Episode 2: Building and Scaling the Tools and Technologies that Underpin Life Sciences

 [00:00:00] ​ 

Armon: All right, Martin, thanks for coming to Biotech and Boba. Uh, and it sounds like you had never had Boba before, so what did you pick? Never had Boba. Yeah. I think, uh, the, uh, top yoga's interesting. Good taste. I like it. It's a good taste. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Not too sweet. The nice thing is there's many, many varieties to choose from.

I want, mine is like the classic brown sugar. [00:01:00] Bon Sugar Bubble. Yeah. Yeah. 'cause it's like Meet the Afternoon Sugar. I can be very excited and drive everyone in that office crazy after this. But thanks lot for joining. 

So, um, if you don't mind just a few minutes on like your backstory. Yeah. Because I think yours is particularly interesting for some of the stuff we'll get into later.

Martin: Yeah, born and raised in Germany, in Hamburg, Germany. Um, I never wanted to be a business person. Ended up in business, I don't know how, but I pursued my passion, which was horseback riding through that became a horse veterinarian, practiced three years. Decided, Nope, I'm not gonna do this for the rest of my life.

And joined a pharmaceutical company and diagnostics company and, uh, rest was history. So, and then I Why, why didn't you wanna do it for the rest of your life? Uh, burnout. You know, we worked 12 days in a row, two days off, and many night shifts and so it's private business. Yeah. Exciting. But I couldn't see [00:02:00] myself doing for the rest of my life.

And I was, when I made the decision, I was 28, I graduated 25, I finished my PhD. And then I needed to become a specialist. Yeah. I said any, and I said, no, I'm not gonna do that. And what drew you towards some of the diagnostic side? I knew people in the industry. I had no idea what it was. And, uh, they also, which I studied with, and they also said, yeah, this is a really interesting work.

Very international, very global. So I started in an international product management position as a technical product manager. Yeah. What was good about that company is they gave you a lot of training and business courses and all this, so I learned business. I don't have a business degree by doing it. Yeah.

Which I think is a good way to do it. You don't need an MBA could be helpful, but Yeah, you don't have to have it. So, and then, as I recall, you eventually ended up at Roche on the Roche side and then Merck. Yeah. Or sorry, Millipore. [00:03:00] Yeah, I was in diagnostics for 15 years. Uh, I had an opportunity to run a public company first time that was Millipore.

Armon: Yep. That brought me to Boston. Millipore was sort of in trouble or not, but we, we doubled the company then we were unexpectedly sold to Merck, the German Meck. After that I worked for Carle to do and then ran a Carle company, ortho Clinical Diagnostics for five years, which merged and went public afterwards.

Martin: And now I'm basically. Half retired work on sports and yeah. Try to help people like yourself, entrepreneurs in making something happen, which is, I admire because it's a very difficult challenge, you know? Yeah. But it's, it's worth it. So it's, it's interesting. Yeah. 

Armon: And you have all the insights on the field, 

I, I think one of the big questions that a lot of, um.

Technology developers, entrepreneurs, will face in our zone as they come up with a new technology. And then they have this issue of, do I go for a platform business [00:04:00] model where I just sell the tool to others? Or do I use the tool to actually make a new therapeutic? 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: Or something. And so how, how do you view that debate and what do you, what do you feel has been the pros and cons that have played out when people go one route versus the other?

Yeah. 

Martin: I think the therapeutic is a totally different game. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: And you, you're focused on much higher fundraising, much longer development cycle. So you need to decide very early on whether this is possible. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: With that approach. And I've been in wealth companies have done that and, but they decided early on, yes, it's a therapeutic, we can different get a differentiated molecule.

Yeah. A clinical solution. Your fundraising will be very different, different investors, different timescale, um, different partnerships you will need tools is faster. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: It's a more, it's a definitely a totally different market. Much, uh, smaller, but you can get a product out in a year or two. 

Armon: Yep. 

Martin: And so you [00:05:00] will, early on, you will see if there is a market fit.

Um, you can also lose it faster. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: That's, that's, but you need much less money. You can do it more bootstrapped, and then once you have a certain size, you can then scale it up. It's much more flexible, but it's a smaller market. 

Armon: I dunno if you would agree with this feeling, but it, at least from my experience, it felt like, uh, people will, on average view the therapeutic side.

That's kind of like the white collar, intellectually superior thing to do. And then the tool side is more the blue collar grants that do it. I mean, do you feel like that perception kind of exists? I feel like the scientists do that. 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: Yeah. Or why do you think that perception is like that? Because I remember when we were starting squeeze an issue being a tool that therapeutics people would just kind of look down on us.

