if that's not the case, ifthe companies start to drift out
of the state, or is the talentpool going to start to diminish
or are people going to move out?
We have an extremely high costof living in this area.
I don't think it's to anybody'ssurprise that Massachusetts is
(05:45):
one of the most expensive statesto live in.
When we think about even peoplein in our generation,
millennials, a lot of usstruggled to buy a home.
Um, a lot of us are stillrenting, you know, there's a lot
of student debt out there.
Then you have the the generationbelow us that's struggling
(06:05):
through this as well.
Tuition has only gone up, thecost of living has gone up.
And so the the question is, whatis the trajectory of the state
as it as it relates to talentwhen when we consider all of
these factors, right?
So do you think that the talentsfollow the company or is it the
other way around?
And and how do you see this highcost of living really impacting
(06:28):
the long-term sustainability ofthe state?
Because it's not making it anyeasier for people to live here,
I think, is is what I have felt.
SPEAKER_00 (06:35):
I think there's a couple perspectives to answer
that question.
I think right now,Massachusetts, based on this
report, basically controls 23%of the RD workforce in the U.S.
It's huge.
23% of the people that work inRD biopharma are working within
Massachusetts.
Now, we've seen some of thesereturn to office policies.
(06:57):
There have been some emptylaboratories, empty office
buildings.
Um, I've been to some of thosewith the clients that we have,
uh, where you go in there andmaybe experience, you know, 30
to 40% of the workforce actuallybeing in office.
And so you're starting to seesome of these mandates come in,
some with new rules with how faryou live away, et cetera.
But I think what what wasinteresting to me was to examine
(07:22):
the real estate related toregions within Massachusetts.
So there are, they haveidentified rating system
developed to determine uh amunicipality's readiness to host
biotechnology facilities basedon the community's zoning
practices and infrastructurecapacity.
So when you start to look atthat, the amount of areas, the
(07:45):
amount of towns that have beenidentified as different metals,
platinum, gold, silver, bronze,they are expansive far beyond
Boston, Cambridge, maybeBurlington.
I mean, we're talking areas,even out here toward Devons.
I live close to Devons, where uhthere's Bristol Meyer Squib and
(08:05):
a couple of other folks outthere, that is continuing to
expand.
There is sort of thisavailability that seems to be
expanding outside of the greaterBoston area.
You do bring a very good pointthat the cost of living, and not
even just the cost of living,but the cost of maintaining a
business over there in the cityof Boston or the city of
(08:27):
Cambridge is far more expensivethan any of the surrounding
regions.
But you can even see as you lookinto some of the largest leases
for 2024, out there's Bostondoesn't show up.
Cambridge shows up a few times.
Then you talk Waltham,Lexington, Somerville,
Watertown.
(08:49):
These are areas that are nowstarting to bleed outside of the
Boston area.
So perhaps we may see morecompanies start sprouting in
various areas of the state,there's at least some
opportunity there that allowsyou to live in the suburbs like
I do and still be able to have auh a decent commute that doesn't
(09:10):
take you two hours to get toyour job or to get to a client.
So although academic research uhfunding, uh federal funding has
um in some ways completelystopped, I don't believe that
that is enough to halt academicresearch.
(09:30):
I think we'll see a big dip inthe workforce that comes from
academic research, which couldbe bad right now.
There are, you know, when arethe days going to be coming
where we see uh PhDs inbiopharma artificial
intelligence, for example, orwhat's the next technology that
(09:51):
Harvard, MIT, Boston University,uh uh University of
Massachusetts, like all ofthese, how how many universities
are in that Boston area?
It's like 20, 23, 24, somethinglike that.
All of these universities areour source of the academic
research that ultimatelybusinesses end up pulling into
(10:12):
more lucrative and and moreinnovative RD programs and
projects.
So um I think people are gonnacontinue to come here.
I think the availability forwhere you can live, I think is
gonna start to open up.
I think the challenge that we'rehaving is seeing the, and I
don't have the data to show it,but the types of workforce that
(10:34):
has been eliminated.
If you go for cell and genetherapy, now your options are
very limited.
If you are working on anything,unfortunately, even if you're
working with chain transgenicmice, apparently, funding has
disappeared for that, eventhough it has no nothing to do
with the LGBTQ community.
