Matthew Palmer, Senior Oncology Consultant for our life sciences practice, caught up with ARTBIO CEO Emanuele Ostuni for this episode of the Venari Podcast. You can read the transcript of the interview below for more on Emanuele’s career, what ARTBIO are working on, the challenges of being a CEO, and his thoughts on building teams for success.
Welcome to another episode of the Venari Podcast, Talking Radiopharma, with Emanuele Ostuni.
Thank you, Matt, I appreciate being here.
Great to have you.
So, for everyone who doesn't know you – how did you get into the world of radiopharmaceuticals?
I actually almost got into it by accident in the sense that I started conversations with a few investor groups, and radiopharma kept coming up. And I had awareness of radiopharma after having been at Novartis for five years. I’d heard about the AAA acquisition and the Endocyte acquisition, and I was very intrigued by the modality. The more I spoke to people, the more the modality felt very similar to CAR-T, which is where I was working at that point. There were some very obvious differences, but there were commonalities that intrigued me. Particularly, the complexity of the field; the importance of manufacturing, supply chain, and the end product and how good it is; and that both elements were critically important to delivering something special to patients. So that was really the driver.
And the more I got into it, I learned about it. I got to meet our founder, Roy Larsen, who is one of the pioneers in the field, having invented Xofigo and the F-Prime team, here in London. I got really hooked and I thought that there was something very special there. And that's when I said it was worth jumping to something that I thought could be transformational and have a lot of potential for patients, plus a lot of potential to do cool new science, because I think the field is still very nascent and there are still a lot of things that are not understood and often assumed.
That's excellent.
And you've been building the company now for over a year...
Almost two years!
And since then, we spoke about this kind of away from this setting, but you are a CEO. What are the common misconceptions or myths around what a CEO does or what people think a CEO does, and what really the day-to-day is like?
So, I think that there's the bright, shiny definition of a CEO, which is the person that makes a lot of decisions, is surrounded by people who take care of everything necessary so that decisions can be made quietly and peacefully. I think the reality for me has been that I had to do everything that had to be done. And I think the other myth that is often used is the chief cook and bottle washer which is, I think, more adept to what being a CEO in an emerging biotech company is like – that everything has to be done.
And when there's nobody that can do it...There’s no one else there.
Exactly, it's right back at you. And I think that can be very satisfying because I can see the impact that my work and the work of the team has every day, but also it is very important to highlight the gaps in the organisation where good talent is required to then structurally fill those, because there's only so much I can do. And frankly, there's only so much I can be comfortable with deciding. There are many decisions that I would rather not make because I know that I'm handicapped by not having as much experience as a Chief Science Officer or Chief Technical Officer or Chief Manufacturing Officer or a fantastic Director of Biology. They can make decisions infinitely better than I can in those areas. But sometimes I'm stuck making those decisions. So then, I think the second step for me is, once the team comes on board, rethinking those decisions and making sure they're correct. And sometimes people don't really appreciate the freedom and the licence they have to question decisions that I had made when I was alone or when we were much smaller. So that's a good exercise for everybody.
Excellent.
And what is the big problem that ARTBIO is trying to address?
Let me unpack the question a little bit. I think when you look at the world of radiopharma, it has been dominated by supply chain-driven decisions, all centred around the difficulty of making this product that starts to decay and lose its strength, if you wish, the minute it's finished and goes out the door of the manufacturing site. So, I can understand a lot of decisions have been reached by thinking about how we can lengthen the time we have to make and deliver these products.
Our view is that that's valuable, that's important. But from a patient perspective, the patient doesn't really care about our logistics and supply chain. Our job is to simplify them as much as possible. And our view is that there are choices in radiopharma, specifically around isotopes, that should be driven by what's best for patients. So, we believe that a short-lived isotope is one that is best for patients because it can deliver a lot of energy quickly into that tumour. And that isotope, in our view, is Lead-212 which has a 10.6-hour half-life, and it allows alpha radiation to be delivered in tumours. We believe alphas will be much more potent for patients long-term, than the current beta-based therapies. So, a 10.6-hour half-life creates a whole other host of challenges.