Martin: Yeah. You're a tool. Yeah. You, you're the nail. Right? Well. I think there's some truth to it, but, uh, think about this. When you develop pharmaceutical, you do it [00:06:00] from the beginning. It will take, you know, 14 years until you see it in a patient. Uh, and then you have a few years to sell it. So how many of these will you do in your life?

One or two. Of course, it's the big goal, but it's a, it's a slow game. It takes a long time. Has huge failure rates. 

Armon: Yep. 

Martin: And yeah, you do interesting signs, but not always. Sometimes you just make a different version of a pharmaceutical that already exists. 

Armon: Yep. 

Martin: But it's good for business because you can, you can sell it.

Um, so I would say it depends. The science and tools is not inferior. My view, many times you have to integrate pretty complex technology, biology, AI software, robotics. Many of the more sophisticated tools today are multidisciplinary. 

Armon: Yep. 

Martin: And in diagnostics, if you, if you take the tool into diagnostics even harder, because then you need to get reimbursement, clinical studies, regulatory approval.

So. So, no way. [00:07:00] This is intellectually different. It's just different. 

Armon: I, I'm not saying it's my opinion. 

Martin: Yeah. It's, 

Armon: I'm just saying others. 

Martin: But you have to agree because they're customers, you know? 

Armon: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, oh yes, we're the losers. Please go make our tool, do great things. 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: Uh, what do you feel like is the most common reason for failure in the tool space?

Martin: I, I mean basically you, you have a technology that fits for a certain purpose. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: And you underestimate, uh, what it takes to get customer adoption. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: And sometimes it just takes much longer, not because your tool isn't working, it's because there are other tools that are pretty good, good enough.

Yeah. Or they, they're used to using it, doing it a certain way. And so you don't get the adoption and it takes longer. So you, you think it would happen in year, in year one, two, or three, but it's not happening. And that is a big problem for a startup because you have very little room for error when you scale up because your expenses go up, your cash burn goes up.

So that's how companies fail. 

Armon: And the [00:08:00] leadership teams or entrepreneurs that you feel like do pull it off versus the ones that don't like, what do you think tends to be the common defining feature that overcomes that hurdle? 

Martin: I like, uh, teams, first of all. Agile and, and very active in adjusting to new information.

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: And not just say, yep, we have raised the money, now we're gonna spend it on scaling up no matter what. If you have signals in the market that. Tell you, well, you need to validate this first or slow down a bit, even though you just raised all the money, you make these big promises. Yeah. You should be, you should be realistic that that would be a waste.

Armon: Yeah, 

Martin: and, and don't believe, because you can raise money, you can build a business at two different things. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: So raising money is very important, but building the business a different skillset. So I would look for. You know, basically validation with each customer. So if it's a new tool, you want very important customers saying good things about your publishing.[00:09:00] 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: And then them using them on an ongoing basis. You look for repeat purchase, and then you have to look at your p and l. Is, is that bringing enough over time, enough cash that you can actually build a business? 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: If you have that on a small scale, you can. You can, yeah. Gradually increase. Sometimes you can go very fast.

Armon: And because you've had the benefit of seeing this on the side of the much larger companies like, you know, Roche, Millipore, uh, and also watching the startups do it, what do you think are the key things that are different between like a big company trying to launch a new technology versus a small company trying to do 

Martin: it?

It couldn't be more different, I would say. Yeah, if you're a small company, you, the launch has to work once you scale it up. The, the margin of error is very little. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: Having been in large companies, if you have a new product and it doesn't work well, that's not good for, for the company, but it doesn't sink the company.

Armon: Right. 

Martin: [00:10:00] And if it takes a year longer or two because you have to redo a study or do redo some development or you production issues, so be it. I mean, you're just gonna plow through it. Yeah. We had. Products at Roche that took five, six years more to get through regulatory approval and they just said, yep, we're gonna do it.

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So that startup would 

Armon: be dead. 

Martin: Can you imagine how much more money that costs? Yeah. Yeah. And the start will say, well, you know, you not delivering arm on and now you have to raise more money. So you can't, can't do that. So that's, that's what I mean by margin of error is small. 

Armon: You make it sound like it might be a lot easier to do it on the big side.

Are there things about it that are much easier on the small company side? 

Martin: Yeah, you can adjust much faster. Okay. So a large company has to scale up their commercial operation? Their production, usually the quality requirements are higher. There's much more to document. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So the whole process and the machinery takes longer to put in [00:11:00] place.

