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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's your host, Alex Garren. All right, I'm here with
my next guest on the One Leg Up Network, mister
Kwang Fam. And his story is very intriguing to me.
He's a tech trail blazer and combat veteran and now
(00:21):
now he's written a book about Underdog Nation. And when
I first got your pitch, I was so enthralled because
you're a marine combat veteran, You've been with the nasdak
Okay NAZAC CEO and refugee turned trails blazer all that,
and here you are having one leg Up on life.
And I actually brought you on about Nasdaq story to
(00:43):
get into that a little bit. But tell us your story, Kwang.
I'm so glad to have you. Quang Fam.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, you know it's it's a pleasure to be with
you Alex and your listeners. That's been a one fortunate
refugee from Vietnam. Came over here about fifty years ago
when I was a kid. At the last minute, you know,
the week before you see that picture of in the
Missaigne play at the helicopter leading the rooftop, Well, we
were gone a week before that. So South Vietnam lost
(01:09):
the war. We came to the United States as refugee,
started with nothing, no money, no language, no compacts, and
so we were antally an underdog in this nation. I
think the second part of the story is that if
you're an underdog, this is no this is there's no
better place than come into America because this is the
land of opportunity. And but you got it. You got
(01:31):
to produce results. And I think the book that I
wrote that Indognations about leading with focusing on the effort
and producing results. So journey started as a refugee, learned English,
worked at age twelve, I worked my way through college
at UCLA out on the other coast California. Fell I
(01:53):
had a duty to serve America, paid back my citizenship
and so got out of college, became a marine after
finishing officer candidate school, and they sent me to flight school.
You know, nobody, you know, nobody thinks about going to war.
They just you know, they want to serve their country.
And then war's in reality if you're in the marine.
So next you know, the Gulf War kicked off the
(02:14):
dominated Kuwait and a few months later I leant in
Saudi Arabia as a brand new helicopter pilot wind Marines
a few months later out of Kuwait City, out of Metavac.
So spent seven years on active duty. I went back
to the Persian golf through the different deployments, went to Somalia,
got out and became a pharmaceutical sales represented for a
(02:37):
couple of years and became a dot com tech entrepreneur,
raised some VC money and then about ten years ago
came back to pharmaceutical as a founder CEO. And you know,
in twenty twenty three took a company of public called
Kadrino Therapeutics and we focused on developing a blood dinner
to fulfill the gaps of where patients you know, who
(02:59):
are now treated well or not reacting well to wharfan
and it can't use eloquist. So that's that's the story.
Was able to ring the closing bell in February of
twenty twenty three when the highlights of my professional career,
and got to do it virtually twice in San Francisco,
get the JP Morgan Healthcare conference. There they have the
(03:19):
barrel ceremony to open the bell during that week in
San Francisco. So that's the five minute life story. It's
an American journey. It's a journey always possible in this country.
And I'm living proof and every day I'm grateful to
be in America. And you know, I've just worked hard
to do three things right. To serve my country, which
(03:41):
I did, to honor my family and our legacy were refugees.
We owed this country and we gave back. And then
to contribute this medicine to mankind and womankind across this
country unto the world.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
You were the first Vietnamese American to fly combat missions
for the Marines. Thank you for your service.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh, it was a great, a tremendous opportunity and experience.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I believe it. And so how did that experience in
the military shape your entrepreneurial mindset? Well?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Number one, Uh, you know, people get scared, you know,
of comeback, of fighting off whatever. But you can't let
fear quipper you. So that's one of the one thing
I learned I came out of the Marines. I was
not fearful of anything. Now I was scared of the uncertainty.
You know, how do you translate flying helicopter off the
ship into selling drugs or running a business plan or
(04:37):
pitching fincher capitalist, right, So I was never fearful of failure.
Now I was scared to overcome. Uh you know that
part of being scared. I was very well prepared. So
the second part come out of the marine that was
very prepared, just like I was for every mission. You know,
we brief every scenario, the backup plan, the backup to
the backup. You know, if we can't get fuel, we
(04:58):
run out of ammunition, the Marines weren't in the zone,
what do we do what we can't find the ship
at night or you know, we breathed every possible scenario.
So we're very much prepared. So no fear, always prepared,
and always looked to produce results. You know, it's it's
okay to say I flew fifteen hours or eighty hours
(05:19):
in one month, but what did you What did that resulted?
And so I always brought that to the business world.
You went out and made eight calls a day what
he calls a week of meeting doctors? What did that produce?
What is the result? I picked that battalion into the
entrepreneurial world, like what is the effort and result? I
call it going to the er?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, that's that's very interesting and then you got into
the pharmaceuticals. But I want to talk about the NASDAC
because I literally saw this email the same week I
saw Tristan Thompson's the NBA guy futured Naszak. I'm like,
all right, this is sign I gotta talk NASDAK. So
talk about your experience. Yeah on the so I.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Think, yeah, yeah. So you know, NASDAQ is one of
the two major stock exchanges obviously in the unisity of
the world, right nasty New York stock exchange. The NASDAQ
is where over ninety percent of the biot tech companies
like ours drug development company pre Revenue are listed. So
you know, every day there's an opening ceremony and a
closing ceremony right when there's trading. And so when we
(06:23):
went public in January of twenty twenty three, I think
a month later in February, we were offered an opportunity
to close the market closed the you know the ring,
the closing bell, and so we brought everybody, investors, board members,
the management team, their family to New York. Times Square
went into Nasdaq. They treated with royalty. You know, we're
(06:45):
one of the listed companies, and I went able to
hit the closing belt right at four o'clock on the
training day. So that was my first experience. I did
two openings out in California doing the GP Morgan Healthcare Conference,
and Nasdak was so good to be. When Underdog, my
book came out, second book came out in April, they
brought me. I was up there for a meeting, so
they brought me. Uh, they asked me for a book cover.
(07:07):
They put it on the Marquee and it says, you know,
Nasdak congratulates a member CEO quand FIM in his book publishing.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So how cool is that? There?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Very very cool Rid Times Square. There is my cover
of my book. And beyond.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You know it, MARKET see the pride. Beyond cool, I
see the pride because I work right by New York's Exchange.
I see the pride of every organization that takes their
photo there. On launch DA I mean to launch an
I p O is probably one of the most accomplishing feelings.
It's not just what we see on TV. It's a
(07:47):
real feeling too.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
No, no, it's a real feeling. And you know, for us,
you know, the the IPOs part of the journey, but
it's not the destination. Right for us, the destination is
getting a drug approved. When you go public for about
said company, you're raising money to advance the drug in
the clinical trials and people. So it's a milestone, right.
You get the money from the public offering, the public
investors are you know, they trust you, They trust you
(08:11):
that you're gonna take their money, put it in clinical trials,
advance the drug, and put it in front of the FDA,
and you know, get get a positive approval, so the
drugs out available for you know, we in this country,
in our industry, Uh, we invent, we advanced drugs. The
majority of the new drugs in the world come from
the United States. So it's an industry that produces the
goods for the world. Right here. There's a lot of
(08:36):
controversy about drug pricing and politics.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
And obviously, obviously when you talk to someone who's manufacturing
and producing these the pricing is an issue. So how
do you make sure you have one leg up on
your competition to make it more affordable uh for customers
and patients?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, I think you have to look at the pricing issue,
and I think the Congress, the President law being groups,
patient group, you gotta look you can't just look at
the list price. You gotta look at the net price, okay.
