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.