Once it is in place, it's got a ha. It's got a goal. Yeah. So if you have like a massive recall of a scared up product, that's a, that's very tough to manage. Mm. And, and, and so small company doesn't have that. You can, you can test it more, you can pull back faster and turn around 

Armon: and, okay. And then with the startups, you know, working their way through this, how do you see.

The pros and cons of VC funding for this stuff versus private equity? 'cause I know they have different mindsets. 

Martin: Well, they overlap a little bit and, but they're also very different. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So VCs that I know, different starts, they could be very early one, they could be incubating the business or they could be later stage VCs.

And the latest stage VCs overlap a little bit with private equity, but by definition in general, private equity invest into profitable businesses. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: Not, not all of 'em, but. It's either growth, private equity, so you can see the break [00:12:00] even pretty rapidly. Or it's a profitable business because the model is to take the business, grow it, and in many cases put that on it.

Armon: Yeah, 

Martin: so that's, this is what VC doesn't usually doesn't do. Usually it doesn't do it. There are always many exceptions, but that's kind of the big difference. So I think they play together. Yeah. But usually private equity goes in much, much later. 

Armon: Yeah. And when it comes to the outcomes for these tool companies, I mean, when do you think it makes sense for these companies to go for m and a if they're showing success versus continue to try to be independent?

Whether it's private or 

Martin: public? Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's the question of cash and fundraising. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: So if you think your ability to raise money, attract investors. Limited, then you have to consider MA, but you should not do it. If you can build a standalone, profitable, independent company, that's the best path to value creation usually.

Armon: [00:13:00] Yeah. 

Martin: If, if you, if you can see that and it, it's hard to do and in many cases, I would say today you probably need 75 to a hundred million in revenue. Most cases. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: And diagnostics for sure are more like 200. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: Their companies were in the several hundred. They're not profitable. So that's why I say, so where would the money come from?

You know? Yeah. You could go public, um, which is difficult right now, but, um, it is, it is possible. Raise money that changes what, how you manage the company. But usually you should focus on, okay, can I build a sustainable business over time and. You shouldn't worry about MA if you can do that. It'll happen by itself, in my opinion.

Yeah. 

Armon: Okay. And you, like, one thing I've heard or wondered about is it feels like once people have these commercial machines, they're, they need more and more items to add to the commercial things basket. [00:14:00] 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: And so if you're kind of a single technology play, it's relatively expensive. To have that commercial machinery.

So you might feel obliged to add things in that may or may not be as great. Uh, whereas the big guys already have the machine, so they might get more incremental economics from new fun toys getting added. 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: How do you view that part if someone's trying to stay independent? 

Martin: Yeah. Do, I mean, for the large players in the industry has gotten much more consolidated to matter.

You need a certain size. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: So just, just the math. Otherwise the whole acquisition of small business is not worth it. So they're mid, they're midscale players where this rule probably applies a little bit less, but usually before you hit 50, 60 million, is it really worthwhile to spend time in acquiring you?

Armon: Yeah. Yeah. 

Martin: So 

Armon: that's fair. 

Martin: Yeah. And then's a question of fit, but if you're a large diversified player, a lot of things fit and it just more depends on what is the strategic focus. Yeah. [00:15:00] Um, so you, again, back to the build a business that's attractive, fast, growing in that stage, and yeah, if you're, you have a unique, uh, fast growing tools business, very attractive for these, for these players, because that's.

One thing they're not so good at is building really new technologies, new businesses. They're very good at commercialization and supply chain logistics. 

Armon: Yep. 

Martin: Uh, but globalization, but, uh, coming up with really new stuff, 

Armon: that's 

Martin: hard. Okay. 

Armon: And because again, you've had the benefit of, you've been on the operator side, the investor side, the board side.

As you watch some of these other leadership teams go through the phases of, let's say initially they're trying to do the actual product development, then there's their initial launch of things and then scaling. Are there signs you feel along the way that tell you like, oh, this team is gonna make it, or, Ooh, like at this next phase, we're definitely gonna have to 

Martin: Yeah, 

Armon: switch 

Martin: them up.

You mean in In tools or in In startup. Right? 

Armon: In in tools. Platform startup. Yeah. Yeah. 

Martin: [00:16:00] So many times when, when you come particularly out a startup that's been spun out of academia many times, you have excellent technical people. Yeah, incredible inventors. They know everything about the application. Uh, key customers as well, usually week on commercial.

