The Kevin Walton Interview - Baseimmune

What this episode covers

Kevin Walton, CEO of Baseimmune, joins Ben and Jeff to break down one of the most underappreciated problems in modern medicine: fibrosis. IPF alone carries a life expectancy of three to five years upon diagnosis, and despite decades of research only three drugs have been approved, none of which halt or reverse the disease. Kevin explains why every previous approach has failed, why fibrosis is a network-driven redundant disease that defeats single-target therapies, and how Baseimmune's computational platform uses active immunotherapy to go after multiple pathways simultaneously with a single vaccine. Beyond fibrosis, Kevin reveals two additional applications the platform is being explored for, including a therapeutic vaccine for chronic pain and migraines, and a cardiovascular application. He also shares his take on what is most slept on in biotech right now: the immune system as a drug manufacturing platform. 0:00 Introduction 1:02 What is Baseimmune targeting with active immunotherapy 1:25 IPF — the disease, the stats, the failure of current drugs 1:49 Why single-target approaches keep failing 4:03 How the vaccine approach works 4:28 Additional applications beyond fibrosis 7:31 The data they've seen so far 9:35 Early results and what's encouraging 13:30 Pain vaccine — chronic migraines and the marketing opportunity 14:42 Cardiovascular applications 15:43 AI and the future of peptide-based immunotherapy 19:45 What's slept on in biotech — Kevin's answer 20:33 Immune system as a drug manufacturing platform 21:31 Jeff's response and closing thoughts New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 AM 🚀

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