Mark Farmery Created BiotechBikers to Encourage Biotech Biz Dev ON the Bike, and We Are Taking Notes!

The key metric for measuring Hill Climbers success is engagement - but I’m not talking about likes, comments and shares. The show with Eric Min from Zwift was a big milestone for us because Eric’s a known quantity in our world, and deep down I was hoping for recognition in the form of connecting with NEW folks over a shared passion for bikes and business. 

On January 9th I received a message from Mark Farmery that read “Hey Sam, it's fantastic what you're doing with Hill Climb. It would be great to connect, tell you more about BiotechBikers, the cycling-centric bioscience community I founded, and explore synergies.” I didn't even notice the typo, because here was someone who has been cultivating a cycling business community for years, and he managed to find me through the show! Honestly I didn’t know any other like minded communities existed and I couldn’t have asked for a more satisfying response to my #1 KPI.

It turns out, Mark is Chief Development Officer at Anocca, a cutting edge Swedish T Cell therapy biotech that’s focused on treatments for pancreatic cancer, which is wildly fatal and therefore on the list of more menacing cancers…more on that in a future episode. It also turns out that Mark is a huge believer in the power of networking to bring the right people together to solve extremely complicated challenges like altering the body’s immune system response to cancerous cells. It was this urge AND his lifelong love of cycling that compelled him to bring his bike to big biotech conferences, and encourage others to join him. What started in 2018 with just three people has grown into an international biotech and pharma networking community with chapters all over the world! Stay tuned to meet Mark and learn how Biotech Bikers became a thriving community online and IRL.

Hill Climbers is more than just a podcast, it's a growing business network for cyclists. You can tap into our event by following our Linkedin and Instagram, and subscribing to our newsletter.

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Theme Music: Summer Vibes by Rizik

Transcript

Mark Farmery (00:00)
biotech biker's origin story.

Sam Huntington (00:02)
Yes, please.

Mark Farmery (00:03)
know, but basically I've, I, I, I, I've grown up with a bike and I've, I've cycled all my life. I, you know, I had, I had a racing bike as a teenager, Mount early adopter ish of, of, of mountain biking in the, the early nineties.

Sam Huntington (00:18)
Yeah.

Mark Farmery (00:19)
And, but, know, always on, on, on a very kind of low key, low key level. Um, I had a, you know, a couple of friends who were into, into road biking. They were in clubs, they competed. Uh, so I followed them a little bit as a teenager and, yeah, I mean, watch, watch the Tour de France, uh, over the summer. That was, that was always a highlight as a growing up again there in the, the eighties, early nineties. So, you know, in a really, a really classic hay day of,

of road racing, a lot of great battles, lot of great controversies, of course, around that period. And I think I'm a different generation to you a little bit, I guess.

Sam Huntington (00:59)
Well, you know

what I just revisited was the Greg LeMond documentary called The Last Rider. And that I think is a snapshot into the 80s and early 90s cycling culture and talk about some storylines between his teammates, the Badger, and I guess there was another Frenchman. Anyway, a great time for cycling.

Mark Farmery (01:04)
Yeah. Right.

Yep. Yep.

for sure.

Yeah.

so my kids came along early 2000s. And I had a period then of, you know, of about 10 years of sort of focusing on the family and all of that kind of stuff.

suddenly they became teenagers, a lot more independent. I had a lot more time on my hand. I had a bunch of friends here in, at home in Sweden who were getting more and more into cycling and mountain biking. So I hooked up, you know, hooked up with a local club, got back into mountain biking again, bought myself a road bike, you know.

Sam Huntington (01:55)
How did that feel

as now a more mature adult father with kids that were more autonomous? How did it feel to get back into the sport?

Mark Farmery (01:59)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you know, that was, it was, it took a little bit of time. You know, I was, I was relatively unfit at that, at that point. I didn't mean completely neglected, I guess, you know, sort of that side of things. Regular workouts, training, you know, keeping fit. So it was, it was a bit of an

Sam Huntington (02:13)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Farmery (02:25)
was mountain biking more or less mostly at that time. And I'd always had a love for the road bike and an affinity with the road bike. And I remember sitting out in the countryside one summer here in Sweden and sitting in a cafe in the garden outdoors and a group of really old guys turned up on the, know,

spindly thin, but they must have been, you know, well into their 70s and even maybe a little bit older, this group of guys who turned up on their road bikes and I thought, yeah, you know, that's where I want to be.

Yeah.

Sam Huntington (03:03)
That's a fantastic vision goal for your golden

years.

Mark Farmery (03:08)
I was relatively unfit. I was a bit overweight and I was kind of, and I was thinking, yeah, you know, this, this is, need to, I need to do something. So I got myself, as I say, I was, I was doing a little bit of mountain biking, but I also had this love, love of road biking.