So this is something you have to build. So I'd like to see people who are trying really hard to understand how you commercialize that, because it's a very different ballgame. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: And so if you have both, I think then that's a good team. 

Armon: Which parts of that ballgame tend to be hardest for the technical people to learn?

Martin: Commercial, definitely. 

Armon: Oh, sorry. What aspects of commercial? 

Martin: Well, there's a belief that the technology sells itself. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: Many, many times. But it doesn't. Um, so, or the technology is ready and it isn't. 

Armon: Yeah. '

Martin: cause not because it doesn't work in the lab, it doesn't work the way the customers want to use it.

Armon: Yeah, yeah. 

Martin: So that, so you have to do more development. And so judging that, that's, that's [00:17:00] where you see some, so it's, it's in the product development and then adoption. How long does it take? We talked about it earlier. So does it take, what's the selling cycle? Is it six months, nine months? Well, how long does it take?

To convince people, how do you service and you get the in out, it's brand new. Well, our customers don't know how to use it. What do you need? You need service. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: We don't have enough service. Product breaks. That kind of stuff is hard for people who are in the lab. They know everything about it. They know how to fix it themselves.

Yeah, 

Armon: yeah. 

Martin: To get that, you actually need the whole organization to do that. 

Armon: Yeah. Yeah. 

Martin: So that's, and it costs money, right? Mm-hmm. Which you could put into the next product. That's always tough, you know? So you need both the balance here. 

Armon: Yeah. I feel like first time around sometimes when there would be trouble, I'm like, why are these customers all idiots?

And then this time around, I'm like, no, no, no. We need to make damn sure we're holding their hand throughout because [00:18:00] they, we just know way more than they do, and they're coming at it from a very different view from ours. 

Martin: Yeah. What you don't want is, you know, it's a, it's a brilliant invention. It works well.

It goes to the customer. The customer says, well, we tried that, but. And immediately it's a little bit, yeah, it works, but it's sensitive to these interferences or whatever that is. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: Then you have to fix it. It's much better if the product works or you don't give it out. You just make it as a service model for while.

Yeah. So some companies do that as well and so it's solid, you know? 

Armon: Is there, like, among those technical founders, I, I mean it sounds like there's many points there, but is there like a most prominent misconception that if you could like scream it into their ear from day one, you would've. 

Martin: Um, I'm quite sure I don't understand the question, misconception that they have or 

Armon: Yeah.

Misconception that they have or like misread that you think is the most common failure mode. Like they just read that part wrong.

Martin: I think it's the overestimating where the technology is [00:19:00] and it's, uh, technology cycle. 

Armon: Okay. 

Martin: Yeah. It's like always it's, it's ready to go. I've seen this many times. So it's ready to go. Yeah. It works in your lap 'cause you're the world expert in it. Doesn't mean it's. Working in the next a hundred labs. 

Armon: Yeah.

Yeah. 

Martin: They, they understand, um, takes time, you know? Yeah. 'cause other people have to catch up, particularly with breakthrough innovations. Um, another reason I've seen this, yeah, it works, but customers don't want to use it yet. They don't trust it and they have alternatives. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So then you work more on the conversion, then it's more about, okay, so how much better does it have to be?

And that's, that's a tricky judgment. Something works. You come, this is better. But if it's not dramatically better, then you say, well, why should I use it? You know? It's so much work to try a new technique, you know? 

Armon: Oh yeah, yeah. No, people are, don't wanna change their day to day. 

Armon: don't know. I think one weird mindset we landed on [00:20:00] was kind of when you're the new tech, you're guilty until proven innocence. Like anything that goes wrong, oh, this thing sucks, I'm not gonna bother. Uh, whereas eventually once you become established, you're innocent until proven guilty in the sense that if people do it for the first time and doesn't work, they're like, oh, you know what?

CRISPR does work. I must have done this wrong. 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: Uh, and they'll go do it again. Getting across that line is very hard. 

Martin: Yeah. Or you have something that is completely different like PCR sequencing. Yeah. Or you detect something that you could never see before. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: Then, then you, that's easy. Then you can, I can show you something that you've never seen before in your lab, and you cannot do it with any other method.

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: It's like, oh yeah. Let's see. How does it work? And if it's hard to use, well let's get through that. You know? 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: And, and so that's compelling, I feel, and many times. As a small company, you have to have a super compelling reason why customers should thrive if it's like a little bit better. Yeah. But it takes much more pushing than selling it.

