Relatively new CEO Joseph Ferra has orchestrated some pretty significant change at Elevation Oncology in the two(ish) years since the Business of Biotech last hosted the company. In that short time, Ferra advance from CFO to CEO, a move that aligned very closely with the company's difficult decision to shelve the late phase 2 anti-HER3 monoclonal antibody candidate it was founded on. Those big moves set the stage for Elevations' new lead candidate, a phase 1 Claudin18.2 target in the oh-so-hot ADC (antibody drug conjugate) space. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, we go behind the scenes to learn why and how those daring moves were made, and how Elevation navigated the gauntlet of risk it assumed when it embraced disruption in a not-so-shiny biotech market.
You've listened along for years -- now you can watch along, too! Go to bioprocessonline.com/solution/the-business-of-biotech-podcast, where you can put faces to voices as you watch hundreds of interviews with the world's best biotech builders. While you're there, subscribe to the #BusinessofBiotech newsletter at bioprocessonline.com/bob for more real, honest, transparent interactions with the leaders of emerging biotech. It's a once-per-month dose of insight and intel that you'll actually look forward to receiving! Check it out at bioprocessonline.com/bob!
Relatively new CEO Joseph Ferra has orchestrated some pretty significant change at Elevation Oncology in the two(ish) years since the Business of Biotech last hosted the company. In that short time, Ferra advance from CFO to CEO, a move that aligned very closely with the company's difficult decision to shelve the late phase 2 anti-HER3 monoclonal antibody candidate it was founded on. Those big moves set the stage for Elevations' new lead candidate, a phase 1 Claudin18.2 target in the oh-so-hot ADC (antibody drug conjugate) space. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, we go behind the scenes to learn why and how those daring moves were made, and how Elevation navigated the gauntlet of risk it assumed when it embraced disruption in a not-so-shiny biotech market.
You've listened along for years -- now you can watch along, too! Go to bioprocessonline.com/solution/the-business-of-biotech-podcast, where you can put faces to voices as you watch hundreds of interviews with the world's best biotech builders. While you're there, subscribe to the #BusinessofBiotech newsletter at bioprocessonline.com/bob for more real, honest, transparent interactions with the leaders of emerging biotech. It's a once-per-month dose of insight and intel that you'll actually look forward to receiving! Check it out at bioprocessonline.com/bob!
The business of biotech is produced by LifeScienceConnect and its community of learning, solving and sourcing resources for biopharma decision makers. If you're working on biologics process development and manufacturing challenges, you need to swing by bioprocessonlinecom. If you're trying to stay ahead of the Cell or Gene Therapy curve, visit cellenginecom. When it's time to map out your clinical course, let clinicalleadercom help, and if optimizing outsourcing decisions is what you're after, check out outsourcepharmacom. We're LifeScienceConnect and we're here to help.
Matt Pillar:So ADCs have been a bright spot on an otherwise gloomy biotech horizon, and Joe Ferra knows it. Ferra is CEO at Elevation Oncology, a biotech that's been making some strategic portfolio moves to maneuver its Claudin 18.2 targeting ADC EO3021 into phase one study status. Long time listeners of the business of biotech might be thinking wait, Joe Ferra, I thought Matt had Elevation CEO Sean Leland on the show a couple of years back and you're not wrong. We'll get into that in just a minute. In the meantime, I am Matt Pillar, this is the business of biotech and on today's show I'm excited to talk through some of the big moves Elevation has been making with its relatively new CEO and former CFO, Joe Ferra. Joe, welcome to the show.
Joe Ferra:Thank you very much, matt. I appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you and talk more about Elevation Oncology, and that's a great intro, so I appreciate it.
Matt Pillar:Oh well, I did. It was brief and to the point, but I appreciate your compliments there. I you know. Anytime I have the opportunity to spend some time with a company that's experienced some significant change over the course of the 18 or 24 months since I last talked to it. I welcome that company back on the show and the change has not been insignificant at Elevation, both in terms of its leadership and its portfolio strategy, and that's the stuff I want to get into. But before we do because you're new to me and perhaps new, new, new to our audience I want to spend some time getting to know you and you're. You have you know. Everyone that I interview has an interesting background. There's elements of it Very interesting yeah To me.
Matt Pillar:You know, when I look at yours I see a guy who was like a science guy in academia. Right, like you studied chemistry. I believe in undergrad. Yeah, yeah. And you, you worked in, you did some research for the NIH.
Joe Ferra:That's true, this is true.
Matt Pillar:Yep, Did some life science product work and then at some point in that, in those early phases, you you kind of strode over to the finance side and that's when things started to at least on paper, it seems like that's when things really started kind of clicking for your career trajectory. So tell me a little bit about that initial intention. We'll dial it way back to your initial intention when you were, you know, a science slash NIH guy, and then that transition into the finance side of the business.