You know, there are things thatjust have shaken the industry.
(10:57):
And there's a lot of people outthere that have moved into
consulting and are trying to usetheir experience to turn
directly into a consultant.
But as you and I know from ourthree years of doing this, it
takes more than just you beingan expert in your field.
So I think there is a lot moreopportunity that could be coming
(11:21):
into this region.
I know that there's also beengrants being made available by
the likes of the UK to allow forvisas for scientists to go
across the water.
That may be a source foracademic research for the next
couple of years.
However, recognizing thepressure that the current
(11:42):
administration is putting on thecost of drugs within the UK,
which has their own set ofregulations, has their own set
of caps for how much medicinescan cost, is actually not the
best business move for theselarger organizations to have
sites out there.
That's going to be reallyinteresting to see what that
(12:04):
really turns out to.
SPEAKER_01 (12:05):
I'll just make this last point about the talent pool
before we move on toinfrastructure and commercial
real estate.
So I think a lot of it is reallytied to housing.
And then obviously, I think ascompanies open up positions in
certain areas, we all know thatthere's a massive pool of people
that are on the sidelines thatare, you know, if there's an
opportunity somewhere, they'rethey're going to apply for it,
(12:25):
they're going to be workingthere.
And then this idea that peopleare going to leave the state, I
think, is probably not as likelybecause when you consider the
alternatives, okay, are theygoing to move to the other hubs?
Right?
Probably not, because that's areally big commitment to move
down south to the West Coast.
And it's it's more of a factthat it's the hub is expanding
and maybe not so much condensedin the greater area of Boston
(12:49):
and and also Cambridge, right?
And then let's move on to uhinfrastructure and real estate.
So I think one of the uhfindings that uh they reported
is that there's an additional1.1 million square feet of lab
and GMP space that came onlinesince the the last snapshot
(13:09):
report, which brings the totalto about 63 million square feet.
And the vacancy rate is around27.8% as at the time of this uh
report being put out.
And so, you know, the the waythat I look at it is, you know,
do companies needs need thismuch space, or were developers
overcompensating for what theirprojections were and basically
(13:34):
purchasing large plots of land,creating these spaces where um
companies could lease it out oror even perhaps purchase the
property.
And for for the companies thatare in their spaces now, are
they less likely to move becausetheir lease contracts are more
favorable than the the newerones that are out?
(13:56):
So maybe that's a reason whypeople are moving into these
updated spaces.
There's some tie-in to thefunding piece, right?
Because as companies are layingoff, technically you need less
space.
So that explains some of thevacancy.
But it's cheaper rent.
It's it's really hard to figureout if the vacancy is a result
of the developers building toomuch, or is it really that the
(14:20):
capacity of the area isdecreasing, right?
Because you can you can havegreater vacancy if you just
build more, but you can alsohave greater vacancy because you
don't need as much space.
And so it's it's it's a verytricky thing to look at.
So when we think about companiesmoving into a space or e even
working in their own space, howhow much of it has to do with
(14:42):
whatever they're researching orwhatever they're manufacturing?
But are they looking at otheropportunities again outside of
the city to move out and and andmaybe that explains some of the
vacancy that you're seeing?
Right.
So how do you see the the realestate piece of of this snapshot
as it relates to the industry?
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
So that's a good question.
You know, one one of the one ofthe challenges of this report is
that many of the numbers areeither in relation to uh what
are they seeing potentiallytrending in 2025 based on the
things that have happened in2024.
So a lot of the facts andfigures that you're finding in
this report are looking at theearliest 2023, 2024, 2025.
(15:30):
Now, when we look at the realestate component of it, they're
showing graphs that go all theway far back as 2015.
So when you look and understandthe vacancy rate, part of the
questions that I had for thiswas understanding during this
time, what did the rate of IPOslook like?
(15:50):
What did the rate of new uhfunding look like?
You know, we're pretty steady umover the last uh two years.
And and I say pretty steady, Imean if you're talking about
shifts, you may realize thatwe're talking about shifts of
like a percent, uh maybe apercent or two or a percent and
a half, something like that.
(16:11):
Um, but depending on what valueyou're talking about, that could
be a couple thousand in theworkforce or you know, five new
vacancies, for example.
