Sri Kosuri, co-founder and CEO of Emeryville, Calif.-based Octant Bio, on small molecules designed to correct protein misfolding and mistrafficking at the root of many diseases.

Ep203: Sri Kosuri on Small Molecule Correctors of Disease

The Long Run with Luke Timmerman

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The Long Run with Luke Timmerman

## Participants

- **Luke Timmerman** (Timmerman Report)
- **Sri Kosuri** (OctantBio)

## Transcript

Welcome to The Long Run. This is a podcast for biotech adventurers. I'm your host, Luke Timmerman. Today's guest is Sri Kosuri. Sri is the co-founder and CEO of Emeryville, California-based OctantBio. The company is developing oral small molecule drugs that are designed to correct protein misfolding and mistrafficking.

Quite a few rare diseases, cancers and metabolic disorders are thought to be amenable to this strategy. Octant's work begins with a platform that's designed to capture relevant information about cell processes that go awry. But like any platform company, it needs to demonstrate its value in the form of new drug candidates that come from the platform.

Octant's lead drug candidate is for, wait for it, rhodopsin-associated autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa. Now that's a mouthful, but it's a disease caused by a gene mutation which causes misfolded proteins to accumulate in the retina. That leads to progressive vision loss over time.

The Octant drug candidate, which entered its first clinical trial in March, is intended to help improve low-light vision and ultimately halt disease progression. Sri has a wide range of experiences in academia and in industry leading up to this moment. He and his colleagues are seeking to build on recent advances in technology to discover oral small molecule drugs that not only make a big difference for patients,

but which ought to be widely accessible to the vast majority of people who need them. Now a word from the sponsor of the show, AlphaSense. AI has advanced from pilot programs into real biopharma workflows, but has it lived up to the hype? Drawing from an expert call with Dr. Paul Agapo, former director of data science at GSK, this report dissects whether AI is on track to make drug development faster, cheaper, and more successful.

Learn how AI is reshaping drug development in real time, turning AI execution into a key competitive differentiator. Click on the link in the show notes on TimmermanReport.com to download the full report. And, Bioanalysis should not rely on which scientists at the CRO you get. These are assays, not consulting. Your results should be the same, regardless of who does the work. We love working with our CRO when we get the right PI.

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Ep203: Sri Kosuri on Small Molecule Correctors of Disease

Transcript

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Ep203: Sri Kosuri on Small Molecule Correctors of Disease

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.