welcome back and next we have a fireside
chat with YC's Jared Friedman and Ivana
dreadich yeah let's give them both a big
round of applause
Ivana is the founder and founding CEO of
Asher bio uh before we get started go go
ahead and take a seat but before we get
started I wanted to introduce a little
bit uh you to Jared for those of you who
don't know him yet so Jared is one of
the major forces behind the launching
and growing of the YC bio Community
he's worked closely with the YC bio
startups for many years and in 2019 he
wrote a piece on what the next 10 years
of startup bio fundraising would look
like and Jared and this piece that he
wrote has very heavily influenced YC's
own philosophy on bio and Healthcare
startups and particularly particularly
our emphasis on founder-led bio
so if you haven't read it I'm going to
be tweeting it out so you can take a
look at it and read it later
um but also Let's uh welcome Ivana so
Jared worked closely with Ivana from
Asher bio in build and Asher bio is
building better immunotherapies they
went through the YC batch in summer 2019
and have since raised a 108 million
dollar series B so let's welcome Ivana
and Jared
[Applause]
thank you Kat that intro was uh way too
kind as usual but I what I'm what I'm
really excited about today is for you
all to get to hear the story of Asher
bio because it is an incredible story
and very few people have ever heard it
because Ivana and her co-founder Andy
are very modest people so I'm going to
see if I can pull this story out of them
because it's such a good story so
um Ivana to start with how would you
just tell everybody like what Azure bio
is well as you just heard from cat this
is our yc1 liner Asher bio builds better
immunotherapies for patients uh and uh
specifically we are focused on
immunotherapies that are based on
natural proteins called cytokines which
can be very powerful therapies and can
turn on your own immune system to fight
cancer
however when they are administered in
their natural form to patients
systemically they end up activating all
of the different immune cells that make
up our immune system not just the parts
that fight cancer
and activating the wrong immune cells
can cause severe side effects and can
really limit the usefulness of these
drugs and so what we're doing is
activating only the correct immune cells
like those that kill cancer without the
severe side effects and this is really
one of the biggest challenges and
problems in the immunotherapy field
right getting a precise and selective
immunotherapies so we're using a
developing protein engineering
Technologies uh that enable us to
develop cytokines that activate only the
cells that matter we light up only the
cells that matter
and thereby achieve better safer and
more effective Therapeutics
so that that that's what we do yeah all
right yeah
excellent one-liner work there
um okay so Ivana I know you're naturally
a very modest person but I want you to
turn off the modesty for just a moment
and tell everybody sort of like what the
current state of Asher bio is and what
you guys have accomplished in just the
last three years since you started the
company yeah all right so as as you
heard from cat we have raised where
series B Stage Company we uh last year
we raised 108 million dollar series B
round which was led by a household name
investor Wellington Management we are
now over 50 employees a majority are
still research and pre-clinical but
we're rapidly expanding our clinical
group and that's because any day now
we're expecting to treat our first
patient patient with a drug that we
conceived when we were back at UIC a
little over three years ago and not only
that we do have a second drug that we
developed in the last couple of years
that is closely following behind and we
have been working on a pipeline of these
targeted cytokines and other
immunotherapies uh and we hope to have
more uh drugs to follow
awesome this is actually the first that
I heard that you're about to about to
actually go and go into Clinic that's
amazing hoping by the end of the year
yeah oh wow incredible um okay so let's
actually rewind back to the very
beginning like long before you started
Asher um you have a really interesting
personal background how would you tell
people sort of like
um what what your story is where you
grew up and how you ended up in this
industry yeah uh well I I grew up in
Montenegro so a small country of
Montenegro and I I came to uh the United
yes to do to the US to do a PhD so I
completed my PhD training at Harvard
Medical School uh in Immunology I did a
short post-doc after that uh before
realizing that I really wanted to be
closer to treating patients and not
working on non-coding rnas which I guess
today could think of them as potential
Therapeutics uh uh and so uh I spent
about 10 years in Industry
um and uh mostly working in the area of
cancer cancer drug Innovation I was on
the East Coast at cell Gene developing
cell therapies and then I moved to the
West Coast where I took on a position at
Pfizer
and in their cancer Immunology group I
led a group that was really at the
Forefront of immunotherapy research I
collaborated with protein engineering
very closely which is where I met my
co-founder Andy young
and also got to see a lot of emerging
technology allergies from companies that
were pitching to Pfizer and so I really
was able to get a good view of the field
and where the needs are in
immunotherapies
and to help people about like the
origins of azure bio like how you guys
first started thinking about the you
know the ideas and the science behind it
and then like how you and Andy decided
that maybe you would actually turn this
thing into a company
so and I have to I have to admit that
you know I when I started industry I
always had this idea in the back of my
mind that I wanted to do something
independently and I think Andy did as