Um, but what I noticed here isuh there was there was a dip,
right?
There was a vacancy dip aroundCOVID and just after COVID.
And then that vacancy justcontinued to climb.
(16:32):
So what is there's gonna be afactor of that?
Well, clearly working from homeis gonna change that.
Probably not for the RD space.
I mean, this is specific to GMPinventory.
Uh, the shift from the uh celland gene therapy, the shift from
other manufacturing intensivedrugs.
(16:54):
Uh, you know, these are theseare systems that are built out,
and if they work out, they workout great.
If they don't work out, you shutit down and you try to rent out
the space.
You know, I think from myexperience of living in this
area since 2013, there has beenthis steady increase of
companies that split and developother entities, new mergers, new
(17:19):
acquisitions.
It was a little bit of a spike,but roughly from 2015 all the
way through the end of 2022,this region did not experience
more than 5% vacancy.
And then it shot up to right nowwhere it is at almost a 30%
vacancy.
(17:39):
There's a couple things thatcould have happened in there
working from home, eliminatingtherapeutics from a pipeline
that they are now not using, notleveraging.
As you mentioned before, sort ofuh these real estates.
Um, what is the average termwe're talking about?
Um, you know, three, maybe fiveyears.
So where were those businesses?
(18:02):
You know, when did thosebusinesses start?
Um were there a lot of 2017,2018, boom, they got into places
and it didn't really work outafter five years, so it just
sort of became vacant.
Um, there's a lot of newlaboratory spaces that have
started to sprout outside of theBoston area.
Waltham, Watertown, Lexington,and some of those, to your
(18:27):
point, from developers are stillyet to be filled.
There are available spaces, andI think people are battling with
the desire to be in the thick ofit.
Why?
Because there are events thathappen, there are communities
that happen within KendallSquare, within areas of
(18:47):
Cambridge, you know, things likethat where you don't really
experience if you have a lab inNewton.
You're by yourself.
Lexington's starting to have alittle bit of a hub.
Worcester is starting to grow,especially through uh the MBI,
the the mess um biotechinitiatives that are supporting
early budding.
(19:08):
It's an incubator spacesupporting those uh those
businesses.
We see the inventory has alsogone up in that time frame.
Looks like here around 60%, andthe vacancy rate has gone up
like 80.
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
You brought up another point.
As companies are changing theirpipelines, the space
requirements are gonna changetoo, right?
So if you're developing a spacespecific for, say, cell engine
therapy, would be clean roomsand other support areas are set
up in that way versus if you'redoing something related to
biologics or or small molecule,those spaces are gonna change.
(19:45):
And we have like newer platformscoming out.
So perhaps the vacancy isattributed to these spaces not
being designed for these thingsthat are coming out, or maybe a
shift in where the industry isgoing.
And so people are looking atthese spaces and going, well, I
don't need this space because itdoesn't meet the needs of what
my portfolio is moving towards.
(20:05):
So that's another explanationfor why we're seeing this.
Portfolios are changing.
This is obviously directly tiedto funding, right?
So you brought up in in thebeginning about the NIH cuts and
and so this funding versusproductivity thing.
I think MassBio's view, and itsounds like your view too, is
that when we have less funding,there's less innovation.
(20:27):
I have a different viewpoint.
Obviously, funding is good forthe ecosystem because it allows
us to uh attach dollars tocertain initiatives and
projects, and so people cancontinue doing their research
and other things that indirectlyor directly contribute to the
progress of the industry.
But how, you know, I think myquestion here is how do we
(20:49):
measure productivity, not justin the funding of dollars, but
when we look at drug approvals,we look at rejections, we look
at how many companies arereceiving citations or
inspections from the FDA andthey find something.
That isn't so much measured indollars, but if you're doing
research and the the ultimategoal is to get something to
market, right?
(21:09):
And so how do we look at thatfrom the lens of funding?
Because funding could be itrequires people to be more
disciplined about the spendingitself.
And so you're able to narrow thefocus on your priorities, right?
Because when you give peoplelots of money, they're not gonna
be spending it correctly.
SPEAKER_00 (21:28):
Yeah.
That's part of where I was gonnago with this, is that there's a
couple different areas here infunding.
They talk about, you know, someof the VC backed financing
rounds.