Joe Ferra:Yeah, sure, well, I love talking more about that. I mean, like so many others you know, I wish I could say it was all part of a master plan, but along the way I just had the benefit of a lot of mentors and a lot of people that sort of took me under their wing and helped me appreciate what other opportunities were out there. Like you said, you know, going way back, you know in high school and going into college, I was a science nerd. I was a math and science nerd and, like many people at that age, you're not really sure what to do with it. There seems to be more opportunities available to you and you're just not sure which direction is best.
Joe Ferra:One of the best things I did, for a lot of reasons, when I was an undergrad in chemistry I was an undergrad in chemistry at Purdue University was I started working in the lab early in my undergrad years. As soon as I could, I started doing research I mean basic science research and it was great because I learned a lot. I got a lot of, met a lot of great smart people that did some really interesting things. But I also learned early on that the lab life wasn't for me and you know I enjoyed science and, like many of others, you know, I was just looking for the right place and I knew that the lab work was probably more limiting, while important in the cornerstone of everything we're doing in biotech, it just wasn't for me. So I sought out with finding ways of doing things a little bit differently. My experience was in analytical chemistry. You're right, I did do some work at the NIH, which also was some direct lab work, but it wasn't until I started working for a company called Thermoelectron now it's Thermo Fisher where someone there said hey, you know, you've worked in the lab a lot, you have a lot of technical expertise and you know there's a whole field of not just doing the science itself but translating that science into what could be done with it and funding it and helping it, helping it grow in a way that, getting the roadblocks out of the way, things that scientists aren't necessarily as good at as some of the more business people are. And that translated me being a sales rep for Thermo in the territory and selling what I like to call really expensive vacuum cleaners.
Joe Ferra:And you know there's a lot of people in our industry who say early on in their experience like everything you learned about my career, everything I learned about business. I learned being a pharma sales rep or selling this or selling that. That's exactly how I felt about my experience with Thermo as a sales rep. To this day, a lot of the lessons I learned as a sales rep for Thermo still apply to my job in finance, as well as my career and leading a company like Elevation Oncology. You just learn to appreciate all the simple things that can make a big difference. You know connecting with people first. You know it's more about how you say things and less about what you're saying specifically, and it was a great education. The other thing I learned was, you know, having worked in the lab and then selling to those people that were also doing the lab, I could walk the walk and talk the talk. So I knew what they had experienced. So I was able to leverage that direct experience in order to help find better solutions for them. So it was through all that that I realized that.
Joe Ferra:You know, while historically my focus was in science, it was really the business of science was probably where my set of skills was more relevant.
Joe Ferra:I knew eventually that I wanted to get into finance Again as a chemistry nerd in undergrad I didn't take one business course, I didn't take one finance course.
Joe Ferra:I was straight down the fairway on science and I knew I needed to go back and round out that skill set.
Joe Ferra:I got my MBA and if you had asked me at the time again, I would have probably geared towards working in a finance organization at a large pharmaceutical company.
Joe Ferra:But I met individuals who were investment banking and they again told me that my skill set could be more aptly progressed towards helping companies like Elevation and other companies in biotech work through the more strategic problems. A big part of that is funding right, because a lot of what's doing in biotech cannot happen unless you have the capital to move it forward. And investment banking I did for almost 15 years was an incredible experience and not only just meaning a lot of great people but also learning a lot of the strategic opportunities and challenges that companies in our sector have to deal with. And then you know, eventually it just became clear it was the right next step to sort of turn that, to put my money where my mouth is and see what it takes to actually run a company directly. And my first had the opportunity to do that as CFO and now lucky enough and fortunate enough to do it as a chief executive officer.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, yeah, we'll talk a little bit about that transition in a minute. I just want to reflect on you know it's as you can imagine I talk to biotech leaders who have come from virtually every background you can imagine. I once had a biotech CEO on the show who, in a previous life, was like the director of marketing for Kraft macaroni and cheese.
Joe Ferra:That's no one Like just every facet.
Matt Pillar:But to your point, marketing, finance, sales. I've had a couple of execs who started out their careers you know carrying the bag, as we like to say doing doing pharmaceuticals Exactly and that I think that, like, that kind of experience gives you an appreciation unparalleled, right If you come in from the VC side or if you come in solely from the finance side, if you're just a business guy and you started it out with that pedigree, like you don't have that level of, I guess, relatability right To the folks on the streets. It's incredible. But you seem to have checked a lot of the boxes. That kind of culminate with an opportunity. You know the skill set to take advantage of the opportunity you have right now.
Joe Ferra:So, yep, and one of the.