well we just you know worked we had our
nice stable jobs and we were learning a
ton uh and you know there's always that
high energy activation barrier right
when when you know to leaving your your
stable uh stable position and doing
something risky even if you found it
very exciting and so
um I think what enabled us to break out
as entrepreneurs was partly driven by
you know Pfizer's decision to relocate
one our the site that we were working at
from South San Francisco to a different
location and and uh so San Diego okay
back then there was no work from home
you had to you know move to San Diego
and so it was we were faced with this
decision of whether to leave to move or
with the company or or just look for
another job in the area and I think uh
even with this sort of a push I think it
was not an easy decision but I think
what made it feel right were three
things one was we were just really
excited to work on developing safer more
selective cytokines and we I just
couldn't imagine myself working on
anything else I thought this was the the
next best thing and I thought that you
know we were sort of developing this
vision of targeting only the cells that
matter and we thought wow you could
apply this not only in cancer but it
could be really in any other disease
where immune system plays a role and so
you know we thought this this could be
big so we're excited by the idea I think
then realizing that to get something
like this done it you know the execution
and the decision making you know it's
just going to be much faster in a
smaller team you if you really wanted to
make that happen it kind of needed to be
outside of a big farm
uh and lastly which probably is probably
the most important is having that small
team right so you know having the right
co-founder and the right early
scientists so about five scientists uh
joined us from Pfizer on that that early
Venture uh you know we all sort of share
that same entrepreneurial spirit and uh
had built up great Rapport and so we
were convinced that uh we were the right
the team with the right expertise to
tackle this problem
okay so let's walk through the timeline
so it's early 2019 you and Andy are
working at Pfizer hey there groups at
what point did Pfizer like order you to
move to San Diego
so I think it was the end of 18 early 19
right and you know we ended up staying
for a few months to wrap up our our just
opportunity our responsibilities so we
left in March uh and uh we started
talking to people I mean luckily we were
in this area you're just surrounded by a
people with a lot of experience and
entrepreneurs and uh we you know back
then we didn't we just had our
experience with our small team we had
some ideas and like this General Vision
of what we thought could could be
developed as a company
um but that was it and and we didn't
have connections with any major biotech
VCS or uh or other investors and as we
were talking to other entrepreneurs it
became clear that would be hard to raise
a large round that is sufficient to
really take these things into the clinic
and so we realized you needed a smaller
fund this is a smaller funding right to
be able to get some data to convince
people that you know you have something
of value that could have potential right
so so that's and then we ended up honing
in on okay so where we where could we
get these small rounds and we heard
about why combinator I think it was in
April and we spent all of April in a
Starbucks September and overwriting our
application alongside provisional patent
applications that are putting our ideas
down and it's just very important you
get it protected before you start
talking to investors
and and then in yes in in may we
incorporated uh the company probably
just to try to get into YC because we
heard it would be better to be
incorporated to get into IC and you
interviewed at ycee in May I guess yes
right and you got accepted we did and it
was just yeah it was it was pretty
amazing that after 15 minutes somebody
just believes in you and gives you even
though yes we spent one month writing
that application
okay so you left Pfizer in March you
wrote the application in April you got
into YC in May and you started YC in
June
by the end of YC just three months after
like starting to work on this thing
what did you accomplish in just the like
three months since then this is like
pretty amazing which is why I want to
call call attention to it
so we ended up uh going developing one
of our molecules from an idea on paper
uh to treating in mice and yes I know
looking back it does sound impossible
but then reflecting on why why we were
able to do it I think uh it was that
combination of the right expertise right
we ended up you know our small team
really just had
you know the right expertise to execute
on these experiments but the second
piece was obviously just getting the YC
funding after 15 minutes of the
interview right and then being able to
hit the ground running the next day
literally the next day we were able to
get off the wait list for uh in from in
an oversubscribed lab incubator and get
that first lab bench uh just because we
got we had ycnn behind us uh and uh we
then used our YC Grant to stock up on
equipment small used equipment and
reagents you'd be surprised how many
companies you know can when they're
closing down or moving you know end up
giving you uh things for free and so we
we got a lot of stuff for free or cheap
we stocked up our lab and started
started doing experiments we also ended
up renting a small space in a mouse
facility where we could run our own
Mouse studies versus sort of Outsourcing
them and having a contract research
organ organization right run run these
studies which is much more expensive it
takes more time
so so yeah so I think being able to hit
the ground running having the right
expertise we completed that full cycle
for one of these early molecules from
