Podcast · Tech & Science

The Bio Report

by Levine Media Group · English · Tech & Science

The Bio Report podcast, hosted by award-winning journalist Daniel Levine, focuses on the intersection of biotechnology with business, science, and policy.

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 33 min
Latest: 14 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

14 Oct 2026 · 36 minNew

A Gut-Level Pivot from Diabetes to a GLP-1 Off-Ramp

GLP-1 medicines have transformed obesity treatment, but what happens when patients stop taking them? For Fractyl Health, the challenge of preventing weight regain has become the focus of its development strategy. The company is advancing Revita, an experimental outpatient procedure designed to regenerate the lining of the duodenum and potentially change how the body regulates weight and blood sugar. Harith Rajagopalan, co-founder and CEO of Fractyl Health, discusses the company’s shift from focusing on type 2 diabetes to maintaining weight loss after patients stop taking GLP-1 medicines, the…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

E195 · 7 Oct 2026 · 42 min
Targeting Residual Inflammation in Cardiovascular Disease
Cardiovascular disease remains the world's leading cause of death, yet many patients still face substantial risks even after conventional factors such as LDL cholesterol and blood pressure are controlled. Rezera is developing its experimental therapy ruvonoflast, an NLRP3 inhibitor, to address this residual inflammatory risk. The therapy is designed to suppress chronic, tissue-based inflammation while preserving the immune system's ability to respond to infection. Rezera CEO Geoff McDonough discusses the role of inflammation in heart disease, the company’s phase 3 trial of ruvonoflast in…
E194 · 30 Sep 2026 · 38 min
Neutralizing Tumor Acidity to Improve Cancer Immunotherapy
Many cancer treatments fail not because immune cells can’t recognize a tumor, but because the hostile environment surrounding it can prevent them from doing their job. Dyve Biosciences is seeking to address that problem by targeting tumor acidity, which the company says can suppress T-cell activity, promote immune evasion, and contribute to resistance to checkpoint inhibitors and other therapies. Its solution is a transdermal drug-delivery platform designed to move a buffering agent through the skin and into systemic circulation. The company’s lead oncology candidate, DYV 800, is intended to…
E193 · 23 Sep 2026 · 26 min
How a Breast-Milk-Derived Peptide Could Change Bladder Cancer Care
For people with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, treatment can involve repeated procedures, a high risk of tumor recurrence, toxic therapies and, in some cases, removal of the bladder. Hamlet Biopharma is developing Alpha1H, a synthetic peptide inspired by a protein complex found in human breast milk. Catharina Svanborg, chair of Hamlet Biopharma, discusses how Alpha1H is designed to selectively target bladder tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue, the science that led to the program, and the clinical-development path ahead.
E192 · 16 Sep 2026 · 29 min
Targeting Visceral Fat with RNA Therapeutics
GLP-1 therapies have dramatically reshaped obesity care, but the next generation of medicines may be judged by more than how much weight patients lose. A central question is whether treatments can selectively reduce the visceral fat associated with cardiometabolic disease while maintaining the muscle needed for physical function, metabolic health, and durable weight management. Erik Ingelsson, chief scientific officer of Wave Life Sciences, discusses the biology behind a new RNA-based approach designed to remove a natural brake on fat breakdown, how the company is thinking about clinical…
E191 · 9 Sep 2026 · 32 min
Engineering T-Cell Engagers for Solid Cancers
T-cell engagers have delivered important advances in blood cancers, but extending their success to solid tumors has proved considerably more difficult. Physical barriers, immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments, and the risk of attacking healthy tissue have constrained the field. Deck Bio is developing multi-target T-cell engagers to address these limitations. Jack Silberstein, the company’s CEO, discusses Deck Bio’s efforts to create therapies that reach more cancer cells, reduce the likelihood that tumors will evade treatment, and minimize harm to healthy tissue.
E190 · 2 Sep 2026 · 33 min
Resetting Severe Allergies at Their Cellular Source
For people with severe allergies and mast cell diseases, the risk of a dangerous reaction can shape everyday decisions about food, activities, and family routines. Current treatments generally manage symptoms or lower the likelihood of a reaction, rather than directly targeting the immune cells thought to drive the disease. Allergene AI Therapeutics is developing an in vivo mRNA CAR-T therapy intended to address that underlying biology. The approach aims to temporarily program a patient’s own T cells to target mast cells, with the goal of eliminating sensitized cells and enabling the immune…
E189 · 26 Aug 2026 · 30 min
Innovating ADCs with Dual Targeting and Smarter Delivery