The first one is to make that isotope. Second – that isotope has to be chemically bound to the molecules and thirdly, has to be delivered in meaningful time so that it doesn't completely lose its activity by the time it gets to the hospital or the patient. We're trying to address all those three points along with the fourth one, which is: we still need a really good molecule and we can solve all the technical issues, but they're all in service of great molecules that still have to be differentiated, specific and selective. And we're going to do all of that. We won't necessarily do it all in-house, but we will recognise the key elements that we can have a proprietary position on, and partner around where there are technologies that are complementary and far better than what we could build in-house. We will assemble what we call the ART ecosystem of inventors and suppliers that allow us to build this very holistic end-to-end solution, allowing us to do the whole chain of discovery and manufacturing.
And what are your priorities right now?
For the next six months – so many! I think first of all, we have a Phase One asset that's almost ready to go, and we're getting all the pieces of that supply chain puzzle in place to be able to start that phase one trial. Our discovery team is very busy creating new opportunities around new programmes and the manufacturing team is very busy optimising and perfecting the technology we have for isolating Lead-212 as an isotope and for formulating into therapies. So quite a lot going on in the company.
We’ve spoken about discovery, biology, chemistry, clinical development, CMC; the company's grown so much since it started, obviously. How do you approach building a winning team in what is such a hotly contested space?
There are two elements, for me, to somebody that is a great team player. One is skillset and depth of knowledge in a certain area and the other is attitude, and they are both important. Although my experience has been that when attitude and skillset are in conflict, attitude wins, because I think attitude is something that is harder to change over time. Skillset, as long as the person is humble, and open to learning, can be developed. First and foremost, I look for good attitude. And I think that in the context of the team, what I've noticed is that good attitude spreads very quickly, and equally so does bad attitude. And so, it's quite important to curate the right people in the team. Sometimes that means having very difficult conversations when people have proven that they're not of the right attitude for the team. When you're a small company and you're under-resourced, and you feel that the one extra person could make a difference, it's quite hard to let them go because they don’t have the right attitude. For me, that's probably the hardest decision, but it's a decision that you have to make because, as I said, it can become toxic very quickly.
Absolutely.
When you're building a team, how do you then balance the skillset and experience with that culture fit and team cohesion?
As I said, attitude wins. I look first for that element. And then once I have that element, I look for the complementary skillset. But I'm also a big believer that if you hire great people, they will do great things, and they will find a way to do great things. I have a lot of confidence that by hiring good attitude, good people, they will figure out what is the best structure for themselves. And as long as they know they can challenge each other and know that they can lean on each other, I think they will perform at a very high level.
And what's your favorite part of your role as CEO?
It's a tough one because there are so many bits I enjoy. I think if I was to put my finger on one, it’s the uncertainty and variety. And I think, probably the part that I would enjoy the most, if I had to distil it down to one, is knowing that we're doing something that nobody else is doing, and doing something that has the potential to be transformational. That’s very cool.
What would you say the biggest challenge has been so far?
I think the biggest challenge, the thing that people don't talk about often, is that, at the end of the day, the buck stops with me. When things go wrong, as they often do, then I have to be there to make sure that we have a way out and that we have a way forward. And I think that that is the bit that nobody really prepares you for. It’s easy to be the CEO when things are going well, but when things go wrong, that's when I have to take ownership. And that's probably the hardest part of the job.
And then, what's next for you guys?
I think for us, we've got a Phase One asset that's almost ready to go, so we're going to start dosing in the next few months. We’re very excited about that. And then beyond that, it's growing and building on the assets that we have in the portfolio. We’re very excited about the technology, we're very excited about the space, and we're excited about the people that we're working with. I think for us, it's all about growing and making sure that we get the best molecules into the clinic and then develop them.
Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining me on the Venari Podcast. It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, Matt; I really appreciate the opportunity.
This interview has been lightly edited for conciseness and clarity.