The Biotech Voyager

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 🚀

Welcome to the Biotech Voyager. It's the live show that covers what's next in biotech. Feel free to leave a comment, and we will get to it as quickly as we can.

Jonathan Cohen-Gold, CEO of Houdini Bio, joins Ben and Jeff to break down one of the most underappreciated problems in cell and gene therapy: cells don't like foreign DNA. When you deliver a therapeutic gene, the cell's innate immune system recognizes it as a threat and shuts it down. Houdini Bio's platform uses AI and proprietary Houdini elements, short 100 base pair sequences, to give the therapeutic DNA a self-hallmark, essentially camouflaging it against the cell's defense machinery without touching the pathway globally. The result is better transgene expression, safer delivery, and a plug-and-play approach that works across AAV, lentiviral, and other delivery formats. 0:00 Introduction 0:10 Welcome Jonathan Cohen-Gold, Houdini Bio 0:49 The problem: cells reject foreign DNA 1:39 Why this kills gene therapies 3:19 The market adoption crisis 4:42 Why previous approaches failed 5:11 The HUSH complex explained 6:15 Jonathan's PhD and unfair advantage 9:52 Building Houdini Bio from scratch 11:45 The Venture Science Doctorate 12:25 Academic system vs entrepreneurship 13:28 Houdini's platform and approach 14:00 Houdini elements explained 16:23 AI and the closed loop wet lab system 17:55 Current data and proof points 20:43 Rescuing failed gene therapies 22:18 What's next for Houdini Bio 25:22 The big opportunity 26:17 Investors and funding 29:19 Closing and what to watch for

Welcome to The Biotech Voyager. It's the show that covers what's next in biotech.

Wesley Wierson and Alex Abel founded Leah Labs seven years ago around a pets-first model. When generative biology arrived, they designed something that no existing investor would fund. Animal investors won't back human-scale outcomes. Human investors won't back animal health companies. So VelociTx had to be built. Their CAR-T platform redesigns the transmembrane domain using a 2,000 de novo screen, finding 200 enriched candidates across 7 functional families, making CAR-T cells behave like TCR T cells to target solid tumors in ways nature never could. Wesley Wierson and Alex Abel are co-founders of VelociTx, a company using generative protein design to build the next generation of CAR-T cell therapy for solid tumors. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome: Wesley Wierson + Alex Abel, VelociTx 00:00:58 Why VelociTx Had to Be Built 00:02:32 What If You Could Engineer a CAR Like a T Cell Receptor? 00:02:54 The Transmembrane Domain Discovery 00:06:34 The 2,000 De Novo Screen and What They Found 00:12:01 Going Into Lung Cancer First 00:15:51 How Generative Biology Changes Everything 00:27:35 What's Next in Biotech New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 AM 🚀

The biggest unsolved problem in cell therapy is donor variability. Why one patient's cells work and another's fail is a question the field still cannot answer. Alex Ward and Caelan Anderson, co-founders of Tolemy Bio, are building the intelligence layer that cell therapy has been missing. Their platform Orbit integrates all the process context around how cells are grown, managed, and manufactured to surface insights that nobody is currently leveraging. The goal is adaptive, patient-specific manufacturing across seventeen dimensions. Alex Ward and Caelan Anderson are co-founders of Tolemy Bio, a company building an AI-powered control panel for cell therapy manufacturing. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome: Alex Ward + Caelan Anderson, Tolemy Bio 00:00:46 What Is Tolemy Bio and What Are They Building? 00:04:25 Why Do Some Patients' Cells Fail and Others Don't? 00:05:46 The Data Problem in Cell Therapy 00:14:00 The Control Panel for the Cell 00:15:15 Why Tolemy's Models Are Not Black Boxes 00:20:30 Adaptive Manufacturing Is the Future 00:25:34 What's Next in Biotech New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 AM 🚀

Welcome to the Biotech Voyager. It's the live show that covers what's next in biotech. Today on the show: - 3 brand new startups in biotech that emerged from Stealth - 2 CEO interviews: one company is building a vaccine for tissue scarring, and the other, which just raised over $9M, turns solid tumors into therapeutic factories. Leave a comment if you have any questions - we try to get to them all!

This week, Innovian Space printed the first kidney and liver constructs in human history on the International Space Station. Jana Studemeier, CCO at Innovian Space, joins The Biotech Voyager to explain why gravity is the single biggest obstacle to printing functional organs, why microgravity solves it, and how the cost of a space experiment is nothing compared to the cost of a failed clinical trial. From Keytruda being reformulated using protein crystallization in space, to tumor organoids that behave more like real tumors in microgravity, to the coming explosion in regenerative medicine — this is the most unexpected biotech conversation we've had. Jana Studemeier is CCO at Innovian Space, a company helping organizations develop profitable and sustainable uses of space for biotech, pharma, and beyond. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome: Jana Studemeier, Innovian Space 00:01:33 Printing Kidneys on the ISS This Week 00:03:10 Why Microgravity Changes Everything 00:06:26 Why 3D Printing Fails on Earth 00:10:23 Drug Testing With Tumor Organoids in Space 00:12:25 The Cost of Space vs Failing in Trials 00:19:18 Keytruda Was Reformulated Using Space 00:28:44 Space Will Cause a Regenerative Medicine Explosion New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 AM 🚀

