Download the “Outcomes Rocket Podcast_Peter Maag audio file directly.
Outcomes Rocket Podcast_Peter Maag: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Saul Marquez:
Hey, everybody! It’s Saul Marquez with the Outcomes Rocket, and I want to welcome you back to another episode that we’re hosting today. You know, I’m really excited, we have a special guest. His name is Dr. Peter Maag. He is the CEO of Kyverna Therapeutics. Dr. Maag is a seasoned global executive with a track record of transforming organizations, more than 20 years of executive management experience in the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industry, and the work he’s doing with Kyverna Therapeutics is really eye-catching and something that everybody needs to know about. Prior to joining Kyverna, Dr. Maag was executive chairman and president CEO of CareDx, where he built the company from a small startup into a public company and leading industry powerhouse in transplantation. Peter also held the position of president at Novartis Diagnostics, where he drove growth and innovation in its blood screening businesses. So his experience really ranges from large strategics to fast-scaling start-ups. Peter, so glad to have you here with us.
Peter Maag:
Saul, thank you so much for being with you, and big hello to all your listeners out there.
Saul Marquez:
I love it. Hey, Peter. So look, man, like your background is impressive, and the work that you’ve done both in your research and also now in the business world. Talk to us about what is it that inspires you and your work in healthcare.
Peter Maag:
I think it’s all about meaning and purpose. I think it’s tremendously important that we engage something that gets us out of bed in the morning that you are feeling passionate about. And I’m extremely passionate about helping patients, supporting their well-being, and caring for them. And was it in transplantation, which is really a transformative experience for many of these patients, or now with cell therapy, with Kyverna? I think, you know, contributing to the well-being of others is tremendously important, and it brings meaning, and I think it’s important to have meaning in your life.
Saul Marquez:
I love that. And this autoimmune space deserves attention, right? And if you go to your website, folks, if you go to the Kyverna website, it’s KyvernaTx.com, it’s in the show notes, right on the front page, 80 known autoimmune diseases with suboptimal treatments. Peter, talk to us about the work that you guys are doing and what makes you guys different.
Peter Maag:
Well, what makes us different is we focus on cell therapy, which is potentially transformative for many of these autoimmune disease patients. We have learned a lot by applying cell therapy to cancers, and now is the time for moving cell therapy to a much larger patient population. There are so many patients out there with rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma. There are many patients out there with lupus and maybe even multiple sclerosis, which is an autoimmune disease. And being focused on this very large patient population, using a technology that somewhat is in its infancy and in its beginning, and making that available to this large patient population is tremendously rewarding and very exciting, as we learn through our clinical trials what this technology can bring to the patients with autoimmune disease.
Saul Marquez:
Thank you. And it’s about access, right? And it’s about really helping people and providers understand the power of these therapies. Talk to us about how the business is adding value to the healthcare ecosystem.
Peter Maag:
Think about, you know, it used to be treating patients with steroids that have long-term toxicities. A lot of these patients end up having, losing their kidneys, having all these problems with the long-term toxicities. And now we have these biologics; monoclonal antibodies came into the healthcare system about 30 years ago, and if you turn on the TV today, you hear all these advertisements about monoclonal antibodies. At Kyverna, we think that the next 30 years will really belong to cell therapy. And the promise of cell therapy is that with maybe 1 or 2 applications, in our case, it’s probably going to be one application, we can reset the immune system. And wouldn’t that be cool? To basically resetting the immune system by depleting B cells and having your immune system be reset to a much earlier phase in your life where there wasn’t this constant battle of your immune system against yourself? So resetting the immune system, that’s what we’re about at Kyverna.
Saul Marquez:
And look for a lot of us, and I would include myself in the us, that don’t understand cell therapy really well. Would you mind just giving us a quick one-on-one on what it is, and how it works, and why it’s so important today?
Peter Maag:
Well, what we’re doing with cell therapy is basically using the power of your own immune system. By harvesting your own cells, we then genetically modify these cells that they can target B cells, and we apply your own cells back into your body. So it’s kind of a transplant of your own cells that are slightly modified. And those cells target the bad B cells that are producing these autoantibodies, and by killing these CD19-carrying B cells, we allow the reset, the immune system to reset. And it looks like it’s working in these early patients. And, you know, we’re very early in the process, but in the first few patients that have been treated with this technology. You know, somebody called me the other day, it’s a biblical result on these patients, but literally, patients, 600 days out there, and the disease has seemed to have disappeared. It’s amazing.
Saul Marquez:
So, how do you get the cell? Like, is it you get it from the blood? You get it from the, from saliva. Tell us more about that.
Peter Maag:
No, it’s an apheresis procedure today. But wouldn’t it be great if we can eventually do it by a simple blood draw? But today, it is an apheresis procedure to make sure that you’re harvesting your cells.
Saul Marquez:
Got it. You’re getting it from the bone, or, I’m not sure what that means.
Peter Maag:
No, it does mean that we’re using blood. Yeah, and think of it as a major blood donation, right? We were taking basically some elements of your blood. We produce you with the components that we don’t need, but that trigger out the cells that we need.
Saul Marquez:
Thank you for that. I’ll tell you, one of the things that I have found, Peter, is like just kind of bringing this stuff to the most basic knowledge to help all of us learn and really kind of as a community talk about it, you know, and bring it to the next level. So I really appreciate you sort of somebody that’s so high level bringing it down to us to really help understand the building blocks of it. Obviously, we have people in the community that understand this well, but we don’t want to leave anybody behind when it comes to innovative therapies such as this. So, look, one of the things that we learn most from, as entrepreneurs and healthcare professionals, is failures. Do you mind talking about a setback that you guys have learned a lot from in the early history of Kyverna?
