Interview between Sue Siegel and Jim Olson

The luncheon Fireside chat took place between Sue Siegel, Chief Executive Officer, GE

Ventures and Healthymagination, and Jim Olson, MD, PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer

Research Center, University of Washington, Founder of Presage Biosciences and Co-

Founder of Blaze Bioscience, Inc.

Jim Olson started the conversation stating that he likes the innovative spirit of the Hutch

community, where he works, and added that 15 years ago, he used some new technology to

measure genes in tumors. Sue Siegel invented that technology while she was part of the

company Affymetrix. Olson recalled one Sunday night coming to Affymetrix to discuss the

technology. He was surprised to find so many people discussing science and innovation at that

time of the day. Olson asked Siegel how she created such a good environment in her company.

Siegel said that in 1998 the Human Genome Project was close to its first iteration. Her company

had a technology to take all the genome information and put it in a chip, which enabled

comparisons between a normal genome and the genome of a sick individual. This technology

was the Next Generation Sequencing and Siegel and all the people of Affymetrix were very

interested in using it for a good cause like personalized medicine. Siegel explained that people

joined her company because they wanted to have an impact and be part of an exciting mission.

For them, putting the whole human genome in a chip was as challenging and important as the

Apollo Missions. Olson said that he knew Siegel was a great leader and was very successful in

putting a group of excellent people together to perform such a mission. Then Siegel explained

that it is a remarkable feeling when you provide solutions to help others solve problems. For her

and her company, it was very satisfying to know that people were using the Affymetrix technology

and were publishing outstanding discoveries every other week.

Olson then recalled that he went to the company to generate data and that they were having

serious technical problems. Despite those problems, the company preserved. Olson asked Siegel

what she learned from those difficult times. Siegel replied that the company had 8%

manufacturing yields. Affymetrix was a public company where scientists were packaging

genomes into the chips and were putting data in public databases. Despite the technical issues,

customers still wanted the product. She then cited an example: for the mouse genome, the

sequence is backwards. The data was coming from all kinds of different labs. Affymetrix had no

control over the accuracy of the data; they were just putting the information into the chips. It was

unclear who was responsible for these mistakes, but she still thought that Affymetrix should

refund the costs to the customers, because Affymetrix was customer-centered. They refunded

approximately one billion dollars.

Olson then asked, what were the things that were more successful with her partners and what

were the things that failed? Siegel responded that there were several things to consider. First, the

partners need to agree on the criteria and the foundations of the company they want to create.

You need to decide what is the problem you want to solve and with which technology. Then you

have to choose your initial team. Your team needs to have vision. Having a good team is

essential for success. The company needs to understand the problem and develop good

technologies to solve it. You also need to ask yourself who is going to pay for the technology.

Usually, investors want to know who is going to pay and how and under which conditions.

Investors have a limited amount of risk they are willing to take.

Then Olson said that he met some of her company people before founding his company, Presage

Biosciences. He recalled having talked with ~30 people who founded their own companies and,

from those conversations, he learned that there are three reasons why companies fail after a few

years. The first reason is that scientists think they know how to do good business. Second, they

start the company too soon and, finally, they don’t predict what will happen in the market. Olson

asked Siegel whether she could add anything else. Siegel added that the timing is indeed very

important. If your business model does not fit the present time, then you may fail.

Olson then continued saying that part of the success of Presage Biosciences is that he followed

advice given by many funders who did not fund his company. Based on that advice, Olson and

his colleagues reshaped their business and partnered with pharmaceutical companies. Siegel

mentioned Olson’s crowdfunding success (referring to Olson’s Project Violet) and said that those

methods can be excellent for getting a business started. “Then you can approach investors again

showing them there is less risk than previously thought,” commented Siegel.

Then Siegel asked Olson to describe how he started Project Violet. Olson said that he has

worked with small proteins for ten years, and some of the discoveries he made were used to

develop Tumor Paint (a product he sells through Blaze Biosciences). Olson said there are very

few molecules that can cross the blood-brain barrier and he wanted to use those molecules for

therapeutics. He explained that most diseases in the brain are related to protein-protein

interactions. Currently, Olson is working with a new category of drugs that can be developed fast

and inexpensively. He recognizes that these drugs could be used to treat rare diseases and,

precisely for that reason, he didn’t want to give them to pharmaceutical companies, but directly to

people. He opened his discoveries to citizen science, so people could adopt a drug and follow its

progress. The project started in June 2013 and since then, they have raised five million dollars to

build a huge library of drugs.

Siegel then talked about General Electrics (GE), the company where she currently runs a couple

of programs. She explained that she joined the company because GE was one of the first

entrepreneurs to find success under the partnership model. One of the programs Siegel runs is

Healthymagination. It was created to help solve the three biggest problems society faces today:

healthcare, energy, and education. Healthymagination was created in 2010 and dedicates three

billion dollars per year to help pay for employee healthcare. GE has another program called Brain

Health. “Alzheimer’s disease is hitting earlier and earlier”, Siegel said. “That affects productivity”.

The Brain Health programs aim to understand and provide tools to help cure, prevent, and treat

the disease. Siegel reminded the audience that the government has already started the effort to

better understand and map the brain.

Olson added that earlier that day, Lance Stewart and other entrepreneurs told him that they all

wanted to focus their research and their institutes’ missions on the brain. These groups want to

develop efforts to advance knowledge of the brain, medical devices, imaging, and therapeutics

related to the brain. He asked Siegel how these groups could connect with GE. Siegel answered

that a Brain Trust Meeting started nine months ago to attract groups, institutions, and

organizations to work all together on brain health. The mission of the Trust is to work on a

worldwide community. Siegel also mentioned that interested people should consult the website

gventures.com to see GE’s investing trends.

Finally, Olson asked Siegel whether she had a favorite book to recommend. Siegel answered that

she liked Tracy Kidder’s “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” which talks about healthcare

delivery, particularly the treatment of tuberculosis, in the mountains.

Siegel gave a final statement saying that the trends in healthcare are currently the brain, the cost

of healthcare, and telehealh (using digital technologies). She also said that there is a trend to go

beyond the hospital and do clinics in partnership with Walgreens, CVC pharmacy, Bartells, etc,

where a patient can receive basic healthcare. Siegel added that digital technologies are prevalent

as more and more things are networked, which will drive the healthcare costs down.

One person in the public asked what the major barriers to development and reimbursement are.

Siegel replied that GE is trying to help with reimbursement. She said that while the FDA provides

guidance for the world of digitalization, GE thinks there is a need to provide guidance to get

reimbursement in the regulatory front. In summary, GE is an entrepreneur that is looking to invest

in research involving the brain, and in methods to decrease healthcare costs and facilitate

reimbursement.