We've really been looking forward to dropping this episode with Karen Harris, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Mission-Related Investing at the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation. While the markets have warmed a bit since we recorded this episode, Karen's thoughtful perspective on the sometimes tumultuous Alzheimer's therapeutics space is valuable to any drug developer working in the cognitive medicines arena. In this episode of the Business of Biotech podcast, we follow Karen's journey from institutional investment banking to the incredibly gratifying work she does now, helping to fund the novel biopharma companies that are working in earnest to solve an emotionally burdensome and expensive problem. Karen shares ADDF's strategy and offers plenty of insight into the value proposition that venture philathropy offers the biotech community. Tune in!
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!
We've really been looking forward to dropping this episode with Karen Harris, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Mission-Related Investing at the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation. While the markets have warmed a bit since we recorded this episode, Karen's thoughtful perspective on the sometimes tumultuous Alzheimer's therapeutics space is valuable to any drug developer working in the cognitive medicines arena. In this episode of the Business of Biotech podcast, we follow Karen's journey from institutional investment banking to the incredibly gratifying work she does now, helping to fund the novel biopharma companies that are working in earnest to solve an emotionally burdensome and expensive problem. Karen shares ADDF's strategy and offers plenty of insight into the value proposition that venture philathropy offers the biotech community. Tune in!
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 Life Science Connect 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 cellandgenecom. 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 Life Science Connect and we're here to help.
Matt Pillar:Venture philanthropy has remained one of the few bright spots in an otherwise gloomy biotech funding scene. Couple that with rising unmet medical needs in neurodegeneration and the recent regulatory activity in the Alzheimer's therapeutic space and you've got a situation where the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation's stock and relevance are steadily rising. The ADDF is a venture philanthropy fund founded by the Lauder family, as in Estee, and supported generously by the likes of Bill Gates, jeff Bezos and the Dolby and Schwab families. Its mission is to accelerate the discovery of drugs to prevent, treat and cure Alzheimer's disease, and it does that by investing in biotechs developing Alzheimer's therapeutics, much like a venture capitalist would, then directing its proceeds back into the fund. I'm Matt Pillar.
Matt Pillar:This is the Business of Biotech and the opportunity to sit down with ADDF Chief Financial Officer and Head of Mission-Related Investments, Karen Harris, in San Francisco, was one I didn't take lightly. Her perspective on Alzheimer's therapeutic progress, the market, what's fundable and why is one of a kind. Let's give it a listen. I want to start with the foundation. I want to get an understanding of the mission and the venture philanthropy model. So typically my interviews are with biotech CEOs, the companies that are more than likely interested in partnering with you.
Matt Pillar:I've only had a couple of venture philanthropy leaders on the show in the past, so it's fascinating to me, though I love the concept.
Karen Harris:So tell me about that. No, it's great to be here. There are a handful of venture philanthropies, but we're definitely a pretty unique animal. So the mission of the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation is to accelerate the development of drugs to prevent, treat and hopefully eventually cure Alzheimer's disease. And when we started, we were set up as a venture philanthropy by our founders, which were Ronald and Leonard Lauder, and then Dr Howard Fillett, who's still there as our co-founder and chief science officer. And they set us up as a venture philanthropy, which means instead of giving grants to academia and to biotechs, we actually invest in them.
Karen Harris:So we invest in biotechs the same way a VC would invest in a biotech we buy preferred stock or we buy convertible debt or royalty arrangements sometimes, and with academia we have royalty arrangements and what happens is the money that we get back from returns goes right back into the mission. But I think donors seem to really like the model and like to know that their money is being used efficiently and that we are getting some return. And then that gets plowed right back into ADDL.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, direct. I mean the donors have to like the fact that there's a direct influence on the real work, right, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
Karen Harris:And it gives us the opportunities to work with biotechs, because it's kind of awkward if you're a non-profit to be handing money to biotech companies. So I think this venture philanthropy model where we invest in the biotechs, is just a better way to go about it for that type of thing.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, yeah. So and you're the chief financial officer there. Tell me about that role. Like what does the CFOs sort of illustrate, what the CFO's role? Is in venture philanthropy.
Karen Harris:Well, I feel like I have two jobs. So I'm the CFO and then I'm the head of mission-related investing, and as the CFO, it's really my job to make sure that the donor's money gets placed as efficiently and as well as possible into these Alzheimer's companies in order to accelerate a cure.
Matt Pillar:No pressure there.