And so there's a list price and there's a bunch
of rebates in the middle people, the middle companies, the
distribution company take their piece and the you know, if
the PBM take their piece. And so by the time
(09:16):
it gets to the patient, you know, there's a cope
usually if you have insurance, uh. And then so you
have to look at, you know, what is the true price.
You can't just look at the list price of a drug,
given that you know it takes you know, we this
drug that we've worked on, there's been over two hundred
million invested in it, you know, over the life of
(09:38):
the molecule from inception. So this is not a small amount.
And that's that's only a fraction. The Pharmaceutical UH lobbying
organization for the industry estimates it's over one point seven
billion of investment before a drug could be approved and
used in the United States and the rest of world.
(10:00):
So two hundred and fifty million work a lot less
so far than the average drug that the lobbying organization
has put out as the cost of developing drugs in
this country.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Well, when you talk about approval, does that mean you're
waiting for FDA approval or does that already happen.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
No, we have, well one more trial. So you know,
with the drug development process, you take a molecule, you
put the intellectual property protection around it, you take it
into animals, so that's called the pre clinical. Then you
go to the FBA and say the drug is safe
and animal, can we do it in humans? So that's
phase one, you know, dosing safety. Then you go to
phase two when you look at efficacy and safety, and
then phase three you're trying to prove that the drug
(10:39):
worked better than doing nothing or works better than what's
the standard of care. So we're at that phase three
for our drug to carfer it. So once we complete that,
then we gather all the data, make sure all the
third party validates it. Then we set it to the
FDA and the FDA makes a determination yes it is
approved or no it is not approved, but we need
(11:00):
this data to look at it again. And so it's
a very complicated process. But you know it's understandably right.
His drugs for people supposed to save lives, so it's
got to be safe, supposed to cure diseases. So it's
got to be safe first. So that's the number one
concern for the FDA is safety. Then efficacy. They got
to make sure it isn't hurt anybody and that it works.
(11:22):
Then you can go to the market when you're pricing
and stuff. So for us, it's still pricing, is you know,
it's a way off. We have to complete the last trial.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well, I'm sure when it is a proof, you want
to come back on and break that news. I'd love
to have you on about that, But I might have
missed something when I was transitioning from one of your
piece of the other. Were you also medical in the military.
Were you on the ground helping, you know, patch up
people or in that sense or not? Really?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
No, I was a pilot. I was a helicopter pilot.
You were just doing yeah, But the difference is I
was a saul support pilot, so I take troops into
the zone and pick them up or weave the air
crew right. Whereas we're crew, we're not single pilot, two pilots,
a couple of crewmen in the back and in a coreman,
which is a medic. So in a way I am
(12:09):
involved because part of the mission I flew with the
Metapact medical evacuation of wounded Marines and wounded the Iraqi
soldier in the Gulf ward and the medic at the
back took care of him. And that's the kind of
military we are, right once the fighting is stopped, we
abide but the Geneva Conventions. We don't leave the enemy
on the battlefield. We take care of our own. But
if the enemy has surrendered and it's hurt, you know,
(12:30):
I saw the first hand. We did it. We flew
injured the Iraqi soldiers, the enemy into our aid station,
into our hospital. Because that's the kind of military that
you know, we operate, and people don't forget that. You know,
we abide by the Geneva Convention. So but that's how
I was involved medically. We were prepared to fly wounded
out as well as take troops of the combat.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Speaking of not forgetting, I've seen highlights. I was only
a year old, but I've seen highlights of the United
Center being so emotional over the national anthem at the time.
Why has support I don't know if it's for the
troops so much, or what it is is decreases then
(13:11):
I feel like there's not as much, you know, every
day like there was at times.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Right, Yeah, that's a great point. So okay, I'm a
little bit older than you, but you know, I was
still a kid during the Vietnam War. So in Groover,
in America, I saw how America reflected on the Vietnam
War was mostly through Hollywood movies, which as part of
the culture, right, pop culture. Right, there's certain angles of
the war. But you know, because there was a draft
going on, it was very controversial, and it was the
(13:37):
mean generation, and it was the other racial issues in America.
The Vietnam War was very controversial. So when it ended
during Ortian, they blamed the troops and then they blame everybody.
But the troops didn't get the military service member didn't
get the recognition like the World War Two. So that's
nineteen seventy five, late seventies, and you go to nineteen
(14:00):
ninety you now you have you know, President Bush, the
Republicans are in office. We haven't you know, entered at
war since Vietnam. There was a lot of hesitation, and
then we go to the Gulf War. It was over,
it was clear who the enemy was. We did the
right thing. The world supported us, Congress, you know, didn't
pass covenet to take a vote, but it passed the
(14:21):
resolution to let President Bush send us there. And when
the mission was over, we came home. We didn't occupy
Kuwait or Iraq or anything. So support was overwhelming. I
think now, you know, twenty years of war in Afghanistan
and Iraq, it's kind of a fatigue. Right, there's no
military draft, but it's like, okay, you know, people.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
One that we could go back into these wars we're
in now, we're seeing now there is a real yest
that our troops could be included. Now, what are your
thoughts then, if you don't mind me asking while we're
on this topic of the I don't know there are
American expats or whatever. But they did go over to
Ukraine and fight under the army. That was very interesting.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
No, I think we're not expects they were American citizens.
A lot of them were retired military or portman military
who went over there in the capacity, you know, as
a private citizen, not under the under the colors of
the of the US military at all. So but then
that that's their right, whether they're going in at the
contractor or not. As far as involvement. I think we
(15:23):
we all saw the withdrawal from Kabul, you know, a
number of years ago. It looked at God like the
withdrawal from Saigon when I was a kid. Uh. I
think in general intervention, I think the American people know
that intervention never takes you know, one or two years,
right once we interviewed that where we're there for a
long time, and it takes a long time to leave, literally.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
One year to try and leave that Afghanistan. And yet
I mean you're watching this as a former military, but
you gotta think, what what disaster it was?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It's a repeat? Is the country better off? Are we
better off today before we went into that war? Are
they the Afghans better off?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
And then you look at all the injuries and the
death right over that thousands of death, but a lot
of injuries because the armor is so good that the
soldiers on the battlefield are surviving, right, they lose all
their limbs, but all the vital organs are protected because
of the armor.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Plaiting all right to have one leg up. As an entrepreneur, see,
I just love saying this. And as a you know,
as a refugee and whatnot, did you have to hide.
I don't know how to say, but bury the PTSD.
Did you have any leaving? I mean, how do you
cope with that while launching this business?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Great question. So you know, when I went into the Marines,
it was you know, in the mid eighties when all
these Vietnam war movies, and a lot of them were
anti war Vietnam movies. Right, we shouldn't have been there.
The veterans of the victims. All Vietnamese people are the enemy,
whether they're from the North or South or whatever, there's
no distinction. So did I go to the Marines and
(16:59):
they were talking to me? Was that with the enemy
trying to infiltrate you know, they were part of the
screening head games. I didn't have time to deal with PTSD.
I just I just fought through it because I knew
that I had the right stuff to belong and that
the opportunities will be there and enough good people will
(17:19):
see that. It was a mental block for me because
my father was in prison at the same time. You know,
he lost the war as the South Vietnamese and he
was in prison. So for me to go to the
US Marines and fail, they would say, well, you know,
the South Vietnamese didn't fight and their son couldn't make
it in the Marine Corps. I would I would not
allowed that to happen.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
So I didn't tell your heritage and your legacy by
doing and succeeding in it.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yes, yes, Uh at that time I had approved that. Hey,
you know that's not the way the war. Uh. The
war turned out the way did. We lost, but it
wasn't without effort like my father's j generation. And it
all turned out to be true. I knew once I
got through that, you know, I would have a successful
(18:08):
and everything happened the way was. And when I left
the military, I had a lot of confidence. I was
a good presenter, speaker. I had really no fear besides
the things that I talked about before you get scared,
but do you overcome the fear? And I was always prepared.
