Todd Zion, PhD - More Magical Proteins

Angel Invest Boston

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More

Repeat founder Todd Zion, PhD is back to update us on exciting developments at his second biotech startup, Akston Bio. We also geeked out a bit on how these magical proteins are concocted in the company’s bioreactors. Fun and instructive chat with a stellar founder.

Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.

Highlights:

• Sal Daher Introduces Todd Zion
• Akston Bio's Founding Story
• "... The antigen in this case is the person's own insulin..."
• "... you're still taking advantage of that antibody portion, but you've neutered it so that it no longer alerts the immune system, but it retains one property that antibodies all have, which is the ability to recycle and last for very long periods of time in circulation..."
• "... We took the veterinary candidates and we partnered those with a company called Dechra Pharmaceuticals, PLC. They're one of the leaders in veterinary pharma development and this is all in the public domain..."
• "... We made a pivot at that point saying, 'Well, what if we just go back to the portion of the antibody that interacts with the immune system and make ourselves a vaccine against COVID-19 using the same exact technology?'..."
• "... you're going to continue involved in manufacturing, or are you just going to buckle down in the veterinary space and spin off these other technologies to other players?..."
• "... if you're not pivoting at least once in your development, you're probably doing something wrong..."
• Todd's Funding History
• "... what goes on in a bioreactor, which is the heart of what you're doing? Geek out a little bit of bioreactors..."
• "... there are these companies that do nothing but transfect CHO cells to produce particular types of protein..."
• Energesis

Topics: biotech, COVID, discovering entrepreneurship