Chris Ham

One of the highlights of Mental Health Awareness Month at Genentech was a companywide watch party for the documentary Like, followed by an interactive, live-streamed Q&A with director Scilla Andreen. This short film examines the reasons why we’ve become so dependent on our mobile devices and recommends small steps we can take to create healthier boundaries with technology. A must-watch for grownups and kids alike, we’ve made Like available on demand at no cost to our employees and their family members through the end of the year. How do you ensure technology enhances rather than detracts from your life? Let me know in the comments!

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Exciting news for my London network! 🔊 Sarah Touzani is hosting an event with Rob Bier, the author of the book "Smooth Scaling," a 3x exited founder, and a coach to unicorn founders. They will be discussing how AI can revolutionize organizational performance. 🚀 🌟 Event Title: Scale Smart: Leveraging Ai for Unparalleled Organizational Performance. Don't miss out on this insightful discussion on #Ai, #HRAi, and #Scaling. 🌐 #LondonNetworking #AIEvent #OrganizationalPerformance #BusinessInsights

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Recently, Dr. Alexandra MacLean, CEO of Avenue Therapeutics, hosted Dr. Christopher Grunseich (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke) and Dr. Tahseen Mozaffar (UC Irvine) in a virtual key opinion leader event to discuss #SpinalBulbarMuscularAtrophy (#SBMA), also known as #KennedysDisease. Currently, there are no FDA approved treatments for this rare neurodegenerative disease. The event focused on the current understanding of the condition including unmet needs, and an overview of Avenue’s Phase 1/2a trial of #AJ201 for the treatment of #KennedysDisease. Click here to view a replay of the event: https://lnkd.in/e5ZiDaiW

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“I’ve seen that small shifts in individuals’ approaches, behaviors, and actions can have a wide impact,” says Rachel Kindt, a scientific leadership coach with a rich background in biotech. With a PhD from MIT and a postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF, Dr. Kindt has transitioned from biotech executive to leadership mentor, focusing on helping scientists excel beyond the lab. In this episode, she shares insights on: **Challenges of Technical Experts in Leadership Roles** Discover how to navigate the transition from scientist to leader in the biotech industry. **Importance of Emotional Intelligence** Learn why emotional intelligence is crucial alongside technical expertise. **Practical Advice for Leaders** Enhance your leadership effectiveness through subtle behavioral changes. Dr. Kindt's journey from VP at Myocardia, a company acquired for $13 billion, to mentoring emerging leaders is truly inspiring. Tune in to hear her invaluable advice on equipping R&D leaders with essential soft skills to manage diverse teams and communicate their projects' broader significance effectively. **Quotes to Reflect On:** “Being right is not everything. Being smart is not everything... Being the smartest person in the room—which sometimes I can be—is not always necessary or attractive.” (29:56 | Dr. Rachel Kindt) “Work is a great venue for not only doing amazing things in the world but also for personal growth.” (35:25 | Dr. Rachel Kindt) #Leadership #Biotech #Science #mikehorne #EmotionalIntelligence #LeadershipDevelopment