Armon: Do you think that becomes a [00:21:00] tricky judgment call in the sense of like if you survey customers asking like, Hey. What problems do you have? They don't usually bring up the thing they could never do. 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: They're saying, oh, I do this thing, it's 70% efficient. I really wish it was 80%. So a customer survey would say, go do that application.

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: Whereas you have to be able to take the leap of faith of like, no, no, no. I know what they want. Even though they don't know they want it yet. Is that new thing they can't see? 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: Uh, 

Martin: I can give you one example for, uh, from over 10 years ago. Uh, so when super sensitive, uh, proteomics was invented over, over 12 years ago 

Armon: mm-hmm.

Martin: You, you talk to the incumbent diagnostic companies and they would say, yep, that's interesting, but we have all the sensitivity we need. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: And today, if you didn't have ultrasensitive, proteomics or protein assays, you couldn't do neurology. Mm-hmm. And today these companies have these assays, so they couldn't see at that point.

And these were companies, [00:22:00] uh, that there's a market, an emerging market for these ultrasensitive assays. So yeah, many times it's like, yeah, these work pretty well. We don't really need it. And so what you need to do is you need to find one compelling case. Uh, in that case it was a tests that you can only do by imaging you can do out of blood.

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: That's compelling. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: Then people started listening. Then you publish and show it, and then people say, oh yeah, we should try that. 

Armon: When people are trying to navigate that, on average, how many, let's say new use cases do you think they have in mind? Only one or two of which are gonna be that win, and then they need to judge, you know, are we onto something or not?

Because I feel like in those early days, it's really hard to tell. 

Martin: Yeah, you, it's, it's trial and error and you'll find, uh, maybe four or five different applications and the one one will win. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: It's, it's, you can, I, I think it's hard to predict, but, but because you're a small company, you can have multiple approaches and see what works, and [00:23:00] then you can focus on the one early on that shows some traction.

Armon: Yeah, 

Martin: that's, yeah. That's more iterative, but that's a good method. 

Armon: It's 

Martin: happening in spatial proteomics right now. Definitely. Where you can find new things that you couldn't see before. So, 

Armon: and I guess related to a little bit more on the technical side, are there areas of current technology development that you're particularly passionate about?

Like themes that are out there right now? 

Martin: Yeah, I like the field of micro, micro physiological devices, uh, to replace animal testing. Yeah. And get closer to biology. So organ chips is one, I'm involved in one company and because of recent changes with FDA regulations, it's gotten some traction now after being pretty slow for a long time.

Mm-hmm. The technology's amazing and it works really well. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: You get much closer to biology, you're closer to what actually happens in human cells. But the regulations lacked and now they changed and now there's real traction, which, [00:24:00] which is very cool. 

Armon: So you think people will move away from doing too many animal models?

I mean, I agree. For a lot of things, they're not very predictive anyway. 

Martin: Yeah. They're not predictive and also for ethical reasons. You, you cannot continue the slaughtering of, of monkeys and dogs and it is just not acceptable in my view. 

Armon: Yeah. Alright. I agree. And I think as these organ on a chip or other replacement.

Systems come into play. Hopefully they can just displace that. And it's nice that the regulatory side seems to be coming on board with that. Um, I do think it'll be interesting in the academic world though. 'cause I feel like a lot of the highlight point for your nature or science paper is the animal model that you did.

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: And if you did it on a organ, on a chip thing, that it'll appear less lackluster. But hopefully it'll shift them too. Or I, I don't know. Do you think it'll. Drive their incentives in the right direction too. 

Martin: I don't know. It's very entrenched technology, very entrenched methods. [00:25:00] And there's gonna be a, a transition period where you need both.

Armon: Yeah, 

Martin: but the fact that we use dogs and particularly that we love and have pets and then one, if they end up in the lab, the same dog, it's basically an asset that can be used. Uh, it doesn't add up. I mean, yeah, ethically is completely unacceptable and there are many examples. And so there has to be, other than it's more work to establish these method, it has to be also an ethical reason why you wanna move away from it.

And there's some countries that are pretty proactive on that, which is good. 

Armon: And I would argue it would shorten the preclinical development cycles. 'cause usually then vivo models are by far the biggest, uh, time driver. Yeah, I've, 

Martin: I've seen data where you, when you look at toxicity in particular kidney or liver.

If you use the human cells or the organ chip with, you know, four different types of liver cells, you can definitely pick up molecules that have off target effects earlier. Mm-hmm. But you couldn't pick up in the, in the, in the [00:26:00] rat study, you know? 