Antibody-drug conjugates have established themselves as an important cancer-treatment modality, but their effectiveness and tolerability in solid tumors can be constrained by inadequate tumor delivery, incomplete internalization, and off-target toxicity. NEOK Bio is seeking to overcome those challenges with its bispecific ADC platform that uses dual-antigen targeting, engineered antibodies, and next-generation linker technology. Mayank Gandhi, co-founder and CEO of NEOK Bio, discusses the company’s bispecific ADC platform, its two clinical programs, and its strategy to develop more selective…
E188 · 19 Aug 2026 · 34 min
Targeting the Brain’s Immune System in Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease remains one of medicine’s most intractable challenges. While existing therapies may address individual features of the disease, such as amyloid or tau, they have yet to reverse the progressive cognitive decline, inflammation, and neurodegeneration that characterize it. Evinco Therapeutics is developing nanoscale, natural killer cell-derived particles that carry proteins and microRNAs to target the neuroinflammation underlying Alzheimer’s. Alan Trounson, founder and CEO of Evinco Therapeutics, discusses the company’s multifaceted therapeutic approach, how these particles…
E187 · 12 Aug 2026 · 39 min
How Gilead Is Building Durable Oncology and Immunology Franchises
Gilead today stands at an inflection point. Its HIV and broader virology business still account for roughly two-thirds of total revenue, even as oncology has grown into a mid–single-digit billion-dollar franchise and inflammation and immunology remain earlier-stage bets. The company is tackling the strategic challenge of diversifying beyond HIV while preserving its leadership in virology. Chief Medical Officer Dietmar Berger discusses how the company is raising the bar for mechanistic understanding before making major investments, using targeted acquisitions to build platform-based…
E186 · 5 Aug 2026 · 29 min
Protecting the Brain After Stroke
Ischemic stroke remains one of the most devastating and resource‑intensive emergencies in medicine, with the physical removal of a clot, the current gold-standard care, still leaving more than half of patients with poor outcomes at 90 days. Revalesio is developing a next‑generation, oxygenated saline infusion designed to protect the brain during and after clot removal by stimulating mitochondrial function, reducing reperfusion injury, and limiting the spread of damage to surrounding tissue. Revalesio president Greg Archambeau discusses how the company’s experimental therapy may reshape the…
E185 · 29 Jul 2026 · 38 min
Turning the Thymus into an Engine of Immune Tolerance in T1D and Beyond
Type 1 diabetes is still a disease we manage day‑to‑day rather than prevent, and today’s approaches do little to stop the immune system from attacking beta cells in the first place. Zag Bio is trying to change that by turning the thymus, the body’s training ground for T cells, into a therapeutic engine for immune tolerance, using thymus‑homing antibodies to program long‑lived, antigen‑specific Tregs against type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases. Zag Bio CEO Jason Cole discusses type 1 diabetes, how the company’s thymic training platform fits into the emerging tolerance landscape…
E184 · 22 Jul 2026 · 25 min
Unlocking Major Targets with Mini Proteins
Most small molecule drugs and biologics miss a large group of important receptors in the body. These receptors, known as GPCRs, play big roles in major diseases, but they are unusually hard to target in a precise and safe way. Skape Bio is trying to change that by using artificial intelligence to design an emerging class of therapies known as mini proteins that can fit these receptors snugly and control them in ways traditional drugs often can’t. Christoffer Norn, co‑founder and CEO of Skape Bio, discusses how mini proteins share strengths of both small molecules and biologics while avoiding…
E183 · 15 Jul 2026 · 41 min
Addressing a Data Problem to Enable AI-Drug Discovery
AI’s promise in drug discovery is being held back by a simple but stubborn problem: the field doesn’t have enough of the right kind of lab-generated data to train good models. Public databases and scattered studies give a patchy view of how proteins interact, mostly showing successful interactions and using different methods and conditions, which makes it hard for AI systems to learn broad rules or understand what doesn’t work. A-Alpha Bio tackles this data gap with AlphaSeq, a lab platform that can test around a million protein pairs in one experiment under the same conditions, producing…
E182 · 8 Jul 2026 · 30 min
Turning Multi Specific Antibody Design into an Engineering Discipline with AI
Multi-specific antibodies promise to unlock complex biology that conventional monoclonals can’t touch, but their added mechanisms of action also introduce safety and developability risks. These antibodies—especially T‑cell engagers—behave differently from traditional monospecific antibodies, and seemingly minor architectural tweaks can cause disproportionate shifts in potency, selectivity, and cytokine release. LabGenius is trying to turn multi-specific design from an intuition-driven art into a genuine engineering discipline by generating proprietary data at scale and feeding them back into…