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Versant Ventures debuts Santa Ana Bio, Inc. (Alameda) with $168 million and a trio of programs that riff in new ways on existing ideas like targeting mast cells and stimulating the PD-1 pathway. One of Santa Ana’s drugs, dubbed SAB01, is a so-called bispecific #antibody. It is designed to mute the mast cells that drive allergic disease by blocking a protein called c-Kit. But the drug will only do so when it detects another target that’s found on those cells. Foresite Capital (Larkspur) an investment firm that backs life sciences and healthcare companies, has raised a $900 million fund. The fund, Foresite’s sixth, will invest in companies focused on precision medicine, healthcare delivery and life sciences infrastructure. In drug developers, specifically, the firm is looking for those using #genetics and #machinelearning to identify potential therapies. Actio Biosciences, Inc. (San Diego) announces $55 Million Series A financing to deploy a suite of proprietary tools and deep #genetics expertise to develop #therapeutics against targets shared between rare and more prevalent diseases. They have a lead small molecule program targeting TRPV4 mutations advancing toward clinic for treatment of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2C and other serious bone diseases. Actio also announced an innovative partnership with The Jackson Laboratory to develop and implement new transgenic models of rare disease pathways. M&A, Deals, Partnerships: Johnson & Johnson is handing back a bispecific T cell engager program designed to target both CD20 and CD3 to its partner Xencor, ending a significant piece of an agreement between the companies that started in 2021. Xencor completed enrollment for a Phase 1 trial of plamotamab last year. The biotech said the drug is now Phase 2-ready, adding it will review its potential to address unmet needs. The original collaboration and license deal saw Xencor get $100 million upfront for global development and commercialization rights to plamotamab. Other Interesting News: The failure of a Pfizer medicine for #Duchenne muscular dystrophy adds new uncertainty around the effectiveness of #genetherapy for the muscle-wasting condition. Pfizer said the treatment missed its mark in a definitive Phase 3 study of boys between 4 and 7 years of age with DMD. Pfizer said the therapy didn’t lead to a significant difference versus placebo on a measure of motor function, or on key secondary measures such as timed tests for how quickly study participants could stand or walk. Avidity Biosciences, Inc. (San Diego) drug for muscular dystrophy shows promise. Shares in Avidity rose by nearly one-third as the company revealed new clinical trial data for its drug del-brax in a form of #musculardystrophy.  Among eight patients treated with del-brax, Avidity reported greater than 50% average reduction in a panel of genes regulated by another gene called DUX4. Avidity also said participants showed signs of increased strength.

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SFBN Feed: Personalis CEO Chris Hall leads a cancer detecting trailblazer https://lnkd.in/gU2r_N8T Finding cancer earlier, and detecting it after treatment, is just part of what sets Personalis apart. Click here to view original post Click Here to Publish/Feature Your Company or Product News with Biotech Networks #BayArea #SanFrancisco #Biotech #Lifescience #News

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We were featured in the San Francisco Business Times!   It was great to speak with Ron Leuty about what’s exciting at X-Therma and our goal of widening the transplant window.   “(X-Therma’s) solution features a biomimetic — a mimic, called a peptoid, inspired by "antifreeze" proteins found in Arctic fish. The preservation solution maintains organs at subzero temperatures without freezing them, she said, limiting damage from ice crystals and widening the transplant window from hours to five days. More time means transplantable organs can be moved from one part of the world to another instead of being restricted by a ticking clock to one region. Even with today's preservation solutions, a heart can last only four hours outside the body; a kidney, less than 24 hours.”   Read the full story: https://lnkd.in/gmb2iMFu   #BIO2024 #cryopreservation #organtransplant #youhavetime #XTHERMA

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💊 Seattle Accelerates in Life-Sciences Sector Growth 💊 Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma ranks among the top 25 fastest-growing regions for life-science talent, buoyed by significant increases in biological and biomedical degree completions. 🔹 Educational Growth: Seattle witnessed a 15.1% rise in life-science graduates from 2017 to 2022, indicating strong local academic support for the industry. 🔹 Economic Impact: Life sciences significantly contribute to Washington's economy, with substantial job creation and revenue generation. 🔹 Industry Infrastructure: The area hosts a dense cluster of life-sciences companies, benefiting from state-supported programs that drive innovation and development. The Seattle area's comprehensive growth across educational, economic, and infrastructural dimensions establishes it as a key player in the national life-sciences landscape, poised for sustained progress and innovation. #LifeSciences #SeattleEconomy #InnovationGrowth #UpendoStaffing #LoveWhatYouDo

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#BayArea, we're not done yet! We're thrilled to be sponsoring Biocom California's Converge Summit! This event brings together the brightest minds across tech and healthcare. Our very own, April Purcell, will be speaking on the panel "The Future of Clinical Trials: Forging New Pathways Through Regulatory". Join Halloran and Biocom on May 22! Learn more here: https://hubs.la/Q02wQ8Lx0 #SanFrancisco #LifeSciences #Regulatory #ClinicalTrials

