David Li
@davidycli
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just a guy trying to make drugs that help patients
San Francisco, CA
Joined July 2014
In biotech, China now ahead in ADCs, bispecific Ab’s, T cell engagers, and traditional small mlc’s . US still slightly ahead on cell and gene therapy, gene editing, and more exotic small molecules (glues, covalents, degraders, etc) . China clinical dev timelines 50-100% faster.
US is firmly, unambiguously losing to China in every area of robotics, every area of transportation other than airliners, every area of energy generation and storage, and every area of infrastructure and construction. In 2025 we will lose our lead on AI, semiconductors, and more.
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American biotech needs more of this founder energy in competing with China.
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How close are we to widespread adoption of industrialized AI agents in biotech & drug discovery? . Progress has accelerated in the last 6 mo: . - @ProjectBiomni, general purpose scientific AI agent automating literature reviews, hypothesis generation, protocol design,.
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more evidence?? .
So, I am in China… and I have full access to the Internet WITHOUT using VPN. 😳. Is this a new thing for foreigners?. And I am obviously able to use X as well.
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** biotech's broken business model and what to do about it ** . We are now in year 4 of a biotech bear market . The key driver of negative sentiment? Biotech public markets sentiment refuses to recover. Since Dec 2022 to today, Nasdaq is up from 10,400 -> 19,400, or 85%+ .XBI.
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Wow what is happening. We are about to enter the “upside down” universe.
China will drop the Great Firewall for some users, but only in southern Hainan
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A lot of things in life are just focusing on doing one thing really well . - marriage / serving and growing with one person .- career / one highly differentiated skill .- making investments / honing one approach to finding alpha .- raising money / becoming world class at sales .-.
A lot of things in life are just a numbers game. - Dating.- Job applications.- Asymmetric risk investments.- Getting investment for a start-up.- Getting grant money in academia.- Making viral social media content.- Finding an amazing restaurant.- Trying to get good at anything.
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No product, no pipeline, $10.5bn mc . Been doing this all wrong 🧐
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equiv in biotech is when their pipeline gets closer to market / late clinical.
you can tell a founder's moving upmarket when their twts start to get less spicy :(.
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First oncology >> . then immunology / cardio / metabolic >> . lastly neuro . Where to hide?.
Inevitably turning to a situation where most big advances in oncology will happen in China and then licensed out to pharma. Hard to believe, but this is part of the sea change. Trump NIH cuts are completing the longterm picture.
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Not sure folks in biotech world are paying attention but the recent House budget bill basically cements "higher for longer" rates into "higher forever" regime. The only politically defensible path fwd is mass money printing >. investment hurdle rates adjust accordingly >.
another case in pt how this downturn in biotech is different >> . biotech as an industry has pretty much only existed in a falling rates regime. we're finding out how venture math for long-dated biotech cash flows works if cost of capital is increasing rather than decreasing over
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another case in pt how this downturn in biotech is different >> . biotech as an industry has pretty much only existed in a falling rates regime. we're finding out how venture math for long-dated biotech cash flows works if cost of capital is increasing rather than decreasing over
This down cycle has fundamentally changed biotech . Out: .- open ended platform builds .- funding for novel biology exploration .- assumption of M&A exit to large pharma . In:.- newco / venture creation model leveraging China preclin / early dev execution .- doubling down on.
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This down cycle has fundamentally changed biotech . Out: .- open ended platform builds .- funding for novel biology exploration .- assumption of M&A exit to large pharma . In:.- newco / venture creation model leveraging China preclin / early dev execution .- doubling down on.
"I am usually an optimist and a believer in cycles. But this cycle feels different. And the level of uncertainty is off the charts – that’s poison for investors.".
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good observation here on differences between making complex biologics vs small mlc drugs, particularly wrt AI . hurdles in small mlc drug discovery, chronologically, and if AI models can help: . - find a hit against a target --> some computational models to predict hits,.
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Not sure if right choice but love the balls here.
NKGen Biotech CEO Paul Song, M.D., is putting his money where his mouth is, investing $2.65 million of his own cash to help accelerate the cash-strapped biotech’s phase 2 Alzheimer’s disease cell therapy trial.
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Top issues you face as a therapeutics startup, in chronology: . - No great cofounder .- No real differentiation of underlying technology platform.- Commercially uninteresting clinical TPP for first asset .- No convincing preclinical data for first asset .- Running out of money .-.
Top issues you face as a startup, in chronology:. - No great cofounder.- No real PMF yet.- Running out of money.- Too feature poor.- Can't close strong 1.0 mgmt team.- Competition bigger / faster / strong.- Can't close strong 2.0 mgmt team.- No strong second product / vertical.
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Upfront capital intensity of biz model directly increases % of VC ownership on cap stack. You see that in biotech where VC often owns >50% pre series A (although macro trends like AI / computational drug discovery and China outsourcing are bringing that down). And you see it with.
You can see the end state of this in biotech. Investors own the entire cap table and employees barely make money in big outcomes. You end up with mercenaries instead of missionaries driving increasing cash compensation that destroys a startup's ability for capital efficiency.
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Does Bob Duggan look 81 here?? . Still has that dawg in em.
Bob Duggan got down to his last $600k and invested $200k of that in a church??? I know what I’m doing if shtf w my portfolio. And apparently he checks his net worth everyday 🥰
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