How to turn a BIO-Europe meeting into a lasting partnership

0:05Hello, and welcome to Beyond Biotech, the weekly podcast from La Biotech. I'm Dylan Kassane and this is episode 222 for the podcast. Partnering season is here. As the biopharma community in Europe heads to Cologne and Bio-Europe and the busy end-of-year conference calendar kicks off, the question isn't just who you meet but how you make those meetings count. In this episode we're talking about the small details that make a big difference at a global conference. Joining me is Shashi Kuduru, Senior Director of Business Development at Vector Biomed. Shashi is an industry veteran and shares how he plans his on-site schedule, finds the right partners and makes short meetings productive.

0:51We also talk about follow-up, sharing materials after the event, and churning a first conversation into a lasting partnership. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Shashi Kuduru. Shashi, welcome to Beyond Biotech. It's a pleasure to be on. Hey, Shashi, tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you actually do there at Vector Biomed? Yeah, so I started at Vector Biomed about three and a half years ago. So I'm the Senior Director of Business Development. So I wear several hats, including leading the sales and marketing efforts, as well as establishing critical relationships with our customers, as well as vendors and suppliers.

1:35So a bit of everything, including some investor relations activities as well. Tell me a little bit about how you actually got to Vector BuyerMed. What sort of career did you have before you joined up? Sure. I could start from the beginning. My undergraduate degree was in chemistry with a specialization in biochem. I have a master's in physiology. And then I wanted to expand my molecular biology skills. So I obtained a fellowship at NIH where I was studying tRNA processing and yeast. So I learned all my molecular biology skills and got into industry with Solero Genomics as a scientist working to sequence the human genome back in the early 2000s.

2:19It's there where I really saw the disconnect between scientists and business people, and that prompted me to obtain my MBA. And from that, I switched over to managing, actually got out of the lab and started managing bioinformatics projects with Applied Biosystems, which at the time was a sister company to Solera Genomics. And then from there, I moved to Fisher Bioservices, part of Thermo Fisher, where I was supporting clinical trial projects with Fisher Bioservices and their support services. So it's primarily shipping active drug products in clinical trials and all of the clinical supply testing as well as sample testing.

3:11So a number of related activities towards supporting clinical trials. From there, I had a brief stint at a startup called Nantomics and then got into the CDMO world at IDT Biologica back in 2018. So I spent five years there leading the project management teams. Then I also had responsibility for the business management. So that's where I made the shift to getting into more business development. So that was managing contract management amendments and working with the sales team there. But it was one of my project managers that left that CDMO and went to Lentogen, where Boro was. And I think it was Milteni at the time.

4:02And she was the one that recommended me to the position at Vector Biomed. So a long-winded way of saying I have a convoluted background, but it's the science, the business that kind of formulated my position now. What's changed really in business development over that career? Because you said you went back and you got your MBA. You saw all the theory side. Has anything changed in the practice of BD? Yeah. So there is a bit of theory. So it does give you the background of understanding how these should work. But then you have the personalities of working with clients and customers and the pitfalls of not meeting expectations.

4:43So how do you recover? So, yeah, a lot of lessons learned in terms of managing relationships and people. So, you know, part of that is also core to being a project manager. So plenty of experience there. So, yeah, in practice, it's a little bit different than what you're taught. And now you're at Vector Biomed. For listeners who maybe don't know Vector Biomed, what does a company do? What's its business? Yeah, we are primarily a lentiviral vector manufacturing organization. Our mission really is to provide high-quality, low-cost vector. As you know, the cell and gene therapies, you know, one of the more expensive parts is the vector.

5:31So we really try to address the affordability of these vectors. And we want to democratize access to these vectors and cell and gene therapies. So what Boro has established is a platform process where we can quickly make vector high quality, high titer. And not only that, we support academics in their product development as well as biotechs and pharmaists, but we also have the ability to make our own vector products. And that's what we're doing, especially providing a generic version of a CD19 car vector for India. So we can really drive down the cost of these vectors so that it's only$20 ,000 in material costs.