Armon: Yep. 

Martin: Of course. You know, Hey, I'm a veterinarian. I know rats, arem not humans.

So why is that the standard model? Well, that's because of what we have, right? 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: It's just, it's, it's just like, doesn't make any sense. 

Armon: I also remember in, because my postdoc was immunology and, and there was a lot of mouse system stuff. It was some immune mechanisms in a mouse, like they would tolerate it perfectly fine where it was, it would've definitely killed a person.

And then there were other mechanisms that to a mouse tumor wouldn't do anything. And like PD one famously, which is obviously a huge drug and melanoma with its kind of. Uh, flagship indication. 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: It doesn't work in the most common Yeah. Melanoma model in mice. 

Martin: No, of course. Yeah. 

Armon: So there's a lot of disconnects.

Martin: If, if you're trained as a veterinarian, which I have. Yeah. You basically have to study seven species, you know, so, 

Armon: oh, wow. 

Martin: And once you Yeah, but at not so deep. So once you, once you practice in different animals, you know that certain medications you can use, uh, on a cat, but [00:27:00] not on a dog. And you know that because of those effects.

Armon: Yeah, yeah. 

Martin: Those side effects. Yeah. Or you can use. Uh, a drug that works in human, but you can't use it in a horse or you can use it in a horse, but not in human. So there's a lot of overlap in medication. Yeah. Between, you know, that come up from, from a human medicine you can use in animals. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: And they have been tried.

They've never been tested, uh, officially, but they've been tried. And you can see when you have a side effect whether this works or not. So I've seen this personally when it doesn't work. 

Armon: I love that. That's so obvious to you, but it's so obvious. I was on the PhD set, I was like never been exposed to that.

And I'm sure the MDs aren't exposed to that either. 

Martin: It's so obvious you shouldn't do that. And so when I read like, oh yeah, cancer breakthrough, so and so, my study, I look at it, my study, congratulations. That helps the mice. 

Armon: Yeah, 

Martin: it's a really 

Armon: good job. If they're smoking too many cigarettes, getting mouse lung cancer.

And then on the more diagnostic side, are there any. [00:28:00] Or tools that you've been excited about that you think are underrated right now? 

Martin: Well, maybe not underrated, actually very rated, but there's a lot of progress in cancer diagnostics with MRDs, minimal residual disease testing, and, uh, incredible success commercially.

Also more companies are getting into it. You know, acquisitions have been made, but there's some true progress and there are different, uh, technical approaches to, to, to get to earlier detection and monitoring of recurrence. So very exciting, fully supported reimbursement, you can get it approved. So that's, that's a good, very hot field.

I like spatial proteomics. Uh, and that is emerging to be a very good field also for precision medicine. There's so many biomarkers that we don't know about that are needed, particularly in tissue for targeting drugs. There are new tools now available that help you to identify, um, uh, spatial proteomic [00:29:00] biomarkers that are not known.

So 

Armon: yeah, 

Martin: it's very good. Mass spec readout, um, microscopy and mass spec combined. Another example of pretty complicated technology, 

Armon: right, 

Martin: that is delivering breakthrough. So, but it's early days, it's just. Being used now in research, I would say, 

Armon: and I'm not as familiar with that space, but have you seen any dynamics changing among the buyers for diagnostics?

Like the, you know, the hospitals, the labs, the pharmas? Has anything changed over the past decades, or is it still more or less the same as it's always been? 

Martin: I mean, for. You can see in the mature markets like chemistry, amino assay, molecular diagnostics, mainstream, it's the same. It's just more buying power.

You have to have a scale. You sell a system, you sell a solution. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So it's more enterprise level sale. And uh, that's why you have the incumbents, the big players, they, they command the market share here. Um, on the delivery side, [00:30:00] reference labs, there's definitely more change. They're definitely more interested in getting more innovative diagnostics.

And what I've seen recently in the US is Quest, uh, is doing a lot of direct to consumer testing. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So that's interesting. And that's integrated with other devices people have, you know, it's more like wellness testing. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: But they've been very active delivering diagnostic testing directly to, to patients.

So you can just go to the lab and get your test done at a better price point. 

Armon: going all the way, just in case you have views there on the clinical and therapeutic side. Are there. Not necessarily it has to be therapeutics, but are there areas where you see that you think the next major shift in clinical impact is gonna come from, based on what's brewing these days?

Martin: I mean, cancer will continue to be a focus and we've seen this, but at that, that continues. Definitely. Yeah. My hope is cell therapy. 

