The BioCentury Show
Tune in to BioCentury’s in-depth conversations with global leaders who are advancing the future of medicine.
Join our Senior Editors in face-to-face discussions with scientific KOLs, top executives, VCs, and key policymakers, dissecting the most urgent public health issues.
The BioCentury Show is THE only place where BioCentury’s experts join top innovators and global influencers to show how science is being turned into medicine.
Don't miss this event, every two weeks, now available as a video webcast or audio podcast.
Episodes
65 episodes
Ep. 113 - Frank Jiang on Hengrui’s rise and China’s new era of biopharma dealmaking
Launched in the 1970s as a generics company, Hengrui has become China’s leading innovator in R&D and dealmaking, with more than 100 NMEs in the pipeline and broad alliances with GSK and BMS. Under the leadership of Frank Jiang, EVP and chie...
Ep. 112 - Chris Arendt on rebuilding Takeda for AI
Chris Arendt, CSO of Takeda, likens the AI overhaul at the pharma to gutting and rebuilding an old house, from the plumbing and electrical up, while you’re still living there. In a Fireside Chat at Grand Rounds U.S. in Seattle, Arendt sat down ...
Ep. 111 - McGill's Angela Genge on why ALS drug development is turning a corner
ALS drug development has long been hampered by heterogeneity, but Angela Genge — neurologist at McGill University and CMO of AL-S Pharma — argues the field is getting closer to making that heterogeneity tractable. On The BioCentury Show
Ep. 110 - Richard Pops on Three Decades in Biotech: Drug pricing, FDA and China
Richard Pops has lived the biotech roller coaster over three decades as CEO of Alkermes: an IPO, M&A, near-death events for his company, FDA setbacks, battles with an activist investor, and the satisfaction of knowing that millions of patie...
Ep. 109 - Mind the Gap: Karen Knudsen on Fixing Cancer Drug Development
Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, believes the central problem in cancer drug development is not discovery, but a broken “translational middle.”In a wide-ranging interview on The BioCentury Show w...
Ep. 108 - Rethinking Discovery: Chris Hollowood on Causal Biology and Syncona’s Strategy
A paradigm shift in research tools, combined with large-scale unbiased screening, has positioned the biopharma industry not only to rethink target discovery, but also to execute more faithfully on causal biology, according to Syncona CEO Chris ...
Ep. 107 - Forbion’s Slootweg on Europe Biotech, NewCos From Asia and Green Investing
The European biotech ecosystem has gone through a substantial maturation process over the past 20 years, as VC funds such as Forbion have experienced exponential growth to fund the region’s innovation. But Forbion co-founder and managing direct...
Ep. 106 - Can the U.K. Capture Biotech Value? Daniel Mahony on Growth, Pricing and Reform
The U.K. is excellent at invention and science, and creating institutions to further innovation, but poor at capturing their economic value, says Daniel Mahony, a problem that various forces in the U.K. are now putting serious efforts into solv...
Ep. 105 - Recursion’s Najat Khan: AI Will Be Judged by the Medicines It Delivers
As AI spreads across biopharma, what will matter most is not who has the flashiest tools, but who can use them to make better medicines. In this episode of The BioCentury Show, Recursion CEO Najat Khan discusses where AI is showing mea...
Ep. 104 - SoftBank’s Jacqueline Fok on AI Drug Development, Metsera and the U.K. Biotech Opportunity
There is a real opportunity for artificial intelligence to dramatically transform the speed, cost and efficiency of drug development over the long term, but the uptake of AI tools across biopharma has been much slower relative to the broader he...
Ep. 103 - Kolchinsky: FDA Conservatism, MFN and IRA Are Slowing Drug Development
Caution: This episode of The BioCentury Show contains strong language.In a candid interview with BioCentury, RA Capital Managing Partner Peter Kolchinsky warns that staffing losses and growing conservatism at FDA are slowing dr...
Ep. 102 - Psychiatry R&D: Steve Paul on Serendipity, Engineering and What Drives Real Breakthroughs
With disease biology still murky and trials notoriously noisy, psychiatry R&D is advancing fastest where teams can solve engineering problems. Delivery, selectivity and tolerability fixes are turning long-standing hypotheses into usable med...