design testing it in vitro showing that
is indeed more selective a thousand
times more selective than a
state-of-the-art drug and then being
able to put
that early prototype into one Mouse
study and and show that it it worked it
had it worked better than a
state-of-the-art drug and it didn't
cause side effects and I think that
really highlighted the value that was an
early prototype I had highlighted the
value and the potential of the platform
yeah pretty pretty exceptional I also I
see also seem to recall that you you
recruited some of your like former
co-workers to like come and work for you
for free all summer long
that was your idea
the hottest director how to how to
entice uh so yes we had that we were
lucky enough to to have five scientists
in addition to Andy and myself join us
uh and again uh 150 000 back then that
was the size of the YC Grant it doesn't
you know it's not a lot it doesn't go
very far
and we knew that we needed to get
something some data in three months and
so uh what we did is is sort of the
promise hey let's do this uh you know
and and we'll we'll structure the equity
in a way that it can be an incentive and
thank you by the way for for teaching us
how to do that uh and uh and uh yeah we
spent that money on experiments yeah
and
okay so we get to the end of YC you've
done this like pretty extraordinary like
accomplishment which is you've gone from
an idea to actually really promising in
Vivo data in just three months
um and now you need to raise money from
investors
and today of course you've raised you
know over 100 million dollars from
investors but um I'd love to hear the
story
um both of of how you did that both the
initial fundraising round right after
demo day and then the subsequent rounds
after that yeah absolutely yeah so I'll
touch upon demo Day first because that
was such a fantastic experience we
worked a lot with Partners on perfecting
our pitch you know about probably
practiced it a hundred times uh the day
before and and went through all the
lines I think version 45 became the
final uh final version uh and it was
great there's a lot of we got a lot of
likes you know we were just very excited
uh and uh you know we started
fundraising after that and expecting
that things will go really well because
Sergeant we had a great story we had
great data we didn't spend a lot of time
working on the pitch deck during our YC
batch because most of the time we were
working in the lab or spending time
advice even sense talking to people talk
which was really important was part of
the part of the experience and taught us
a lot but there was not enough time to
to do the pitch that was sort of working
on the pitch deck at the same time as we
were pitching to investors and of course
Andy and I being scientists you know we
put all of our data into pitch decks
graphs protein structures Etc and uh you
know the decks were more like presenting
to Pfizer's research committee rather
than a non-bio investors and Angel
Investors and so you know I think it was
it was going slow but uh but and then
daryn was like what's going on why are
you guys not raising like Millions you
know to expose demo day until he saw our
pitch deck like okay so you know we
worked through our pitch deck and we
ended up creating two one for Bio
investors with a little more detail and
and one for other investors
um
and and then things things started uh
working after that so I think pretty
soon after that we raised about a
million our Target was 3 million and
that's what was required for us to
finalize the first program or the first
molecule
um yeah so that was quite
quite a surprise and but I think what we
did is we just we just ended up
refocusing said okay what can we do to a
million how can that take us to the next
inflection point and we kept going we
just kept doing experiments
kept talking to people you just never
know when someone is going to introduce
you to the right investor uh and you
know we took a lot of no's but I think
um uh you know we kept going so that
that was really important and uh someone
unrelated to YC you know we talked to a
lot of people anybody that that that we
we could uh introduced us to this big
biotech investor third uh Third Rock
Ventures
and that's uh I think where we ended up
making a bit of a risky decision you
know when you're a entrepreneur early
founder you know you're kind of
protective of your data you don't tell
investors everything you kind of you
know you know you have this uh a feeling
that you know you don't want to tell
them everything right understandably so
but once we met Third Rock we just felt
like it was the right investor that they
were able they were getting how excited
and they were getting excited about our
technology as well and so we just
decided tell them everything give them
all our you know tell them all of these
different things that we're thinking
about doing all of our ideas and just
really focus on them and you know now
looking back I think it was the right
decision because they ended up being a
great partner in helping us build uh
this technology and build our company
we ended up securing a seed round we
ended up getting to that three million
three and a half million uh and a series
a around as well
so uh so that was that was that uh kind
of the first part and uh after after the
series a I think we were able to expand
our research team expand our executive
team and uh generate even more data that
then enabled us to secure the next round
I think it's a great lesson in there
that like sometimes even when you have
incredible results fundraising doesn't
go according to plan and you have to be
nimble and flexible as a founder and
work with what you have and that's
exactly what you guys did which is what
ended up opening up the Third Rock
opportunity of few months later yeah
um
tell us a bit about what's happened
since YC like you guys have had to learn