Armon: Yeah. '

Martin: cause there's so much in development in the pipeline. Last [00:31:00] time I looked, uh, three oh oh, um, different, uh, molecules. I wouldn't say molecules now. Right. You know, cells.

Armon: Yeah. Engineered cells, 

Martin: engineered cells in development. Uh, I think you see much more coming from China. They've moved from being more of a copier to a developer of drugs. Yeah. And particularly in cell therapy, CAR T cells. Um, that's exciting. So it, it, it needs to show itself, but the data that I've seen, there's a lot of expectation that that market will be very strong.

Armon: I mean, obviously we are super biased, so we agree and, and I don't know if you agree with this notion, but we also think that a lot of the kind of current generation cell therapies where they're essentially manufactured and they need to move towards point of care, another issue they have aside from getting closer to patient and being, uh, more practical to make is that right now there's a lot of genetic modification involved, and when you touch the genome, it is unlikely it'll ever be a first line treatment.[00:32:00] 

Uh, because of the long-term risks you're taking. And so we think a lot of the future is gonna be, uh, for lack of a better word, software for cells. Yeah. So like mixtures of mRNA, srna, et cetera. You put into a cell to give it a new program to run. 

Martin: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: And only then can you be first line. 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: Uh, but I don't know if you have views on that side.

Martin: I think I, no, I don't know too much about that. I, I know that the, um, cell therapy has to prove itself out. I would say on the production of the cells, you have major hurdles to overcome, but the fact there's so much investment and so much, uh, pipeline makes me believe that, um, it should be a good field for the future.

Yeah, I think we are in a, in a stage right now where you have many more therapeutic technologies than we used to have used to have monoclonal antibodies and, and you know, basically chemicals or small, small chemical entities. Now we have bivalent antibodies, we have cell therapy, we have gene therapy. We have so many different [00:33:00] mRNA.

Yeah. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So in a way, the pharmaceutical industry is poised to do very well. Success rate continues, uh, because the, the investment has been tremendous in finding these new, um, new tech, new technologies. So it's been good for that. 

Armon: What, what do you think it takes to make, you know, biotech and pharma as cool as tech in people's minds so we can get more of that retail money into the stock market?

Martin: I dunno, you have to talk about ai probably say, yeah, we made this with ai. 

Armon: That's true. 

Martin: It's so complicated. You know, tech, you can experience yourself, you know? Yeah. You can try it out and you can say, yeah, this AI works. I made a, a cool picture, or whatever. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So it's, it's more believable. This is highly technical and the proof is always in, okay, I know someone who had this disease and they were cured, not just treated, they were cured.

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: Uh, and, and we have a few examples of that, and that's super exciting. I think 

Armon: that's a good point. I wonder like 

Martin: [00:34:00] maybe what's too bad is the COVID. I would always say the mRNA vaccine for COVID was one of the most successful pharmaceutical developments ever. 

Armon: Yep. 

Martin: In humanity terms of impact, time.

Lives saved. Uh, I heard, I'd heard, I heard, uh, Dr. Fauci speak said there were 24 million people saved worldwide with that vaccine. That's one of the most successful technology rollouts in an emergency ever. Yeah. It's just unbelievable. And you should talk about that, that that is a cool story, I think. 

Armon: Why don't you think it gets credit?

Martin: I dunno, 

Armon: it's mind boggling. 

Martin: There could be some, some people who think vaccines aren't good, but it's, it's, I mean, from a medical stem, that's probably the best, most logical treatment you can get because you prevent the disease, you don't get it. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So to me that's a, that's a great story. It's not talked about enough.

Armon: Yeah. And I, and I think relatedly just broadly, the class of how much of a difference vaccines have made for the world, or how much of a difference [00:35:00] antibiotics have made for the world, I think at this point they're just taken for granted. Because people don't have the mental reference point of like, yeah, this is primarily what would kill people back in the day.

It wasn't cancer and all that stuff. It was just 

Martin: most important infectious disease, most curative. I don't know how many thousand animals are vaccinated, but that's kind of the basis you need vaccination. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: So that that other animals, other humans don't get sick. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah, this is like, we wouldn't have agriculture without vaccines.

We wouldn't, not, no animal agriculture would exist because we put these animals together and they get sick, so they have to be vaccinated. When you bring your dog to the kennel because you wanna go somewhere on the weekend has to be vaccinated. Right, 

Armon: right, right. Yeah. No, I, I, I mean, I agree. I'm, I'm with you.

