Business Of Biotech
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Business Of Biotech
The Generalist Biotech CEO With Seekyo's Oury Chetboun
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On this week's episode, Oury Chetboun, co-founder and CEO of Seekyo, a French biotech, talks about the range of experiences that prepared him to lead a company focused on developing innovative solid tumor treatments that target functional proteins in the tumor micro-environment. Chetboun talks about raising money for preclinical research and navigating the valley of death between research and clinical development, accessing French innovation funding and angel networks, how click chemistry can produce therapies at a lower cost compared to antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), and the potential use of drug combinations and umbrella trials for testing multiple cancer indications.
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Welcome back to the Business of Biotech. I'm your host, Ben Comer, Chief Editor at Life Science Leader, and today I'm speaking with Oury Chetboun, co-founder and CEO at Seekyo, a French biotech developing treatments for solid tumors that target functional proteins in the tumor microenvironment. Ori began his career in life sciences with a pair of training programs at Medtronic and Sharing before joining BTG, now a part of Boston Scientific. He worked in business development at Genzyme and corporate development at Eurapharma and consulting at Alira Health, and was head of BD and licensing at Basilea before co-founding Seekyo, which is now on the cusp of entering first in human clinical trials with its lead candidate, SKY01. I'm grateful to Oury for joining the podcast today to talk about his experiences as a first time CEO, what he's learned so far, what makes Seekyo distinct in the solid tumor space and how he's navigating a difficult funding environment globally for early-stage companies. Thanks so much for being here today, Oury.
Oury Chetboun:Well, thank you, Ben, for having me today with you.
Ben Comer:Glad to have you. I wanted to start off as we do, Oury, with your background and experience, and maybe we could briefly take it all the way back to the beginning. What appealed to you about the life sciences industry initially, and how did you get started?
Oury Chetboun:get back to years ago. So while I was doing my master in science, I really liked the biotech. I really liked the life science spirit, which wasn't exactly black or white. It was in between. The data shows things that you have to interpret, and I found that very appealing and also very stimulating.
Oury Chetboun:At one point in time during my study I wanted also to have something else, which was another angle of the real life. The labs, the bench was really tremendous. The bibliography, the literature, all the data you could get if you were going and study were also very exciting. But there was something missing for someone which obviously had at the time a kind of entrepreneurial spirit already, and that's the reason why, after my immunology study, I was graduated from Foster Institute.
Oury Chetboun:I wanted to add something else to my background and that something was to me actually pretty obvious. It was the business side of things. So I moved into the MBA program for people with a scientific background, which at that time gave me an overview of what was the business, life science reality. And the reason why I'm still in the life science business is because I felt that with my double background it was very interesting to be able to maintain, continue and keep going in the life science with all I mentioned before, but with a complementary angle. I could have moved into a pure business and maybe in finance, but I found that in between was really interesting and that's the reason why I've been spending 20 years doing business development in between.
Ben Comer:Yeah, right, and you know I went through your resume there in the introduction and you worked in business development, you've worked in IP, you've worked in a number of different capacities across a number of different companies. What could you say about those previous experiences and, kind of, I guess, how they helped you prepare for eventually co-founding and leading Seekyo as CEO?
Oury Chetboun:Well, that was the question I asked myself before taking on the Seekyo creation inception at the time, and I wanted to make sure that all I had done in my past life was an addition. Every single step was an addition to the previous one. So I started very soon with the pure technology and then, as you described, I added the IP, and then I did some business at Angle and then I worked for a technology transfer firm which was the largest in the world we called at the time BTG and then, moving on, I joined Up2, I would call it Up2 Basilea. In that position I looked at an innovative product, but product which all the Engel you can imagine from the r&d, including the clinics, but also including even small things like packaging. What are you going to produce if you give a license to someone on the other side of the world?