Joe Ferra:You know it's tongue in cheek, but you know, in my many years as an investor banker, technically I was in the finance business and I'm one of those people where, to this day, like doing math in my head doesn't really fly, like I'm the guy that as soon as it goes beyond moving a decimal place, I got to get out the calculator and do it.
Joe Ferra:And you know people will be like how can you, you know you're working finance, like, how do you not like that with numbers? Well, the reality is that my entire career in finance I've always said that I'm not in the numbers business, I'm in the people's business. And that applies to so many things because and that goes back to being a sales rep I mean, whether you're selling vacuum cleaners, you're selling encyclopedias or you're selling, you know, multi-million dollar mass spec equipment to scientists, some of those baseline things hold true. It's about connecting with people, understanding what they're truly looking for and seeing if you have a solution for them that's really going to help and some of those early things and basic things you know, while we often in life try to overcomplicate things. Those are some of the things I think don't change and should stay simple.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, yeah, when you joined Elevation, it was just a little more than a couple of years ago, if I'm not mistaken.
Joe Ferra:Yep a little over two years ago. Yes.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, joined as CFO and obviously had accumulated some good finance experience by then. But what was it that attracted you to the opportunity to run point on finance for an emerging bio pharma company?
Joe Ferra:Yeah, you know, it's all about the challenges there's.
Matt Pillar:Oh, you've got. You've had those in spades, my friend. Yes, yes, you know, look, you know it's in the.
Joe Ferra:You know, in the business of science, right, I always say that there's a zone in the middle which is, to some degree, we all can't completely predict what the science is going to do. So on the one think of it a barbell. On one end, if the science doesn't work, you can be the smartest group of people in the world, it's probably not going to make a difference. On the other end of the spectrum, if the science is so great and so perfect, even the hardest try and messing it up isn't going to mess it up. But in the middle right, there's a large zone in the middle, that gray area in the middle, where there's millions or hundreds of incremental decisions that the team has to make over time that can make the difference between success and failure.
Joe Ferra:And when I say success and failure, I mean success in terms of getting, in this case getting to a drug that helps patients. And I think it's in that zone, it's in that gray area where there are so many little but add them all up they're big decisions that need to happen in order to get from point A to point B, to point C and hopefully for the greater good. Overall. I've always been attracted I think most people at this stage. You get jazz and you get excited about the opportunities and the challenges and you hope to maximize some and minimize the other and it's that overall walk and journey that I continue to think is incredibly rewarding and why I thought, for my skill set and my experience, that I wanted my journey to be part of a development stage biotech.
Matt Pillar:How did you get in there? Just curious, like what the backstory is. Was it an opportunity to just cross your desk? Did you know, sean, like what was sort of that story?
Joe Ferra:Yeah, so Sean and I had previous history, but the real impetus, as well as other individuals at Elevation Oncology, was what we were aiming to do as a company. Elevation didn't have a traditional, science-based platform as is usually defined for a biotech company.
Joe Ferra:In the very beginning, the idea was to not be beholden to one specific type of technology or one specific type of modality, to be able to use business development and partnerships to expand the pipeline as well as to develop drugs that can make a difference, and it was that sort of open playing field that the concept that Elevation had. That, based on my background, I thought was an incredible opportunity to do something unique. And, while there are plenty of other things related to it, that probably is the crust of why, in the beginning, I was really compelled with what Elevation was building and why I wanted to be a part of it.
Matt Pillar:Yeah. So you joined a CFO. You're in the CFO role for a little while and then some circumstances arise that lead to Sean's departure and your move into, I think, originally the interim CEO seat and then on to the executive position. So what were those circumstances?
Joe Ferra:Yeah. So we, like many other companies over the past couple of years, have always had to think long and hard about making sure we're putting our resources both capital and human resources towards the best opportunities available to us. And that rubber the rubber hit the road on that for us as a company last year when we had our prior lead program, cerebanthamab, which was a program upon which the company was founded, and then we had our current lead program, as you mentioned in the beginning, eo3021, which is an anti-clogging Clogging 18.2 antibody drug conjugate. We in licensed rights from a Chinese company for that program and it became very clear that, because of our belief and our conviction that EO3021 was going to be an incredibly meaningful opportunity for patients in a very high unmet area of need, that the best thing we could do for our company, for the patients and for our stakeholders overall was invest in EO3021 as much as possible.
Joe Ferra:The unfortunate part was that meant that Cerebanthamab, which was clearly also a drug that was making a difference for patients and we presented data like that last year at a medical conference that meant that it just wasn't the right choice for us to drive that forward.