I bought myself a kind of an aluminium frame, Bianchi carbon forks, just a fairly basic setup,

bought myself that bike and I remember going out for, I mean, just for like 10 Ks or 15 Ks or something. And it, you know, it just really, really took it out of me. But I persevered. We, I joined as they joined up with a really good club.

locally here in my hometown.

They were running a Tuesday night meetup and the guy who ran that club, he regales on this story often,

he recalls when I turned up at the

you know, at the Tuesday night club with a few extra pounds, too many layers, you know, he was thinking who on earth is this guy? He's not going to go very far. And, you know, to be fair, he was relatively accurate. I think it was after about 20k, I was literally lying in a ditch, cramped up and struggling. But, you know, I

Sam Huntington (04:30)
Ha ha ha.

There

are various ways to get fit and that's one of them. That's my chosen avenue. If I'm not fit, I just throw myself in the deep end. So one way to do it.

Mark Farmery (04:36)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Exactly.

I think, you know, it is it's the sort of it's an ethos as well. And if anybody asks me, you know, who's getting into cycling, I'll always say, you know, ride with people who are some degree better than yourself, because it's going to for sure. Yeah, for sure. You know, that you you you know, they're going to help you and they're going to motivate you and

Sam Huntington (04:59)
And it's more fun that way. Yeah.

Mark Farmery (05:07)
you're just going to improve. So anyway, long, long, story. This is kind of going back more than 10 years now when I kind of got back into cycling, but basically became a serious club rider, really pushing myself, doing lots of great stuff on the bike, not necessarily racing. So I've never

kind of taken that step of taking out a license and getting into racing. But a lot of sportifs, a lot of regular training.

So I was able to do that.

really a lot of support from my wife. I mean, she's not a cyclist, you know, she's not a cyclist herself, but I think, you know, she sees the benefits, you know, she sees the effect on my health and wellbeing and, you know, I'm doing something that I love. She gives me the space to do that.

Sam Huntington (05:40)
Awesome.

Yeah.

Mark Farmery (05:57)
she gets time to do other stuff as well. it becomes a win-win there. So I think that's been really important.

Sam Huntington (06:05)
What I'm dying to know is

as a business development executive for my whole career, what was the spark after you got into, let's put it this way, back into road riding and got really fit and made it a part of your lifestyle, what was the spark that started to make you want to be part of your business life as well?

Mark Farmery (06:15)
Mm. Yep.

road cycling's kicked off again. I'm doing a lot of regular stuff, traveling a lot with work, you know, traveling the

Sam Huntington (06:29)
Right.

Mark Farmery (06:31)
I was going back to sort of 2000, end of 2017, early 2018, I was traveling to one of the really, really big

biotech, biopharma, business meetups in San Francisco. So this is the JP Morgan

it's a collection of, you know, who's who in Biotech, Bio

I thought, you know, I'll take my bike stuff with me. I'll rent a bike while I'm out there. I had a day off before things kicked off.

So don't know how well you know the area, but I planned a ride basically from Union Square and out over the Golden Gate Bridge and then into Marion Headlands and up Mount Tam. And it was about, you know, about a hundred K loop. And as I was thinking about this before, before I went out to, to JPM that year, I thought, you know what, there must be other people who are as passionate about, about cycling as I am.

Sam Huntington (07:14)
Yeah.

Mark Farmery (07:29)
who are in town for JPM, wouldn't it be a fantastic way to meet like-minded individuals from other companies, other organizations, start to build the network, start to think about the community, but do it from the perspective of the bite, basically, of that kind of shared passion for.

Sam Huntington (07:48)
Yeah.

Mark Farmery (07:50)
biking and that actually sowed the seed then for you know for biotech bikers and I came up with the idea I started promoting this ride that I was planning on the Sunday morning there and you know I saw you know it started to resonate out in a few ripples starting to kind of spread on the water.

Sam Huntington (08:11)
Well, just

to tap in here, if you're not watching, I have a big smile on my face because what you've done is, I talk about this all the time. I imagine around the JPM, know, biotech and healthcare conference, there's probably a decent amount of golf being played on whatever golf courses there are in that area. And you took the incredible

Mark Farmery (08:30)
show. Yeah. Yep.

Sam Huntington (08:36)
you know, Tam and that opportunity to ride your bike in some really beautiful mountains and created a pole and a reason for cyclists to get on the bike and get a workout and network. it like, you know, you and I are of like mind. I think the difference here is that you had this sort of tent pole.

Mark Farmery (08:40)
Yep.