I mean, it looks like the at thehighest of last year was uh 207
uh million C.
Uh, and then there's a coupleSeries A's around 50 million.
So the funding is happening.
(21:48):
It's going to some newbusinesses.
I don't see anything really, butfrom my engagement with some of
these really complex businessesthat have large portfolios,
there is this rat race thatstill exists in various
capacities across varioustherapeutics, where you're
(22:09):
trying to build a big portfolioin the beginning and hopefully
have the discipline to start toshave off some of these programs
that are not in line with thatend goal of being in a clinic,
being an asset that you can sellor license or partner, uh,
(22:31):
because that's ultimately wherea lot of these businesses are
looking to do.
The big businesses, hey, if wecan eliminate all that RD stuff
that doesn't get us money andjust buy one of these that's
already, you know, 90% waythrough the development process,
we're gonna choose to do that.
So we're looking at smallcompanies getting big funding.
(22:54):
And unless you have thediscipline to really stay
focused on the one or two thatcan really drive, um, but that
doesn't really happen.
We want to hedge our bet.
So what do we do?
We start seven projects, eightprojects, nine projects.
What do you think happens tothose budgets as they move along
(23:17):
through the different phases ofdevelopment?
You rarely have enough to do thethings that you need to do.
So as you mentioned, these youknow, FDA, these these issues
that prevent companies fromreaching that next stage, are
those things due to not havinggood budget practices at the
(23:39):
organization?
Have you measured up against,well, we said we were gonna do
10 million and we spent 11.5?
Or is it we said we're gonnaspend 10 million and we added a
year and another six million?
And so what happens at the veryend, your data is only as strong
as the things that you've beenable to actually do.
(23:59):
And of course the science has towork out.
But how often do you find thatbusinesses are in projects deep
into the into the phases ofdevelopment, and you start
shaving experiments because,well, we can't do that because
that's too much, or the leadtime's too long, and we have to
(24:21):
get something by this time.
So you scrape together whatcould be a package and hopefully
get that through.
But then you miss those criticalpoints that you could have done,
you know, before.
I think sometimes we look atresearch and saying, what can we
do with this with the money thatwe have?
And it needs to be a little bitmore of like what has to happen.
(24:43):
If you have a focus and thethings that have to happen to
really give that the best shotof going into the clinic, of
getting a partner, of getting alicensor, if your funding isn't
there, are we taking too manyrisks by saying let's get
started and then we'll find morefunding for it?
I've seen that fall through thecracks.
Uh, I was just talking to aformer colleague.
(25:04):
I didn't even get my severancebecause the VC wanted their
money back.
So instead of moving through thepipeline and adding more
funding, we had to liquidate andgive them all of our money.
That just happened.
SPEAKER_01 (25:16):
Yeah, and I'm I'm I'm torn in I could see what you
mean by if if you're continuingdown this road and and you need
the funds to further thedevelopment of the research.
I think the question that thatcomes to mind is when I look at
the the private industry, right?
We don't we would never toleratehere's a bunch of funding for
(25:39):
certain projects, and the goalis to develop it and so that the
idea is that it becomes tomarket, right?
That is not the incentive forthe academia side.
Because they're they're notlooking for a return on
investment.
What is the goal then of, youknow, let's say you do get a
grant from the NIH forresearching a specific uh
(26:01):
modality and whatevertherapeutic, like what is the
goal of the funding then?
SPEAKER_00 (26:07):
Well, it's usually going to depend on the series.
So is it a seed fund where youhave 50 million and you need
that to build your workforce andto establish your processes and
start to create some of that,some of those assets that you
want to develop?
Is it a series A B C thateventually you want to get that
to land you into a clinicaltrial?
(26:29):
Or the other question is, isthat even in your in your remit
as a company, as a business?
Because once you enter clinicaloperations, your budget just
explodes with the amount ofresources needed to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (26:44):
So these people, hey, I'm not talking about the
funding as it relates to aprivate company.
I'm talking about when when a PIgets a grant from the NIH.
What is the like goal of that,right?
Because at a company level, weunderstand what that is.
Like you're scaling, you'retrying to grow the product, and
you go into the clinic and thenyou become commercial and then
(27:05):
you you make more product,right?
For the patients out there.