E181 · 1 Jul 2026 · 30 min
Addressing the Treatment Gap in Ischemic Stroke
Acute ischemic stroke is both ubiquitous and undertreated. Only a small fraction of patients currently receive clot-busting drugs or mechanical thrombectomy because of the small treatment window. That’s because existing therapies require rapid presentation to specialized centers and carry nonreversible bleeding risks that make clinicians hesitant to use them. Basking Biosciences is developing a first-in-class, reversible thrombolytic that targets von Willebrand factor to expand access to safe, effective treatment. Basking Biosciences CEO Julia Owens and co-founder and chief scientific…
E180 · 24 Jun 2026 · 24 min
A Pipeline in a Product that Reimagines Control of Inflammation
Plasma gelsolin is an abundant, endogenous regulator of inflammation that is consumed during severe inflammatory insults. When levels fall too low, patients are at higher risk of organ damage and death, particularly in settings like acute respiratory distress syndrome where a dysregulated inflammatory response floods the lungs with fluid and leaves patients dependent on ventilatory support with no approved therapies today. BioAegis Therapeutics is working to turn recombinant human plasma gelsolin into a pipeline-in-a-product. Susan Levinson, CEO of BioAegis, discusses recombinant human…
E179 · 17 Jun 2026 · 53 min
Building a Genetics Engine to Crack the Target Bottleneck
A chronic shortage of high‑quality targets remains one of the biggest constraints in drug discovery, even as therapeutic tools become more powerful and diverse. Regeneron is tackling that problem with its Regeneron Genetics Center, which has built a genetics‑driven discovery engine that integrates human genetics with rich clinical data, large‑scale proteomics, and AI‑driven analytics. Aris Baras, head of the Regeneron Genetics Center, discusses how proteomics is reshaping RGC’s view of risk prediction, how AI helps his team sift through hundreds of millions of variants, and what it really…
E178 · 10 Jun 2026 · 28 min
Stopping Shape-Shifting Tumors with a First-in-Class Epigenetic Drug
Epigenetics, the layer of chemical switches that controls how genes are turned on and off, can act like cancer’s operating system when a single epigenetic enzyme becomes essential for a tumor to survive. K36 Therapeutics is developing first‑in‑class medicines that block an epigenetic enzyme that helps certain multiple myeloma cells grow, change identity to escape treatment, and become resistant to today’s drugs. Terry Connolly, CEO of K36, discusses a new way to fight cancer by changing how cancer cells read their DNA instead of chasing one mutation at a time, how K36’s experimental…
E177 · 3 Jun 2026 · 38 min
Rewriting the Rules of Antibody Drug Design
Most marketed antibodies work as antagonists, simply shutting off a receptor, even though many immune, metabolic, and cancer pathways require more nuanced control. Metaphore Biotechnologies' function‑first platform combines live-cell experiments with machine learning to read how receptors and binding partners behave in living systems, distill those complex dynamics into the key functional features, and then design functional antibodies that agonize, bias, or multi-target pathways from the outset. Metaphore CEO Angela Hwang discusses how the company is using this approach to open up difficult…
E176 · 27 May 2026 · 30 min
Mapping Cellular Stress Biology to Tackle Undruggable Targets
Cells continuously sense their environment and in response to stressors, adapt, recover, or die. Soley Therapeutics uses its AI platform to capture thousands of intracellular features and map how cells sense, interpret, and respond to stress. The approach gives Soley the ability to pursue previously undruggable targets. It has generated more than 10 novel oncology programs in less than two years and advanced two first‑in‑class experimental small molecule therapies toward the clinic. Yerem Yeghiazarians, co-founder and CEO of Soley, discusses the science behind the company’s first-in-class…
E175 · 20 May 2026 · 31 min
Turning Abandoned Drugs into Breakthroughs
Promising drugs can become abandoned or underused because of tolerability issues, poor drug‑like properties, or other fixable limitations, even when there is already compelling human evidence that they work. PureTech Health starts with an unmet need and human pharmacology, then systematically dissects and solves the specific liabilities of discontinued drugs to unlock breakthroughs in an approach that has proved to be a highly efficient means of value creation. Eric Elenko, president and co‑founder of PureTech, discusses the company’s disciplined approach to drug innovation around rescuing…
E174 · 13 May 2026 · 46 min
Targeting Cancer Survival Genes in Solid Tumors
Most cancer therapies hit one or a few pathways that tumors can escape by mutating, activating alternative survival routes, or pumping drugs out, leading to relapse and poor survival in indications such as liver, ovarian, and prostate cancer. Nuago is developing single-construct short RNAs that simultaneously silence many survival genes in cancer cells to achieve durable tumor cell killing with minimal toxicity to normal tissue. Nuago CEO Robert Schickel discusses the biology behind toxic RNA seeds and tumor-suppressive microRNAs; the company’s lead programs in liver, ovarian, and prostate…