Oury Chetboun:So all those aspects at one point slime, were kind of integrated in my experience and at that time I felt that, maybe wrongly, I felt that I gathered enough experience from several angles without being an expert in any but at least a glance of everything which allowed me to say, well, if I create tomorrow a company, I would have experience. I would have experience. I would have some knowledge about every single point that a company needs to have me, Although I will not be an expert in any, but at least I can ask right question. I can challenge people in the team. I can do a lot of different things. Helps and I'm always helped with people very skilled in one single topic.
Ben Comer:Yeah, I mean, is that you know kind of a level of experience that's broad rather than deep? Has that served you well as CEO? Obviously you know the CEO is captaining the ship, in particular for you know a smaller preclinical biotech company. Were there additional pieces of the CEO role that you had to learn, or had you experienced a lot of those aspects across your past work experiences?
Oury Chetboun:I would say that I've learned a lot since the creation of CTO.
Ben Comer:Yeah.
Oury Chetboun:New things, but based on knowledge I had so like. If you look at the finance, for example, I've learned a lot in finance since the creation of the company, but still I was able to understand and to interact with finance people because I had the background to do so. I wasn't reaching their levels but at least, as I said before, I could interact properly. Whether there was other type of knowledge I had to learn, I would say yes, of course, on the science side. I'm not the inventor of the science, so although at the time I was able to understand. But I find myself myself even today keeping learning new things from my co-associates. He keeps telling me things that I didn't know before, some kind of interaction between molecules or direction we could take or feedback that we have from others, that he's the I would say, the only one to understand the proper language and have that deep knowledge. So it's a real personal challenge and you can take on that kind of role only if you are open to keep learning and to admit that, regardless of what you know, you have to learn and to keep learning.
Oury Chetboun:But I would like to give you two auditors, not advice, but maybe my perception, because you said something earlier. Either you can see from early stage company that the profile of CEO are either a very scientific one who's got deep knowledge about the science, or you have people like myself, which I call generalist, who knows a bit of everything but nothing. At the end of the day, it's always the question of how far you want to go. If you are a real deep biotech company and if you want to go fast and far, I would say that you need both profiles A very strong scientist on board on an everyday basis and someone who's got something else, the additional stuff that is missing to the guy. And actually it's what we've done at CQ. I have that generalist profile that I bring everything but the science, whereas my associate brings the proper deep scientific backgrounds.
Ben Comer:Absolutely, and I think you hit on an important point about being able to ask the right question as a CEO. I think that's it, regardless of the domain or piece of function of the business that you're talking about being able to place that question. You know that that is going to deliver an answer that's going to help the company move forward in whatever it is. I wonder if you could give an example of you know, whether it's on you know to the scientific team and research, whether it's you know working with CDMO partners to figure out. You know manufacturing, as you are now scaling up for inhuman clinical trials, whether it's you know questions to board members or to investors. Can you give our audience a sense of some of those areas, maybe, where you didn't have a deep expertise but knew enough to ask the well-placed question?
Oury Chetboun:I have two actually in mind. The first one was with a CRO which we were supposed to do our um pdx study at the time. So pdx, in a few words, is that tumor coming from proper patients and planted into mice. So it's a very expensive work to be carried out because you have to grew up the mice and then you have to inject and then to sacrifice and then to also measure the size of the tumor. So it's a lengthy, very expensive work and when you go to to meet with cro, they have very deep knowledge and they also are a salesman. At the end of the day they want to sell their services because the more you do, the better they're getting paid. Uh, and I had that very lengthy discussion about the how. I mean they came up with a. We explain our needs. They came up with a very detailed um proposal protocol and all these things and they added as much as they could and they did a great job.
Oury Chetboun:I'm not saying otherwise, but at the end of the day I came with every single line of paper and I asked to follow them to justify what kind of added value every single line could bring to the company, whether, for example, if I do nine instead of 10,? Would that really jeopardize the type of data we would generate If I do 10 miles instead of nine, or if I do nine miles instead of 10. And in either way, in one way, of course, you reduce the cost, but on the other hand, on the other round, you increase the statistical data. And could that make you stronger in front of investors? Or whether that wouldn't change anything having 10 or 9? And every single line has to be discussed. And I got reply for every single stuff, reply for every single stuff, and I can tell you that at the end of the day, I think I cut the overall budget by 30%.