But I think it's a little bitmore obscure, at least to me,
from when you receive federalfunding, like the academic
institution receives it.
You probably have a handful ofvery well-known PIs that take
this money and then decide whatareas they want to do the
research in.
(27:26):
And then perhaps there's abridge between the university
and the VC community thatbridges the academic institution
with the industry, right?
So that you can actually bringit to market.
And that that makes total sense.
It's it in academia, when thegovernment says, hey, here's a
bunch of money to spend on thisthing, what is the goal of that
PI?
It's not building, it's notbuilding a product.
(27:48):
It's not building a product.
SPEAKER_00 (27:50):
Unfortunately, unfortunately, I think I think
that is the current mentality ofgovernment spending, that it
should, although government'sfor the people, it's not
supposed to be for-profit.
Neither is public funding,neither is academic funding.
Academic funding is usually asource to develop more insights,
to develop an understanding ofhow this system actually
(28:13):
function with a treatment thatI'm developing.
I was working on a project onHIV work, and there are uh two
receptors where HIV actually uhcan turn into a more aggressive
form of HIV because it willspecifically bind to a certain
receptor and creates thisexplosion of disease that
(28:36):
eventually turns into AIDS.
There's nothing that is set instone that says, oh, HIV gets
worse when you try to treat it.
And we were exploring like whatis happening with why people's
uh disease is converting to nowreally target this other
(28:56):
receptor.
It's a CCR5 receptor and a CXCR4receptor.
Some of the research hasadvanced since then.
This was uh years ago when I wasdoing academic research.
Um, but the work that I wasdoing was trying to pressure the
virus to evolve on its own as aform of survival.
(29:16):
So I would treat a specificvirus that only targeted CXCR5,
uh CCR5 receptor, and I wouldcontinue to treat it and I would
treat it enough that I didn'tkill it.
And then what happened?
We saw this switch for receptorpreference.
Much more research was neededafter that, but it started to
show there is a possibility thatwhen you are treating, that you
(29:40):
are not killing the virus, youare giving it the opportunity to
evolve into a more aggressiveform.
So HIV is something that has uhbetter treatments now, um, which
are usually a cocktail toprevent a couple of different
things from happening.
Um, but that's much of academicresearch, whether it's federally
funded.
Or coming from cancerorganizations, men's health,
(30:03):
women's health, et cetera, is onthat level of discovery.
And then where does Big Pharmapick it up?
Big Pharma scrapes all theresearch that's available,
figures out what's hot, what'snot, what is potentially going
to be coming down the pipeline,what's going to be a therapeutic
area that people are sleeping onthat has a lot of potential.
(30:23):
And we found the research thatreally positions this project as
a worthwhile endeavor for us tocreate a therapeutic, a drug,
uh, you know, a medicine for it.
Uh so when when you're lookingat that academic research, it is
more on the understanding ratherthan we're gonna produce an
(30:46):
asset at the end of it.
You may do that at some point,but you can definitely have
figured out well, when wedeactivate this ligand receptor
complex, the cell dies, it doesthis, or it stops moving or
something.
And so there's a variety ofthings, but I I think a lot of
it is is in discovery of theseare we these grants are for
foundational science that uh forthings that we don't know, we
(31:10):
don't have any clue.
We need those foundations inorder for the businesses to pull
them into assets.
SPEAKER_01 (31:17):
Right.
So there's there's definitelyvalue in the information
bridging that um the theresearch that these companies
aren't able to do, and a lot ofthat basic science is developed
at the university level.
These they get funding from thefrom the government or or any of
these organizations that arenonprofits that are funneling uh
funds to these PIs that aredoing very meaningful research
(31:38):
that ends up um going into theindustry at at some point if if
if it's something that they canuse.
Maybe the incentive is reallythese um reproducible studies
that have some sort ofconclusion or maybe not a
conclusion about whatever theythey worked on.
And then the question is for me,how much funding is enough?
(32:00):
Because we say that, okay, thecuts are gonna really
drastically impact the industry.
So what is enough funding?
Now the it's the bigger picture,right?
Because it the NIH funding is istaxpayer money.
You have this newadministration, they have
different priorities, you havedifferent things you want to
(32:22):
spend your money on.
I think that's why Doge came in,because they're spending way too
much money.