Karen Harris:Yeah, we're so lucky in that the Lauder family, at the end of 2022, gave us a $200 million gift to cover our operating expenses for the next 15 to 20 years expenses for the next 15 to 20 years. So I take that very seriously to really steward their money to make sure it lasts for our operating costs as long as possible. But it's a great position for a CFO to be in so that I don't have to worry about my operating costs and all the donors' money that gets donated to us goes straight to the science, not to our operating costs.
Karen Harris:So this fact that all your money goes to research. I think is a very attractive thing.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, that is fantastic.
Karen Harris:So that's the CFO job the head of mission-related investing is. Since we do invest in biotechs, we have to structure the investments and negotiate the deals with the biotech companies, and so I do all of the structuring and the negotiations of those deals. And the reason that works so well is I have an investment banking background and so I'm able to use a lot of that for structuring these deals. When I was starting out in investment banking, I worked on a lot of biotech IPOs and so a lot of that knowledge is very helpful when dealing with these biotech companies, and it's such a treat to work with these companies.
Karen Harris:They are just so dedicated and they just don't give up. It's been hard to raise money this year, and I'm I'm really just always super impressed by their commitment yeah, yeah, particularly.
Matt Pillar:I mean you know I've interviewed hundreds of them, biotech execs, and you know, uh, the commitment and the altruism, it's all on full display it seems like that's even ratcheted up a notch in the alzheimer's space, because so many people are, you know, have been affected by it and have personal experience yeah, I think that's true.
Karen Harris:I think almost anybody you talk to has a mother-in-law or a sister or an aunt or somebody who's been touched by Alzheimer's and I think the fact that you know, for 20 to 30 years there was no drug approved and now we have two that were, one that has been approved by the FDA and another from Eli Lilly that's about to be and so it's a really exciting time in the Alzheimer's field right now, and so it's a really exciting time in the Alzheimer's field right now?
Matt Pillar:Sure is. Yeah, you mentioned that prior to ADDF you were in investment banking and I'm curious about that. I looked at your background for the interview and it's intriguing to me. You were in pretty big name investment banking after you earned your Columbia undergrad in economics and your Stanford MBA in finance. When I look at your career at least on paper, on LinkedIn right, the latter half of it seems like it's very focused on endeavors that are far from you know getting rich and making rich people richer, yes.
Matt Pillar:Tell me about that. I look at Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, east Harlem Tutorial Program and now the ADDF Tell me about that. I went to Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, east Harlem Tutorial Program and now the ADDF Tell me about that. Yeah.
Karen Harris:So I left UBS in 2012 to join a hedge fund and after a while several months I really came to the conclusion that the world did not need this other hedge fund, that we have enough hedge funds, and I didn't really feel that we were going to be so much better than anybody else, and my dad had done a lot of non-profit work after he retired and so I investigated. I took some courses at NYU New York University in philanthropy and I liked it, so I decided I would try it out, and I think that I really felt that I wanted to do mission related work at that point, and I first went into development, and I don't really know why I did that. I think I did that because I liked the classes, which is a very silly way to pick anything, and I worked at the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center eventually as their director of development and I.
Karen Harris:It was very interesting, I liked it, but I missed finance and so then I moved to the East Harlem Tutorial Program, which is charter schools in East Harlem, and was the CFO there and then ultimately got recruited to ADVF. But I'm very happy to have worked at these social services organizations for several years.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, I can imagine that's fulfilling, Much more fulfilling than running a hedge fund. The ADDF recruitment. How did that come to pass?
Karen Harris:You know it was COVID and I just got a call from a recruiter and I think I had met her once before and she just how she just called and I had interviews completely online and I think it was a year before I met the CEO in person because it was like smack in the middle of the really bad COVID. But I thought this would be super interesting and it was different. But the whole investment part of it- was really interesting to me.
Matt Pillar:For sure, yeah, kind of brought you back to that world that you had been in.
Karen Harris:Yeah, it's kind of the perfect job because I get to really match the investment banking skills as well as the CFO skills, so I really can't think of a more perfect job for me.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, that's great, so I want to talk a little bit more about ADDF and what it's supporting. As you know, the bulk of our audience are biotech execs and CEOs, many of whom founders, many of whom worked in the Alzheimer's space. You guys support the events of both diagnostics and therapeutics.
