Why It's So Hard To Compete w Chinese Biotech Companies | Lada Nuzhna, General Control
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
In this fascinating interview, Lada Nuzhna, founder and CEO of General Control, shares her unconventional journey from war-torn Ukraine to pioneering epigenetic medicines for age-related diseases in Silicon Valley. (02:00) The conversation explores her transition from physics to longevity research, driven by FOMO for the future and a desire to solve aging through epigenetic reprogramming. (04:03) Nuzhna discusses her company's approach to writing the "operating system of the cell" using epigenetic editing, which allows permanent alterations to gene expression rather than temporary pharmaceutical interventions. (07:00) The discussion covers the competitive landscape with China, the broken incentives in biotech funding, and her philosophy of taking engineering risks over scientific risks to accelerate drug development.
• **Main Theme:** Revolutionizing medicine through epigenetic reprogramming to treat age-related diseases, while navigating the challenges of biotech innovation in a globally competitive landscape.Speakers
Lada Nuzhna
Lada Nuzhna is the founder and CEO of General Control, a company engineering epigenetic medicines for age-related diseases. She immigrated to the United States from war-torn Eastern Ukraine at age 14, living alone and learning English while attending college. (27:27) Before founding General Control, she established the Impetus Grants program, distributing over $15 million to fund early-stage aging research with streamlined two-week response times versus the typical 7-12 month government grant process. (10:10) Despite dropping out of college and having no formal biology degree, she taught herself the field and has become a prominent voice in longevity research and biotech innovation.
Key Takeaways
Focus on Engineering Risk Over Scientific Risk
Nuzhna emphasizes the critical distinction between engineering and scientific risk in biotech ventures. (39:11) Scientific risk involves unknown biological mechanisms - like whether targeting a specific protein will cure a disease - which can cost billions to resolve. Engineering risk focuses on whether you can get your molecule to have the right properties to be a drug, which is more predictable and manageable. She advocates for targeting well-validated biological pathways with proven human genetic evidence rather than pursuing novel biology, especially for early-stage companies with limited resources.
Speed of Execution Trumps Perfect Technology
The biotech industry has become complacent, with companies spending years optimizing technology rather than getting drugs to patients. (49:37) Nuzhna points to Chinese biotech companies that can go from idea to human data in under four years, compared to the slower US approach. She emphasizes that it's better to have a working drug in patients than a theoretically superior technology that never reaches clinical trials. The key is knowing your direction from the start rather than developing technology and then searching for applications.
Bypass Broken Funding Systems Through Alternative Paths
Traditional academic funding is severely flawed, with 60% of National Institute on Aging funds going to Alzheimer's research alone, forcing researchers to work on narrow disease areas rather than aging itself. (09:04) Nuzhna's solution was creating streamlined grant programs with two-page applications and two-week response times. For drug development, she advocates leveraging global opportunities - conducting initial human trials in China for speed and cost efficiency, then using that data for US regulatory approval.
Target Permanent Solutions Over Chronic Treatments
Most current medicines work by tweaking proteins transiently, requiring daily dosing for continuous effect. (07:20) Epigenetic approaches can write permanent programs into cells that persist through cell divisions, moving from chronic treatment models toward actual cures. Nuzhna gives the example of permanently suppressing cholesterol production genes as a one-time intervention instead of taking statins daily for life. This represents a fundamental shift from managing diseases to potentially curing them at the cellular programming level.
Mouse Models Are Fundamentally Flawed for Age-Related Disease Research
The biggest bottleneck in aging research is testing efficacy in mouse models that don't accurately represent human aging. (43:51) Mice don't naturally develop Alzheimer's, heart disease, or other major human age-related conditions. Researchers create artificial disease models by overexpressing toxic proteins, but this doesn't capture the complexity of human aging. Mice primarily die of cancer, while humans die of cardiovascular disease, making mouse longevity studies largely irrelevant to human outcomes.
Statistics & Facts
- Sixty percent of National Institute on Aging funding goes specifically to Alzheimer's research, despite it being just one disease among many age-related conditions. (09:04) This creates broken incentive structures where researchers must focus on Alzheimer's to get funding, even when working on broader aging mechanisms.
- The cost differential between US and Chinese drug development is dramatic - a 10-person human clinical trial in China costs less than $2 million, while a monkey study in the US can cost $1.5-2 million. (42:38) This makes initial human data collection more cost-effective in China than animal studies in America.
- ESO Biotech, a small European company, went from idea to human data in less than four years and sold to AstraZeneca for approximately one billion dollars after raising less than $50 million. (24:46) They achieved this timeline by conducting initial development in China before bringing data to Western markets.