We need to figure out where tocut things and and where to
allocate the resources for otherinitiatives that is is on the
agenda for the administration,right?
That's such a hard question toanswer, which is how much
funding is is needed.
And then the other thing is ifthere's more funding for this,
(32:44):
then we have to sacrificesomewhere else.
It's been all over the the news,the the national uh deficit.
Yeah.
We owe a lot of money and andit's growing.
So we have to take these cuts.
When these cuts happen, are weto be more disciplined about how
we spend the money, or is therenothing that we can do?
We gotta be very selective aboutthe research that go that goes
(33:07):
on because when we ask formoney, it just takes away from
other things, right?
Yes, we're probably spendingmoney on things that we
shouldn't be spending money onfrom the federal level.
The other point I'll make is isit transparent how the funding
gets distributed from the NIH?
Are they looking at all thedifferent grants and they're
going, okay, I think we need tofocus more on this rather than
(33:28):
these things?
How is it at a portfolio level?
Is that how it's managed, or isit not managed like that at all?
And it's really just submittedapplication, and then there's a
panel of scientists that figureout if this is feasible and then
they give the grant.
Like, how does that work?
SPEAKER_00 (33:42):
I don't have the exact answer for that, but I I
can say that um the the way thatthe NIH is structured is that
they are split based on the typeof science.
Is this a biologic, is this amedical device, is this for
cancer, is this, you know,infectious diseases has a whole
different group.
So um it's possible that theycome together and then they say,
(34:04):
okay, infectious diseases, youget 10%.
Whatever our full budget is, youget 10%, you get, you know, 6%,
you get five, you get, you know,nine.
Um, but there are different secthere there are different
sections within the NIH thatmanage all the grants that are
coming for that purpose and andand where the money is going.
(34:25):
Um I think if I could just addone of the interesting points of
this report is how they definethe biopharma industry.
Um, it's not just RD andmanufacturing.
There are um testinglaboratories, there are RD and
physical engineering, lifesciences, biotechnology and
nanotechnology, colleges anduniversities, medical
(34:45):
laboratories, general medicaland surgical hospitals,
psychiatric and substance abusehospitals, and other specialty
hospitals as well.
So the the range in which thefunding is going out, there's a
spray impact of what happenedwhen this funding disappeared.
It affected all of them, really,depending on if their research
(35:06):
aligned with with the thecurrent administration's
perspective of what researchshould be done.
Um what is that based on?
Who knows?
Gut, perhaps.
SPEAKER_01 (35:17):
Like, how do we how do we look at how these
different organizations aresupposed to respond as as a
result of these cuts, right?
Do you step back and you startcutting programs?
Like how do you as a a PI or anacademic institution, how do you
prioritize where you're puttingyour money, even at a company
level, if there's less researchbeing done in this area, does
(35:40):
that mean the future of yourpipeline is now at risk because
you don't have that foundationalscience available for you to
further develop your product,right?
Like all of these things areinterrelated in some way.
There's there's gotta be, Iwould hope, that each one of
these pieces in the in the valuechain is looking at a way to
(36:00):
prioritize how they're spendingtheir money.
And when there are cuts, theyknow when to dial back, and then
when there's more funding, theyknow when to dial up.
And it's not just this superfragmented system where people
aren't really disciplined abouthow they're spending their
money, I guess is my point here.
SPEAKER_00 (36:17):
Well, where would you expect to spend your money?
Think about a personal thinkabout you have all this money
and all of a sudden your salarygot cut or you got laid off and
now you have a new job.
And now you have a new job thatdoesn't pay as much.
So what do you do?
Well, the essential stuff.
So what would you consideressential research?
Probably the things that arefurther along.
(36:39):
Why?
Because they're the closest inthe pathway to becoming an asset
that generates revenue.
Okay, if we just think aboutthis from a business
perspective.
So you'll see that money and andwhat happens from the beginning,
from an ideation, from an ideato run a project with an asset
all the way through clinics, uh,it it is it is a ramp that
(37:03):
continues to get steeper interms of how much capital you
need to get to that next stage.
And that's sort of what you canexpect with these different
funding rounds.
It's like, okay, well, we have,you know, one read in ideation,
we have three that um areconcepts, and we have two, one's
(37:24):
getting close to an IND, andwe're almost close to
determining if this is acandidate for us.