So I took a lot of good things. And now
everybody had to experience I did, and I try to
share that you have to fight through it. This there's
(18:29):
no they don't give it to you in the Silver
Platt the Marine Corps does that promise you a rose guard?
That's one of the recuse pitches.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You know, Vietnamese and Vietnam obviously still strikes a nerve
whenever you talk about saying Country's day Vietnam. So going
in as one of the first was there a stigma
you had to overcome, if you will, being Vietnamese or
were they very accepting?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Oh yeah, of course it was. I mean, you know,
we were not for twenty years the United States was
the war didn't turn out the way that we thought
it was. They thought it was going to come in
and it will be over back in the sixties, and
you know, six months it turned out we lost you know,
over sixty thousand, right, the names are on the wall,
about three hundred thousand wounded in action. The Vietnamese people
lost about three million. There was a long and bloody war.
(19:20):
So what happened when I came in in the mid
eighty was that all those Vietnam war movies, you know, Platoon,
Full Metal Jacket, these this was part of the culture.
Like I said, the Vietnamese people in those movie would
always depicted as the enemy. There was no ally or friends.
And now there I was in the US military uniform
trying to make it and there were people who were
Vietnam vets that were still on active duty, and you know,
(19:43):
one of them said, hey man, we used to kill
people like you the enemy. But I let that, you know,
I let that go by because I knew it as
part of the screening process. I figured it out after
a few weeks that I landed in Juantica where Officer
Candid school was, and you know, I was going to
be over the sergeant and the gunnery sergeant that were
(20:03):
screening me. So I had approved them. I had the
physical but also the mental. I had had to do
what it took to become a Marine officer. And no doubt,
the first month there was rough. All the PTSD didn't
have to try to deal with it, but it was there.
And all of the cultural stigma that I had to
deal with, and all of the profanity, all of the
(20:24):
name calling. But that was part of the game back then,
you know, it was it was a screening period.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And if I hear you correctly, you were a kid
in Vietnam during the war. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Wow, this is sort of like your own healing journey
as well to join the military that the thought.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Of my country.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, exactly, it's like a healing journey also in a sense.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, So there was one one moment that you know,
after I completed it, I didn't think I was going
to go in to serve. I figured, hey, I proved,
I proved of these guys. I had what it took.
I graduated, But I went to the Vietnam War in Washington, DC,
and I realized there were sixty thousand name, fifty eight
thousand and sixty thousand names on it, and I didn't
know one name. I didn't know one name of a
(21:05):
person who died, who fought for my country, who fought
for the freedom of South Vietnam. Right, some veterans will
say that I didn't fight for Vietnam, I wasn't fought
for America. But in a way, they fought for South Vietnam, Okay,
against the communists. So the whole vision was that you
stopped communism in Southeast Asia, it would not come to
Hawaii and California, and to America, you fight it over there.
(21:26):
It's also called the Domino theory. So for all of that,
I felt I owed this country at least a few
years in uniform.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Amazing. I got to ask about mash because obviously that
was bigger around that time joined and of course they
were big in the medical world like they always saw,
were all these guys getting repaired and all that. But
the MASH have an impact on you, No.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Because MASH was in the seventies when the war was
still going on. Okay, MASH was you know, a unit,
I believe you know, because MASH was in the seventies.
So when I came to the United States, the MASH
was already off TV. But like I said, the big
movies that came out, and there were two that were
very opposite in the summer of nineteen eighty six, a
few years before you were born. One was Platoon, right,
(22:09):
Oliver Stone. Platoon, very dramatic of the grunt the infantry.
And the other movie that came out that summer was
a Pop Gun, you know, how to become this pilot,
this fancy aviator and a Navy So I was going
through marine training like basic you know, infantry shooting off
(22:30):
Chichean School. But I was to become a marine pilot.
So I cauted for both sides.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
They're very intriguing. And now look at you. You're thriving.
You're a CEO, right, and it's just it's amazing. And
as a leader, now do you look at your team
as if you're in the battlefield of science and you
want to conquer this issue with blood dinners. It seems
like it's a passion of yours right now.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
It's a passion, and it's always the know how can
you rally people around resources to the complete emission? Right in,
our mission is completely when we get the drug approved
and the approval rate one is very low, number two
is very hard. The race capital in this market to continue.
So you have to be innovative, you got to be passionate,
you got to have scientific proof, and so pulling all
(23:19):
of that together and constantly looking at our effort and
our results. So we're doing something that's not producing the result,
then we got to change our effort.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
It's the old saying about the insanity, right that the
definition is doing the same thing and expecting a different results.
That's called insanity. So we try to not do the
same thing, and you know, if we don't get the result,
we were going to change it up. You know, you
don't go and pitch the same pictures. If you lose
a three game.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Series, right, you got you gotta change it up. You
got to bring in the middle reliever. You know, you
Yankees know about that. You gotta change the lineup. If
somebody's not hitting in the fourth spot, you gotta get
somebody in there. Somebody who's leading off is not getting
on base, you gotta switch up the lineup. So we're
constantly reviewing our effort to make sure we get the result.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And you mentioned a couple of brands. Do you look
at those brands and say, man, they're doing a disservice
to those who need it. That's why we can step
into the space even more.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Oh yeah, you know, you know we work in the
anticoagulant or blood thinning space right to prevent stroke. Okay,
so stroke is one of the top three cause of
death in America. In the world, heart disease is number one,
and then cancer is right up there too. So you know,
we believe what we're doing is very important to prevent death.
And so when drugs that are expensive that are out
there that are not meeting certain pockets, we call them gaps.
(24:38):
That's what our drug is decided to do is to
take care of the areas and conditions where the big
drugs are aren't meeting.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
You get to DC to talk about your your drug
or not really.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Oh yeah, you know, I get yeah, I get asked
to go on certain news, you know, to talk about it.
You know, you just have to when you talk to
the general public, you got to make sure you use,
you know, language that people can really understand. Right, blood
clots causes strokes and heart attack. We're developing a blood
tender to minimize the risk of getting blood closts, which
(25:10):
causes strokes and death. So that's the common language when
you talk about scientific and you know, we're developing an
anticoagulant to prevent thrombus formation which can lead to a
stroke or am I mild cardill and fox in our
heart tach? So when we talk like this in general,
I try to make sure I use language that people
can understand. It's just like maritating language. Language and acronyms
(25:31):
are hard to understand in the public, but people use
it in the military. Attack. You just got to know
who the audience is and and kind of cater our
topwards that audience. So there's a common understanding in the conversation.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Where can people find your studies. I'm sure you guys
have done the study on this drug?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Oh yeah, so yeah, yeah, the drugs called to Carfriin
so you know, sounds like Warford because it's in the
same class. The company is called Kadrino Therapeutics. And the
readers want to look me up. I'm on LinkedIn or
you can Google me or go to my speaker author
website kwang xfom dot com, q u A n g
x p h A M dot com.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
All right, I gotta ask you this because this this
Vietnam connected is fascinating for me. Do you and in
order to answer, do you? It's hard to forgive LBJ?
