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If you can rank the recent global hot search topics, in addition to the World Cup, Musk and Twitter's stories should rank higher
.
Since joining Twitter at the end of October, Mr.
Ma has begun a drastic layoff, successfully passing the cold to every melon-eating mass, according to the latest news: Twitter has laid off about 4,400 employees, accounting for 80%
of the total number of employees.
What makes everyone feel the most chilling about the whole incident is not the number of layoffs, but that after laying off so many employees, Twitter can still operate
normally.
It is reminiscent of the wave of layoffs in pharmaceutical companies that has lasted for more than a year, and in order to extend the use of cash flow, regardless of size, layoffs have been taken into account by pharmaceutical companies
.
It is true that Twitter's ability to significantly lose weight without affecting its business is related to many factors such as the nature of the industry, operating model, competitive pattern, market size, and work intensity, and cannot be the same as the pharmaceutical industry, but blind expansion is indeed considered to be an important reason
for the cold wave.
After all, some companies have been hiring people to build factories for several years, and they have not done anything; Some companies have only been established for two years and have only 6 full-time employees, and they are already building pipelines around cutting-edge technology and preparing for
IPOs.
The so-called "small but beautiful"
The so-called "small but beautiful"November 18, 2022, Coya, an American biotechnology company focused on regulatory T cell (Treg) therapy
Therapeutics files an S-1 (Public Offering Statement) with the U.
S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the company is usually listed
1-2 months after the document is sent.
If it goes public, Coya will presumably set a record for "the fewest employees at the time of IPO" in a certain range, because the entire company has only 6 full-time employees
.
In our conventional perception, it is not enough to be a listed company, and it is barely enough to open a hotel
.
What is even more impressive is that this is not a hybrid company, but a leading company that has become an industry-leading company in the Treg segment, and the company's core product Coya
101 (former name: ALS001) is one of
the only two Treg cell therapies in the world to enter clinical phase II.
Coya was founded in April 2020, and there was no news in the first year, it should be in the company's startup stage
.
In 2021, a round of funding received $10 million and spent $4.
9 million, mainly on disease modeling and preclinical research
.
In 2022, the company raised another $10 million to send its core product Coya101 to Phase 2b clinical trials, while also advancing three other products into clinical phase I, and the cost became larger after entering the clinical stage, spending $9.
1 million in the first three quarters, an average of $3 million
per month.
It is worth mentioning that this company not only has few people, but also low salaries, basically based on equity incentives, and the CEO's annual salary in 2021 is only $360,000, and his salary will increase to $450,000
in 2022.
Source: Company official website
$20 million spent 2 years and still wealthy, and 4 products entered the clinical stage, and the money was spent on reality
.
The ultimate "small and beautiful" is nothing more
than that.
Looking at their staffing and the disease areas they focus on, it is indeed not easy
for ordinary people to imitate.
How to be "small and beautiful"?
How to be "small and beautiful"?Since disease treatment entered the era of immunotherapy, T cells have become the focus of new drug developers, if the definition of "target" is expanded, T cells will undoubtedly be the hottest target in the past 20 years
.
The T cell family is huge, and the application potential of immunotherapy is far beyond tumors and common autoimmune diseases, even in another 10 years, it will not be outdated, and finding more possibilities becomes a way to
get rid of involution.
In 2018, Science published an article introducing the application of Treg and defining it as "the next frontier of cell therapy"
.
Simply put, the T cells we are most familiar with belong to killer T cells, whose function is to kill antigens and belong to combat troops
.
Treg, that is, regulatory T cells, is more like a "discipline commission", they account for a small proportion of peripheral blood lymphocytes, only 1% ~ 2%, but can withstand a lot, can inhibit the immune response, kill T cells
.
A significant portion of current autoimmune drugs target the Treg pathway
.
Not many
directly use Treg for cell therapy.
This means a huge clinical gap, and once successfully developed, it can be used not only on its own, but also in combination with other immunosuppressive drugs
.
And Coya's founder, Stanley
Dr.