6:20Now, VectorBuyMed, they call themselves a CVDMO rather than just a CVMO like we hear about all the time. What's the difference? Yeah, so on the Vector side, if you look at the pedigree, really, and the expertise that we have in-house, Boros assembled a really stellar team. You know, Boros has been in the industry almost 40 years now. Same with Mike Caden, who's our chief operating officer. Same with Andrew. He's a little younger, so about 20 plus years of experience. And we also have Jacob Reiser, formerly with the FDA. So we really assembled an all-star team of people that have been in the viral vector space, specifically Lenti space.

7:05And what we do differently from others is really focus on vector optimization. So not a lot of CDMOs do that where we focus on improving tighter end function. And we have a number of ways we can do that with many years of designing these vectors. So collectively, we've designed thousands of vectors in the past. You talk about vector optimization being something that makes you a bit different, but you're also different in the structure of the company. It's a public benefit corporation. How does that shape the way that you end up working with partners? certainly when borrow uh left milteni to found caring cross that is the non-profit that he's established about five years ago and their mission is to uh lower the cost of these cell and gene therapies and make it available throughout the world so you know it's not just focusing on who can pay it in the west but really how do we make these uh therapies affordable and accessible throughout the world and really provide it to the patients that need it.

8:12So he's established Caring Cross to be the R &D engine to create these therapies. And he spun out Vector Biomed back in January of 2023 as the manufacturing arm. So we share the same social mission, which is really focused on affordability and accessibility of these therapies throughout the world. So that's where the Public Benefit Corporation comes in as we aligned with Karen Cross on that mission. So I guess that means you're working with companies all over the world then. You mentioned India before, but are you present just about everywhere? Not everywhere, but we're in about 12 to 13 countries, Europe, Middle East, South America.

9:01So we're a small and mighty team, but we're trying to expand our footprint throughout the world. So talking of Europe right now, as this goes to air, we're a couple of days out from BioEurope, which is the biggest partnering event of the year here in Europe. Big conferences like BioEurope, they can end up being pretty overwhelming for people. And you're someone who's got a fair bit of experience here in BD and partnering and working with different companies. When you go to an event like bio Europe, how do you cut through the noise, the inevitable noise that's just going to be everywhere when you arrive?

9:36Yeah, so my first experience was bio back in 2023 when I initially started at Vector BioMed. It was the US one based in Boston, and I think at that time it was around 22 ,000 people. So very overwhelming, to say the least. But part of that was, you know, at least about six weeks before the event is, you know, prep time. It's understanding who's attending and really getting the attendee list and trying to filter out, you know, who you want to target. Being such a young company at that time, we didn't have the background or history to leverage and have those opportunities to meet with people because you're a known entity.

10:28So it was almost going back to grassroots and, you know, looking at the talks and, you know, you send out meeting invites for partnering requests and they don't get responded to. So you have to go to other means. And what worked really well for me is attending those pitch meetings, those 15 minute pitch meetings and staying behind and being very targeted about approaching the CSO or whoever speaking or the head of manufacturing and really try to establish relationships that way. So it's hard work, meaning you have to spend the time, you have to do the front leg work to identify who you want to target.

11:13And then you have to have the right personality to go and meet with them and engage with them. So that's where the hard work is. So you're starting that six weeks before. So anyone listening to this right now is far too late. But if you're planning this all in advance, how are you deciding which meetings you're going to take, which meetings are going to make the cut? How do you choose the right ones? Yeah, part of it is working with the team internally and identifying where the right opportunities exist. So we're primarily focused on cell and gene therapies. So that limits the number of conferences that we want to attend.