Sam Huntington (08:58)
conference, that's a really big deal every year that people look forward to, that people strategize for, and there was something to really plan around. So I just think that's a fantastic story because it's pretty specific. It's not like, hey, let's give this a shot. There was something actionable that you could organize around every single year.

Mark Farmery (09:15)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

no, absolutely. And so that became what's really the blueprint for what we do at Biotech Bikers. the kind of the thought I had when I sort of organized that first event or that first ride was, well, you know, I'm going to plan something here that I actually myself want to do. You know, I'm going to have some fun.

while I'm there, gonna do something that I will enjoy. And then, hey, if there's somebody that wants to come along with me and share that experience, that's fantastic. And we've kind of, and I'll talk about it a bit as we move through the conversation, but that philosophy has stayed with us, that the rides and the events that we do and the people that are responsible basically for organizing those.

Sam Huntington (09:48)
Right.

Mark Farmery (10:05)
I always say to them, know, organize something that you want to do yourself because, know, if nobody turns up, then you're going to have fun doing it anyway. And actually, you know, I had, yeah, I had, I had two people sign up for the, you know, for the event and we, kind of headed out and, yeah. And that was, you know, that, that was the inaugural, by a tech bike as event. so this is, this is early, early 2018.

what I saw immediately as well is as I, as I kind of posted the, this on, you know, on social media, there were, you know, there were organizations that, that are associated with the JPM conference that, know, are very much focused on community building on networking. And there was an instant, you know, there was an instant resonance with, with those types of organizations, because I think they saw as well.

Sam Huntington (10:47)
Mmm.

Mark Farmery (10:57)
hey, know, this is actually something that is quite different. know, nobody was, as far as I know, know, nobody was doing anything similar or had done anything similar before.

Sam Huntington (11:06)
Well, I, I want to jump back in. I really

love how you pointed out that there is a, I don't know if you use the word, but selfish element where you knew it was going to be a great ride. It's it's world-class cycling and you, wanted to bring other people along, but then at the end of the day, you wanted to do the bike ride. so I, you know, I love that because the flip side and,

Mark Farmery (11:19)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam Huntington (11:30)
Obviously for most of us in business, you've walked the floor at conferences, you've walked the floor at conferences for days. It is exhausting and it saps the energy out of you. And so to inject something really special and say, I'm going to do this for me, but I want other people to join and have them enjoy it too. It's just awesome.

Mark Farmery (11:35)
Yep.

Sure. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's, and then as a, you know, as a way of, as a way of networking, you know, this is, this is just something that is, that is super different from the usual, you know, the usual wine receptions, or, you know, they have their place, you know, that kind of more social, you know, that, that, sort of social type of

you know, I said, wine, canapes and those kind of things. It's relaxed, it's different, it's another type of networking environment, but this really gives people a different environment to do their networking in. And that's kind of the basis of what we try to do with Biotech By, because it is a community building networking, you know, initiative that we've

we've started.

Sam Huntington (12:38)
And I think the

other thing that we might've touched on in the contextual conversation before the interview is how things are changing. In 2018, there weren't gonna be many pickleball tournaments or bike rides. was all basically based around alcohol and hors d'oeuvres and that was it.

Mark Farmery (12:47)
Yeah.

Yep. Right.

Right.

Sam Huntington (12:59)
And

I think as you know, what you've been ahead of the curve on is this trend of people bonding and connecting in real life or on sports and getting sweat on. And I think that's going to resonate a lot with younger folks because there's less appeal for free booze and that kind of network.

Mark Farmery (13:03)
Yeah.

Right,

for sure, for sure, for sure. And I think the other aspect to it, Sam, is as well that what I certainly see over the last, and I think certainly during pandemic and post pandemic is that there is a, people are working in a lot more flexible kind of way. The hours aren't rigid, they aren't defined, where you work, the environment that you do your work in.

isn't as defined as it has been in the past. there's a move, think, to people to, there's a classic talk of the work-life balance and all of that stuff. But those lines are blurring a lot more, I think. I think what resonates as well, Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. So that's the point, that there's people want to,

Sam Huntington (13:59)
In a healthy way, think. Yes, yeah.

Mark Farmery (14:08)
if you can combine your workout and like you say, you're getting a sweat on with maybe finding a new collaboration partner or discussing some kind of a deal, that's that's optimal. So it becomes win-win.

Sam Huntington (14:22)
And maybe

maybe next time we have you on the show, we can break down chemically what's happening when you're when you're getting endorphins and it's a better environment for business. I mean, you're outdoors. Let's be serious.

Mark Farmery (14:27)
Yeah, right, Sure.

Exactly, exactly. yeah, so that was so early 18, you know, that sort of kicked things off.