Joe Ferra:So we essentially paused that program, seeking to find the right partner, because we do think there's the right home for that somewhere. It's just a matter of finding that right home. And then, with the transition of the pipeline, it became clear that Sean, who built this company from the ground up and, to this day, a lot of our key tenants for how we think about things was based on his leadership and what he instilled in us as a company. But with booming forward with EO3021 as our lead program and thinking about the next evolution of the company, the board and the team thought it gave me the trust and seeing that I was the right person to help lead them through the next stage of evolution, and I'm incredibly thankful and proud to be able to have that opportunity. And it's been a really intense year in 2023 since we made those changes as a company and we're only getting started, so there's a lot more to go.
Matt Pillar:Did you have what was part of that trust and I guess, faith that was instilled in you with the new program based on some prior experience in the ADC space? I mean, was that sort of a forte of yours or?
Joe Ferra:So for me specifically, I will be the first to admit that ADCs are not part of my prior experience, but the strength of the chief medical officer and the chief scientific officer, valerie Jensen, and David Dornan in particular, was a key part of our competitive advantage in ADCs. For me, I think it was just the right combination of what elevation needed in its next stage in the leader and the chief executive officer. And with my background in finance and my background and making sure companies have the capital they need in order to move forward, I just you know every leader, every leader at any point in time, any situation. You know you have to say do I have the right skills to bring it to the next level? And I think in this case, in thinking through the challenges that elevation was seeking, I was the right person for that at this time.
Matt Pillar:I want to talk, spend a little bit of time kind of dwelling there on the strength of your finance background and I made the comment when you said you know the challenge was part of the appeal. I said you've got those in space because everybody does. You know, that's not a comment specific to elevation, that's a comment specific to biotech right, the entire insurance. So share with me like what, like how do you feel like? I guess the question is how are you applying some of your finance, financial strengths in this incredibly challenging market?
Joe Ferra:Yeah, yeah, Give me some, give me.
Matt Pillar:I know. Just give me some thoughts on like. You know what you know. You can be a, you can be a crack financier, but also recognize the fact that interest rates are through the roof. You know that the VC appetite is incredibly. I used to use the word discerning, now it's downright. You know to use a to use a holiday term Scrooge. Like you know, these, these external factors, don't don't necessarily discriminate when it comes to your financial chops. So what can you do, like, how can you apply those, those skills in such a tough environment? And that's probably a hard question to answer.
Joe Ferra:It's, you know, but there's and there's, as usual there's. There's so many layers and the first thing I'll say is at a more discrete standpoint. I mean, you mentioned interest rates. It's been a long time since we all, as people, have had to deal with an rising interest rate environment or high interest rate environment, and that's especially true for high growth industries like biotech and it also applies to tech, right. I mean, it's been decades since we've had to compete with the fact that investors can put their money somewhere and earn a decent return, right, because for a while there there was 0% interest rates. So I think anyone in our business who doesn't think that that has ripple effects that affects our day to day operations probably is either not willing to admit it or just choosing to ignore it, hoping that it's going to evolve for the better over time. It doesn't shut things down, but it does affect it. Back to your question and relevant to some of the other things I said.
Joe Ferra:You know, people think about numbers, they think about finance, they usually think about it in the context of black and white, right. They think about accounting. You're in the red, you're in the black. For me, and over the course of my career I've gained a greater appreciation, I'll say, of it's not only just about what the numbers are telling you. It's about what the numbers aren't telling you. It's about dealing with the gray area. And oftentimes in finance, you have to get to a certain amount of information, but then at a certain point, you're just going to make a judgment call based on that information, because the numbers aren't going to tell you everything, no matter how hard you try. And even if they are claiming to tell you everything, chances are you should think twice and ask more questions, because there's probably some more things you need to figure out. And I think that same thing applies to, you know, developing drugs, whether it's at a large company or a small company. It's in thinking in terms of inform your gut, and then you got to trust your gut. I think oftentimes in the science realm, by our nature we want to feel like we got to get all the information we can before we can make a decision. And the reality is you just got to get to a point where you think you've taken in all the information you can get and then make a judgment call based on that and, more than anything, at a very high level.
Joe Ferra:I think my experience in finance got me comfortable with making tough decisions in that gray area. I've always felt that the job of any leader first and foremost is to make sure that the people around you and the teams that work for you, that your first job is to make sure they have the resources and that you are there to help them make sure, get rid of barriers that can get in their way. That's almost like job number one, because I've never been in the type of person, type of leader that feels like I have all the answers quite the opposite. But what I can do is help my teams, who are the experts, figure out and navigate the tough waters per se of all the roadblocks that are going to get in their way, and the more I can remove those roadblocks for them, the better off that I'll be, the better off that we will be and the better off our mission will be in accomplishing our mission. So it's all of that uncertainty that comes with finance I think is even more relevant for drug development, but even more relevant for where we are as a sector now.
Joe Ferra:Capital is very tight, capital is very scarce.
Joe Ferra:Every company is having to scrutinize every single dollar and, by extension, every single thing that they're doing.
Joe Ferra:That's just a product of where we are.
