A New Dawn for Biotechnology and Healthcare?

Our conversation encompasses the challenges which Amgen faces as one of the world’s leading independent biotech companies (and one of the top 60 most valuable companies in the USA by market cap!), partially due to the unique complexities of the field. Firstly, Bob ensures his overview of the industry is accessible to those listeners for whom this episode is a first dive into it by clarifying that it is the level of the complexity of the molecules that distinguishes biotechnology (more complex biologic molecules known as proteins) from pharmaceuticals (small, straightforward molecules made through readily available tools).

He leaves no room for doubt of his optimism about Amgen being at vanguard of the first production of these biologics (biotechnology) in the late 1970s. However, he remains honest that innovating a first in class medicine still takes 10-15 years and about $2.5 million. In Bob’s experience, what makes that scale of investment of money, time, and effort even more risky is that failure is a fact of life in biotechnology and healthcare.

Nevertheless, unsurprisingly, given his education, experience, and respectable position in the field, Bob is not one to allow failed projects to distract him from Amgen’s mission. Since 1980, through drug innovation in immunology, cancer, and general medicine, their representation in 102 countries worldwide has remained unified in their vision of their North Star: the special opportunity to make a difference for a patient suffering from a serious illness. Furthermore, Bob opens up about other challenges which Amgen’s leaders recognise, including high inflation, rising global medicine prices, understandably high pressure from governments, and the urgency of the race against disease and its competitors which Amgen must win for its patients.

Bob expresses gratitude for that alignment as the reason for Amgen’s success as a large scale organisation, as well as the recent role of AI in boosting the rate of innovation in the industry as a whole. The success case which Bob discusses is when Google’s DeepMind subsidiary revealed its protein structure-anticipating software in 2021, quickly leading to a computer model for these 3D structures. Today, thanks to AI, Amgen often saves months or even years in the drug design process. 

Directing our conversation towards the future for Amgen, Bob identifies one of the tailwinds for biotechnology in the US (and equally relevant in the UK) is the enormous demand for innovation against the diseases of the aging process. The second is the implications of rising global wealth on obesity, a first world disorder, where storing excess energy as fat cells is no longer advantageous given the extent of food abundance in the modern day. At the same time, Bob offers striking insights from one of his papers titled “Why It’s About Biology Not Behaviour”, speaking passionately on how there is no reason to tolerate devastating rates of heart attacks and strokes in the US particularly when the cause of cardiovascular disease is known to us as high low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels. 

Further discussion on the balance between high risk and reward in biotechnology and healthcare sees us consider human genetics as a method of increasing the odds of success in drug discovery and development. While that concludes the overarching themes of our interview, the episode is rightly not concluded until Bob underlines the importance of diversity and inclusion in this industry like any other, and we are delighted to hear that Amgen is a founding member of the OneTen coalition which battles the underrepresentation of African American talent in well-paid jobs. Bob recognises that a factor in that movement will be reforming the recruitment process at Amgen and ensuring the environment is as welcoming of contributions as possible. 

This episode with Bob Bradway certainly highlighted his passion about proving the need for innovation in the stunningly fast-paced and industry of biotechnology, given that we are at the dawn of the bio-century.

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