Appel is a god in the field of Treg, not only published in 2018 documenting the close relationship between neurodegeneration and ALS (ALS) progression and Treg dysfunction and declining levels, but also discovered Treg's cryopreservation method
.
It can be said that Coya's technology accumulation was completed
several years before the establishment of the company.
Appel Treg
Dr.
Stanley Appel
Dr.
Appel, who is in his late nineties, stepped down from management last year to serve only as Chairman of Coya's Scientific Advisory Board
.
On Coya's scientific advisory board, there's Shimon, the "Godfather of Treg.
"
Dr.
Sakaguchi, who discovered CD4+ in 1985
T cells with negative immune regulation, and Treg was first discovered in 1995, and its relationship
with autoimmune diseases was also confirmed.
To achieve "small and beautiful", or to establish a biotech company, in addition to the scientific foundation, technology accumulation is also very important, which is why the company can make the product lead in the track only 2 years after its establishment
.
Another "small but beautiful" point is to choose people with both professional and technical skills
for each position.
Dr.
Appel's successor, Howard
Dr.
Berman, a former senior medical science liaison at AbbVie, resigned in 2020 to start a business in the sea to form another neurological disease company, merged with Coya in 2021, and served as Coya's CEO and Chairman
of the Board.
Chief Medical Officer Adrian
Dr.
Hepner has more than 30 years of global experience in clinical research and drug development, and has previously led the development and launch of multiple products, has commercialization experience, has achievements in the academic field, and has 17 years as a neurologist in development, clinical and commercialization
。 Chief Financial Officer David
Snyder, who also serves as COO, is also a generalist; Dr.
Aaron Thome, head of the neuroinflammatory platform, is Stanley
Disciple of Dr.
Appel; John, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs
Centanni has served as Chief Regulatory Advisor
to several biotechs.
Finally, Coya's six-person establishment includes a vice president of operations and patient advocacy to put "patient-centered drug discovery" into practice
.
Berman, Chief Medical Officer, Adrian Dr.
Hepner, Global Experience, Chief Financial Officer, David Snyder is also COO, Head of the Neuroinflammatory Platform Dr.
Aaron Thome
Coya Therapeutics (Source: Company website)
Of course, even with the above conditions, it is not necessarily possible to compress the team to this extent, and the selected disease area is also very important
.
The indication of Coya101 ALS, full name "amyotrophic lateral sclerosis", that is, we are familiar with ALS, is a rare disease, with less than 200,000 patients in the United States, Coya101 obtained the FDA's orphan drug designation on July 7, 2021, and its phase 2a clinical trial only enrolled 8 patients
.
3 Conclusion
epilogueOn November 21, 2022, released by the well-known foreign media FierceBiotech, the list of "graveyards of biotechnology companies" that have been suspended for 10 years was updated again, and 7 biotechs with signs of bankruptcy were on the list, once again pouring cold water
on the industry.
People tend not to value things that are easily obtained, such as the money and trust
that investors send when the biotech track is on fire.
Looking at China's biotech, most of the companies facing a shortage of capital reserves were established after 2015 when the industry came into the limelight
.
In those years, investors were rushing to send money
.
Pharmaceutical companies established around 2010 or earlier will be more cautious about the use of funds, and the company's financial situation will be relatively healthy
.
After all, people who have been hungry know how to save
better.
From this point of view, in the cold winter, entrepreneurs who still dare to swim against the current, on the one hand, are more clear about their own technical advantages, on the other hand, under the baptism of today's market, spending money will be more calculating
.
Perhaps these companies are more suitable for long-term investment?
Just like Coya, 6 people dare to IPO
.
Resources:
Resources:
Six-person ALS biotech wants to go public — but it’s also pivoting from
earlier plans（https://endpts.
com/）
com/）
Senior AbbVie liaison quits job to launch neuro startup, with sights set on
ALS（https://endpts.
com/）
com/）
Company official website
Company official website#EXECUTIVE_DIRECTOR_COMPENSATION
#EXECUTIVE_DIRECTOR_COMPENSATIONOther publicly available information
Other publicly available information