Joe Ferra:Some of that's interest rates, some of that is about risk tolerance that the investors have, that the stakeholders have, and because of my background in doing that for multiple companies, I feel like I've been able to help elevation move in the way that has helped us raise more capital this year.
Joe Ferra:Leverage some of the information that our partner put out there at a medical meeting in the middle of part of this year and leverage that to raise more capital so that we have the runway as a company to execute on our own trial. We started our own trial in August of this year and we're now treating our own patients and we have the benefit of doing that with two years of runway to be able to execute, because we're in a stage now where it's all about execution and if you can focus on job number one, two and three, which is helping patients, and doing that, where you have the capital to make sure the team can operate, then you're doing really well in this current environment so that you can move live to fight the next fight and the next fight after that.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, yeah, very good.
Matt Pillar:One of those tough decisions you mentioned I mean you already talked a little bit about it was, you know, the decision to take a monoclonal antibody and kind of set it aside and move forward with an ADC program.
Matt Pillar:And I don't want to speculate here, I just I think about, like, I have a friend named Joe Dacosh who's an analyst with Desabaye. I don't know if you know Joe or not, but Joe's life, his professional life, is dedicated to analysis of the ADC space. And in a call with him not too long ago we were talking about the space and just the incredible growth there, the excitement, the advances right, the advances in linker technology, the advances in antibody drug ratios, that make him very, very bullish about this space. He actually said to me and I think he said it on record so I'll repeat it here he said you know, this is this modality in this field has more potential, more patient potential, than cell and gene therapy you know which you know, you go to Philadelphia and say that you're going to get, you're going to get, you know, strapped to a stake and flogged in the town square.
Matt Pillar:But there's a lot of excitement around the space and I guess the question is again I don't want to speculate here, I want your take on it when there's excitement and movement and I don't want to say hype, because I know that these advances are real, it's not hyped. But when there's excitement and movement around a specific modality or even term, I mean cell and genes. Been through it right, like you know, 10 years ago it was like all the small molecule companies started calling themselves biotechs, because bio was just sexy to say bio.
Joe Ferra:You know, didn't matter, it didn't matter with it.
Matt Pillar:You know they're not playing in biologic modalities, but bio was cool. Adc is, like you know, it's the cool kid on the block right now and by virtue of that perhaps there's the perception that funding might be easier to come by if we're focused on the hot modality. On the same token, antibodies are proven. There's risk in shelving an antibody program because there are some investors in this very difficult market who don't want to take risks on newer modalities, particularly those who have been incredibly challenged in recent years, like you know not so recent, but previously challenged, like ADCs. So I'm using a lot of words here and I'm going to let you use some words, but I'm just curious about how that sort of momentum in the ADC space contributed to the company's decision to say you know what? Let's strike that iron while it's hot.
Joe Ferra:Yeah, yeah for sure. So, as I said, as I said earlier, I mean historically I haven't had any experience with ADCs. But sitting here now, in addition to being the leader of a company with the LEAP program, as an ADC, I am a true believer and I think a big part of that is because the technology has come such a long way. I mean, adcs have been around for decades but, as usual with any other technology, early on you know the first generation, the second generation, had promise but had issues. But it's come such a long way and there's so many opportunities now that ADCs can be directed towards that even a few years ago weren't possible. So I think big part of the reason why they're quote unquote hot is hot is because there's a lot of potential there and we all know cancer. Right, cancer is lackamal. You shut down one process, chances are a few others pop up to try to get around it, because it's biology, and biology is incredibly smart. The beauty of an ADC is it's not too targeted, but it's not too broadly distributed. Pimo is indiscriminate. It attacks every cell at Cs. On the other hand, you have something that's very targeted. You have, although it could be a true driver of cancer, chances are there could be other processes that the cancer can use, the cell process can use to go around it In ADC ICS being in that sweet spot where you are targeted enough and you're selective enough but you also have the ability to be a little bit broad within the tumor to kill a few other things that are ancillary and if you can dial that in correctly and we have some tools as an ecosystem now to dial in that selectivity, to dial in that stability, to dial in the type of payload that you're delivering so if you can wrap all that up, there's just a lot of potential there and I think that's why you see ADCs are being really hot right now.
Joe Ferra:Taking it back for us as a company for Claude in 18.2, we honed in on Claude in 18.2 as a target early on as a company as a target where we saw a huge amount of unmet medical need and a real opportunity to make a difference for patients In what we didn't set off looking to do an ADC in Claude in 18.2, we looked at it at Claude in 18.2 as a target and realized you know what an ADC approach is the best approach.