Ep. 101 - Why Science Stalls: Astellas CEO Naoki Okamura on Translation, Talent and Platforms
Why does great science so often stall before it becomes a medicine? Astellas Pharma CEO Naoki Okamura argues the bottleneck isn’t capital — it’s translation: a shortage of people, processes and platforms that can move ideas across the boundarie...
Ep. 100 - Adam Koppel on Why Private Equity Is Moving Deeper Into Biotech and What Comes Next
Private equity’s expanding role in biopharma as a growth equity investor reflects both the maturation of the life sciences sector and the rising need for large-scale capital, alongside PE firms’ increasing ability to conduct the technical dilig...
Ep. 99 – Stelios Papadopoulos on Biotech’s Long View: Pricing Pressure, China & Big Pharma
In historical terms, this is not a bear market, says Stelios Papadopoulos. There’s volatility, which is unnerving, and major issues to reckon with, but the level of anxiety in biotech doesn’t reflect the “extraordinary science, the likes of whi...
Ep. 98 - Inside Precision Oncology’s Next Chapter with Fore’s Bill Hinshaw
When Bill Hinshaw looks back across the arc of his career — from his early days helping to commercialize Gleevec to his present role leading Fore Biotherapeutics — he sees a precision oncology field transformed by technological ambition, yet st...
Popular Episode - Reimagining FDA: Steve Usdin on Designing the Drug Regulator of the Future
This is a previously recorded episode of The BioCentury Show from September 5, 2025. Subscribe to this channel to listen to each new episode. Visit TheBioCenturyYouTube.com to access and watch all pr...
Ep. 97 – From NIH to Industry: Zerhouni Warns Policy & Rhetoric Threaten U.S. Science
Elias Zerhouni personifies the American dream. He arrived in the U.S. from Algeria as a young man with a couple of hundred dollars in his pocket. Talent, ambition and hard work propelled him into a successful academic career. In 2002, he was no...
Ep. 96 – From Pharma Partnering to Biotech CEO: Sophie Kornowski on Boston Pharma’s Playbook
It took Sophie Kornowski under four years as CEO of Boston Pharma to bring it from a pipeline full of in-licensed assets to an acquisition by GSK for about $2 billion in total deal value for a single MASH program. Though her first gig as a biot...
Ep. 95 - Kymera CEO Nello Mainolfi: Matching Degrader Chemistry to the Problem
Kymera Therapeutics has a clear mission: to transform immunology with targeted protein degraders that enable “oral drugs with biologics-like activity,” CEO Nello Mainolfi told The BioCentury Show. A pioneer in one of biopharma’s most closely wa...
Ep. 94 - Frazier's James Li on China’s Rapidly Evolving Biotech Deal Landscape
The frenzy among Western companies to access China’s biotechnology innovation is remaking the landscape for cross-border dealmaking, with assets becoming more expensive and partnerships earlier and broader than ever before. That’s being driven ...
Ep. 93 – BIO’s Fritz Bittenbender on Trump 2.0, MFN Threats & Pharma’s Concessions
President Donald Trump’s demands for “most favored nation” drug pricing presents the biopharma industry with an immense public policy challenge. Drug companies are convinced that meeting the president’s demand to reduce U.S. prices to levels be...
Ep. 92 - Reimagining FDA: Steve Usdin on Designing the Drug Regulator of the Future
If you could redesign FDA from the ground up, what would it look like? That’s the fundamental question underlying the 2025 BioCentury Back to School essay, authored by BioCentury Washington Editor Steve Usdin, who has been a leading voice on re...
Ep. 91 – Annalisa Jenkins: How MHRA’s Reset Could Revive U.K. Biotech
A new head at MHRA, a streamlined government life sciences strategy, and a more sophisticated innovation ecosystem have Annalisa Jenkins optimistic about the future of U.K. biotech — and its potential to carve out a stronger global role.On ...
Popular Episode - Vertex’s Winning Formula: Altshuler on Choosing the Next Breakthroughs
This is a previously recorded episode of The BioCentury Show from March 19, 2025. Subscribe to this channel to listen to each new episode. Visit TheBioCenturyYouTube.com to access and watch ...
