ClavystBio Conversations: Fostering Venture Creation

TRANSCRIPT:

Thomas

Well, I can start. I mean, if you want to reach for the star, for the stars, you need to have the right technologies available and you need to work together to build a spaceship that can carry the ambition to the stars. it all starts with excellent science. The second part is the partners that have come across the table to take this medical ambition to the next level, because it cannot be done without expertise that translates the basic science into product candidates.

Christina

Well, a little bit of history, which I think is really important. Lightstone was amongst the first venture capital firms to be in Singapore. This was back in 2015, We identified Singapore as a real greenfield of opportunity. We knew there were great people and great science. And fundamentally those were the two reasons that we got attracted to Singapore. When we arrived, there were very few biotech companies established here. About four years ago, Lightstone engaged with Evotec, a very well-renowned company that has established a number of incubator programs similar to 65LAB across several geographies that have been very successful. And they've brought to the table their translational capabilities to those incubators. And we approached Evotec with the idea of establishing the first incubator in partnership with them here in Asia. From there, what was critical to the success was bringing together top academic institutions. And so we are thrilled to be partnered with and NUS, Duke NUS and A*STAR to identify really cutting edge science and marry that with the capabilities that Evotec. And the third really important part of this partnership is that we were able to attract other investors to the table to participate in identifying really innovative science. And those include ClavystBio, Bayer Leaps as well as Polaris Partners.

Thomas

We've been building academic bridges, as we like to call our accelerators since late 2016 when we started in Oxford, and since then we've been able to mature more than 100 translational projects in different communities. A few of the learning points is a you have to be able to identify projects which are not only ambitious but which are truly differentiated and which can be competitive in a global market. But ambition and great initial ideas is not sufficient to create medicines. What needs to be done is they the therapeutic concepts need to be translated on an industry validated platform. We've created an expert and resident system, which we're also deploying here in Singapore, because it's outstandingly important to build a trusted relationship between the translators and the PIs who have that original therapeutic concept. And this is what we strongly believe in and we are committed to bring the expertise that Evotec as a global drug discovery company can collectively bring to the table that we can apply that expertise to each and every project which has the ambition to pivot towards medicines.

Shuwen

We've been working with other partners like EDDC as well as WuXi and it's actually really great to have more diversity in the ecosystem. Right? And it's also more data points for my principal investigators, my PIs because every entity has a certain area of focus. We cannot be expecting WuXi and also EDDC to be able to take up the very good science that’s been really growing and enriching. So it's really great to have 65LAB to be part of that. And I was just joking with Christina earlier that we're like the Guardians of the Galaxy, right? We haven't decided who is which. Yeah, which character we are. But you know, it's going to take a lot of work. It’s that Kampong spirit, that trust, and then learning from other people's experience, which then makes some of the lessons that we will have to learn ourselves a little bit less costly.

Thomas

And this is really what what Evotec can bring to the table. What we've done in over 100 projects with our other partner institutions. And this is where we see our place in a community that has to come together to make all this happen. Why is it important to have community? Because drug discovery and development inherently it's a long term endeavor and you have to partner with excellent academic institutions that we're partners, we've been there, we've done that to know what to do and what not to do.

Christina

Yes, I think the most exciting part of this partnership is really all the complementary skills that are coming to the table. It’s a perfect equation of components coming together here again, in the spirit of advancing these great scientific innovations into important medicines.