Joe Ferra:There you have the best opportunity to be able to help a broader range of patients and you have what we think is the best opportunity to have a drug that has a right balance between doseability and effectiveness and safety and tolerability. So it was those kinds of characteristics that led us to an ADC approach for Claude in 18.2, which we think is the same reason why you see ADC being so popular nowadays. Of course, very happy to be a part of that overall ecosystem and I'm gonna speak again to about the team. I mean the expertise of this team in oncology, but especially in ADCs, is a unique approach that we have that we hope to continue to leverage as we continue to grow as a company.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, yeah, that's a great segue to my next question. I mentioned my friend, joe a minute ago in Dusty Bio, and anyone who is familiar with Joe or Dusty Bio knows that Joe's got a great reputation for creating terrific infographics and posting them on LinkedIn and publishing them on outlets like mine, bio Process Online. I publish quite a few of them and the space is so crowded, in fact, that it's always kind of fun for me when I see him post a new breaking infographic and it's infographic that as comprehensive as humanly possible of a job of visualizing the ADC space, and it's always great for fun for me to sit back and watch the comments. I have another friend who tells me one of the rules of life is to never read the comments, but the comments are always fun because there are so many players in this space that no matter how good Joe is at charting them all the comments are gonna be like hey, you forgot that.
Matt Pillar:Hey, what about us? What about it? Like there are so many players in the space. So and you started to allude to this elevations approach, to differentiating itself, because it's one thing to ride a virgin away Like there's a lot of momentum, there's a lot of players, it's a great ecosystem. And then there comes a point in any industry where you look around and you're like whoa, there are a whole bunch of us and we need to stand out right. So talk to me a little bit about that. Like, what are some of the hallmarks of elevations approach that create differentiation from a increasingly crowded landscape?
Joe Ferra:Yeah. So first and foremost, they're gonna repeat myself or something I mentioned already, which is we as a company, our baseline is not rooted in one specific therapeutic modality or one specific type of technology. We have the benefit and the ability to embrace what we think is the best of technologies. In this case, we have no inherent ADC technology embedded in the company. What we do have is an incredible amount of wealth of knowledge amongst the team and then we can use that knowledge and experience of the team to assess other technologies that are out there. We did that with EO3021 and we plan to do that with other programs.
Joe Ferra:Overall, we think that sort of we're not chained to anything specific and this, of course, there could be two sides to that argument but we see it as an incredible positive and incredible part about elevation oncology that is unique and that we can constantly be able to use leverage, business development and partnerships to look at the best of what's out there and try to seek to work with them to make it even better.
Joe Ferra:And I think it's that in that approach and when the rubber hits the road in our dialogues with trying to move programs forward, is where our uniqueness can really stand out and really how we've been able to stand out with other potential partners and other potential really key people and key companies in this industry and show them that our approach and the strength of this team can really lead to different types of outcomes eventually to help all stakeholders overall.
Joe Ferra:I always rely on like in biotech there's always like an intersection of you're gonna do what's best for patients, you gotta do what's best for company and then you gotta also go and do what's best for our investors, right? Those overall are our stakeholders and if we are, in order to be successful over time, companies like us, but especially elevation oncology, the more we can make sure that we live in a world where we're serving all of our stakeholders, the better off we'll be, and we think that by being unique in that, our approach to looking at the best technology and evaluating the best technologies out there allows us to be nimble enough that we can continue to build in that zone where all of our stakeholders can benefit.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, when you reference technology, like being discerning and being able to leverage different technologies to afford that flexibility or that lateral like that ability to move laterally you know it's trendy maybe not just trendy but functional for a lot of companies these days to be a platform company. We have an antibody discovery platform. We have platforms that are super hot in RNA and the RNA space right now, you know. So that's sort of the mechanism right, like we're a platform company and this platform affords us the opportunity to spin off multiple candidates and move around and sell one here and there. We're gonna maintain the platform and license out candidates and make deals. You know the business side will be more product or candidate based. So I guess the question is I'm kind of curious, like when you mentioned the technologies and the people, like how would you sort of characterize the mechanism at elevation that affords that sort of you know, modality agnostic but technology embracing approach?
Joe Ferra:I don't know.
Matt Pillar:I mean, is there a platform, is there some sort of a mechanism in that technology that you guys are running with?
Joe Ferra:Yeah, so in the case of EO3021, it was the very specific types of conjugation. With an ADC. A big part of understanding if it's applicable for a certain target is how stable the program is, how stable the molecule is, because really what you have is you have an antibody with a payload associated. Oftentimes that payload, by its very nature, is a chemotherapeutic. But if you keep that attached and you're delivering it more specifically to the tumor by being selective and being targeted, then you are delivering the chemo to the area where you want it, hopefully keeping it away from the area where you don't want it. And in EO3021, there was very specific site-specific conjugation that our partner who developed the program looked at was hopefully making more stable molecules so that when you dose the drug you don't end up with a lot of free chemotherapeutic swimming around in the bloodstream. Instead you have a more stable molecule that only gets delivered, that only largely only delivers the toxin directly to the tumor site.