Karen Harris:Yeah, we're involved in diagnost that are developing drugs based on the biology of aging, so drugs that will treat the underlying diseases of aging, with the idea that if we can treat that, then we can ultimately reduce Alzheimer's, because Alzheimer's ultimately is a disease of aging. And we decided about 10 years ago not to focus on amyloid which is what these new drugs are because pharma was focusing on amyloid and pouring tons of money into it.
Karen Harris:So we wanted to invest where we thought that our money would be more useful in novel ideas and, as it turns out, where the science has moved now is towards the biology of aging, because these amyloid drugs are, you know, shown they reduce amyloid, but I still think the jury's out as to how effective. You know, maybe they'll slow cognitive decline by 30%, but that's not enough, and we think that a lot of these other ideas are going to come to fruition and ultimately it's going to be a combination therapy or precision medicine that is going to cure Alzheimer's. Much in the way of the cancer space does it with their immunotherapy. So, um, so we really take in uh, they, my CEO likes to say shots on goal, and we've taken a lot of shots on goal.
Karen Harris:And our um co-founder and chief science officer is an absolute. We call him the truffle hound because he just seems to be able to seek out the most interesting biotech companies, and we've done quite well with some of them. We invested early on in a program that was licensed by Amavid or by Avid Pharmaceuticals, and then the company was bought by Eli Lilly and it was the first PET scan to actually be able to identify amyloid, because before that there was no way to really tell if you had Alzheimer's except for either a cognitive interview, which doesn't you know, that's not very scientific or else an autopsy after death.
Karen Harris:So that was one of the things that we invested in early on, as well as blood tests for the diagnosis, for the diagnosis, and I think now, with these anti-amyloid drugs, there's going to be a need to figure out who has Alzheimer's in an easier way than the PET scan, and I think a lot of blood tests are being developed now, some already marketed.
Karen Harris:So, that's really. That's diagnostics as well, and that's the diagnostics part of the business. And there we have a hundred million dollars that was given, donated to us from the Gates from Bill Gates and other philanthropists, leonard Lauder and we are using that money to try to accelerate the detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer's, with the thought that the earlier you can detect it, the better off you're going to be and the more probable that you could get a treatment that would work. We have invested in therapeutics this year $34 million. We'll invest $45 million next year.
Karen Harris:And then we have the diagnostic accelerator money to invest. But our biomarker team and our therapeutics team talk all the time and are completely sort of married at the hip because the two really go together.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, yeah, is, is, is the? Is the truffle hunting more difficult on the therapeutic side than it is on the diagnostic side?
Karen Harris:Um, yeah, you know it's different and I think therapeutics take a lot longer to come to market, so you have to wait longer. Um, but I think the returns are ultimately better in the end. So I think if somebody comes up with the therapeutic for Alzheimer's that really works, that's going to make a lot more money than the diagnostic test that told you that a person would have Alzheimer's. But I do think that it's quicker to market the diagnostic tools and it's absolutely essential If you think about it. Like, imagine if we didn't have a way to tell whether you have high blood pressure.
Matt Pillar:Right.
Karen Harris:And and with it really helps in the clinical trials, because they used to do clinical trials and a quarter of the people wouldn't even have alzheimer's because there was no way to really know, you just guess. So, um, it's very important when you're doing the clinical trials and also when you're measuring the endpoint to see if your therapy is effective, to have a good biomarker to be able to actually know whether your drug is doing the appropriate work.
Matt Pillar:Sure, and as those drugs become more precision, presumably the diagnostic tools are going to be key because precision drugs and their correlation to stage of diagnosis. They've got to work hand in hand.
Karen Harris:Absolutely, absolutely. They've got to work hand in hand, absolutely, and that is why the Diagnostics Accelerator is trying to find novel biomarkers. So there might be a biomarker for inflammation, for vascular disease, because these things are other aspects of Alzheimer's that people have and will ultimately need to be measured.
Matt Pillar:So, speaking of the therapeutic focus, do you have any favorite horses in the race in terms of modalities?
Karen Harris:Yes. So, as I said, we invest in companies that are focused on the biology of aging and, in terms of the stage that we're interested in, it's typically now the IND enabling stage or proof of concept, phase one, proof of concept trials and then early phase two, because that's where our money is going to be the most meaningful. You know, then later, for the phase three trials, they're going to need hundreds of millions of dollars and we can't. We don't have that money, so we're trying to invest in ideas that ultimately can raise future money from the VCs and from pharma and be able to continue on after, after our donations done.