So it's just a great opportunity when you're traveling to a conference, if you can get on a bike and...

meet up with other people and do something together. That's really great fun. But then there's two other angles as well that I sort of had the vision for around that time, but they didn't really kind of start to materialize until actually we got to the pandemic years. Everything went, so I mean, as we all know.

everything collapsed in terms of travel and conferences and all of those things. But there were these traditional big conferences that we were all going to as BD execs in biotech and pharma. They went virtual. And we all know about how Zwift took off around that time as well.

By the way, I was a beta tester on Zwift, I'm really, really proud of as well. that was, you know, had that exact, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I had my, my kind of dumb trainer hooked up to the bike at that time as well, which is that's another story. But, um, but you know, Zwift started to take off and then suddenly there was, there was an opportunity that presented itself as a, at a, you know, at at a, at a virtual conference. Um, let's organize a virtual.

Sam Huntington (15:41)
So that would have been 2014, 2015. Yeah.

Thank

Mark Farmery (16:04)
know, biotech

bikers meet up using Zwift and that's what we did. So this was again, one of the kind of regular conferences on the

This was the BioEurope conference organized by the amazing EBD group. They produce a number of different themed conferences in our space across the year. They gave me a

a platform to be able to promote that first virtual biotech bikers ride. I had one other person turn up for that. It was a guy called Jason Brown, who's a BD exec based in the UK. But that actually was

very serendipitous because Jason has become then one of the really core key people who's behind the success of biotech bikers. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Yep. Exactly, exactly. So Jason, he got it and understood it from the get-go. I mentioned EBD Group. There's a lady called Claire Mach.

Sam Huntington (16:52)
And that's what it takes. It takes the early adopters. It takes folks that want to support and also benefit from the network effect.

Mark Farmery (17:09)
who she was one of the people involved heavily in the production of the Bio Europe Conference, a very, very keen cyclist herself. So she got behind the concept and the idea. so she's been a really critical person as well in the success over the last few years. And then there's another guy who we've got based out in Japan who's an old

I've worked with him, we've interacted on the BD scene over many, many years. A guy called Tim Kendall, he started his life, he was a semi-pro racer in the UK. He's probably the most authentic cyclist.

Sam Huntington (17:48)
accomplished.

Mark Farmery (17:49)
the most accomplished and authentic

Sam Huntington (17:49)
Right. Yeah.

Mark Farmery (17:51)
cyclist of the four of us. But that period there, so 2020, set the scene of getting these key people together. I'd done a conference-associated real-life event previously. We'd tested out the virtual concept. And then Jason...

In particular, being based in, being based in Cambridge in the UK, which of course, you know, big, big life science hotspot, also happens to be lots of very, very keen cyclists there. He was instrumental then in setting up a local chapter of biotech bikers in, Cambridge, which, which kind of is the third, you know, the, so I often talk about standing on three pillars, one, one being conference associated events.

We've got virtual stuff that we do. then there are local chapters or hubs, we call them.

Sam Huntington (18:43)
And

can you rattle off the hubs where they are?

Mark Farmery (18:45)
Yeah, where aren't they? So Cambridge, London, place called Alderley Park in the UK. We've got a group in Northern Ireland. We've got nascent groups up in the north of England. So lot going on in the UK. Two or three groups here in Sweden, Copenhagen. We've got a group in Flanders, in Belgium.

San Diego, Boston, where else? So Tim's heading up stuff in Japan, Paris, Hamburg, know, the list is endless. So

Sam Huntington (19:17)
Incredible.

what kind of activities are those chapters getting into? What are they doing themselves?

Mark Farmery (19:23)
I have in each of the local chapters, in each of the hubs, I have somebody who is called a hub captain. They're basically somebody who is, you know, in the biotech industry, biopharma, they're keen cyclists, and they want to start a local biotech bikers, you know, a local biotech bikers community. Conceptually, what we do then is that they

They kind of, we give them the Biotech Bikers brand, we give them the platform. All they have to do is come up with a route, decide on somewhere where they want to have a coffee stop, and then essentially turn up and lead the ride when...

Sam Huntington (20:02)
And our

rides, frequently are they?

Mark Farmery (20:05)
It varies, know, some of the hubs are really active. We've got a few now in the coming season where people are saying, okay, you know, we want to schedule a regular monthly ride over the entire season, basically, which is great. Others are a bit more ad hoc and one off. So it really varies.

But again, it comes back to that kind of founding philosophy of the people who are the hub captains. They decide on a nice ride that they want to do and they want to have some fun themselves. And then people will come along and join those.

Sam Huntington (20:38)
thank you for laying all this out. Do you have opportunities for the different chapters to, you've got the Zwift ride. Are there any other like online forums or anything like that that, you know, the members across the world can all join together once a year or quarterly or whatever?