Ben Comer:Wow.
Oury Chetboun:Just because of asking that. It was the same thing when we had the type of discussion with CDMO for the CMC production Can we save some money? Do we need to have that done now, or can we delay that a bit later without changing anything, Without jeopardizing the data or even the production, and every single step. And obviously I was doing that because I'm very keen on making sure the budget is tight. But it was always the same thing and I even learned that actually from my previous experience. I used to have a CEO because I used to report to CEO and every single it wasn't so much a question of being challenged to be challenged there's always stupid people who do that but most of the time when you have that tricky questions, when you have to reply, then you think you could find an alternative solution. Right, that's something you have to oblige yourself. So that's something you have to oblige yourself. I'm being asked by my committee for this kind of question whether I can do better.
Ben Comer:So I have to think before and I do the same thing with the team or with potential partners, making sure that we optimize. That's excellent. Thank you for that, ori. I want to ask next about the circumstances that led to the founding of Seekyo. You know well, let me start there. How did that initially come together? Where did the tech come from? You know who were the other co-founders?
Oury Chetboun:Yeah, sure. So the inventor of the science, professor Papo, who's the co-founder of the company. He's the inventor of the science, he's a professor in the National Research Agency in France, cnrs, and he's been working on that type of approach, type of technology, for the past 20 years. For the past 20 years, at one point in time he had the feeling that if he wanted to make a gap between his lab down to the road to patients, he had to go through a technology transfer.
Ben Comer:Right.
Oury Chetboun:He met with the technology transfer agency local agency, and they evaluated the technology. That was on the one side. On my personal side, I also came back from Basel. I was living in Basel and at one point in time, with my entrepreneurial spirit, I wanted to do something for myself, something for which I will see the fruit of my hard work. So I said to myself, what can I do? I've been working in biotech and oncology fields for the past 20 years. Maybe that's where I can add value. So I start calling my network asking whether they knew something of interest. Maybe we can link with technology transfer arm, maybe we can link it with technology transfer arm.
Oury Chetboun:And all these two things on separate side came to one point during a meeting in France, in Poitiers, actually outside Bordeaux, and I was introduced to Sébastien. Sébastien was introduced to myself and he explained me the technology, explained me that he was kind of maturing the technology and we each other did a due diligence on the other, he did on myself, I did on himself. Or we met several times making sure that we can get along well and making sure that if we create a company we won't have any kind of conflict. And we found that we could work along very well. So at that time we decided that it was the right time to make the inception of the company. So we decided to go ahead.
Oury Chetboun:It wasn't done. The day after I had to negotiate a licensing agreement with the national agency, making sure that we got an asset in the new company to come, and the day I had the agreement almost signed, the following day we created the company. So the day after that we signed the license, because the license has to be hosted into a company. So within 24 hours we created SQL as well as we got an exclusive license for the initial technology.
Ben Comer:And where did the initial investment come to do that licensing deal?
Oury Chetboun:From out of our pockets. Really, sebastian and I put money into the company at the very beginning. After having done that, we went around. There are small agencies who could loan you money in order to have that, what they call a kind of initial loan. Sure, you, as a company, you can start, and once you have money, once the company is created, once you've done your initial fundraising, then you can get the money back with no interest. So it was also a nice way to get started, so we did so. We then competed against several contests. There are several contests as an early stage company. So you, you're being known and you can earn some uh, kind of subsidiary and and stuff like that. So you don't have to reimburse anything, and that's an initial way to to get started.
Oury Chetboun:Once we've done that, then of course, we needed further money. But maybe one point before that when we we created CQ with the initial patents, we weren't sure whether the technology nor whether the current development could lead to what it is K1, our lead compound today. So it was also a bet on whether data could be generated and nice data. So we started with an initial package, which is not what it is now. So SkyOne was the fruit of two or three years of hard work during the inception till we got to a new patent called SkyOne.