Matt Pillar:But we do give a lot of follow-on donations as well when you first uh survey opportunities uh or entertain opportunities other well, you know, let me let me stop there and and focus there for a minute, like are you typically hunting, or are you typically being courted, or is it a combination of the two?
Karen Harris:um, it's a combination of both.
Karen Harris:So we are always looking for areas of our portfolio of investments where maybe we're lacking, like oh, maybe you know, here's an idea where we don't have any drugs being tested for this in our portfolio, like, maybe it's gene therapy, so we would be actively looking.
Karen Harris:But also we have several RFPs that we do and we have a lot of incoming requests. You can imagine, in this down market, all the demand and what I would say about our model is, while we do want the returns that VCs get, we don't have limited partners and we focus the most important thing for us as a science and we hope to make a good return, but we're not so much focused on the returns as we are on the science. And so in this difficult market, we've been able to fund companies that have trouble finding money anywhere else, that our scientific diligence is so admired at ADDF that often we are like the stamp of approval that enables these companies to get future funding. And a lot of the time people will say, well, can we sign your contract early, because the next venture partner won't come in until you've actually signed. So we see a lot of that. Yeah, that's interesting.
Matt Pillar:What does the scientific validation component look like? You have like a board. Yeah, so we have.
Karen Harris:I'm going to get the number wrong, but I think it's like we have like 19 PhD scientists on board and so the first investigation is an internal one and then if we like an idea and we think it will fit well in our portfolio, then we have outside reviewers review it. These are prominent people in the Alzheimer's field and then after that it goes to our scientific investment committee, who you know, study the idea and vote to approve or not to approve. So that that is our scientific method. And you know, obviously over the years we've developed such an expertise in Alzheimer's specifically that you know I think a lot of the vcs really admired that knowledge yeah, um, as far as scientific analysis of potential partners goes, have you noticed any trends or do you have any preferences in terms of you mentioned gene therapy?
Matt Pillar:for instance like you know, is small mall more attractive than a biologic, more attractive than a gene therapy, like any trends there, or are you pretty agnostic?
Karen Harris:Um, I think we are pretty agnostic in sort of this. We think they're going to be a lot of targets and we like to have a good range of things. A couple of companies, for example, like we invest in Luxio Therapeutics, which happens to have just presented at the JP Morgan Conference, and they're a genetic medicine company, a clinical stage genetic medicine. So that's one company that we invested in early in 2014, where we actually invested when that, when the idea was at Weill Cornell university, and then it it somehow got into. It became a company Lexio or Alexio bought it.
Matt Pillar:I don't know how.
Karen Harris:And then it it just went public. So we made another investment in 2020 and now it's gone public. So that's, that's one company and you know it's very rewarding. Toibrin, which is supposed to be bad for neurons and cognitive declines, and now again in 2023, and they are doing their Series A right now and are trying to fund the Phase 2 study.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, that's great. You talked a little bit about how ADDS support is seen as a stand-up, a sought-after sort of stand-up of approval. Stamp of approval. Um, do you look for? You might have touched on this, but I'm curious about how it's maybe changed in the recent you know the recent, uh, financial climate. Do you, do you look for companies that have, like you know, your? Your reputation is often determined by the company you keep right, do you look for? Companies that have um specific business development, support from specific firms or even pharma companies.
Karen Harris:Um well, we we typically would invest before the pharma companies would come in, and we're really trying to get these companies ready for pharma. So no. I wouldn't say so much. I wouldn't say so much, I wouldn't really say that so much. I think we're investing 100% based on what we think is the validity of the science.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, all right, once you validate the science and strike up a partnership, is it pretty? Maybe not monetarily, but is it pretty cookie cutter. Like, is it pretty automated?
Karen Harris:Yeah. So once the science is validated, then it comes to the. We negotiate the deal and then it comes to our investment committee. So we do have an investment committee that has to approve the terms of the deal and they're really the ones who want to see that we're getting quote venture like returns, and that we're. We've actually structured and negotiated a good deal and it's actually not cookie cutter because ADDF, we don't invest directly.
Karen Harris:Well, we do, we buy preferred stock, but that's that money that we give a company has to go to a specific project with the budget and a work plan, and so we're in very close touch, helping the companies design the projects and design the clinical trials, and we help them with IP and with business plans. So we're having a very close relationship even before we approve the proposal and then, once it's approved and once they start working, doing the work, we stay in touch with them very closely to see how it's going and how we can set them up for success, and even after. We've done a lot of follow-on deals this year and we tend to like to do that and to really help our companies prosper.