Mark Farmery (20:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's just we've mainly done that through either through the conferences or through the Zwift rides as well. We just started using Discord so people can talk while they're working out on Zwift. I mean, that's really, really cool as well, the sort of Zwift angle, because we

Sam Huntington (21:01)
the conferences.

Cool. Yeah.

Cool.

Mark Farmery (21:20)
over several winters now. We've had something called Winter Series where, you know, jump on Zwift, work out together, and then hook up to a webinar basically, is a Q &A then with an invited guest. And we've had some absolutely fantastic guests from pretty high profile people from across the farmer, biotech industries, know, quite, you know,

Sam Huntington (21:33)
Great. Awesome.

Mark Farmery (21:48)
well-known previous heads of research at Big Pharma or people from the investment community talking about deal making and investing and then outside of that as well. I think this has been personally for me one of the most rewarding aspects of all of this is that the connections that we've actually made with the world of cycling has been

really, really exciting and really, really interesting. It's such fun. So, you know, we've had guests on some of these Zwift events who are from, you know, we've had general managers from world tour teams. We've had, you know, recently retired world tour pros coming on and talking to us. We've had people

Sam Huntington (22:14)
It's kind of the fun part. It's one of the fun parts, yeah.

Right.

Mark Farmery (22:37)
from heading up research and development and design within cycling, within companies like wheel designers and aeronautical engineers who are designing racing wheels and all of this kind of stuff. And I think what's so cool and inspiring there. And again,

Sam Huntington (22:47)
Hmm

Mark Farmery (22:59)
kind of reflecting the way that people are thinking about business and doing business these days. It's all about taking in information, thinking about things differently. And I think when you get a perspective from somebody who's a general manager in a world to a team, we all know about marginal gains. We all know the difference that innovation.

makes in terms of equipment and technologies and how people are fueling themselves and so on. And just listening to somebody talking about that from a different world and a different perspective, you bring in the lessons there and you bring in the insights and it's just so, yeah.

Sam Huntington (23:41)
It sounds

like there are a lot of very smart, experienced people in different categories. So you got the kind of world tour pro who knows, knows from practice how to get the most out of performance. And then you have a lot of very smart people from biotech bikers that know, you know, chemically what's going on. What an interesting group.

Mark Farmery (23:47)
show.

Yep, yep, yep.

Yep,

Yeah, exactly. And hearing from an ex-pro who was a road captain, and this is Lawrence Tendam, who he retired just recently. He's making a big impact right now on the gravel scene. But he was with us, and he had a role.

Sam Huntington (24:13)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Farmery (24:24)
late stage in his career as road captain and what are the challenges of being a road captain in a multi-stage grand tour and what can we learn from him in terms of what we're doing in our world.

Sam Huntington (24:40)
And by, by the way, I wanted to just call out,

as I mentioned to you, we, just started doing live events and our first was in December. Then we followed up with February. We've got one scheduled for March. And I think it's really interesting how you've gone about growing biotech bikers internationally and basically teeing up the different chapters, the different leaders in geographies all over the world.

with a format that is not overcomplicated. It's sort of the low hanging fruit that's attainable, that's doable and not overthinking it, overcooking it, over investing capital. And I really, I'm sort of here taking notes because it's easy to get ahead of yourself. It's easy to get out of your skis and over promise under deliver. So it

Mark Farmery (25:09)
Yep, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah. You know, and remember as well, this is a spare time. It's a spare time passion

is a little bit by design that what we've done is really to keep it at a kind of.

Sam Huntington (25:42)
Absolutely. Manageable level,

yeah.

Mark Farmery (25:48)
Yeah,

basic manageable level. I always talk about growing this community in an organic way. Who knows what happens in the future? There's multiple options and directions that this all could go. Yeah.

Sam Huntington (26:01)
And for those listening,

the community is really

have more than 3000 LinkedIn members in the LinkedIn group. And trust me, I know I've been trying to build mine for a couple of years. That's a really, it's a sound number generally, but also when we're talking about specific biotech pharma.

Mark Farmery (26:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yep,

yep.

Sam Huntington (26:22)
It's a whole lot when you get into the subcategory of your industry.

Mark Farmery (26:27)
For sure, yeah, no, and we're really proud of that. Essentially, that's the only real way that we have of measuring the engagement. if you look, and talking of engagement, if you look at what we post on, so we used LinkedIn as really the main channel for promoting and reporting and updating on what we're doing. We have a website, we have an Instagram.

account as well. to be really frank, it's a time thing as well. I maintain the website.

Sam Huntington (26:56)
Exactly.

So I was just going to say, I called that out specifically because

at Hill Climbers, we want to have all these channels and you can only do so much when it's not your full-time job. And to do a bunch of them and have them at 30 % is really frustrating, let me tell you. So to consolidate and concentrate in LinkedIn makes a ton of sense.