But do you forgive him it all? I I don't
know I can I in my heart, I don't know
if I can ever forgive. But what what what's your
thought about him? Because obviously he was the catalyst to
all of this.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, you know, there there were a couple of things
that happened real quick. So before you know, President then
to B. Johnson. I always paid respect to the president
of the office. President Johnson came to office because kenn
is President Kennedy was assassinated. But what people didn't know
that in nineteen sixty three, you know, President Kennedy was
assassing November of nineteen sixty three in Texas well three
(26:52):
weeks before that, a coup happened in South Vietnam where
the President of South Vietnam, who was a Catholic, and
you know, the Kennedy administration totally supported him. President DM
he was assassinated, coordinated, Okay, So in a matter of
a month, the President of South Vietnam was assassinated, President
(27:14):
Kitty was assassinated, and so the whole involvement. When LBJ
took office in nineteen sixty four, there was just sixteen
thousand Americans there on an advisory. It got escalated, and
next you know, the Marines landed in nineteen sixty five.
Next you know, five hundred thousand Americans were in Vietnam
by nineteen sixty eight, and so it was gradual, gradual escalation.
(27:36):
But the change in the regime definitely had a big
effect on the Vietnam War. First we were there to
help him with advisors. Then we said, you know, we
got to sit in our own combat troops. Then we
had to build up the South Vietnamese to look like
the US military to take over the war, and then
we drew. So it was a very complex war. But
you know, having been an author and living through it
(27:56):
with my family, my first book of Censor Duty. I
found great relief in that I found the answers through
my own research, in my own interviews, rather than relying
on textbooks in Hollywood movies.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
You've interviewed people along the way here then.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Oh yeah, well, you know, so I had interviews in
that that were in the public domain. But I went
and interviewed South Vietnamese officials about, you know, you fought
in the war. The United States gave the South means
all of these resources for two decades what happened. So
I wanted to hear firsthand that. You know, when my
(28:32):
father came out of prison, you know, I was able
to get some interviews that he did with an American
journalist before he died. So I put all that pieces
together to to write A Censor Duty, which was published
by Random House twenty years ago. So there were twenty
years between my first book at Censor Duty, Our Journey
from Vietnam, by Random House in two thousand and five
and my second book, by fourth book, Under dog Dation,
(28:54):
that came out in April of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
All right, there are so many who had fled for it.
I mean, there's no doubt about it and our work
in society to contribute and of you know, civilization process
as well. So how can we change the view on
immigration in the sense of, yes, we want people to
(29:17):
come here and contribute. I feel like that sentiment is
kind of going away by the bad apples.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, yeah, so I think you know, I know, the
Vietnam War, obviously, because of our heritage and our circumstances,
the Vietnamese refugee really had a big friend and the
late President Ford, you know, he went through Congress, the
war ended, the Saigon fell, you know, the picture of
the helicopter coming atop you know, the building with a
bunch of people on the ladder. With all that process
(29:45):
got passed really quick in the spring of nineteen seventy five. So,
you know, fast forward, two billion Vietnamese are in the
United States. Okay, there's a lot of a lot of sympathy,
a lot of overdoor because there was a relationship between
the two countries, right, American gis had Vietnamese wives, you
know cans. They were American American father Vietnamese mother. And
(30:09):
there were Americans that went over there for two or
three combat tours and the state departments, so there were
this deep relationship that you know, South Vietnam, you know,
had a lot of a lot of a lot of
Americans wanted to help the South Vietnamese. So when you
go to the Gulf War. When we went to the
Gulf War and we were allowed to go into the
city and have our art and you know, hang out
with the locals, it was very segregated. We were on
(30:31):
board operating base. And then I think the Iraqi and
the Afghanistan experience was the same thing. There was no
intermingle link with the locals, right, so there was not
a deep connection. So when when you have that and
when you don't have a military draft, you know, the
general public is kind of disengaged from it. They don't
really know the afghan refugee or the Iraqis. It's like
(30:52):
the South Vietnamese. And so you can't compare the conflicts.
I think now, I think the economy is so diverse,
you know, just there's just people pursuing their lives that
if they don't have a family member and they didn't serve,
they're removed from those situations and even for even more
removed from the people from those countries where we sent
(31:15):
truth for the last twenty one year. And so then
and now now you put the overseas conflict military conflict,
and you compare that to the border situation, and that's
you know, that's over a century of history of Mexico
California border, you know, and so they don't really compare.
(31:35):
And I'm a California native. If I lived out there
most of my life before moving to Florida just two
our north of Tia, wanted the border. I've been down
in Mexico. You know, the Mexican people are part of
California in the culture, as well as you know, the
productivity of a certain sector, including the agriculture sector, the
(31:56):
housing sector, and the real estate sector. It's a it's
a hard, hard topic, and I think every administration is
dealing with it differently.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Absolutely, all right, do you feel like, in your position
and your journey, you've almost in your own way, repaired
relationship between Vietnamese and Americans. You're you're the connector, it
feels like. So do you feel like going back to
Vietnam and sort of saying the good things America was
doing twenty years later when you joined the military.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah, and you know at that time has passed. I
went back to Vietnam in nineteen ninety five, thirty years ago,
when the country was about to when our two country
was about to normalize. You know, I'm an American. My
life is here, my family's here, my job, my friends,
my connection. Most of the Vietnamese people, right, two thirds
the population was bored after the war, so they don't
(32:49):
really have memories and they don't have PTSD. They don't
have and they don't really they don't call it the
Vietnam where they call it the American War back there,
and I think a lot of people have moved on
one because they won, and two two thirds of them
were born after nineteen seventy five. It's like our baby
Boom generation. Right after World War Two, the guys came home,
there were no more fighting, they had a lot of kids,
and there was a big movement. That's what happened in Vietnam.
(33:11):
It's almost too crowded there, you know when when when
I was there, both North and South had thirty something
million people. The population is like one hundred and ten
million today. And Vietnam is kind of a California, a
skinny California. It's not a very big country. There's a
lot of rough terrain, high grounds, and the Pacific Ocean
to the to the east of the country, you know,
(33:32):
on the other side of Laos and Cambodia, very mountainous
up in the north. So it's overpopulated almost in the cities.
But I don't have you know, you know, it's my birthplace.
But you know, America is my home. I don't feel
like I have to go back and change or lecture
to anybody, you know, I yeah, I love it here. Yeah, yeah,
this is my country. It's a country that my mom
(33:54):
when we got here, didn't feel like we had to
change our names. You know, we have our names that
were given us at birth. And it's okay. This country
elected somebody called Barack Obama after nine to eleven, so
anything possible. So I think people still here judge you
by you know, your conduct and your character versus your
name or your race. So I still believe in that.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
All right, your book, Underdog Nation, what do you hope
it accomplishes and inspires for the next generation? If you will?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
You know, I'm practical. You know, people's time are scared.
So if somebody picks up the book and gets one
thing out of it, knowing that if you're an underdog. Okay,
you gotta focus on giving the right effort to produce
the results. Okay. You can't expect people to hand things
to you. Okay, when you go after results, good things
(34:46):
will happen. That's it.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
That's it, plain and simple. Well, I feel like you
have one leg up in your career, in your life,
and you're helping others have one leg up through this
conversation today, and I I want you back. I like
hearing about this. I like that you're can, I say,
doing it the right way because I feel like there
are some drug companies that don't do it right the
(35:10):
right way.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
No, thank you. I'm in New York a lot. I
would like to get together with you for a meal.
You've shown me a lot with your life and what
you have to do with you have to have to
deal with. So we'll see each other New York, my friend.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
All right, quong x fam, thanks so much for joining,
and do come back to the One Up Network.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Great, Thank you, Alex, see you again. Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
That was perfect, Thank you, Thank you anytime.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
We'll see you in New York sometime next six months.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yes, sir, thank you,
Here's your host, Alex Garren. All right, I'm here with
my next guest on the One Leg Up Network, mister
Kwang Fam. And his story is very intriguing to me.