Matt Pillar:That's cool. What is the sort of the I don't know day-to-day, not necessarily day-to-day, but that sort of relationship management aspect? Are there like customer relationship managers at ADDF that work with these folks? We're a nonprofit.
Karen Harris:No, it's really the science teams that work with them. I work with them if there are any finance related issues or anything related to the structure of the deal. Do they need an extension on their convertible? No, you know those kind of things, but the scientists are really working with them on a day-to-day basis. So, with regards to how the project is going, yeah, the venture philanthropy model in general.
Matt Pillar:how has the recent economic headwinds impacted the venture philanthropists in general? Has it been a are you fairly insulated, or is it impacted?
Karen Harris:Well, what I would say is it's actually made the venture philanthropy model that much more important.
Karen Harris:And we do a lot of what I call bridge financing, which is, you know this say you have a company and they needed to raise their series A by January, or else they're going to run out of money and can't complete the next trial.
Karen Harris:And here it's happened quite a number of times in this market where you know the companies are unable to complete the Series A on time, they just can't get the investors. And so we provide bridge financing, which is usually in the form of a convertible note, which is debt that's going to convert into equity and basically bridge them over, to tie them over to when they're able to finally close their preferred round. And we've done a lot of that this year, and we just need to be careful that the company does have enough cash to continue on and finish our project and ultimately will have results that will draw in the money of venture capital and of pharma potentially, or they could go to the public markets. But I think that ADDF's stamp of approval and this bridge financing, it's something we can do because, once again, we don't need the venture return. We really want the science to progress.
Matt Pillar:Is bridge financing a risky proposition?
Karen Harris:It is a risky proposition because you don't know if the series A or B or C is actually going to get done. So yes, it's definitely a risky proposition and ADDF can take that risk when others don't want to, and I think that ADDF, by taking that risk, helps venture firms feel comfortable about investing. But it is definitely a risk and the investment committee is very careful about making sure that that company has a plan to be able to stay in business and continue and finish our project. So usually what we like to see is that there's some inflection point coming up where they're going to be results announced and therefore they can draw in additional capital okay, um, what is your uh general sense for?
Matt Pillar:uh, you know, obviously, in this environment, karen, like everyone's sunshine and roses, it's jp mor. You know everyone's everyone's happy, but I'm picking up on some genuine sentiment that things are improving. You know what's your, what's your take.
Karen Harris:Yeah, I think that it has been extremely difficult. It's been a very bad market. The public markets have been terrible. The IPO markets are pretty closed up until maybe the fourth quarter of this year and it's really hard to get venture investors to invest now because they weren't able to take their companies public, so they're having to put money into their existing companies rather than new companies. So, as a new company, to get a lead investor is really really hard right now.
Karen Harris:I think things are looking up. There's been an uptick in the biotech index in the last few weeks really, with a lot of mergers that have been announced, and what's interesting for us is we've seen two mergers, one from Merck of Carraway Therapeutics and one from AbbVie of a company called Cereval both CNS companies and those are among the most risky, and so that leads me to believe that somehow the valuations are low enough that the market is going to turn. So we've seen a lot of M&A. There's been a lot of M&A announced at JP Morgan and interest rates are projected to come down, and I think if that happens, then it'll be a big help to these biotechs and ultimately people will start investing again.
Karen Harris:I mean the valuations. I would say that the boom years of 20 and 21 were maybe a little over-exuberant and the valuations were too high and a lot of companies were able to go public that shouldn't be public companies that are now trading at a dollar a share. So I think that there's that overhang in the market. But I do think we've seen two IPOs of CNS related companies. One is Lexio, another is Nomura Therapeutics, and there again, you know they're both trading now above issue price. So that leads me to believe that the market is going to get better. I think it's going to take a little while, but I think by the end of 2024 and 2025, things are going to be better.
Matt Pillar:And how does that like?
Karen Harris:how do you?
Matt Pillar:envision that hopeful improvement impacting ADDF. What does that do for you?
Karen Harris:Well, one thing that does for us is to help us get returns. So basically we call them mission-related returns. So if the public markets turn and a lot of our companies can do initial public offerings, we typically, once an investment becomes liquid, we sell. We make sure we sell in a way that we won't hurt the stock price of the company, so very slowly over time. But you know, we believe that once we gain liquidity we should sell and then make investments in other science. And so you know, I think that we'll get a lot.