Mark Farmery (27:11)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, exactly, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

exactly, exactly. that works. know, we get, as I say, we get good in good engagement. at the end of the day, it's all about the people and it's about the community and it's about actually getting together, obviously, in real life. Yeah.

Sam Huntington (27:42)
Well, congratulations. and, and, you know, Mark, Mark reached out after, think listening to her watching that there come in a Zwift interview. And once again, I was just so thrilled to hear from you because we're, really, we're after the same thing. I mean, it's, it's building. It's like we said, doing the selfish aspect and, getting outside and getting a workout, but, really sharing that with people and building community around it. So.

Mark Farmery (28:06)
Yep, yep, yep,

yep, yep, yep.

Sam Huntington (28:08)
Man, what

a pleasure to meet you.

Mark Farmery (28:10)
Yeah, no, thanks so much. It's been an absolute joy to share this journey with you. I think let's keep our conversation going. I'm really, really happy to update and talk about what we're doing. And like we said as well, I think there's some great synergies there. We've got some good ideas, think, Sam, of other things that we could do together.

you know,

Sam Huntington (28:37)
Which by the way, just

to share, we would love to show up in San Francisco or in Boston and join you guys. And we will seriously take a look at our calendars and try to make that happen. Because that's what it's all about.

Mark Farmery (28:44)
Yep.

Excellent.

Exactly. Very good. Great.

Sam Huntington (28:53)
So before, might be putting you on the spot a little bit, before we let you go, I would love to ask you throughout your time riding bikes, you started when you were a kid and you've had this incredible career, first in academia and then obviously doing a lot of important work in biotech and pharma. Do you ever contemplate and consider the parallels between

Mark Farmery (28:56)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Huntington (29:19)
the challenges on the bike, getting fit, racing people in the group, those parallels to your business development career? Do you ever consider those?

Mark Farmery (29:28)
Not directly until you bring up the question. But it's great question because I think, I could get really poetic about this and philosophical. There's a really simple parallel, right?

Sam Huntington (29:32)
So we're putting you on the spot. Great.

Mark Farmery (29:50)
you've got a sportif coming up or you've got to, let's say, you've got a sportif. So there's a really famous amateur sportif here in Sweden, which is a tour of the kind of big long lake that's down in the, if you look at a map of Sweden, you see this long thin, long thin lake down in the south of the country.

And it's about 300 or just over 300 kilometers to get all the way around it. And it's an annual sportive. There's about 20,000 people taking part in that event.

Sam Huntington (30:25)
How much climbing?

300K, that's a decent amount.

Mark Farmery (30:27)
Yeah, it's not a lot actually. So it's not like the 312 in Mallorca or anything like that. I can't remember. It's less than 2000. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's well less than 2000 meters of climbing. But I think the immediate parallel there is kind of the journey of getting yourself from the start to the finish in an event like that.

Sam Huntington (30:38)
300k is plenty even without a lot of climate.

Mark Farmery (30:55)
is you can compare that with the process of starting a deal discussion and completing that. So we talked before about licensing and licensing IP and all of that stuff. And they are marathon events, endurance events. There are hazards around

every corner potentially, but you prepare yourself as well as you can for that. You fuel yourself in the right way, you have the right people around you, you make sure that all of your tools and the toolbox is the best possible one.

And you break it up into milestones and literally, a 300k sportif, you are overwhelmed and daunted by the size of the whole thing, but break it up into manageable milestones and intermediate goals. And you can get yourself all the way around in one piece and kind of have success at the end.

Sam Huntington (32:00)
Well, I think to just to really emphasize, I think the first thing you said is that it's an endurance event. So you have to have an eye toward the long play, the long run. And if not, you're going to come up against, I think, a lot more challenges than you would if you didn't have a long-term strategy.

Mark Farmery (32:09)
Yep, sure, yep, yep.

For sure.

Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. I think endurance and resilience, they're key, I think, in what we're doing. But like I touched on as well, it is also as well about the people around you, the support of your team, having fun, all of that kind of stuff is super important as well.

Sam Huntington (32:33)
Yeah.

That's a fantastic answer, especially putting you right on the spot.

Mark Farmery (32:41)
Yeah, well, like I say, I could get very poetic and philosophical and choose another analogy as well. you know, good.

Sam Huntington (32:48)
That was fantastic. And I think especially

for biotech and pharma where the life cycles of these companies and these deals and are, it's a marathon, right? It's a long sportif, yeah.

Mark Farmery (32:58)
Yeah, no, exactly. It

is, yeah. No, is. is for sure.