Peter Maag:
Well, we are so excited about this technology and the power of technology that sometimes you forget that you, maybe you have to crawl before you walk, before you run. You know, the company had this idea of using the technology in multiple indications at the same time. And we went to the FDA being enthusiastic and saying, Wouldn’t it be great if we can use it in lupus, nephritis, in scleroderma, in myositis, in all these indications? And the FDA said, “no, no, no, no, why don’t you first treat a few patients, and we learn on these patients before we go into what we call a bigger study, a bigger basket trial.” And that has been a significant setback. Just imagine, you know, all the team all geared up, ready to go and fire away, and then you have a regulator that says, “stop, you know, not so fast.” And being stopped in the tracks as a small company, you just need to pivot, and you need to quickly move into what works. And Kyverna has been extremely quick in pivoting, but it takes a lot of energy to rebuild that momentum and rebuild the passion and make it work. So I think that’s a setback. But, you know, as a small company that’s nimble and agile, you’ll need to digest that and move forward.
Saul Marquez:
That’s great. And look, thanks to your leadership, Peter, I think the company has gained some footing. In fact, I mean, we heard about you guys with the most recent clinical trial for lupus, so I think you’re getting that traction. Talk to us about that in particular.
Peter Maag:
No, absolutely. We have launched our first patient. We are working with the University of Colorado and Northwell in New York and the leaders in the field that are very excited about bringing this technology to patients. And now, being in patients and having used the technology and seeing it firsthand, what it can do is really amazing in a regulatory trial. But we also have some experiences with single patients where we are providing CAR T cell therapy to autoimmune disease patients, and gaining that experience and gaining that insight is tremendously helpful. So thanks to all these patients that are also allowing us to do this studying of and learning about what the therapy can do. It would not be done without the patients and the braveness of individuals saying, Hey, I want to lose the shackles of autoimmune disease and move things forward and maybe others as well in the process.
Saul Marquez:
That’s really great. Yeah, it’s a great call out to include patients in the mix here because you can’t do it without them. We’re all patients and our families, our patients, and so we’re all part of this solution. And that’s why today we wanted to bring this cell therapy topic to really the top of your podcast inbox so you could better understand it. And it’s just the beginning, the future of this therapy is enormous. If you had to call out the thing that you’re most excited about, Peter, what would you say that is?
Peter Maag:
No, I think it’s this concept of village. I call this the Kyverna village. You know, CAR T cell therapy can only be successful if we are bringing in the village and everybody comes together. It’s going to be patients; it’s going to be clinicians; it’s going to be companies; it’s going to be everybody that’s caring for these patients along the continuum, including the caregivers. And so let’s not forget that every lupus patient has a family, has a friend and a partner, and an ecosystem of individuals that care for these patients. And so we call it the Kyverna village. I’ll also shout out to, you know, we’re growing rapidly, we, if you want to work in innovation, if you want to work in healthcare, if you want to work in autoimmune disease, Kibana is a top spot to be. But I think it takes a village to be successful in CAR T cell therapy. And for those that love complexity, that love newness, and innovation, look up KyvernaTx.com. I’d love to have you on our website or engage with me directly on LinkedIn or whatever. It’s an exciting time to be working at the forefront of a big new frontier: cell therapy in autoimmune disease.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, and hey, Peter, to dig into that a little bit more, like what types of roles are you looking for? What type of talent are you looking for? Just to be more specific with the people that may be interested.
Peter Maag:
So thank you very much for that question. I think there are really two major things right now. One is the clinical trials that we’re doing. We have multiple clinical trials ongoing in the US, in Europe, a lot of initiatives that we are kicking off. So, if you have clinical trial experience, either in cell therapy and autoimmune disease, Kyverna is a hotspot. And the other one would be manufacturing CAR T cell therapy. Traditional pharma is unilateral, it’s a one-flow. You know, you have a product, and then you distribute that to the patient. In cell therapy, it’s bi-directional. You get the cell from the patient, and then you are returning these cells slightly altered back to the patient. And having individuals that understand the complexities of supply chains of manufacturing, it’s really cool place to be at Kyverna when you’re in pharma manufacturing and want to engage in that. And then obviously, you know, there’s a lot of backbones to be built. We have big growth aspirations, so if you’re in a finance capacity, and other capacity, we are trying to attract top talent in the industry with an aspirational goal of building a powerhouse in autoimmune disease.
Saul Marquez:
I love it, Wow. So folks, there you have it. You’re looking for career opportunities, Peter’s got them for you. Check out KyvernaTx. It’s in the show notes, so no need to try to spell it out. It’s K Y V E R N A T X, by the way, but just go to the show notes, click on it. You’ll see everything there. Peter, thank you. Thank you for the work that you and your team are doing to bring cell therapy to reality for us, for autoimmune diseases, and thanks for being with us here on the Outcomes Rocket today.
Peter Maag:
Thank you so much, Saul, and big shout out to Outcomes Rocket, thank you for the work that you’re doing spreading the news about what we’re doing at Kyverna. Thank you so much, Saul!
Saul Marquez:
My pleasure. Take care.
Sonix has many features that you’d love including advanced search, automatic transcription software, collaboration tools, powerful integrations and APIs, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.