Karen Harris:We will see a lot of M&A, where we will get returns, or we will see IPOs where we're going to get returns. So we're hoping for that that money gets plowed right back into the science. And also with the new, with the new drug approvals for Alzheimer's, we're seeing an increased interest in just CNS related work and we're I've seen from the VCs an interest to get educated on the neurodegenerative disease and we call them neurocurious VCs and I think you know a lot of VCs wouldn't invest in the neuro world because it was too risky and I think maybe they're going to start coming, coming in now.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, well, I mean the, the, I guess, association with anti-aging. But the anti-aging space I mean that that's a, that's a hot space right now and I can see, you know, the, the VC appetite in that space and crazy saying it has things to turn around too. So it's. It's a good corollary right yes.
Karen Harris:The anti that space and criticizing as things turn around too. So it's a good corollary, right? Yes, the anti aging space is really interesting and I was hoping to hear more about it at jp morgan. Uh, we didn't, but I think you know everybody seems dollars a year in anti-aging and we are trying to get some of the sovereign wealth money to go towards alzheimer's, which is a disease of aging. So, um, we, we are trying to get some of that money into alzheimer's.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, very good. When you come to an investor conference like this, you know you're in a unique position cfo of venture philanthropy, uh at atf.
Karen Harris:What's, what's your?
Matt Pillar:what's your goal, what's your mo here?
Karen Harris:so I'm very interested to see what the public companies are doing in the neurodegenerative space. So I make sure to see those companies. You know to see biogen, who is introducing one of their al's drug, and Lilly to talk about their drug. So I'm interested in seeing those companies. I'm also very interested in understanding what they think when they think the market's going to return, because you know, I have ADDF can have an opinion, but I'm very interested in the investor's opinion as to when the market's going to come back. And then I've been meeting a lot of the CEOs of either companies we already fund or companies that are in the process of applying to get funding from us. So I've been meeting with a lot of them as well as some people on the venture side, because one thing we try to do for our companies is to get additional venture money into them. So it's very helpful at ADDF to have venture connections so that we can help our companies raise money.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, what's the appropriate way for a company who's interested in working with you to? What's the channel to get the conversation started?
Karen Harris:So I would say that you know we're interested in companies focused on the biology of aging at the clinical stage and if you fit that model, reach out to our scientists. We have several RFPs. So look at our website and we really do encourage people to start the conversation. We're interested in unique, innovative science and our scientists are always happy to talk to you.
Matt Pillar:Good, If I were a better interviewer. What would I have? Asked you that I didn't About ADDF?
Karen Harris:Let me think about that.
Matt Pillar:Well, if you have to think about it, I must have done a pretty good job.
Karen Harris:Yeah, you know, I think you did a great job and I'm not sure what else you could have asked me. But, yeah, I think it's did a great job and I I'm not sure, uh, what else you could have asked me. But, um, yeah, I think it's been a great discussion and I'm very happy for people to know more about venture philanthropy. And also, you know, I want to really help our biotech companies who are doing research in alzheimer's. It's such an important area.
Karen Harris:And these biotech companies are just, you know, they never stop working, and it's just very impressive.
Matt Pillar:It is, and the work that you're doing is very impressive too. I just recalled that, as I said, I don't often have venture philanthropists on the show, but the last time I did was a couple of years ago. I think it was the JDDF Katie Alley. Oh, okay. You know, Katie had always fascinated conversation with her as well. I admire the work that folks like you do, yeah, and I encourage you to keep up that work, and I wish you all the best success in 24.
Karen Harris:Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate having this conversation. It's very fun.
Matt Pillar:Yeah, we'll get back together and do it again. You know, maybe the next wave of Alzheimer's approval.
Karen Harris:We'll get into the effect. That would be very interesting. Break some of that, yeah, and we're looking forward to the next approval, so absolutely.
Matt Pillar:Great, great Well. Karen Harris, pleasure to meet you. Thank you for coming on the show. I'm Matt Pillar and you just listened to the Business of Biotech, the weekly podcast dedicated to the builders of biotech. We drop a new episode with a new exec every Monday morning and I'd like you to join our community of subscribers at BioprocessOnline. com Apple Podcasts, spotify, google Play or anywhere you get your podcasts You can also subscribe to our never spammy, always insightful monthly newsletter at bioprocessonline. com/bob. If you have feedback or topic and guest suggestions, hit me up on LinkedIn and let's chat and, as always, thanks for listening .