He's a tech trail blazer and combat veteran and now
(00:21):
now he's written a book about Underdog Nation. And when
I first got your pitch, I was so enthralled because
you're a marine combat veteran, You've been with the nasdak
Okay NAZAC CEO and refugee turned trails blazer all that,
and here you are having one leg Up on life.
And I actually brought you on about Nasdaq story to
(00:43):
get into that a little bit. But tell us your story, Kwang.
I'm so glad to have you. Quang Fam.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, you know it's it's a pleasure to be with
you Alex and your listeners. That's been a one fortunate
refugee from Vietnam. Came over here about fifty years ago
when I was a kid. At the last minute, you know,
the week before you see that picture of in the
Missaigne play at the helicopter leading the rooftop, Well, we
were gone a week before that. So South Vietnam lost
(01:09):
the war. We came to the United States as refugee,
started with nothing, no money, no language, no compacts, and
so we were antally an underdog in this nation. I
think the second part of the story is that if
you're an underdog, this is no this is there's no
better place than come into America because this is the
land of opportunity. And but you got it. You got
(01:31):
to produce results. And I think the book that I
wrote that Indognations about leading with focusing on the effort
and producing results. So journey started as a refugee, learned English,
worked at age twelve, I worked my way through college
at UCLA out on the other coast California. Fell I
(01:53):
had a duty to serve America, paid back my citizenship
and so got out of college, became a marine after
finishing officer candidate school, and they sent me to flight school.
You know, nobody, you know, nobody thinks about going to war.
They just you know, they want to serve their country.
And then war's in reality if you're in the marine.
So next you know, the Gulf War kicked off the
(02:14):
dominated Kuwait and a few months later I leant in
Saudi Arabia as a brand new helicopter pilot wind Marines
a few months later out of Kuwait City, out of Metavac.
So spent seven years on active duty. I went back
to the Persian golf through the different deployments, went to Somalia,
got out and became a pharmaceutical sales represented for a
(02:37):
couple of years and became a dot com tech entrepreneur,
raised some VC money and then about ten years ago
came back to pharmaceutical as a founder CEO. And you know,
in twenty twenty three took a company of public called
Kadrino Therapeutics and we focused on developing a blood dinner
to fulfill the gaps of where patients you know, who
(02:59):
are now treated well or not reacting well to wharfan
and it can't use eloquist. So that's that's the story.
Was able to ring the closing bell in February of
twenty twenty three when the highlights of my professional career,
and got to do it virtually twice in San Francisco,
get the JP Morgan Healthcare conference. There they have the
(03:19):
barrel ceremony to open the bell during that week in
San Francisco. So that's the five minute life story. It's
an American journey. It's a journey always possible in this country.
And I'm living proof and every day I'm grateful to
be in America. And you know, I've just worked hard
to do three things right. To serve my country, which
(03:41):
I did, to honor my family and our legacy were refugees.
We owed this country and we gave back. And then
to contribute this medicine to mankind and womankind across this
country unto the world.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
You were the first Vietnamese American to fly combat missions
for the Marines. Thank you for your service.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh, it was a great, a tremendous opportunity and experience.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I believe it. And so how did that experience in
the military shape your entrepreneurial mindset? Well?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Number one, Uh, you know, people get scared, you know,
of comeback, of fighting off whatever. But you can't let
fear quipper you. So that's one of the one thing
I learned I came out of the Marines. I was
not fearful of anything. Now I was scared of the uncertainty.
You know, how do you translate flying helicopter off the
ship into selling drugs or running a business plan or
(04:37):
pitching fincher capitalist, right, So I was never fearful of failure.
Now I was scared to overcome. Uh you know that
part of being scared. I was very well prepared. So
the second part come out of the marine that was
very prepared, just like I was for every mission. You know,
we brief every scenario, the backup plan, the backup to
the backup. You know, if we can't get fuel, we
(04:58):
run out of ammunition, the Marines weren't in the zone,
what do we do what we can't find the ship
at night or you know, we breathed every possible scenario.
So we're very much prepared. So no fear, always prepared,
and always looked to produce results. You know, it's it's
okay to say I flew fifteen hours or eighty hours
(05:19):
in one month, but what did you What did that resulted?
And so I always brought that to the business world.
You went out and made eight calls a day what
he calls a week of meeting doctors? What did that produce?
What is the result? I picked that battalion into the
entrepreneurial world, like what is the effort and result? I
call it going to the er?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, that's that's very interesting and then you got into
the pharmaceuticals. But I want to talk about the NASDAC
because I literally saw this email the same week I
saw Tristan Thompson's the NBA guy futured Naszak. I'm like,
all right, this is sign I gotta talk NASDAK. So
talk about your experience. Yeah on the so I.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Think, yeah, yeah. So you know, NASDAQ is one of
the two major stock exchanges obviously in the unisity of
the world, right nasty New York stock exchange. The NASDAQ
is where over ninety percent of the biot tech companies
like ours drug development company pre Revenue are listed. So
you know, every day there's an opening ceremony and a
closing ceremony right when there's trading. And so when we
(06:23):
went public in January of twenty twenty three, I think
a month later in February, we were offered an opportunity
to close the market closed the you know the ring,
the closing bell, and so we brought everybody, investors, board members,
the management team, their family to New York. Times Square
went into Nasdaq. They treated with royalty. You know, we're
(06:45):
one of the listed companies, and I went able to
hit the closing belt right at four o'clock on the
training day. So that was my first experience. I did
two openings out in California doing the GP Morgan Healthcare Conference,
and Nasdak was so good to be. When Underdog, my
book came out, second book came out in April, they
brought me. I was up there for a meeting, so
they brought me. Uh, they asked me for a book cover.
(07:07):
They put it on the Marquee and it says, you know,
Nasdak congratulates a member CEO quand FIM in his book publishing.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So how cool is that? There?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Very very cool Rid Times Square. There is my cover
of my book. And beyond.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You know it, MARKET see the pride. Beyond cool, I
see the pride because I work right by New York's Exchange.
I see the pride of every organization that takes their
photo there. On launch DA I mean to launch an
I p O is probably one of the most accomplishing feelings.
It's not just what we see on TV. It's a
(07:47):
real feeling too.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
No, no, it's a real feeling. And you know, for us,
you know, the the IPOs part of the journey, but
it's not the destination. Right for us, the destination is
getting a drug approved. When you go public for about
said company, you're raising money to advance the drug in
the clinical trials and people. So it's a milestone, right.
You get the money from the public offering, the public
investors are you know, they trust you, They trust you
(08:11):
that you're gonna take their money, put it in clinical trials,
advance the drug, and put it in front of the FDA,
and you know, get get a positive approval, so the
drugs out available for you know, we in this country,
in our industry, Uh, we invent, we advanced drugs. The
majority of the new drugs in the world come from
the United States. So it's an industry that produces the
goods for the world. Right here. There's a lot of
(08:36):
controversy about drug pricing and politics.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
And obviously, obviously when you talk to someone who's manufacturing
and producing these the pricing is an issue. So how
do you make sure you have one leg up on
your competition to make it more affordable uh for customers
and patients?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, I think you have to look at the pricing issue,
and I think the Congress, the President law being groups,
patient group, you gotta look you can't just look at
the list price. You gotta look at the net price, okay.