Oury Chetboun:Okay, so it was a shift in terms of target, or able to drop one compound, an active compound. That was the usual drug ratio of one, but we wanted to increase that. We wanted to have something which was kind of like very effective, very hard killing and being able to deliver a huge quantity of of drug. That the reason why, after that work, we find a scheme, one which is actually the ability to deliver three copy of the active compound instead of one. But that was a bex. I mean, no one knew whether that would work, whether we could also induce a high toxicity, and all that had to be tested.
Ben Comer:Right and you've been doing that testing in animal studies thus far. However, you are on the precipice, I believe, of a first in human trial with your lead candidate. You mentioned SkyO1. Well, let me ask where you are right now with that, how far away you are potentially, you know, from getting into clinical trials and anything else you might say Ori about. You know how you got to this near clinical stage.
Oury Chetboun:Okay, well, we got there thanks to business, to very healthy business angels. They allowed us financially actually to get money in order to go step by step, and actually those steps were twofold. The first one was related to the cmc prediction whether we can get a product which was from the lab scale up to a potential drug Right.
Oury Chetboun:From milligram to gram and that small scale. It's also a matter of future product. It's really important to the industry. But that's not enough. You need to demonstrate that you are efficient and what we did over time is to carry several types of experiments in animals small animals like mice, and also large animals like dogs, because you have to do at the end of the day, for regulatory purposes, you have to do and to go through dogs. So we did, at a smaller scale, some dogs in order to define the concentration, the ratio, but also to define the potential toxicity In both cases, mice and dogs.
Oury Chetboun:We've been very lucky. We keep having tremendous results. But that's one matrix. What we also did was another matrix which was, instead of only testing SCA1, our lead compound, against one indication, we tested and we developed SCA1 against several indications. So what we do is actually, in order to target solid tumors, we use and we'll get into that functional protein present in the tumor microenvironment and because those functional proteins are always, always present in the tumor microenvironment, we are able to target several indications and, luckily enough, we got the same level of tremendous data, have all indications and, luckily enough, we got the same level of tremendous data in all indications.
Ben Comer:Interesting. Yeah, I do want to pick it up with Sky01 and the kind of approach on targeting the microenvironment, but before I do I have one or two just follow-ups on getting into clinical trials. First, what is the manufacturing scale-up for clinical trials look like? Can you explain kind of how the company is approaching creating enough medicine you know to power a human trial creating?
Oury Chetboun:enough medicine, you know, to power a human trial. Well, one of the things that we wanted with Sébastien at the very beginning was obviously to have a drug which is powerful in terms of efficacy, which is very safe as well, because it's also key things. But in addition to that, we also wanted something which is not expensive or reasonably not expensive. The reason why we had that in mind was that there's out there several potential options to treat patients, and I have in mind the antibody drugs conjugate treat patients, and I have in mind the antibody drugs conjugate. There are drugs, but actually they don't work so well in solid tumors. But let's let's that aside. If you just look at the cost of ADC, it's a real massive cost. That means some countries, some patients, will not be able to afford because the country can't afford and can't support such a massive cost.
Oury Chetboun:That's right yeah, which is called tumor-activated therapy to be able to create a drug which would be easily and affordable, easily to produce and also affordable to maybe less healthy countries. That's the reason why we use the click chemistry. Click chemistry is like Lego you take one piece, you add the other piece, you add the other piece and then, at the end of the day, you've got your molecule. And that is the way we created SkyOne, its platform. That's the way also we are doing the scale-up, so we are able to produce separate pieces of the jigsaw and, at the very end, to be able to assemble all of those pieces in order to get the final product, and by doing so, we are able to reduce the overall costs.
Ben Comer:Interesting. Can you explain how Sky-01 is different than an ADC? How do they differ?