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It's hard to believe it's been a year since I learned I was being laid off. I had been chosen. It stung. It doesn't sting like it used to, but I truly miss the people I worked with. Fortunately, Illumina gave me a severance and health insurance, allowing me time to grieve, heal, and grow. The photo below is my last image with some amazing team members. 🙌 I still think so highly of each of them and am happy to be doing what I was doing on the talent acquisition team. I still send referrals over to my old group! Fast forward a year, and I have accomplished more than I ever imagined. Lemons into lemonade, as some say. 🍋 I've remodeled the kitchen, stayed home with my daughter, and traveled to New York, Mammoth, Hawaii, and Canada; I can run 2 miles and keep up with my children without problem. Professionally, I co-founded The Recruiter Method with the amazing Ash G. and learned how to market, coach, sell, become CTO, CFO, and CMO, as well as drive and deliver client success. 🧠 I've enlisted two business coaches, Kelsey Murphy and Daniel Botero, and I am beyond grateful for everything I've learned from them. However, the most valuable lesson I learned was that being laid off was not the end of my career; it was the beginning. 🧡 #Resilience #GrowthMindset #laidoff #co-founder #believe

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I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Radar Therapeutics, dedicated to making programmable, safe, "smart" #mRNA-based therapies that only get activated in the right cells, at the right time. Working with Katherine Jones, Sarah Chesemore, and others at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we witnessed how Moderna and BioNTech SE/Pfizer catapulted mRNA therapies onto the world stage with unprecedented speed, saving millions of lives.   At Radar, we want to bring this promise beyond vaccines into the most complex therapeutic compartments by solving one of the biggest problems for these therapies: making sure these mRNAs only reprogram the right cells in the body, avoiding potentially toxic off-target effects. We are committed to making therapies with the highest bar of safety, and widely accessible to patients that need them. I was incredibly lucky to meet my co-founder Eerik Kaseniit (thank you Anna-Julia Storch), while at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Eerik was obsessed with the problem of precisely targeted, timely and controlled regulation of mRNA translation. Alongside Stanford Prof Xiaojing Gao and MIT Prof Jim Collins, we decided to direct those efforts towards saving lives by starting Radar Therapeutics. We attracted the brilliant minds Svetlana Lucas, David Schaffer, and Eric Klein along the way. We are grateful to NFX, Eli Lilly and Company, Biovision Ventures, and KdT Ventures for taking the lead on this round, alongside BEVC, Pear VC, ARTIS Ventures, Ten VC, Elementum Ventures, Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited, SALT, Conscience VC, and more. Here’s to a future where we can program therapies to rewrite any disease with utmost safety and accuracy. I’ll be at #BIO2024 for anyone looking to connect! Sharing some information about the company here: Endpoints News - https://lnkd.in/g4MQT245 Firstword Pharma - https://lnkd.in/gq3heWsE Genetic Engineering News - https://lnkd.in/gNPDfHEs Chemical & Engineering News - https://lnkd.in/gUx8ijmY Longevity Technology - https://lnkd.in/gRwdtiKx PBR- https://lnkd.in/gvUG_c5M Businesswire - https://lnkd.in/gcv88QAM Alix Marduel Vasudev Bailey Asset Abdualiyev Shan-Lyn Ma Wesley Barrow Pioneer Fund Jackie Benson Shannon Dahl Jackie Papkoff, Ph.D. Nat Kolber Jon Levin Ilya Strebulaev StartX Ron Boger Howard Rosen

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💊 Seattle Accelerates in Life-Sciences Sector Growth 💊 Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma ranks among the top 25 fastest-growing regions for life-science talent, buoyed by significant increases in biological and biomedical degree completions. 🔹 Educational Growth: Seattle witnessed a 15.1% rise in life-science graduates from 2017 to 2022, indicating strong local academic support for the industry. 🔹 Economic Impact: Life sciences significantly contribute to Washington's economy, with substantial job creation and revenue generation. 🔹 Industry Infrastructure: The area hosts a dense cluster of life-sciences companies, benefiting from state-supported programs that drive innovation and development. The Seattle area's comprehensive growth across educational, economic, and infrastructural dimensions establishes it as a key player in the national life-sciences landscape, poised for sustained progress and innovation. #LifeSciences #SeattleEconomy #InnovationGrowth #UpendoStaffing #LoveWhatYouDo

