David Li
@davidycli
just a guy trying to make drugs that help patients
In biotech, China now ahead in ADCs, bispecific Ab’s, T cell engagers, and traditional small mlc’s US still slightly ahead on cell and gene therapy, gene editing, and more exotic small molecules (glues, covalents, degraders, etc) China clinical dev timelines 50-100% faster…
US is firmly, unambiguously losing to China in every area of robotics, every area of transportation other than airliners, every area of energy generation and storage, and every area of infrastructure and construction In 2025 we will lose our lead on AI, semiconductors, and more
The unfortunate market reality for "Tech Bio" selling into pharma as a tech solution is dangerous work. The market is (usually) simply not large enough, and double whammy is that sales cycles are loooong let's take a look at the tech startups that have started in this space…
Benchmarks in AI for science - and why they are fundamentally not aligned with industry use cases there are a long tail of benchmarks in AI x science space; a non exhaustive list (focused on drug discovery): - ProteinBench: evaluating protein foundation models created by…
American biotech needs more of this founder energy in competing with China
Another great line from David Ogilvy:
How close are we to widespread adoption of industrialized AI agents in biotech & drug discovery? Progress has accelerated in the last 6 mo: - @ProjectBiomni, general purpose scientific AI agent automating literature reviews, hypothesis generation, protocol design,…
** biotech's broken business model and what to do about it ** We are now in year 4 of a biotech bear market The key driver of negative sentiment? Biotech public markets sentiment refuses to recover Since Dec 2022 to today, Nasdaq is up from 10,400 -> 19,400, or 85%+ XBI…
A lot of things in life are just focusing on doing one thing really well - marriage / serving and growing with one person - career / one highly differentiated skill - making investments / honing one approach to finding alpha - raising money / becoming world class at sales -…
A lot of things in life are just a numbers game... - Dating - Job applications - Asymmetric risk investments - Getting investment for a start-up - Getting grant money in academia - Making viral social media content - Finding an amazing restaurant - Trying to get good at anything
No product, no pipeline, $10.5bn mc Been doing this all wrong 🧐
First oncology >> then immunology / cardio / metabolic >> lastly neuro Where to hide?
Inevitably turning to a situation where most big advances in oncology will happen in China and then licensed out to pharma. Hard to believe, but this is part of the sea change. Trump NIH cuts are completing the longterm picture.
Not sure folks in biotech world are paying attention but the recent House budget bill basically cements "higher for longer" rates into "higher forever" regime The only politically defensible path fwd is mass money printing > investment hurdle rates adjust accordingly >…
another case in pt how this downturn in biotech is different >> biotech as an industry has pretty much only existed in a falling rates regime we're finding out how venture math for long-dated biotech cash flows works if cost of capital is increasing rather than decreasing over…
another case in pt how this downturn in biotech is different >> biotech as an industry has pretty much only existed in a falling rates regime we're finding out how venture math for long-dated biotech cash flows works if cost of capital is increasing rather than decreasing over…
This down cycle has fundamentally changed biotech Out: - open ended platform builds - funding for novel biology exploration - assumption of M&A exit to large pharma In: - newco / venture creation model leveraging China preclin / early dev execution - doubling down on…
This down cycle has fundamentally changed biotech Out: - open ended platform builds - funding for novel biology exploration - assumption of M&A exit to large pharma In: - newco / venture creation model leveraging China preclin / early dev execution - doubling down on…
"I am usually an optimist and a believer in cycles. But this cycle feels different. And the level of uncertainty is off the charts – that’s poison for investors." endpts.com/endpoints-100-…
good observation here on differences between making complex biologics vs small mlc drugs, particularly wrt AI hurdles in small mlc drug discovery, chronologically, and if AI models can help: - find a hit against a target --> some computational models to predict hits,…
"I am usually an optimist and a believer in cycles. But this cycle feels different. And the level of uncertainty is off the charts – that’s poison for investors." endpts.com/endpoints-100-…
Not sure if right choice but love the balls here
NKGen Biotech CEO Paul Song, M.D., is putting his money where his mouth is, investing $2.65 million of his own cash to help accelerate the cash-strapped biotech’s phase 2 Alzheimer’s disease cell therapy trial. fiercebiotech.com/biotech/nkgen-…
Top issues you face as a therapeutics startup, in chronology: - No great cofounder - No real differentiation of underlying technology platform - Commercially uninteresting clinical TPP for first asset - No convincing preclinical data for first asset - Running out of money -…
Top issues you face as a startup, in chronology: - No great cofounder - No real PMF yet - Running out of money - Too feature poor - Can't close strong 1.0 mgmt team - Competition bigger / faster / strong - Can't close strong 2.0 mgmt team - No strong second product / vertical