So you have to split the moneyamongst that.
You can the bulk of your moneyis gonna go to the stuff that's
downstream.
But you still need a lot ofmoney to get things off the
ground.
It's not you're not gonna do it.
You're not gonna do it with amillion dollars.
(37:45):
You know, so the the reality isthat you you'll need the
additional funding.
Do not like the way that theword efficiency has been thrown
around because efficiency is notcutting it off.
That's like saying, hey, I'mgonna be efficient with my home
expenses and we're just gonnaget rid of our uh air
conditioning and heating units.
That's not being efficient,that's cutting an arm off and
(38:08):
saying, okay, well, now I'm justgonna take care of everything
else.
Like, well, you havefoundational things that you
have to have, where we are theindustry of free lunches and
cafeteria spending and andcoffee, which can obviously send
people into an uproar if youtake their coffee.
So this is not suggesting that.
Um, but when you start to lookaround and you say, okay, well,
(38:32):
what budget do you put formarketing?
How many people are you sendingto those conferences?
Are those conferences reallywhat's driving the brand
recognition?
You know, start to reallyexamine where are you spending
the money and why does thatmatter?
Why, why is that important tothe end goal?
(38:54):
And you have to have alignmentfor that.
It's not just determining what'staking the most money and
cutting it.
SPEAKER_01 (39:03):
Yeah, I think to your point, yes, money is not
the only thing that is relatedto efficiency.
And this is the business thatwe're in, is how people work
together.
And I would think that there area lot of workflows that need to
be tightened up and they need tobe simplified in a way that you
can do more with less money andless time to drive some of those
(39:27):
additional funding rounds andand and again being more
disciplined about where you'reputting your money.
At a macro level, I think whenthose cuts come, and and they
have come to different parts ofour industries, to do nothing
and to wait for more funding isthe worst thing you can do.
Right?
You you have to start lookinginternally and going, okay, this
(39:47):
just happened.
We gotta strap ourselves in andjust be very disciplined about
how we're spending our money.
SPEAKER_00 (39:52):
What's your plan if this happens again before you
get more funding?
Yeah.
Are you gonna change yourresearch trajectory because it
supports the direction of theadministration and you might
have an opportunity to getfunding during this four-year
(40:12):
timeframe?
Or do you continue going basedon your mission and vision for
your business, for your companyof what you guys stood for?
You know, and then therein lies,are we dealing with shareholders
or VC, or is this a publicly runcompany that now is dealing with
more stuff?
All of those have to be takeninto consideration.
(40:35):
When I go back and I look atthis report, um, when it comes
to the infrastructure to take inwhenever the science boom
happens, I think we have most ofit there.
When is that boom gonna happen?
When we are almost 30% capacity,and I went back and I looked at
the report.
The funding from the NIH, theIPOs, all of these things spiked
(41:00):
around 2019, 2020, 2021, whichis when vacancies were at their
lowest.
IPOs over the last three years,including 2020, there have been
one IPO in 2025 in the firsthalf.
Six all of 2024, two of 2023,eight in all of 2022.
(41:22):
And in 2020 and 2021, there were21 and 25 IPOs, respectively.
So a sharp decrease right afterthis explosion, right when the
vacancies were at their lowest.
(41:46):
So perhaps we had differentexpectations of what was going
to happen in the industry andCOVID, research challenges,
funding challenges.
I don't think there's really achallenge in the workforce
because it's there.
There's programs out there thatare training people.
(42:07):
There's thousands of people inthe Boston area that are
positioned, that areintelligent, that have
successful research, um, thatmay have been just caught in the
crossfire.
That's gonna take time to getthe trade moving again.
SPEAKER_01 (42:23):
Right, recovering.
When you were reading thisreport at the end of it, are you
more optimistic or pessimistic?
We have what, a couple moremonths to the end of the year,
and then 2026 is around thecorner.
I know when I read the beginningof this report, I think I was
(42:44):
skeptical in a sense because itit really paints a gloom
picture, and and there's alittle narrative around look,
less funding, things areexpensive, people are getting
laid off.
And it's it's not even just areport, it's we're bombarded
with this on LinkedIn, likeeverywhere, right?