Oury Chetboun:Well, adc by nature uses the antibody-antigen relationship. So the ADC targets specific antigens present at the surface of cancer cells. But not all cancer cells, although in the same tumor, would express the same antigen. Although you are in the same room, not everyone has the same look and that means when you come with your ADC you are facing an extra difficulty. One is obviously to penetrate inside the solid tumor, but also to find the right door key, I would call it. Not every single cell has the same door key relationship. That means your ADC doesn't target all cells and that is being called the heterogeneity of the tumor. So that's a limitation, a very strong limitation.
Oury Chetboun:What we thought was that instead of targeting a door, we could use something which is present and well-known present in the tumor microenvironment. We target functional proteins. Those functional proteins are always present at a high concentration in the tumor microenvironment. So actually we have the trigger which is in the tumor microenvironment and once K1 reaches this trigger, then it does release the active payload. So it's like if you drop a bomb here and then it destroys all surrounding cells around you and by doing so we actually are able to overcome that heterogeneity. By doing so we actually are able to overcome that heterogeneity.
Ben Comer:So is it just so I'm clear? Is it similar to an ADC in that there's a linker to an antibody and a payload? But it's just that the target is functional proteins, and that is what makes it different. Or am I misunderstanding?
Oury Chetboun:it. There are a few things which make a really different scale. So, first of all, we don't need to get into the cell. Okay, we can get the cell from the outside, and that makes things easier. We're not depending upon the kind of pH variation, which is the way that the ADC releases the payload inside the cells. We have developed and we have designed a molecule which is responsive to this functional protein. Actually it's called beta-glucuronidase, it's an enzyme, and that specific enzyme induces a release which is 0, 1. Yes, no. So that makes the system very safe, very active, and that makes the huge difference in terms of safety, but also in terms of activation. So what we've designed, actually it's something which has changed the modality, the way we treat solid cancer today. It's a new paradigm. I'd call it.
Ben Comer:Yeah, and so are the functional proteins that are on a given tumor in an individual patient similar to other patients that have similar tumors, or do these therapies need to be personalized, kind of on an individual level?
Oury Chetboun:No, that works for everyone. It's been in the literature that for a long time. Beta-glucuronidase enzyme is present in all patients with all types of solid tumors.
Ben Comer:Okay, all right. And then how far off are you from that first in-human clinical trial? Can you give an estimate?
Oury Chetboun:Well, we are 4 million and 18 months away from the first in-human. Okay 4 million is dedicated to roughly the preclinical regulatory step and that would require about 18 months.
Ben Comer:Okay, all right. So you're in fundraising mode right now to get you to human clinical trials.
Oury Chetboun:I would say like every single biotech, like every single day indeed.
Ben Comer:That's right. You're never out of fundraising mode as an early stage biotech. Yes, that is a point that's well taken and it's also a good segue to my next question, which and you mentioned earlier on in our conversation Ori agencies in France that were providing I think what it sounded like was some non-dilutive funding early on. But I wonder if you could kind of describe and I want to preface this by saying I realize that the biopharmaceutical industry is global, investors come from anywhere to invest in companies anywhere else but can you describe the investment climate in France in particular right now and kind of how you've managed to keep the company funded up to this point and going forward?
Oury Chetboun:Well, I think we have a nice but not the best, but a nice environment in France and in Europe in general. We have a mix of business angels with early stage VC. We have a mix, also in France and also in Europe, of non-dilutive public institution which would actually provide you it's a non-dilutive, it's not a free, but they would provide you one euro for one euro raised sometime, or zero five for one raised and that actually makes a leverage effect on your own fundraising and that helps the company moving forward. That's a very nice thing. On the other hand, as you correctly said, we are playing in a global environment. So what you could see all over the world about certain type of hard time funding early stage company.
Ben Comer:Yeah.