E173 · 6 May 2026 · 37 min
Addressing Treatment Gaps in Gout
Gout may be one of the oldest known forms of arthritis, but it remains widely misunderstood, undertreated, and a source of silent suffering for millions of people who are often blamed for their disease rather than offered effective care. Current therapies to lower urate levels suffer from limitations and safety challenges. Crystalys Therapeutics is in late-stage development of a next‑generation urate inhibitor that is already approved in Japan and China. Crystalys CEO James Mackay discusses the biology of gout, why standard therapies often fail to get uric acid to target levels, and how the…
E172 · 29 Apr 2026 · 28 min
An Off-the-Shelf Cell Therapy to Calm Cytokine Storms
Small molecule drugs and monoclonal antibodies often fall short at addressing severe inflammatory and immune‑mediated diseases. Mesoblast has spent more than 15 years industrializing mesenchymal stromal cell therapies to treat these conditions. In late 2024, it won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for Ryoncil, the first mesenchymal stromal cell therapy approved in the United States. Ryoncil is approved to treat steroid‑refractory acute graft‑versus‑host disease in pediatric patients 2 months of age and older. Mesoblast founder and CEO Silviu Itescu discusses how this class of…
E171 · 22 Apr 2026 · 29 min
Slowing Disability in MS
Most existing therapies for multiple sclerosis do a good job of reducing relapses and inflammatory activity, but they largely fail to stop the slow neurodegeneration that drives long-term disability, especially in progressive forms of the disease. Immunic Therapeutics is trying to reshape the treatment landscape for multiple sclerosis with its experimental once-daily oral therapy, designed not only to curb inflammation and relapses but also to tackle the neurodegeneration that silently drives disability progression in both relapsing and progressive forms of MS. Daniel Vitt, CEO of Immunic,…
E170 · 15 Apr 2026 · 36 min
Tuning, Rather than Blocking, Immunity in IBD
The treatment of inflammatory bowel disease currently relies on immunosuppressive therapies that often lose effectiveness, carry infection risks, and drive high treatment cycling. Abivax is betting that fine-tuning, rather than suppressing, the immune system can reshape the treatment paradigm in IBD. Marc de Garidel, CEO of Abivax, discusses how a once-failed HIV candidate evolved into a late‑stage oral IBD therapy that may deliver durable remission, how it acts upstream of key inflammatory pathways, and its potential in a crowded but still underserved IBD market.
E169 · 8 Apr 2026 · 39 min
Intercepting Cancer When DNA Surveillance Fails
Many people with the genetic condition Lynch syndrome live with the near‑certainty that they will one day develop cancer and have few options beyond constant screening and, in some cases, preventive surgery. Nouscom is trying to change that by training the immune system to spot and destroy cancer cells before tumors ever form. We spoke to Marina Udier, CEO of Nouscom, about the company’s experimental cancer vaccines, how they work, and the broader potential for the company’s off‑the‑shelf cancer therapies.
E168 · 1 Apr 2026 · 22 min
Targeting Psychosis in Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease drug development has long focused on slowing memory loss, but for many families, the tipping point that makes home care impossible is not cognition—it is psychosis. Hallucinations and delusions in Alzheimer’s are a distinct, prevalent, and under-recognized target for therapy. We spoke to Elizabeth Thompson, executive vice president and head of R&D at Acadia Pharmaceuticals, about the biology behind psychosis in dementia, the company’s experimental therapy to treat the condition in people with Alzheimer’s disease, and the forces reshaping the drug development landscape to…
E167 · 25 Mar 2026 · 43 min
A Class Action Suits Moves RICO from Mobsters to Medicine
RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, was originally designed to prosecute organized crime. Today, it sits at the center of a landmark class action against two of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies over the diabetes drug Actos. Attorney Harrison James of Wisner Baum discusses Painters and Allied Trades District Council 82 Health Care Fund v. Takeda, a national civil RICO case alleging that Takeda and Eli Lilly carried out a coordinated, years-long scheme to downplay known bladder cancer risks. The complaint asserts that regulators, physicians, and…

About The Bio Report

The Bio Report podcast, hosted by award-winning journalist Daniel Levine, focuses on the intersection of biotechnology with business, science, and policy.

The Bio Report is a English tech & science podcast from Levine Media Group. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Levine Media Group
Language: English
Category: Tech & Science
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 33 min
Latest episode: 14 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id911156078

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