You always see these headlines,and and then so-and-so is at a
(43:04):
hearing, and they're notdeciding to overturn this, or
this is not getting fundedanymore.
And it can get really um achange in vaccine mandate?
SPEAKER_00 (43:13):
You don't think that's gonna change all these
businesses that thrive on beingable to produce vaccines for so
many people in this country?
SPEAKER_01 (43:24):
To end the this this episode here, what are you most
positive about as a result ofyou know, looking at the
snapshot and and looking at theother things that are going on
in the industry and theheadlines and even your clients?
Because I I want to leave on apositive note and just not you
know paint this picture of, oh,everything is terrible.
And and I'll go first and tellyou that I think that yes,
(43:48):
there's there's less funding,yeah, there are a lot of people
getting laid off, yes, there's alot of vacancies, but the story
that isn't being told enough isthat we have a lot of talent on
the sidelines.
I I think when people are putinto a corner, they're they're
gonna respond by creating thingsof their own.
(44:09):
And I think there's gonna be alot of value creation that comes
from people that are in thosepositions now that maybe you are
applying to jobs, maybe you'reworking in a smaller company now
and it's a change.
But it's the the fact thatthings are being changed and and
the outlook isn't as as positiveas it once was, is that it's
forcing people to be reflectiveof what do I want to do with my
(44:30):
career?
What do I want to do with thisidea that I have?
Am I gonna build a business?
Am I gonna sit on the sidelines?
You can decide on what you wantto do, and that's something that
I think is gonna be reallypositive coming out of this, is
that there's gonna be a swarm ofnew companies that are gonna be
more disciplined, they're gonnabe using AI-driven tools to grow
(44:51):
their companies that are we'regonna need less funding than
before to develop what we needto develop because of all these
new tools that are out.
And I think that is somethingthat I'm very positive on,
despite all of the negativeheadlines that you're seeing.
SPEAKER_00 (45:05):
What am I feeling positive on?
I think um I think Massachusettsis gonna continue to be a major
contender, uh, not just in theUS, but globally.
The infrastructure is here, theinnovation is here.
I agree with you in the sensethat uh this gives the
opportunity for people to startquestioning things, start trying
(45:27):
to find out what what what arewhat are you beyond the the
science that you know?
There's more to you as a personthan the letters that come after
your name, your thought process,your uh capability to understand
you know large complex datasets.
Like this is all beyond justhaving a specific skill set or
(45:49):
knowledge base um, you know,type of science.
Uh I think there's anopportunity to explore other
funding mechanisms.
Now, this would actually besomewhat difficult.
What's happening now is thatit's not so much that VCs are
stopping funding because we'veheard recently this year, I
(46:10):
don't remember who it wasexactly, but they're putting$400
million in opportunity fund,which basically funds all of
these smaller starting companiesto really start to generate
things.
And and when you start to seethese things come out of one VC,
you start to gradually see otherother ones coming into playing
in the same space.
Now there might be more relianceon VC backed.
(46:31):
And and the the danger of reallycutting this federally funded
research is that academicresearch does not give you
money.
Academic research does notprovide something at the end.
This is establishing, again,foundations for the additional
research to go through for themulti-million dollar projects
(46:53):
that and programs that thebiopharma space typically
tackles.
The money's here.
I do believe that it's gonna bea little bit of a rough road,
but if there's anywhere that'sgonna start back up the
quickest, it's gonna be thisregion.
Well, Lawrence, thank you.
And uh thanks again um forsticking with us in this episode
(47:14):
where we reviewed the uhMassBio, MassBio 2025 Industry
Snapshot.
Um they put together um pullingin input from their membership
of companies.
So um we're grateful that wehave this perspective to help us
on our end learn learn moreabout the industry.
(47:35):
We will put this in the shownotes also.
We have some earlier episodesthat discuss a product line that
we are launching in early 2026.
We also have a book thatoutlines our process and how we
got there, the experiences thatwe've had over the last 15 years
(47:57):
within this space that bridgeslaboratories, research, and
business all into one space,pointing directly to how we
become more efficient, how webecome more responsible, how we
can plan better and connect oursystems with teams across the
company.
(48:17):
Thanks again for sticking withus, and uh we'll catch you next
time.
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