Oury Chetboun:Also very much true in Europe and in France as well. So there's always that what we call the debt valley. It's actually where we stand and where CQO stands. It's in between early stage, lead discovery and initial steps and the clinics. Once you have data on clinics unless you have bad data you're pretty much on the safe side. If you're at the very beginning, there will always be some people to lend you money and to help you moving to the next step. But in between, that's the very hard part of the fundraising for companies In Europe. In France, we have several kinds of tools. One of the key actually in France is called the French Bank of Innovation, which is a very helpful institution backed by the French government in order to allow technology companies to have financial resources to a certain level, to a certain extent, with certain conditions, but still you can have money from that. In France we also have what they call the tax credits. So if I spend, for example, hundreds during R&D pure R&D- this is an R&D tax credit.
Oury Chetboun:Absolutely yes, Sorry.
Ben Comer:Yeah, yeah.
Oury Chetboun:Although you could also add IP work in that basket. Let's call it R&D tax credit. If you spend $100, at the end of the year you could claim back $30. Okay, Okay. Only based on the pure R&D work dedicated, so it won't be my salary, but it would be a part of the salary of my colleagues in the R&D department.
Ben Comer:With the angel investors that you mentioned, that you've worked with. Were those French-based, or how did you, I guess? How did you connect with those angel investors, I guess?
Oury Chetboun:how did you connect with those angel investors? Well, I made at the very beginning I made a decision, which was at the very beginning, to only focus on local players to make my life easier and make it quicker. So actually in France we have one or two very strong networks of investors business angels I mean and those people were able to, as a group, to provide CQ with several roles of investment and up to now, if we also add the leverage effect I mentioned earlier with the French Bank of Innovation, all together we're talking about 2.5 million raised. That's, for an early stage, the size of CQ. It's a nice level of money and actually that helped us to reach the point where we are today. And basically it's two or three products, several patents, and that also includes a diagnostic tool, that includes early discovery, but also preclinics, dogs and mice. I think it's not too bad actually.
Ben Comer:Are you considering partnerships as a kind of ladder into your first clinical trial, like I don't know, for example co-development deals or even out-licensing at this point? Is that something that you're considering?
Oury Chetboun:Absolutely, absolutely. I mean the aim. I mean Sebastian and I have a dream, or actually we are fighting every day with one single objective, which is to be able us or someone else to bring sky one, or even sky two to the patient beds. So it doesn't have to be with us, it doesn't have to be under secure name, as long as the product reaches the patient at one point in time. So if the best option is to have a full, direct license to Lilly, to Merck, to whoever you want you name it, I will be happy to do that.
Ben Comer:Got it, got it, all right.
Oury Chetboun:That's for free.
Ben Comer:Yeah, right, of course you mentioned cost of therapy earlier in the conversation, ori, and I wanted to pick up on this because cancer is, no surprise, an extremely expensive disease for patients. As you look at moving into clinical trials, how do you think about the cost of therapy and what are some of the benefits of keeping costs low, I guess in terms of patient access? Ultimately, if you get across the line and get an approval?
Oury Chetboun:Well, it's getting back to what I mentioned earlier. The technology we developed tumor-activated therapy is an easier type of technology to produce. It's a click chemistry and that has a positive impact on the overall cost. Therefore, it would have also a positive impact on the reimbursement pricing pricing and then, of course, if a health system can afford a lower price, then obviously it would open up to a massive number of potential patients. So it is a way to spread and to give access to patients who, in the normal situation, may not have access to that type of treatment. And that's one of the things that we are doing today in trying to keep the CMC port the lowest as possible.
Oury Chetboun:We know that the cancer therapy are today very expensive. We know and you mentioned that earlier that are we getting to a personalized type of medicine? Yes, we are to some extent. But on the other way around, if you look at SCA1, and as I mentioned before and you asked correctly the question whether the activation of SCA1 could be aligned with all type of indication or all type of patient, yes indeed, and that reduce or that keep us away as much as possible away from the personalized medicine and its massive costs.