Joe Ferra:And that selectivity is, we think, is very relevant for Clodin 18.2 because in for Clodin 18.2, there's very little expression of it in healthy tissue.
Joe Ferra:It's limited to just in the gut, you see, in healthy tissue. So it's a great opportunity for an ADC to deliver chemotherapeutic to the tumor by keeping it away from the healthy tissue. That works for the Clodin 18.2. There may be other instances where, in other types of targets, where you want a different approach, and it was that sort of thinking about what's best for Clodin 18.2 as a target that we evaluate it as a team and the team did a lot of great work in order to help us understand this more. For the next target and then target after that, there may be a different kind of approach that we think is going to be more applicable. But we have the flexibility and we also have the viability to be able to evaluate that based on the specific target and use, leverage, the strength of the team and the knowledge of the team, but then also, of course, leveraging other experts, like the Joe you mentioned, in order to make sure that we're pushing towards a best solution based on the information we have.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, very good. You were excited from the outset of the conversation when you had an opportunity to mention your clinical trial and the fact that you've got your own patients, your dosing. So give us, I guess, just a real quick glimpse back at the beginning of that effort, an update on where it is now and some thoughts on what the next steps are.
Joe Ferra:Yeah, yeah for sure. And, as I mentioned, when we in licensed rights to Yale 3021 from a partner, cspc Pharmaceutical, which are based in China, we were fortunate because they were already executing a phase one trial for the drug in China. So earlier this year, at the ASCO meeting in June, they presented the first ever clinical data from their program for the drug, which, by extension, is our drug as well. It was incredibly validating and important for us as a company when we started our phase one, which we started dosing patients in August, doing so knowing that we had a drug that was helping patients. They reported a 47% overall response rate in gastro-cancer in the poster at ASCO, but that also that we had an overall profile that was well tolerated for patients. That was in line with some of those attributes that I mentioned earlier about what would expect, based on the stability of the molecule. So it was incredibly important and incredibly de-risking for us as a company to be able to move into our own phase one trial, knowing that we had a drug that was helping patients and we started in August. We started in rolling patients in August. We're at that stage of development where we're dose escalating. So we're starting at one meg per gig, which was a dose that our partners saw evidence of anti-tumor activity, and we're dosing up from there and once we get to the dose that we think is going to be meaningful for the next stage, then we're going to focus very much on gastric cancer.
Joe Ferra:Gastric cancer has a high unmet need. It is an area where patients to this day have very few options and the options that they do have are not very helpful. So by focusing on gastric cancer, where Claude in 18.2 is known to be a target that is highly expressed, we think it's going to be an opportunity for us to move fast, hopefully for the benefit of patients overall. As with any other target where there's a lot of opportunity, there's a lot of competition, but we consider ourselves part of the lead pack and we intend to execute in a way that we can continue not just to show the differentiation of our program but also have speed of execution and effectiveness of execution, so that we can show that we are a program with time that's going to be closer to helping patients rather than further away. It's always important in drug development to be best in class, but it's also really important to be as close to first to class as possible and we want to maintain our ability to an optionality to have both with EO3-021.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, where is the clinical trial taking, your clinical trial taking place?
Joe Ferra:We currently started enrolling patients in the US, but we plan to expand that because gastric cancer is highly prevalent, not just in the US, in Europe, but highly prevalent in countries like Japan and Korea. So with time, we plan to make the phase one study an international study. We just started, we just started in the US and we're going to expand internationally and we've said publicly that we plan to have the first cut of data from our trial and the first half of 2025. So right now it's all about expanding sites, treating patients, helping patients, working with clinicians clinicians who, by the way, know that we have a drug that has already showed evidence of making a difference and we look forward to sharing that and showing more of that with the world in the first half of 2025.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, fantastic. We'll be looking forward to seeing the results of that. I'm always, I guess, personally kind of enthralled or inquisitive about the when you reach a milestone as the leader of a company, like First Patient Dost, and granted you had the benefit I guess I called the luxury or benefit of having some precedent in the Chinese study. But still, when you hit that milestone and you're actually putting something that you're producing for the betterment of patient health into human beings, there's got to be some I don't know emotional right, like emotional attachment to that, some feeling right, some human feeling behind it, whether it's pride, anxiety, accommodation, all the above. Yeah, you tell me about that Like talk to. When I ask you that question, answer it as though you're telling somebody who's going to experience the same thing someday.