Yeah. I think it, maybe it's because it's just not top of mind to people.

Armon: all right. I promise we're in the home stretch. As you've gone through your, you know, leadership journeys, are there things [00:36:00] that you wish you had learned faster, or, you know, if you could go back and talk to 30 year olds, Martin, what was, what would be like the one thing you would wanna tell 'em?

Martin: You know, I'm not one who looks back a lot because, you know, you are not more forward oriented, but I should have probably moved into business sooner. 

Armon: Okay. 

Martin: You know, because I. Played around, you know, I studied six years and I worked three years, so I spent nine years thinking I'd be a really good, um, you know, horse surgeon.

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: Which I didn't, so it's like, that wasn't interesting, but it's, yeah. I could have used these nine years to be an entrepreneur maybe. Who knows? But 

Armon: Okay. 

Martin: Maybe. 

Armon: Uh, and then, uh, if you could change. Speaking of, looking ahead, if you could change one thing about the life science tools and diagnostics ecosystem, like what would you wanna change?

You just had a magic wand, whatever you want. A 

Martin: lot of [00:37:00] things. 

Armon: Well, you gotta prioritize. 

Martin: I think we need to continue to help entrepreneurs to build business. 'cause the industry is also getting more consolidated. Mm-hmm. It's unfortunate, but it's, it's kind of the nature of business. When you have more capital and more power, you, you'd be building a more resilient business and you get more investors.

Um, but that's not necessarily good for innovation. We've seen it in diagnostics. Um, and I don't want this to happen in tools. Mm-hmm. It's just a lot of consolidation, I think, and it's, it's, it's a, it's important to have, but it's not the answer. 

Armon: Yeah. 

Martin: You need to have vibrant. Not just companies of different sizes to to, to make the industry interesting.

Armon: How do you vaccinate against consolidation? 

Martin: Well, there's regulatory approaches, obviously. Yeah. Um, which I, I think should be looked at. Uh, and, um, you should give, um, smaller companies and, [00:38:00] and unfair advantage because it's harder to build a small company. 

Armon: Right. 

Martin: Dramatic. Be harder. 

Armon: Okay. Uh, any other spic or atypical opinions?

We didn't get to 

Martin: talked about it a little bit, but I, I'm obviously against animal testing. Yeah. Support this company. It's my background. I've seen this happening and I think I would encourage pharmaceutical customers to embrace the new technologies 'cause it will take a while and generate the data. So that, uh, alternatives, animal testing can be mainstream, can be used.

'cause what we're doing today is ethically totally unacceptable. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. 

Martin: You cannot justify that you take a dog that is your pet at home and if the dog happens to be in the lab, he gets tortured and killed. And that, that is ethically not acceptable. So whenever you see that, you have to remember that that's, that's very hypocritical approach you're taking there.[00:39:00] 

Yeah. And I, I think that's, nobody talks about it, but I think it's not Okay. 

Armon: No, I'm, I'm with you on that. And I think hopefully the, as the generations of therapeutics have evolved, hopefully it makes the tox elements more and more predictable anyway, such that you don't even have a good excuse to go to animals.

'cause that would argue like small molecules, it's so insanely unpredictable. That's what drove people to do the animal testing in the first place. Whereas biologics, it starts to get more predictable. 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: Because it's usually just on target tox. It's not some really random mechanism that got hit. 

Martin: Yeah.

Armon: And then I, I bet even cell therapies gets even more predictable. 'cause everything you did is confined to that cell injected. 

Martin: Yeah. 

Armon: Um, so it becomes even more on target than a biologic. So hopefully that'll help in addition to the organic chip. 

Yeah. 

Martin: But I also wanna say, okay, the, there are technical practicalities that are very important to consider, but the assumption that you can just take an animal like this and [00:40:00] say, yep, we're gonna use you for that, is already highly suspect and not acceptable.

Armon: Yes. Agree. 

Martin: I'm making an excuse 

Armon: for the, uh, 

Martin: for monkey. So it's just not, it's not okay. So I would say just don't do it. You can't do it anymore. 

Armon: Yeah. I think that's fair. 

Martin: You find other ways and you know, people are very inventive and very innovative and there are other ways now. So there's no excuse anymore.

I think it was always an excuse. Yeah. That's the only way we can do it. Well, didn't look for other ways. Now we've looked for other ways and it's possible. 

Armon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it, it's so unin informative anyway, so it makes it even that much harder to Yeah. Justify in the end of it. Um. Well, thank you so much for taking the time.

Cheers, Boba.