Oury Chetboun:I'm not saying that SCAE1 is cheap. I'm not saying that SCOne is cheap. I'm not saying that SkyOne can do everything. I'm just saying that we bring to death a potential alternative to the existing usual massive cost treatment per patient. And I want to add up with one of the things which goes along this line Like every single drug, you have to test how many or how often you have to treat the patient. And what we found out in mice as well as in dog, that because of the mechanism itself which, by the way, you the albumin we can reduce the number of injection and get a speedier, quicker data, quicker results. So in one hand, you don't have to inject that often and on the other hand, you get a better result, quicker, and that goes in the same direction Cheaper, less often, therefore cheaper, and so on for force.
Ben Comer:Right and, of course, you're correct in saying that, particularly in countries, lower socioeconomic situations countries, the cheaper your product, the more patients. Have you had, though, any initial conversations with health authorities in Europe? Payers, you know who I'm just curious about if there is interaction there. If they have any, you know provide any thoughts or feedback in terms of you know you present this new medicine that you're developing for solid tumors. Do those conversations happen or not?
Oury Chetboun:yet we have kind of in full discussion because we are early stage, because when we had that discussion we were even earlier than today.
Oury Chetboun:But we have that kind of interaction with regulatory people and what they felt was that, because of the mechanism of action, because of the ubiquitous type of interaction we have with different type of indication, we could be a potential solution to have one dredge for several indications, and that was also thanks to that feedback.
Oury Chetboun:That was also the way we are thinking of having an umbrella trial during the clinical step. Umbrella trial means that in one clinical phase you can enroll all type of indication that you are thinking of. We have the supporting data. We have data on lung, colorectal, pancreas and triple negative. That is the current data we showed at the time. We showed that to the regulatory agency and they felt yes, potentially you could go to an umbrella trial where you would recruit people like pancreas, triple negative, lung and colorectal. And that's a very positive feedback because that gives us the opportunity to have several indications treated at the same time and potentially to see in which one we are better. Luckily, we'll be best in all of them, but at least there will be one or two for which we will stand for.
Ben Comer:Yeah, that's really interesting and I wish you all of the luck in getting that final funding amount to get you into the clinic. While we're talking about health authorities, though, I have to ask, because I'm curious kind of to get the perspective from France, as it were, about the current turmoil at the FDA. There's a lot of firing, some reorganization happening under the Trump administration. I'm curious, ori, if you see that as kind of business as usual, with the changing of the guard at the very top, a new president coming in, you know, making his mark or her mark maybe one day, or do you see it more as a real threat to the, you know, the larger life sciences industry at this point?
Oury Chetboun:I will join you on the latter comments. The US market, the Japanese, the European markets and maybe one or two which escape right now top of my head, are the ones who drive the life science industry, because we can sell innovative products into those markets at a reasonable price. That price helps the pharma company to cover the marketing cost, to cover the innovation cost, to cover the innovation cost. Also to make money on their own. That's obvious. But that's also a way to drive down the road the innovative companies such as CQ, but also a way to drive down the road the LPs, the one who provides money to the VC, who themselves provide money to companies like Ciccio.
Oury Chetboun:So if at one point you have a slowdown or even a stop, you can't sell products on the US market, or you can't register fast enough a new product, or you are asked to lower down the price of your product I'm not saying everything was great before.
Oury Chetboun:I'm saying adjustment needs to be done, but nevertheless, if you're asking a new innovative product to be sold at the price of aspirin, then the pharma will not do a new product. Therefore, the LPs and the VCs will not be attracted by the pharma market and they will go somewhere else, and then CTO will not have its money to carry on the work. So, yes, I have some concern, but, like in any changing situation, there will always be a way to go around to overcome the situation. But on the other hand, there will always be like in any situation debts, the situation where you have to close down the company, even though you have a good technology, just because of the money is not flooding, and that would be the shame. But on the other hand, there will be a situation where obviously we'll find solutions, where that's actually also one of the messages sent by the regulatory agency, trying to move away from the animal testing. It's also a new change, a new paradigm that we have to take into account.