how to build a whole company how to go
from sort of
being scientists to being managers and
haters of the company to tell us about
that
absolutely yeah so I think so Andy and I
really wanted to stay close to science
because we were you know really
pioneering developing this new approach
I can tell you know for some of you that
are in this area it's called CIS
targeting of cytokines and not a whole
lot of people are out there that that
knew how to do this so we stay close to
science and we were focused on bringing
in other scientists that we could really
mentor and and sort of you know transfer
all of this knowledge and ideas and that
was a major Focus for us uh really
growing the research group and I'm
pretty excited that today we have uh
Rick astellar group of of uh rising
stars and Drug developers very very
proud that that be one big thing that I
highlighted we continue to work fast we
are in a competitive space
in particular with the first program
that we chose it's an il-2 and so we
continue to to work fast towards filing
an IND and going getting to
manufacturing and et cetera yeah so
those would be the the two things that
we were really focused on yeah so one
theme from today has been
how to move fast as a bio and Healthcare
Company despite the like external forces
that make it hard to do that we heard
that from today at othellis earlier and
then from your story going through the
batch how have you been able to sort of
keep that up now that you have this 55
person team and
um a lot of forces trying to slow you
down
so maybe I'll go back to one point that
I that I didn't hit earlier which is
sort of had to move fast is is taking
small calculated risks so when we went
uh through YC you know we were sort of
working backwards from demo day what did
we have to accomplish uh by demo day and
then you know we if if we wanted a mouse
efficacy anti-tumor efficacy data at
this time we would have to inject mice
with tumors at this time and then the
proteins would have to be ready at this
time so we sort of work backwards and we
really ensure that we stuck to these
timelines and we did the things at risk
like we implanted mice with tumors even
though our molecules weren't ready
because if we didn't plant them that day
you know we wouldn't be able to have
that data by demo day right and so you
know but tumors grow for another 10 days
and so in those 10 days we were able to
create or to to come up with or develop
molecules that that we could then inject
into mice so you know took some small
risks but in the end it paid off and we
kept doing that for example The Next
Step was to going to Prime made studies
and so we ended up again booking primate
studies because they take a while to
book ahead of time before we knew that
we we actually had something to put in
in in in primates and so that's uh how
we worked initially
and and I think it's important to
continue you know taking these small
some maybe bigger calculated risks as
you as you go forward in order to to to
stay fast uh I think what also was
important is when we recruited people it
was always people that were as
passionate about this approach as we are
and so that's a Common Thread right that
they really once they got it they they
really thought wow you could do a lot of
things I could get a lot of programs
using the similar approach of targeting
the cells that matter yeah
yeah that's I I remember being really
impressed that you guys had made that
decision during YC to implant tumors in
mice
because you were so confident that you
would be able to actually make the drug
in the next week with a very narrow
window of time to hit that that was when
I think I knew that and they weren't
perfect drugs so it was important not to
be perfect something else I I wanted to
mention is you know we had several
different ideas and there was like our
favorite idea which we were working on
which ended up being quite challenging
and it looked like that was just not
going to be possible for eight months so
then we you know pivoted and started
working on another molecule uh which was
our top you know not our Top Choice but
it ended up giving us really nice data
and that is the molecule that we're now
putting into patients so now when we
have more funding you know we could go
back to these more challenging through
molecules and and work on those yeah
all right so this has been incredible
story
um last question for you is um there
might be some people in the audience who
are in sort of a similar position that
you and Andy were in when you were at
Pfizer who were thinking about whether
they want to go and embark on a journey
like this what advice would you have for
people like that or for your former
selves
yeah so I think I would say take a leap
of faith and and to pursue uh your
passion and you know either in science
or Building Company or whatever you're
interested in and and really don't be
afraid to uh to work on big problems Big
Ideas because that that's really
important and then once you're committed
to that path you know you have to you
have to stay on it it's going to be a
long path and there's going to be a lot
of ups and downs and you just have to
continue if you you know you're going to
get Negative data and you know one
experiment doesn't kill a company it
might kill that idea but it doesn't kill
the company and so you just have to
continue and and
um it could continue sort of taking
these risks to accelerate value creation
right think about the next inflection
points always
uh and then be overly confident with
investors there's really no reason to be
shy if you are true to your science uh
as Andy and I were in the beginning and
uh you know you're you're you're trying
to make you're trying to build a company
and so there's really no reason to be
not not overly confident yeah
yeah that's awesome Yvonne thank you so
much
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