Sam Huntington (33:02)
Well, man, Mark, I am so pleased that we connected and I really am excited to see where Biotech Bikers goes and collaborations for the future. just really fertile ground. So thank you for being our guest. Thanks for spending a lot of time with us and telling us all about your world because it's been really fascinating.

Mark Farmery (33:20)
No,

absolutely my pleasure. Really enjoyed it. you know, just thanks for the opportunity and look forward to speaking again.

Sam Huntington (33:27)
All right, cheers.

Mark Farmery (33:28)
Thanks very much.

Sam Huntington (33:29)
All right, that was fantastic. And one of the ideas I have is to maybe cut this one and do a two-part because we covered so much ground in both categories of your career and biotech bikers. And it's gonna mean a longer episode than normal. And what I've done in the past is broken them into two. I think...

Mark Farmery (33:36)
Mm. Mm. Mm.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Sam Huntington (33:56)
If I'm being like, learning about your career, that was fascinating. I think my priority is to share biotech bikers with my community. And then once people know you, we can do a follow on with your career.

Mark Farmery (34:03)
for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that sounds that sounds really good. I think I mean, you know, one thing one thing we didn't touch on which which you know, I would like to, I would like to somehow profile as well. there's

Sam Huntington (34:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Farmery (34:24)
three main things. So one is the model, which I think is interesting, it's relevant for you and what you're doing in your community. And that's the, do we fund biotech bikers? Because we've got really good sponsors. People have... Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, sure, sure. Okay, so...

Sam Huntington (34:35)
Mm-hmm.

well, let's just keep running and you can, and I'll cut it in. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Mark Farmery (34:45)
So how do we segue into the,

Sam Huntington (34:47)
So I can just segue in saying

what you pulled together is a large organization. You've rattled off all the different chapters. And I'm curious how, from a capital perspective, how do you fund the operation?

Mark Farmery (35:02)
Great question. what we saw from a very early stage in the evolution of the whole thing was that there was a big interest from different types of organizations in our space in actually sponsoring biotech bikers and coming on board as partners. And so that's been the way that

we've been able to build up a relatively modest capital that we can then use and make available to the chapters or use to subsidize events associated with conferences, to produce kit, for example, to do various things that basically support the

administration of what we're doing and give us a little bit of a runway. But it comes back as well to what we were talking about, the model of what we're doing and the low hanging fruit and the basic framework that we work around. So what I don't want to do, I don't want to over promise and professionalise what we're doing too much.

Sam Huntington (36:09)
Mm-hmm

Mark Farmery (36:12)
I want to keep expectations at a manageable and a reasonable level. that led, yeah. No, I'm just going to say that what that then does is it gives us, we can do the basic stuff and we cover the bases from a safety and a legal perspective and those kind of things. That's the bare minimum.

Sam Huntington (36:17)
So, sorry, finish your thought. Yeah, and then I'll jump in.

Mark Farmery (36:34)
But, know, as I say, we're not over promising, we're not over professionalizing the organization and it lets us be flexible as well. That's really important. It also gives us some ability to, which is an important part of what we're doing is actually to raise awareness of and contribute to some charitable causes.

Sam Huntington (36:55)
great.

Mark Farmery (36:56)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah. So we're working with Action Medical Research in the UK, for example, a pediatric disease charity. We support Kibbeka Charity, which is a social mobility cycling-based charity in South Africa. And then also we have a really, really cool partnership with an inflammatory bowel disease.

patient advocacy organization that's headed up actually again by an ex-pro competitive cyclist called Corey Greenberg, that's called Ride for IBD, that organization. you know, there's a, as I say, there's a sort of, there is a financial aspect to what we're doing that's necessary, but we keep that at you know, at a manageable level.

Sam Huntington (37:38)
And I think that's interesting because my next question is, I guess, can you please share some of the current sponsors and what value are you bringing to them if you're keeping the expectations manageable?

Mark Farmery (37:46)
Shhh, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so my company that I work for, Anoka, a Swedish cell therapy company, they are a sponsor that was really important for me to, you know, to bring them on board. So, you know, I'm kind of combining my day job with what I'm doing in my spare time with biotech bikers and using biotech bikers as a

as a platform for Anoka as well and helping people understand what we're doing and getting us known within the community. So that's been really important. We've got long-term sponsor, a Lithuanian company called Kazzyme. They're working in gene editing space. And again, it gives them a profile and a platform in this community.

Sam Huntington (38:38)
And

beyond the logos on the jersey, what's the deliverable? What do they get, as an example?

Mark Farmery (38:43)
So

I just want to just mention the other main sponsors as well. So we have an organization called Milteni Biotech. We have an organization called Orientation Marketing, a UK-based business incubator and investment organization called O2H Group.