And so there's a list price and there's a bunch
of rebates in the middle people, the middle companies, the
distribution company take their piece and the you know, if
the PBM take their piece. And so by the time
(09:16):
it gets to the patient, you know, there's a cope
usually if you have insurance, uh. And then so you
have to look at, you know, what is the true price.
You can't just look at the list price of a drug,
given that you know it takes you know, we this
drug that we've worked on, there's been over two hundred
million invested in it, you know, over the life of
(09:38):
the molecule from inception. So this is not a small amount.
And that's that's only a fraction. The Pharmaceutical UH lobbying
organization for the industry estimates it's over one point seven
billion of investment before a drug could be approved and
used in the United States and the rest of world.
(10:00):
So two hundred and fifty million work a lot less
so far than the average drug that the lobbying organization
has put out as the cost of developing drugs in
this country.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Well, when you talk about approval, does that mean you're
waiting for FDA approval or does that already happen.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
No, we have, well one more trial. So you know,
with the drug development process, you take a molecule, you
put the intellectual property protection around it, you take it
into animals, so that's called the pre clinical. Then you
go to the FBA and say the drug is safe
and animal, can we do it in humans? So that's
phase one, you know, dosing safety. Then you go to
phase two when you look at efficacy and safety, and
then phase three you're trying to prove that the drug
(10:39):
worked better than doing nothing or works better than what's
the standard of care. So we're at that phase three
for our drug to carfer it. So once we complete that,
then we gather all the data, make sure all the
third party validates it. Then we set it to the
FDA and the FDA makes a determination yes it is
approved or no it is not approved, but we need
(11:00):
this data to look at it again. And so it's
a very complicated process. But you know it's understandably right.
His drugs for people supposed to save lives, so it's
got to be safe, supposed to cure diseases. So it's
got to be safe first. So that's the number one
concern for the FDA is safety. Then efficacy. They got
to make sure it isn't hurt anybody and that it works.
(11:22):
Then you can go to the market when you're pricing
and stuff. So for us, it's still pricing, is you know,
it's a way off. We have to complete the last trial.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well, I'm sure when it is a proof, you want
to come back on and break that news. I'd love
to have you on about that, But I might have
missed something when I was transitioning from one of your
piece of the other. Were you also medical in the military.
Were you on the ground helping, you know, patch up
people or in that sense or not? Really?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
No, I was a pilot. I was a helicopter pilot.
You were just doing yeah, But the difference is I
was a saul support pilot, so I take troops into
the zone and pick them up or weave the air
crew right. Whereas we're crew, we're not single pilot, two pilots,
a couple of crewmen in the back and in a coreman,
which is a medic. So in a way I am
(12:09):
involved because part of the mission I flew with the
Metapact medical evacuation of wounded Marines and wounded the Iraqi
soldier in the Gulf ward and the medic at the
back took care of him. And that's the kind of
military we are, right once the fighting is stopped, we
abide but the Geneva Conventions. We don't leave the enemy
on the battlefield. We take care of our own. But
if the enemy has surrendered and it's hurt, you know,
(12:30):
I saw the first hand. We did it. We flew
injured the Iraqi soldiers, the enemy into our aid station,
into our hospital. Because that's the kind of military that
you know, we operate, and people don't forget that. You know,
we abide by the Geneva Convention. So but that's how
I was involved medically. We were prepared to fly wounded
out as well as take troops of the combat.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Speaking of not forgetting, I've seen highlights. I was only
a year old, but I've seen highlights of the United
Center being so emotional over the national anthem at the time.
Why has support I don't know if it's for the
troops so much, or what it is is decreases then
(13:11):
I feel like there's not as much, you know, every
day like there was at times.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Right, Yeah, that's a great point. So okay, I'm a
little bit older than you, but you know, I was
still a kid during the Vietnam War. So in Groover,
in America, I saw how America reflected on the Vietnam
War was mostly through Hollywood movies, which as part of
the culture, right, pop culture. Right, there's certain angles of
the war. But you know, because there was a draft
going on, it was very controversial, and it was the
(13:37):
mean generation, and it was the other racial issues in America.
The Vietnam War was very controversial. So when it ended
during Ortian, they blamed the troops and then they blame everybody.
But the troops didn't get the military service member didn't
get the recognition like the World War Two. So that's
nineteen seventy five, late seventies, and you go to nineteen
(14:00):
ninety you now you have you know, President Bush, the
Republicans are in office. We haven't you know, entered at
war since Vietnam. There was a lot of hesitation, and
then we go to the Gulf War. It was over,
it was clear who the enemy was. We did the
right thing. The world supported us, Congress, you know, didn't
pass covenet to take a vote, but it passed the
(14:21):
resolution to let President Bush send us there. And when
the mission was over, we came home. We didn't occupy
Kuwait or Iraq or anything. So support was overwhelming. I
think now, you know, twenty years of war in Afghanistan
and Iraq, it's kind of a fatigue. Right, there's no
military draft, but it's like, okay, you know, people.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
One that we could go back into these wars we're
in now, we're seeing now there is a real yest
that our troops could be included. Now, what are your
thoughts then, if you don't mind me asking while we're
on this topic of the I don't know there are
American expats or whatever. But they did go over to
Ukraine and fight under the army. That was very interesting.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
No, I think we're not expects they were American citizens.
A lot of them were retired military or portman military
who went over there in the capacity, you know, as
a private citizen, not under the under the colors of
the of the US military at all. So but then
that that's their right, whether they're going in at the
contractor or not. As far as involvement. I think we
(15:23):
we all saw the withdrawal from Kabul, you know, a
number of years ago. It looked at God like the
withdrawal from Saigon when I was a kid. Uh. I
think in general intervention, I think the American people know
that intervention never takes you know, one or two years,
right once we interviewed that where we're there for a
long time, and it takes a long time to leave, literally.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
One year to try and leave that Afghanistan. And yet
I mean you're watching this as a former military, but
you gotta think, what what disaster it was?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It's a repeat? Is the country better off? Are we
better off today before we went into that war? Are
they the Afghans better off?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
And then you look at all the injuries and the
death right over that thousands of death, but a lot
of injuries because the armor is so good that the
soldiers on the battlefield are surviving, right, they lose all
their limbs, but all the vital organs are protected because
of the armor.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Plaiting all right to have one leg up. As an entrepreneur, see,
I just love saying this. And as a you know,
as a refugee and whatnot, did you have to hide.
I don't know how to say, but bury the PTSD.
Did you have any leaving? I mean, how do you
cope with that while launching this business?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Great question. So you know, when I went into the Marines,
it was you know, in the mid eighties when all
these Vietnam war movies, and a lot of them were
anti war Vietnam movies. Right, we shouldn't have been there.
The veterans of the victims. All Vietnamese people are the enemy,
whether they're from the North or South or whatever, there's
no distinction. So did I go to the Marines and
(16:59):
they were talking to me? Was that with the enemy
trying to infiltrate you know, they were part of the
screening head games. I didn't have time to deal with PTSD.
I just I just fought through it because I knew
that I had the right stuff to belong and that
the opportunities will be there and enough good people will
(17:19):
see that. It was a mental block for me because
my father was in prison at the same time. You know,
he lost the war as the South Vietnamese and he
was in prison. So for me to go to the
US Marines and fail, they would say, well, you know,
the South Vietnamese didn't fight and their son couldn't make
it in the Marine Corps. I would I would not
allowed that to happen.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
So I didn't tell your heritage and your legacy by
doing and succeeding in it.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yes, yes, Uh at that time I had approved that. Hey,
you know that's not the way the war. Uh. The
war turned out the way did. We lost, but it
wasn't without effort like my father's j generation. And it
all turned out to be true. I knew once I
got through that, you know, I would have a successful
(18:08):
and everything happened the way was. And when I left
the military, I had a lot of confidence. I was
a good presenter, speaker. I had really no fear besides
the things that I talked about before you get scared,
but do you overcome the fear? And I was always prepared.