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On May 8 join DEIB leaders from MassBio, California Life Sciences (CLS), Eli Lilly and Company and Takeda as we explore changing attitudes in the life sciences workforce, if organizations are adjusting either their DEIB or communication strategies, and how evolving philosophies around DEIB are impacting human resources and talent acquisition activities. Register below! #diversity #lifesciences #insights #biospace https://hubs.li/Q02vXs3n0

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Biology ... the final frontier for AI 😉. Human biology remains one the most complex subjects for computation. What if we can regenerate our worn-out knee joints, heart muscles post surgery, pancreatic organ or fractured spine, at an affordable price? Integrating AI and ML to scale bio-manufacturing marks an exciting new frontier. CytoHub is at the forefront of this industrialized biology, driving cell therapy and regenerative medicine innovations. I am super excited to join a pioneering team with 150 years of combined expertise in this field. 🚀 #biologyAI #biomanufacturing #celltherapy #monai #healthlake #mlops #llm #generativeai #gpt #regenerativemedicine #organoid #ipsc #stemcell CytoHub, Inc.

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MacDougall Advisors, a long-time #biotech PR firm, has closed shop. I never worked for MacDougall but I do remember them coming up in RFPs back when I worked at Feinstein Kean Healthcare (before it was Ogilvy). At the time, MacDougall was considered a formidable competitor. It looks like some of the managing team at MacDougall have now gone independent. And that trend, of bigger agencies shedding top talent for #independent or freelance work, makes more sense to me than biotech/life sciences cutting out #communications. From my perch, there's never been more opportunity for biotech branding and storytelling work. That said, agency teams require longer retainers and bigger budgets than most independents, and that may hurt new business. Many of the tech-native bio startups, regardless of funding, are looking to be scrappier, faster, and more capital efficient. That is in their tech-nature. I also think innovative biotech teams are seeking services beyond bread-and-butter PR... aka media relations, editorial calendars, awards. They want strategies that allow them to control the narrative and connect with their target audiences directly. PR firms that were once known for being really good at traditional PR may have struggled with a new wave of founding teams. To be fair, I have zero BTS intel into why MacDougall closed - just that a few friends closer to the action were genuinely surprised - but I do wonder if we'll see more PR agencies struggle as independents rise and founding teams seek a fresh approach.

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Thank you Elizabeth Eaton for this wonderful article covering Rubedo Series A!

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The countdown is on. Next week, I'm heading to Chicago for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting (#ASCO24). It's one of the most significant events in the oncology world, bringing together a global community of researchers, clinicians, advocates, and patients in the fight against cancer. For me, #ASCO24 is more than just a conference; it's a chance to: - Dive into the Latest Research: Thousands of abstracts will be presented, showcasing cutting-edge advancements across all aspects of cancer care. I'm eager to learn about new therapies, diagnostic approaches, and breakthroughs that can transform patients' lives. Discussing the evolving landscape of cancer treatment is crucial for staying updated on the latest developments and best practices in patient care. - Connect with Experts: Meeting and exchanging ideas with leading oncologists, scientists, and industry innovators is an invaluable experience. It fosters collaboration and fuels inspiration for advancing cancer care. - Share Our Recent Developments: Zephyr AI team will present a poster and share our findings on the "Evaluation of a Novel Machine Learning Method for PARP Inhibitor Sensitivity Prediction Using Real-World Data." Abstract # 5583 / Poster Bd # 454, presented by Emily Vucic et al., June 3rd, 9 am—12 pm: https://lnkd.in/g8wKqB8v In the meantime, what are you most interested in learning about from #ASCO24? Share your thoughts and questions. See you in Chicago!

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