On Jan. 16, Jay Batchu D’18, TH’20, TH’21 visited The Magnuson Center to speak with Dartmouth students about entrepreneurship and biotechnology. Batchu is a senior analyst and entrepreneur in residence at Xontogeny, a company that works to accelerate and invest in life science technologies. In addition to Xontogeny, Bachu is also the founder of his own biotech startup, whose purpose has not yet been made public. Batchu has worked on multiple projects in biotech and medtech, including research in antibodies, cell therapies, nanoparticle delivery systems and urinary microvalves. The Dartmouth sat down with Batchu to speak with him about his career, new trends and technologies in biotechnology and advice he would give to students interested in entrepreneurship.
Could you tell me a bit about Xontogeny and the work you do with them?
JB: Xontogeny is an accelerator as well as a venture investor. On the accelerator side, the idea is for us to work with first time founders, technical founders, that kind of thing. The point is for us to take a partnership position, and as investors, we can start to write checks. As companies mature, we have the Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund, which is the second funding vehicle that we at Xontogeny operate. Perceptive is a hedge fund based out of New York City. They are arguably one of the most successful hedge funds that exclusively focuses on life sciences and healthcare.
Could you speak about your biotech startup?
JB: My startup is currently in stealth mode, meaning that I don’t talk about it that much, but what I can reveal about it is that I raised a seed amount of funding from Xontogeny for that company. My company is in the antibody space. We don’t discover any antibodies, but we are in the business of making bio-better antibodies, and we have proprietary conjugation technology that enables us to do this. We produce modifiers, and we can conjugate these modifiers to antibodies in a very consistent, site-specific format with a covalent bond. Depending on what modifier we’re using, we can modify the properties of the reference antibody accordingly. The idea is that depending on the context of the antibody that we’re trying to modify or improve, we will pick the appropriate modifier from the library of modifiers that we are in the process of developing, and mix and match to modify the asset and advance it further.
Are there any projects you have worked on in your career that you are especially proud of?
JB: I have worked on a variety of projects in the past. This includes projects in the cell therapy space, both on the autoimmune and oncology sides. I worked on engineered antibodies, enzymes, nanoparticle delivery systems, etc. I did a fair bit of work on the med-tech end as well. I worked on urinary microvalves for incontinence and retention. So, it’s a fair bit to pull from, I guess you can say — it’s like asking a parent to pick their favorite kid. But, overall, the project that I am currently working on with antibodies, that’s the one I am most proud of. I’m very grateful for all the experiences that I’ve had working on projects in the past.
What effect, if any, has the COVID-19 pandemic had on innovations in biomedicine?
JB: On the investing side, COVID made people, both on the investor and entrepreneur end, more comfortable raising money virtually. Before, it was way more common to have meetings and pitches done in person. But now, that process has been pretty heavily decentralized. So that widens the pool of possible companies from the investor’s perspective. You don’t have to travel to Boston or San Francisco or the RTP area to pitch for funding.
It has also, in some ways, brought back nanoparticles to biotech. It has kind of defied what I call the ‘cold touch of biotech.’ That is where a technology sort of captures the central dogma of a phase, but there is no commercializable or clinical success, so no meaningful success manifests from it in a short period of time. The pharma, biotech and medtech folks tend to have a ‘cold touch’ towards these technologies, meaning they think it’s like a dead asset, or a dead type of technology, and they tend to not really work on it that much anymore. That is basically what happened with nanoparticles in the late 2000s and early 2010s. But because of the pandemic and the success of lipid nanoparticle approaches for vaccines, the profile of nanoparticles has risen back up.
Also, I think the pandemic has really brought to light how much more integrity we need in our supply chains. I know that’s a semi-obvious answer, but it’s just as important.
Are there any developing technologies in biomedicine that you are particularly interested in?
JB: The ADC — antibody drug conjugates — space, and the antibody space in general, seem to be garnering more interest in the field. Antibodies are never going to go away, at least for the foreseeable future, and there’s more and more versions of antibodies being developed. Also, cell therapies are on the rise again. That is a space that I find really interesting.
One thing I have learned from being an investor is that there’s always going to be a very exciting and cool new technology coming around, as long as the innovation environment is healthy. You’re never really going to run into a short supply of very cool new technologies. That being said, the medtech space, while still impressive and intriguing, simply doesn’t have as many investors as biotech. So, innovations on the medtech end are relatively infrequent. But in terms of antibodies and cell therapies, those are some of the things I’m particularly excited by.
You worked on many projects during your time at the College that focused on aiding student entrepreneurship, such as DEN Associates (now called the Magnuson Student Leadership Board) and TuckLab. How did your experience with these projects prepare you for endeavors in your career?
JB: They have played an invaluable role in preparing me for the position I am currently in. Without a doubt, my time at the College was difficult and challenging. And it was difficult in a positive way. I deliberately chose to undertake these challenges to develop these types of technologies. A number of my first few projects didn’t really pan out, but not for technical reasons. I wouldn’t really call these failures at the end of the day, though, because I still learned a lot. I learned how to pitch, how to network and how to communicate. I learned how to design and execute experiments. Overall, my time at Dartmouth was extremely helpful in allowing me to learn and refine my skills. Also, the Dartmouth Alumni network, specifically the more entrepreneurial and investor-oriented section, have been really gracious to me. Without them, reaching this point would be rather difficult, and that’s one of the main reasons why I’m very grateful to Dartmouth.
What advice would you give to students who are interested in pursuing entrepreneurship, specifically in biomedicine?
JB: There is definitely a short term and long term answer to this question. The short term answer, for just figuring out a way into biotech, is to read research articles, try to do research with professors or just attend conferences. Attending speakers and conferences is very underrated, and I think Dartmouth students should take advantage of the caliber of speakers that visit campus. But to enter biotech professionally, especially for entrepreneurship, it would generally be very helpful to think about pursuing some graduate degree, whether it’s a masters or a PhD.
Entrepreneurship is difficult, but it’s very rewarding. It’s one of the most engrossing experiences anyone can have, and I highly encourage people to pursue entrepreneurship, if they are interested in it, especially at a place like Dartmouth. In general, though, take advantage of the resources you have here and just run with it.