Ben Comer:I actually wanted to ask you about that. What are your thoughts about, you know, oregon on a chip and moving away? Do you think that you know, say, in the next five years, with you know, with AI, with new technology coming online seemingly every day, is it realistic to think that we could completely move away from animal testing? Or is it more of using less animal testing? Or just you know, what do you think about that? Is it possible in the short term?
Oury Chetboun:At CQ. Actually we had that kind of thinking with Sebastian. We went to meet with EI Biotech Technology. We felt that they could provide data to us by us explaining them how SkyOne works and then generating data. But then we realized by talking with them and others, we realized that in order to generate data, you have to have the previous data. If you come with a new modality, then there's no data.
Ben Comer:Right.
Oury Chetboun:How can you generate new data? Having said that, I agree and I think that in the long run, using less animals, having more predictive stuff meaning that if the computer can tell you that instead of using those four you could directly go to those five then there would be a way to reduce the number of animals, because today you need to do those four and those five that may be a good way to reduce the number of animals, also a way to speed up, also a way to reduce the number of, also a way to speed up, also a way to reduce the cost of our initial work and then, obviously, at the bottom line, all everyone costs. But having a situation by which tomorrow, because of organic stuff or organoids, sorry or because of very strong computer, will just make animals and all the previous safety disappearing, I don't really trust in that.
Ben Comer:Yeah, well, it's interesting. People have very strong opinions that I've heard on either side of this. But you know your point too and of course, you know the kind of ethical dilemma of animal testing aside. Those animals are very expensive, right, extremely expensive, and I guess potentially, you know, if we were able to move to some of the non-animal models, perhaps it could bring costs down as well.
Oury Chetboun:Yeah, absolutely In a situation like myself. We mentioned dogs, but actually I have to prove that the usual stuff that is being used all the time by the industry was the monkey. But because monkey is getting less in terms of number and more expensive, then you have to justify, if you want to use monkey, that you can't do anything but the monkey, so you have no alternatives. And that's also a good way. It's less true for dogs, but it's also a good way to preserve and to reduce the animal testing. So you have to find the best model which suits your needs. But you have also to justify why this one and why you can't choose anything else. But you have also to justify why this one and why you can't choose anything else.
Ben Comer:It's somehow a shift in what was done over the past 20 years, right, right. Well, we are coming up on the end of our time here, ori. Maybe just do you have any final thoughts, I guess, about your top priorities for the rest of 2025? I know you're out there pounding the pavement looking for funding, you know, for your inhuman clinical trial. Any other priorities or kind of next steps for CQ that you want to mention here before we wrap up?
Oury Chetboun:Well, we just on our side, we're developing at the same time a diagnostic tool, which is a new technology which helps us predicting the efficacy of Sky1 or even stratifying the potential enrollment of patients. And we also, because it's a platform, we have several potential other types of products coming soon which, in one hand, skyone is a cytotoxin drug, skytwo could be an immunostimulant drug and, working it together, one will destroy cells, whereas the other one will stimulate the immune system to destroy cancer cells, and that is also a kind of dual approach that we would like to further explore because it would go to the benefit of patients. It's going to be a nice dual product if every single one works on its own, but bringing them together it would be something which will reduce the cost, will reduce the time, will reduce also the concentration that we need to inject into patients.
Ben Comer:So yeah, go ahead.
Oury Chetboun:No, no, I was going. It's a very challenging but also very exciting end of the year and, I believe, 2026, we'll see also new things coming up.
Ben Comer:We'll be in the clinic in 2026?.
Oury Chetboun:If I've got the money tomorrow, I will be in the clinics in 2026.
Ben Comer:Well, I think that's an excellent way to end, ori. We've been speaking with Ori Chetbalm, co-founder and CEO at Seekyo. I'm Ben Comer and you've just listened to the Business of Biotech. Find us and subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts, and be sure to check out our new weekly videocast of these conversations every Monday under the Business of Biotech tab at Life Science Leader. We'll see you next week and thank you, as always, for listening.