Sam Huntington (38:48)
yes, great.

Hmm.

Mark Farmery (39:04)
and I just want to really make sure that I don't forget anybody because that would be really embarrassing. Hopefully you can still see me here. Just make sure I'm covering everybody. You know, we've had a bunch of different sponsors over the years.

Sam Huntington (39:15)
Yeah.

Mark Farmery (39:26)
A variety of different types of companies. mean, obviously EBD Group, we work closely with them, new sponsors that have come on board just in the last couple of months, an IP firm in the UK called Apple, are Lees, IMU Biosciences, which is the company where Jason Brown works right now. So we want to, as I say, we want this to be win-win for

Sam Huntington (39:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Farmery (39:49)
for us, the volunteers that are kind of running all of this. generally, so these are what we call podium partners. So they are annual sponsors. They provide a level of financial or in-kind sponsorship per year. We rotate those. There are different sponsors each year.

Sam Huntington (39:59)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Farmery (40:09)
We wanna work with organizations that share our values. So again, promote healthy active lifestyle, using health and wellness as a way of building a community, building partnerships and networks and so on. So that's important. And I think as well, oftentimes the people that are...

Sam Huntington (40:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Farmery (40:31)
driving the sponsorship from the partner's side. They are people who understand what we're doing. They participate actively in our events. For them, in some cases, it's by sponsoring a Biotech Bikers event, as we talked about, it's a different way for that organization to actually promote and market itself, not the usual way of.

Sam Huntington (40:38)
Right.

Mark Farmery (40:54)
of branding and marketing. it's all about synergy and win-win.

Sam Huntington (40:57)
And

it's interesting in that case, really the sponsors have, know, I want to use the word equity in what you're doing. And, and they say, Hey, you know, we're, we're now part of biotech bikers. It's a, it's a good opportunity to get, get their clients on board, to get employees really, really it's, I think some of the virtue that we've talked about of community.

Mark Farmery (41:05)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Sam Huntington (41:22)
a healthy exercise,

it provides a bit of a halo effect for sponsors that are coming on board and being part of what you're doing.

Mark Farmery (41:30)
No, absolutely,

absolutely. that one we want to, know, I, a kind of fundamental principle that I run all of this around is actually being, you know, being generous with our sponsors, you know, being very flexible and really tailoring the sponsorship to what they want to get out. So I spend a lot of time listening to what they're looking for and what they want to get out of.

Sam Huntington (41:55)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Farmery (41:56)
what they need from the sponsorship and just really being, really making sure that we meet that expectation. And then we're starting to do a few different things as well. We are actually now sponsoring somebody. So in our partnership with Ride for IBD,

Corey and the Ride4IBD team, you know, they are coming out, they're providing a, so back up the story. So we have a hub captain based in Stockholm, a lady called Christine Schwenk. She works for a biotech company. She's in BD. She also happens to be a really, really dedicated triathlete. She's doing her first full Ironman.

bit later on this year. Yeah, yeah. So what we're doing there is that we, Biotech Bikers and Ride4IBD have teamed up to provide her with, you know, with clothing for the event and for a training. We're providing her with some equipment, some financial support. And what that does is, you know, she then in return,

Sam Huntington (42:36)
nice.

Mark Farmery (42:57)
What she's doing is she's very active on Instagram. You can follow her. She's charting her training journey. She is basically using her profile as a platform then for raising awareness around what we're doing at Biotech Bikers, but then more importantly for the Ride4IBD story as well, which is, as say, it's all about advocacy.

Sam Huntington (43:02)
Right.

Right.

Mark Farmery (43:21)
for people suffering from this really terrible inflammatory bowel disease. So that's something new for us this year. It's a bit experimental, but this is the whole thing. It's paying it forwards. It's trying new things, being a bit opportunistic, but all in a good way.

Sam Huntington (43:39)
Fantastic. Yeah.

Well, yeah, mean, just based on your membership, how active the community is, it sounds like the sponsors are really getting what they're putting in and engagement. Yeah.

Mark Farmery (43:51)
Sure. Yeah, now

we hope so. We hope so.

Sam Huntington (43:54)
All right, I actually need to jump now, but I'm really glad we got that last bit in. Thanks for getting that done. And I will just be in touch as far as our plans for shipping these episodes and we can do some collaboration as far as posting and marketing it.

Mark Farmery (43:55)
Great, brilliant.

Good. Yeah, a lot for that,

Yep, wonderful.

Absolutely looking forward to it. So let's keep in touch. It's been a real pleasure. Yeah, all right.

Sam Huntington (44:15)
Okay. Likewise.

All right. Good night. See you tomorrow. Bye.

Mark Farmery (44:19)
Cheers, take care. Bye bye,

bye.