So I took a lot of good things. And now
everybody had to experience I did, and I try to
share that you have to fight through it. This there's
(18:29):
no they don't give it to you in the Silver
Platt the Marine Corps does that promise you a rose guard?
That's one of the recuse pitches.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You know, Vietnamese and Vietnam obviously still strikes a nerve
whenever you talk about saying Country's day Vietnam. So going
in as one of the first was there a stigma
you had to overcome, if you will, being Vietnamese or
were they very accepting?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Oh yeah, of course it was. I mean, you know,
we were not for twenty years the United States was
the war didn't turn out the way that we thought
it was. They thought it was going to come in
and it will be over back in the sixties, and
you know, six months it turned out we lost you know,
over sixty thousand, right, the names are on the wall,
about three hundred thousand wounded in action. The Vietnamese people
lost about three million. There was a long and bloody war.
(19:20):
So what happened when I came in in the mid
eighty was that all those Vietnam war movies, you know, Platoon,
Full Metal Jacket, these this was part of the culture.
Like I said, the Vietnamese people in those movie would
always depicted as the enemy. There was no ally or friends.
And now there I was in the US military uniform
trying to make it and there were people who were
Vietnam vets that were still on active duty, and you know,
(19:43):
one of them said, hey man, we used to kill
people like you the enemy. But I let that, you know,
I let that go by because I knew it as
part of the screening process. I figured it out after
a few weeks that I landed in Juantica where Officer
Candid school was, and you know, I was going to
be over the sergeant and the gunnery sergeant that were
(20:03):
screening me. So I had approved them. I had the
physical but also the mental. I had had to do
what it took to become a Marine officer. And no doubt,
the first month there was rough. All the PTSD didn't
have to try to deal with it, but it was there.
And all of the cultural stigma that I had to
deal with, and all of the profanity, all of the
(20:24):
name calling. But that was part of the game back then,
you know, it was it was a screening period.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And if I hear you correctly, you were a kid
in Vietnam during the war. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Wow, this is sort of like your own healing journey
as well to join the military that the thought.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Of my country.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, exactly, it's like a healing journey also in a sense.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, So there was one one moment that you know,
after I completed it, I didn't think I was going
to go in to serve. I figured, hey, I proved,
I proved of these guys. I had what it took.
I graduated, But I went to the Vietnam War in Washington, DC,
and I realized there were sixty thousand name, fifty eight
thousand and sixty thousand names on it, and I didn't
know one name. I didn't know one name of a
(21:05):
person who died, who fought for my country, who fought
for the freedom of South Vietnam. Right, some veterans will
say that I didn't fight for Vietnam, I wasn't fought
for America. But in a way, they fought for South Vietnam, Okay,
against the communists. So the whole vision was that you
stopped communism in Southeast Asia, it would not come to
Hawaii and California, and to America, you fight it over there.
(21:26):
It's also called the Domino theory. So for all of that,
I felt I owed this country at least a few
years in uniform.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Amazing. I got to ask about mash because obviously that
was bigger around that time joined and of course they
were big in the medical world like they always saw,
were all these guys getting repaired and all that. But
the MASH have an impact on you, No.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Because MASH was in the seventies when the war was
still going on. Okay, MASH was you know, a unit,
I believe you know, because MASH was in the seventies.
So when I came to the United States, the MASH
was already off TV. But like I said, the big
movies that came out, and there were two that were
very opposite in the summer of nineteen eighty six, a
few years before you were born. One was Platoon, right,
(22:09):
Oliver Stone. Platoon, very dramatic of the grunt the infantry.
And the other movie that came out that summer was
a Pop Gun, you know, how to become this pilot,
this fancy aviator and a Navy So I was going
through marine training like basic you know, infantry shooting off
(22:30):
Chichean School. But I was to become a marine pilot.
So I cauted for both sides.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
They're very intriguing. And now look at you. You're thriving.
You're a CEO, right, and it's just it's amazing. And
as a leader, now do you look at your team
as if you're in the battlefield of science and you
want to conquer this issue with blood dinners. It seems
like it's a passion of yours right now.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
It's a passion, and it's always the know how can
you rally people around resources to the complete emission? Right in,
our mission is completely when we get the drug approved
and the approval rate one is very low, number two
is very hard. The race capital in this market to continue.
So you have to be innovative, you got to be passionate,
you got to have scientific proof, and so pulling all
(23:19):
of that together and constantly looking at our effort and
our results. So we're doing something that's not producing the result,
then we got to change our effort.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
It's the old saying about the insanity, right that the
definition is doing the same thing and expecting a different results.
That's called insanity. So we try to not do the
same thing, and you know, if we don't get the result,
we were going to change it up. You know, you
don't go and pitch the same pictures. If you lose
a three game.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Series, right, you got you gotta change it up. You
got to bring in the middle reliever. You know, you
Yankees know about that. You gotta change the lineup. If
somebody's not hitting in the fourth spot, you gotta get
somebody in there. Somebody who's leading off is not getting
on base, you gotta switch up the lineup. So we're
constantly reviewing our effort to make sure we get the result.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And you mentioned a couple of brands. Do you look
at those brands and say, man, they're doing a disservice
to those who need it. That's why we can step
into the space even more.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Oh yeah, you know, you know we work in the
anticoagulant or blood thinning space right to prevent stroke. Okay,
so stroke is one of the top three cause of
death in America. In the world, heart disease is number one,
and then cancer is right up there too. So you know,
we believe what we're doing is very important to prevent death.
And so when drugs that are expensive that are out
there that are not meeting certain pockets, we call them gaps.
(24:38):
That's what our drug is decided to do is to
take care of the areas and conditions where the big
drugs are aren't meeting.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
You get to DC to talk about your your drug
or not really.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Oh yeah, you know, I get yeah, I get asked
to go on certain news, you know, to talk about it.
You know, you just have to when you talk to
the general public, you got to make sure you use,
you know, language that people can really understand. Right, blood
clots causes strokes and heart attack. We're developing a blood
tender to minimize the risk of getting blood closts, which
(25:10):
causes strokes and death. So that's the common language when
you talk about scientific and you know, we're developing an
anticoagulant to prevent thrombus formation which can lead to a
stroke or am I mild cardill and fox in our
heart tach? So when we talk like this in general,
I try to make sure I use language that people
can understand. It's just like maritating language. Language and acronyms
(25:31):
are hard to understand in the public, but people use
it in the military. Attack. You just got to know
who the audience is and and kind of cater our
topwards that audience. So there's a common understanding in the conversation.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Where can people find your studies. I'm sure you guys
have done the study on this drug?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Oh yeah, so yeah, yeah, the drugs called to Carfriin
so you know, sounds like Warford because it's in the
same class. The company is called Kadrino Therapeutics. And the
readers want to look me up. I'm on LinkedIn or
you can Google me or go to my speaker author
website kwang xfom dot com, q u A n g
x p h A M dot com.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
All right, I gotta ask you this because this this
Vietnam connected is fascinating for me. Do you and in
order to answer, do you? It's hard to forgive LBJ?