11:58And, you know, there's also budget considerations related to that. So we have about four that we target, and then there's opportunities for ad hoc ones as they come, especially when Boro gets invited to be a speaker or a panelist. That affords us the ability to attend some of these other conferences. You mentioned these sort of ad hoc things that might get added there. Do you leave room for these sort of unplanned conversations, the things at lunch and dinner and just walking the exhibition floor? Right, right. So, you know, it's one thing to pack your schedule with meetings. So certainly have had that happen.

12:40But, you know, if you do leave slots here and there and you just walk, you run into people that you've met in the past and and you reestablish those connections and it may turn out to be a new lead because they have a, you know, asset that they want to have you work on. So it just depends on your flexibility and your ability to do those ad hoc, you know, random meetings, chance encounters. Yeah, certainly that helps. So you've been working in BD for a while now. You know, what's a detail maybe that people overlook that ends up making a really big difference at an event like Bio in the US or Bio Europe here in Europe?

13:28Yeah, I think one thing is if you're able to be social, you know, there's all sorts of after hours networking events and you just have to know people or just ask, you know, what are you doing after the session or the meeting? and hopefully you get invited to some of those events. So I think those events also help build your network. And sometimes they're even better than the actual meeting because you're able to access a different set of people in a small confined area, let's say. So that has been helpful in the past of establishing new relationships that way. Let's go into a little bit of detail on the practical side.

14:23If we're talking about securing these meetings, what are some of the things that a biotech or a service provider can do to start identifying the right partners, the right prospects before the conference? You mentioned you were looking six weeks out at this attendee list. What are you actually looking for? Yeah, I mean, it's a couple of things that we do. One is, it's really helpful to download the attendee list and then start working from there. So you could do the filtering and prioritization of who you want to target. For us, we just attended a meeting on the Mesa, but there was two or three goals in mind.

15:04One is we wanted to touch base with investors. So that was one group of attendees that we wanted to target. We also wanted to target new customers. So trying to figure out who needs lentiviral vector manufacturing. and thirdly, trying to reconnect with bold or existing customers. So part of the preparation then is how do you take that attending list and define who you want to target. So it goes back to the upfront work that you have to do. In your case, what are the sort of signals that you're looking for that tells you a company is worth meeting? uh so one is if they're new uh brand new so if we haven't heard about them they're not in our database so that is a you know pretty good chance that they haven't established uh relationships with an existing cdmo so we have a good opportunity to engage with them so that's always um i think a number one but secondly you know never hurts to go back to your existing customers because they're ripe for the second, third, fourth program.

16:20So that would be the second factor that I would look at. You're probably using partnering platforms to schedule these meetings to get it all there. As someone who's used a lot of these platforms, is there somewhere where they just consistently fall short? You always find yourself frustrated? Yeah. So I would say Meeting on the Mesa probably has the best platform. Yeah, the others don't compare. Or, you know, they come close, but I think Meeting on the Mesa has probably the premier partnering platform. And what about the other side? Do these requests that are coming in, you get someone writing to you, if they're really not a good fit, What's the thing that you do when you get that request that's not a good fit?

17:09Are you just ignoring them? Do you just ghost them? Do you drop them a reply? What's best practice there? Yeah, ideally is to send them a polite reply. You're also on the other end and you want to have some engagement, right? So the polite thing to do is send them the reply saying it's not a good fit or we're looking for something else. but just to let them know that this is not going to work or not something that we need right now. But you're probably just like me, though. You're getting requests from people who seem to have no idea what you actually do, who just want half an hour of your time at one of the biggest events of the year.

17:50Just a polite reply, though, is the best thing to do. Sorry, it's just not for us. Right. In other cases, if you do have available slots, And this happened just at the last meeting, taking on a marketing intelligence firm and not really understanding what they do. And they wanted to know what we do. So it was a good discussion because I think, again, you're exploring ways of working together. And in some cases, while you don't think they are a good fit based on your original target list, after having the conversation, you know, there are opportunities of working together. So, again, this goes back to making yourself available to that.