Joe Ferra:Right. Like you know, oftentimes, oftentimes well, pretty much all the time, and not just in this business, but just also in this ecosystem of developing drugs you talk about patients, patients, patients, right, and inevitably you're talking about it in third person. But who are the patients? They're us, right, and they're us and they're family members. I mean, who hasn't, in this case, who hasn't been impacted by cancer one way or another? And I think it's easy to miss the human connection of it, and I think it's always been important and I always remind everyone that you know, I talk often with people at the company to appreciate that, okay, we started dosing patients, but we started helping people. And, yes, we are in the business, we are not a not for profit, and it's it's we. Part of what we have to do is make the right decisions so that we can hopefully develop drug and drugs for patients that are going to make a difference. But, at its very basic level, we're connecting with people and if we can help this person and help the next person and help the next person after that, then we're helping the ecosystem and we're helping our family members and we're helping ourselves, and it's part of the reason, through all the challenges and the opportunities that you have in biotech and biopharma why this is continues to be the most rewarding.
Joe Ferra:I tell people who don't do this you know friends, people I went to business school with. I mean, like you know, the timelines in biopharma are long. It takes a long time to develop drugs. It takes a long time to get somewhere. In some ways you want to say we've all be better off working in tech, where you hire five people and you go, develop an app and hopefully created a good app and then and then you move on. But we're here because it's rewarding, because inherently we are running a business, but we're here to make a greater good and the opportunity to do that is so rewarding. That is so rewarding and especially rewarding because it's not easy for all the other reasons we talked about. And being able to do that and the opportunity to do that is still, to this day, something I encourage everyone who has the ability and the interest to make sure that they are able to take advantage of someday, because that reward means a lot to me and I know it does to others.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, yeah, it's incredible, I've only been covering the space for I don't know, maybe going on four years I think I've been on the life sciences. You know I'm an old dog but I covered tech in a lot of different industries the previous part of my career. These past four have been by far my favorite because I get to talk with people like you who you know to your point are they're, in the long run, for the right reasons so much skill, so much capacity, so much intellect that could be applied in such, you know, get rich quicker in distress. But you know the application of those skills and that intellect in this space it hits different, it's as my teenage daughter would say it hits different.
Joe Ferra:Yes, that's right, true, A tangent. But you know, one of the things I love to say, I love tangents.
Matt Pillar:I'm putting them myself.
Joe Ferra:Yeah. So one of the things I love to say, which probably everyone at the company is sick of hearing me say and I think I'm going to quote Eisenhower, but probably somebody else said it beforehand but you know, planning is everything, plans are nothing. And I say that because you know how often in life you know you think you're going to go one direction, things change and you end up going in another direction. From a business standpoint, I think the process and the knowledge and the experience of planning, especially in biotech, helps you appreciate the puts and the takes, the pros and the cons, the what if this, the what if that, and so hopefully, as a team, you gain that knowledge through the process. Yes, you hope to put a plan in place, but you're also talk to us that things are going to change that because of the timelines associated with developing drugs.
Joe Ferra:I think that is even more important in drug development than it could be in a multitude of other areas, and Eisenhower probably made that comment as it relates to.
Joe Ferra:You know, government and government policy and things that we all know are complicated in and of themselves, but you know none of what we're doing in.
Joe Ferra:Use the name of your podcast the business of biotech is a straight line and it takes an incredible amount of teamwork and the expertise of a lot of different people and also, you know, people listening to each other and people thinking hard about these solutions. Those are the things that are going to make the difference and with the timelines that you deal with in drug development, it comes down to the ability of the people to move through that planning and to move through the plans and how the plans change that. Hopefully, if you make the right decisions, not only have you done things that are right for patients, but you've done something that is incredibly rewarding as a team, and I think it's that part of the journey that I think we're all seeking not just in life, and not just in our work but also in life and I've seen that play out so much so often in our business of teams being successful and getting somewhere and feeling incredibly rewarding.
Joe Ferra:And I want that for all of us. I want that for elevation oncology and I want that for an ecosystem, and the more we can set ourselves up for that, not only will we be rewarded, but the patients, aka ourselves, will be rewarded as well.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, that's. I can't think of a better way to a better note to end on Joe. That was terrific, so I'll leave that last word with you. I really appreciate you coming on the show and giving us an update on all these moves at elevation, what's been going on over there. We'll be paying attention to the trial and at some point we'll have you back on the show to give us an update on progress and next moves for elevation.
Joe Ferra:Well, it was great to talk to you for a while now. I will come back anytime. I love to chat about it and I look forward to the opportunity to do it again and thank you again.
Matt Pillar:You bet. So that was Elevation Oncology's Joe Ferra. I'm Matt Pillar, and this is the Business of Biotech. If you'd like listening in on conversations with biotech leaders like Joe, make sure you subscribe to the Business of Biotech podcast. Sign up for our newsletter at bioprocessonline. com/bob. Hit us up on Apple, leave us a review, let us know how we're doing and, as always, thanks for listening.