But do you forgive him it all? I I don't
know I can I in my heart, I don't know
if I can ever forgive. But what what what's your
thought about him? Because obviously he was the catalyst to
all of this.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, you know, there there were a couple of things
that happened real quick. So before you know, President then
to B. Johnson. I always paid respect to the president
of the office. President Johnson came to office because kenn
is President Kennedy was assassinated. But what people didn't know
that in nineteen sixty three, you know, President Kennedy was
assassing November of nineteen sixty three in Texas well three
(26:52):
weeks before that, a coup happened in South Vietnam where
the President of South Vietnam, who was a Catholic, and
you know, the Kennedy administration totally supported him. President DM
he was assassinated, coordinated, Okay, So in a matter of
a month, the President of South Vietnam was assassinated, President
(27:14):
Kitty was assassinated, and so the whole involvement. When LBJ
took office in nineteen sixty four, there was just sixteen
thousand Americans there on an advisory. It got escalated, and
next you know, the Marines landed in nineteen sixty five.
Next you know, five hundred thousand Americans were in Vietnam
by nineteen sixty eight, and so it was gradual, gradual escalation.
(27:36):
But the change in the regime definitely had a big
effect on the Vietnam War. First we were there to
help him with advisors. Then we said, you know, we
got to sit in our own combat troops. Then we
had to build up the South Vietnamese to look like
the US military to take over the war, and then
we drew. So it was a very complex war. But
you know, having been an author and living through it
(27:56):
with my family, my first book of Censor Duty. I
found great relief in that I found the answers through
my own research, in my own interviews, rather than relying
on textbooks in Hollywood movies.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
You've interviewed people along the way here then.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Oh yeah, well, you know, so I had interviews in
that that were in the public domain. But I went
and interviewed South Vietnamese officials about, you know, you fought
in the war. The United States gave the South means
all of these resources for two decades what happened. So
I wanted to hear firsthand that. You know, when my
(28:32):
father came out of prison, you know, I was able
to get some interviews that he did with an American
journalist before he died. So I put all that pieces
together to to write A Censor Duty, which was published
by Random House twenty years ago. So there were twenty
years between my first book at Censor Duty, Our Journey
from Vietnam, by Random House in two thousand and five
and my second book, by fourth book, Under dog Dation,
(28:54):
that came out in April of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
All right, there are so many who had fled for it.
I mean, there's no doubt about it and our work
in society to contribute and of you know, civilization process
as well. So how can we change the view on
immigration in the sense of, yes, we want people to
(29:17):
come here and contribute. I feel like that sentiment is
kind of going away by the bad apples.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, yeah, so I think you know, I know, the
Vietnam War, obviously, because of our heritage and our circumstances,
the Vietnamese refugee really had a big friend and the
late President Ford, you know, he went through Congress, the
war ended, the Saigon fell, you know, the picture of
the helicopter coming atop you know, the building with a
bunch of people on the ladder. With all that process
(29:45):
got passed really quick in the spring of nineteen seventy five. So,
you know, fast forward, two billion Vietnamese are in the
United States. Okay, there's a lot of a lot of sympathy,
a lot of overdoor because there was a relationship between
the two countries, right, American gis had Vietnamese wives, you
know cans. They were American American father Vietnamese mother. And
(30:09):
there were Americans that went over there for two or
three combat tours and the state departments, so there were
this deep relationship that you know, South Vietnam, you know,
had a lot of a lot of a lot of
Americans wanted to help the South Vietnamese. So when you
go to the Gulf War. When we went to the
Gulf War and we were allowed to go into the
city and have our art and you know, hang out
with the locals, it was very segregated. We were on
(30:31):
board operating base. And then I think the Iraqi and
the Afghanistan experience was the same thing. There was no
intermingle link with the locals, right, so there was not
a deep connection. So when when you have that and
when you don't have a military draft, you know, the
general public is kind of disengaged from it. They don't
really know the afghan refugee or the Iraqis. It's like
(30:52):
the South Vietnamese. And so you can't compare the conflicts.
I think now, I think the economy is so diverse,
you know, just there's just people pursuing their lives that
if they don't have a family member and they didn't serve,
they're removed from those situations and even for even more
removed from the people from those countries where we sent
(31:15):
truth for the last twenty one year. And so then
and now now you put the overseas conflict military conflict,
and you compare that to the border situation, and that's
you know, that's over a century of history of Mexico
California border, you know, and so they don't really compare.
(31:35):
And I'm a California native. If I lived out there
most of my life before moving to Florida just two
our north of Tia, wanted the border. I've been down
in Mexico. You know, the Mexican people are part of
California in the culture, as well as you know, the
productivity of a certain sector, including the agriculture sector, the
(31:56):
housing sector, and the real estate sector. It's a it's
a hard, hard topic, and I think every administration is
dealing with it differently.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Absolutely, all right, do you feel like, in your position
and your journey, you've almost in your own way, repaired
relationship between Vietnamese and Americans. You're you're the connector, it
feels like. So do you feel like going back to
Vietnam and sort of saying the good things America was
doing twenty years later when you joined the military.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah, and you know at that time has passed. I
went back to Vietnam in nineteen ninety five, thirty years ago,
when the country was about to when our two country
was about to normalize. You know, I'm an American. My
life is here, my family's here, my job, my friends,
my connection. Most of the Vietnamese people, right, two thirds
the population was bored after the war, so they don't
(32:49):
really have memories and they don't have PTSD. They don't
have and they don't really they don't call it the
Vietnam where they call it the American War back there,
and I think a lot of people have moved on
one because they won, and two two thirds of them
were born after nineteen seventy five. It's like our baby
Boom generation. Right after World War Two, the guys came home,
there were no more fighting, they had a lot of kids,
and there was a big movement. That's what happened in Vietnam.
(33:11):
It's almost too crowded there, you know when when when
I was there, both North and South had thirty something
million people. The population is like one hundred and ten
million today. And Vietnam is kind of a California, a
skinny California. It's not a very big country. There's a
lot of rough terrain, high grounds, and the Pacific Ocean
to the to the east of the country, you know,
(33:32):
on the other side of Laos and Cambodia, very mountainous
up in the north. So it's overpopulated almost in the cities.
But I don't have you know, you know, it's my birthplace.
But you know, America is my home. I don't feel
like I have to go back and change or lecture
to anybody, you know, I yeah, I love it here. Yeah, yeah,
this is my country. It's a country that my mom
(33:54):
when we got here, didn't feel like we had to
change our names. You know, we have our names that
were given us at birth. And it's okay. This country
elected somebody called Barack Obama after nine to eleven, so
anything possible. So I think people still here judge you
by you know, your conduct and your character versus your
name or your race. So I still believe in that.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
All right, your book, Underdog Nation, what do you hope
it accomplishes and inspires for the next generation? If you will?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
You know, I'm practical. You know, people's time are scared.
So if somebody picks up the book and gets one
thing out of it, knowing that if you're an underdog. Okay,
you gotta focus on giving the right effort to produce
the results. Okay. You can't expect people to hand things
to you. Okay, when you go after results, good things
(34:46):
will happen. That's it.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
That's it, plain and simple. Well, I feel like you
have one leg up in your career, in your life,
and you're helping others have one leg up through this
conversation today, and I I want you back. I like
hearing about this. I like that you're can, I say,
doing it the right way because I feel like there
are some drug companies that don't do it right the
(35:10):
right way.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
No, thank you. I'm in New York a lot. I
would like to get together with you for a meal.
You've shown me a lot with your life and what
you have to do with you have to have to
deal with. So we'll see each other New York, my friend.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
All right, quong x fam, thanks so much for joining,
and do come back to the One Up Network.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Great, Thank you, Alex, see you again. Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
That was perfect, Thank you, Thank you anytime.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
We'll see you in New York sometime next six months.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yes, sir, thank you,
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