18:39But you have limited time, limited slots for meetings. So you do have to be diligent about who you accept. So in some cases, you do have to say no, but do it in a polite way. Okay. So let's imagine we've booked this meeting. The meetings are only 20, 25, maybe 30 minutes long. How do you make the most of that time that you've got right there in the room? Yeah, typically, you know, you spend, I don't know, two, three minutes with the introductions. And then you just get into, you know, a bit about the company and what we're providing. So that takes about, I don't know, 10 minutes or so. And then we can talk about how we can collaborate.

19:23So just be mindful of the time. And of course, you know, the goal here is, while a deal may not happen in that 30 minutes, you know, it's ripe for a follow up meeting. And that's usually what happens after most of these meetings is those follow up meetings. It could be a first meeting that you've got, but sometimes you're also reconnecting with clients that you're already working with or partners that you already know. How do you prepare for that first touch meeting versus one where you know the client you're already working with them? Yeah, you know, I always have my laptop ready with our capabilities presentation.

20:03So if we ever need to dive into it for a first touch meeting, we can certainly go through it fairly quickly, just to give them some sense of who we are, what we do and what we're looking for. So being very crisp about the goals of the meeting. So for the first touch, you know, you keep it high level. But for reconnections, it's understanding where they are, where we are and what we're looking for. And again, what are the opportunities working together? So in that first meeting, for example, where you keep it a little bit high level, obviously you want some follow-up afterwards, how do you know you've had a good first meeting?

20:45What have you left with at the end of that 30 minutes? I think it's, you know, obviously, if you're going to have a follow up meeting, I think that's successful. Or if they get to, well, let's sign an NDA or CDA in place so we can exchange more information under confidentiality. So you want to have some action items or deliverables that are due or pending. So that would be the goal there to identify that you had a good meeting. So, yeah. One of the things that I always find interesting is some of the mistakes that people make when they're in these first meetings. we talked last year with a couple of people from top pharma firms who said they get in there and they see a slide deck and the first five slides are telling them you know why oncology is an area that farmers should be interested in and it's just wasting time it's wasting effort they could be getting to the point what sort of mistakes do you see people making in these meetings that maybe they could try and avoid yeah i mean primarily it's the vendors that don't understand our business and just blanketly, you know, request meetings.

22:07And I'll occasionally take them just to understand, you know, how they're different. But again, it goes back to how are you targeting the attendees and creating that part to prioritize list. So, yeah, if you don't do that, then, yeah, you're you're wasting time. you know both parties times. Now you mentioned you've been to the big bio in the US Mesa more recently you know what you're doing there maybe I can ask you this tell me about a win that you've had there that stands out a relationship that started at a conference but it's actually grown into something a bit bigger. Yeah so being new and I'll go back to that bio conference in 2023 three, I did exactly what I just described, which is, you know, see a pitch presentation, went to the CEO and their BD person, introduced myself, and they already had another CDMO for their program identified.

23:15But it was not until meeting on the Mesa. So it was about was it five months later that I saw them again and they said, oh, you know, we're happy with our current CDMO, but, you know, stay in touch. Let's figure it out. And then six months later, they come knocking on us and saying that CDMO, you know, lost the product, the vector in downstream purification process. It's like 90 % loss or something like that. So can you help us? So it took about, you know, that 11 months or so for us to engage with them in terms of having real work with them. But it all started with that initial engagement at Bio US.

24:10What do you think actually made that first conversation stick in their mind? Was it just something about the approach? Was it it sounded like it was pretty unplanned? It wasn't a booked meeting. It was just after a talk. Correct. Correct. And part of it is, you know, our founder, Bora Drapulich, is a thought leader well known in the industry. So that carries weight. So there's some familiarity of knowing who Bora is. So that certainly helped. But it's the re-engagement. I think that really helped. And I have another case similar to that where same situation, which is they were unhappy with their current CDMO and it's only meeting at a conference that you get to talk to them and see how things are going.