Jay Kaplan, co-founder of Fractyl Health, joins The Biotech Voyager to explain why current GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic might have a worthy successor: a gene therapy that delivers GLP-1 directly to the pancreatic beta cells, only when you eat. Their lead program Rejuva-001 is already outperforming today's best pharmacology in animal models and has received first approval to begin clinical studies in the Netherlands. In this conversation, Jay breaks down the science behind their meal-responsive delivery mechanism, why a one-time gene therapy could replace chronic weekly injections, and what the future of gene therapy for large diseases looks like. Jay Kaplan is co-founder of Fractyl Health, a biotech company developing gene therapies that target the root causes of metabolic disease with the goal of curative treatments. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome: Jay Kaplan, Fractyl Health 00:02:14 The Problem With GLP-1 Drugs 00:03:24 How the Gene Therapy Works 00:04:53 Ozempic vs. Meal-Responsive Therapy 00:05:35 Beating Pharmacology in Animal Models 00:07:39 Phase II Approved in Netherlands 00:07:56 One Shot. No Redosing. 00:10:39 Why Diabetes Needs a Cure 00:18:13 What's Next in Biotech New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 AM 🚀

YouTube Description: Non-viral gene delivery has always had one fatal flaw: it couldn't get DNA into the nucleus efficiently. LNPs top out at around 5% nuclear entry. SonoThera just hit 50% using ultrasound. Co-founder Ken Greenberg joins the show to break down exactly how they did it. We also cover AstroRx's embryonic stem cell-derived astrocyte therapy for MS, ANACA's TCR-T cell approach for solid tumors, Apligon's next-gen kinase inhibitor program, and Enterome's microbiome-based cancer therapy, plus the latest from the early stage biotech leaderboard at thebiotechvoyager.com. 0:00:00 Intro 0:00:51 Early Stage Biotech Leaderboard 0:02:20 Enterome: Microbiome Cancer Therapy 0:11:35 Ken Greenberg & SonoThera Preview 0:35:19 SonoThera Raises $125 Million 0:38:18 Apligon: Solid Tumor Kinase Inhibitors 0:44:34 ANACA: TCR-T Cell Therapy for Solid Tumors 1:00:34 AstroRx: Stem Cell Therapy for MS 1:02:43 Interview: Ken Greenberg, SonoThera 1:21:07 Sound Waves Delivering Gene Therapy 1:28:48 SonoThera Pipeline and Disease Targets New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 AM 🚀

Welcome to The Biotech Voyager. It's the live show that covers where the puck is going in biotech.

Welcome to The Biotech Voyager. It's the show that covers what's next in biotech.

Welcome to The Biotech Voyager - it's the show that covers what's next in biotech.

The Biotech Voyager is the show that covers what's next in biotech.

The live show that covers what's next in biotech. Join us live!

Welcome to The Biotech Voyager. It's the show that covers what's next in biotech.

ASGCT week moved fast. Too fast. So we’re doing a live aftershow on Monday, 11 AM to 12:30 PM EST to break down what happened at ASGCT 2026, the key insights, what surprised us, and what to watch next. Since this is a special one-off event, we will also stream this one live on Linkedin. We'll also have a special guest... so stay tuned. Come hang out with us. Add in your takeaways. See you there!

The Biotech Voyager is going live from 28 Capital's Back Bay offices on Monday to set the stage for ASGCT. We'll be covering the sessions, posters, and conversations worth your time this year, with guest appearances from NanoMosaic and Precede Bio sharing what they're bringing to the meeting. If you're heading to ASGCT or following from afar, tune in for a focused primer before the chaos begins.

Huge stories shaping the future of medicine this week. Researchers are using ultrasound to deliver gene therapy, bypassing traditional delivery methods entirely. Epigenetic editors are offering a new way to modify gene expression without cutting DNA. And a company developing gamma delta T cell engagers just closed an $83M Series A, a massive bet on a less explored branch of cancer immunotherapy. Ben and Jeff break down the science behind each story and what it means for the future of biotech. Tune in live Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11AM EST on The Biotech Voyager.

Diaconos Oncology just released new data in pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest and hardest-to-treat cancers on the planet. But their approach isn't a typical drug. Ben and Jeff break down how dendritic cell vaccines work, why conventional cancer vaccines keep falling short, and what makes this approach different. Plus, RNA exon editing technology that rewrites disease at the RNA level without touching your DNA, and how AI is quietly transforming surgical pathology. New Episodes Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at 11am EST

In vivo CAR-T keeps stacking wins, AI quietly invades the operating room, and cancer vaccines stage their second act... plus, John Boyce from 28 Capital joins the show. The show will break down the in vivo CAR-T streak that's reshaping how the industry thinks about cell therapy economics, dig into where AI is actually showing up in surgical workflows (and where the hype outpaces the data), and unpack why cancer vaccines are suddenly worth a second look after a decade in the wilderness. Then John Boyce from 28 Capital joins to talk early-stage biotech investing, what's catching his attention right now, and where he thinks the smart money is rotating in 2026.

Asgard's AT-108 might be the most insane immunotherapy of 2026. .. a first-in-class in vivo cell reprogramming play for cancer. Meanwhile, CNS gene therapy is having a moment: AviadoBio is crossing the blood-brain barrier, Avista's AI-designed capsids are heading to the eye and CSF, and Tenaya just dropped one-year cardiac gene therapy data at ASGCT. Plus: Dr. Nicole Paulk joins live! Her work on CNS-directed AAV gene therapy for glioma puts her right at the center of where this field is heading. Live on the Biotech Voyager. (Both YouTube and Linkedin)