24:59And then you understand their pain points and, oh, you know, we have a solution for you. So that re-engagement really helps. So let's imagine you've got this meeting booked or you've had this great first contact. Now the big conference is over, what's the best way to start following up with this new contact? Do you even start at the event or get someone working back in the office to make that next contact? Yeah, we're a small team, so ideally it would be nice to contact them a couple of days after the conference. My preference is everybody's traveling and there's a lot of work to catch up on, And so I would my preference is to start the week after and follow them up with an email and see if we can start having conversations.

25:52And in some cases, the flip side happens where they reach out to me and already start the conversation. So it just depends. But you have to give them a little bit of space. Otherwise, you know, it just gets lost in the noise. So what about all the stuff that you're collecting at events? You go to some meetings, others go to other meetings. Do you end up pooling that information, sharing those decks between everybody? Certainly. And what we try to do is compile them and put it on SharePoint. So we have a central location where we can share it. But the other aspect of it is, you know, especially for some conferences, you have the ability to scan the badges and download the contact information.

26:42So it makes it easier to upload it into your CRM. So there's ways to help you with managing the information. But certainly if there are decks to be shared, that certainly goes into SharePoint. and then the leads should be going into the CRM. What about when everybody gets back to work, back from the conference the next week, how do you keep the momentum going? You leave with this big buzz and then you're back at the office. How do you make sure that that momentum keeps going when everybody's back to their day job? Sure. And part of that is just scheduling some time so that you can focus on doing the follow-up.

27:20So you get inundated with other activities. So you certainly do need to have some time dedicated to just doing the follow-up. You know, we're looking forward to BioEurope, which is just a couple of days away. Let's look a little bit forward as well, though, for Vector Biomed. What's on your agenda as we head towards the end of the year and into 2027? Certainly, you know, after reviewing all of the conferences, it's trying to figure out which conferences have the best ROI and really trying to figure out the conference schedule for next year. We've already started some of those discussions, but this gets into, you know, which conferences were successful, which ones do we need to focus on.

28:10So, you know, that usually starts middle of the year towards Q3. So but it's a good time to have that assessment and see which ones we really do want to focus on. I know most of the conference events want you to sign right there for the next year, but we take a little bit more delayed approach, meaning making sure that we get the best value out of each conference before we make that decision. So are there certain conferences that we're going to definitely see you at? Is there one that you're never going to miss? yeah typically the the main ones are um you know uh facilitates advanced therapies week that's usually in the beginning of the year next is isct and then asgct i think um you know we haven't been to bio in a while so we are going to put bio back on uh for next year and then meeting on the mesa so those are the main ones you know if you could give one piece of advice for someone who's heading to their first big partnering conference maybe they're just going to arrive in cologne on sunday and they're really excited but they're not quite sure how to make the most of it what's a piece of advice you could give them right so figure out what you want out of it um you know are you there just to get up to speed on the latest activities if so you know you want to look at all of the meetings and sessions and pick and choose which ones you want to go to.

29:44And now if you're really trying to partner, it's a little bit late, but it's never too late. You can try and go through the attendee list and pick out the companies and people that you want to meet. And, you know, it's never too late to send that last minute partnering request and they may accept, but it all depends on what your goals are for it. And then the other aspect of it is trying to get to those after-meeting networking events. So seeing where those are being hosted and hopefully try to get in. And you can do your networking there as well. Where can people find you? Where can they find Vector Biomed and learn a little bit more about what you're doing?

30:30Sure. We're on the web, VectorBiomed.com. We're based out of Gaithersburg, Maryland in the U.S., right outside of Washington, D.C., so happy to host visitors if they want to come and visit. This is also where we manufacture Vector, so both the office, laboratory, and manufacturing suites are located here. Fantastic. Shashi, thanks for joining us today on Beyond Biotech. It's my pleasure. Thank you, Dylan. That's it for this episode. don't forget to check out all the latest news and analysis at labiotech.eu I hope wherever you are in the world you have a great week ahead thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us again next time for another Beyond Biotech