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Welcome to this latest deep discovery podcast. My name is
Andrew Aldridge. The idea of these podcasts is to bring to
life the people and the companies behind what we do here
at deep edge. To that end. In this episode, I'm delighted to
welcome Shannon Beatty, who is CEO at genomic diagnostics, a
university spin out from Queen's University in Belfast, and a
part of the deep Ridge Life Sciences seis and EIS. So
Shannon, welcome. Great to have you on board. Thanks very much
for the invite. It's good to be here. Great. See. So we we kind
of tried to start at the beginning with these things. But
can you just tell us a bit about Janome and how it came about?
Yeah, yeah. So. So Gina, we focused on developing novel
tests for early detection of diseases which are in dire need
of improvement. So so our first product in development is a
novel blood test for early detection of ovarian cancer.
So can I kind of go back to the start. And do you know, we spoke
on over kind of 10 years of academic research from Professor
Mullins lab in the public T Johnson Center at Queens. And it
was primarily by the three key funders, Paul and James Byrne
and Laura Finney. So their research was kind of a theme of
improving the diagnosis of ovarian cancer patients. So they
were focusing on identification and validation of biomarkers for
early detection of hybrid serious carcinoma, and it's the
most common and aggressive form of ovarian cancer. And they were
looking to use kind of cutting edge techniques to detect an
accurate signal from small blood volume.
So, Varian cancer like like most cancers, shows much better
overall survival rates, the earlier that the disease is
detected. But with ovarian cancer, unfortunately, most
cases are diagnosed kind of late in the disease progression.
Really kind of when, when symptoms or advanced stages,
it's called the silent killer.
So they kind of defined our team were they were fascinated with
kind of developing ways to improve the chances of detecting
this aggressive disease earlier. And why is that? Why is that why
they started with ovarian cancer? Because it is the silent
killer, and that's kind of a big challenge for them, I guess.
Yeah, yeah. But it was kind of really in need of improvement.
And there hasn't really been much improvement in kind of
varying cancer diagnosis kind of for decades now. So yeah, it was
one that was in real need. Yeah, brilliant. And what was your
background? And how did you get involved? Um, yes, I am. I'm
much more for the academic setting bathrooms, and then the
commercial. So that that transition is really good
learning curve. So yeah.
A lot of challenges for you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Lots of like, learn
a new language, but they
do. So yeah, I was studying my PhD and Professor Molins lab,
alongside the wearing cancer work. So I was looking at a
particular type of breast cancer, which also has poor
survival rates, and it's most likely more likely to spread
than the other type. So as I was finishing my studies, the
ovarian cancer was selected for the IQ pre commercialization
program. It was delivered through Queens. And then I was
very lucky to be selected as the early career researcher for the
program. And so it was sort of kind of three months of quite
intensive travel and conferences and trade shows across the
world, forming customer discovery and market validation
and networking and getting feedback from potential partners
and collaborators and competitors. That must be
fascinating. Yes, yeah. No, it was. There are so many
interesting conversations and kind of interesting people to
meet and help kind of ship our product development as well. So
it was really really useful program, AFL, definitely. I
highly recommend it to everyone. She kind of heard it from the
coalface. If you like, kind of experts around the world, we're
telling you exactly what they need and what they want. Yeah,
yeah. And kind of what what people would look forward for
the company and from the product and what it needs. So yeah, it
was it was really helpful. Fantastic. So kind of genome is
key milestones to date. What have you been up to what have
been the key successes today?
Yeah, so we've had kind of a couple of key funding and award
milestones. So we got our first grant funding was the Innovate
UK grant that was kind of a fall one grant from the IQ program
and closed our first round of investment last March. And it
kind of really allowed us to get off the ground.
make our first hires and with our fantastic team, kind of get
our own equipment and really start progressing the technical
on the commercial milestones. And we were awarded 50,000, from
entities in Ireland and seed corn competition, and 50,000
from women Innovation Award, but then in the UK, so this latest
kind of progress further and enhanced your technical
development as well.
In terms of the technical development milestones, we have
doubled the number of biomarkers on our patent. So that's going
to really elevated the IP value of the company and also increase
the clinical and commercial utility of the test
validates it to you that you're doing the right thing, I guess,
because in any startup, you need those kind of validation moments
that actually you're on the right track, and you do the
right thing. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely, definitely very
reassuring. And kind of on the similar vein, and so with a key
milestone for us was that we were able to validate, combine
our top markers into one test. And that really kind of
increases our population coverage on the accuracy of the
test. And then also kind of reduces the cost for the end
user. And they might have some ports required. So we've now
shown that this had a 99% accuracy and a small tissue
cohort, and was able to detect samples at stage one, which,
which is very exciting. So we're now working to validate this in
blood samples.
So what's so kind of you mentioned about users there, and
kind of the the cost to the user, who are your users who
you're selling to who's your kind of target market, just sort
of sort of target market based healthcare towards race, and I'm
kind of private, private and government funded as well. And
so we will, our MDM as well, we will supply the kit, and then
then the doctors will request the tests and the laborious
will, will run the test. But it's brilliant. So what you
know, nothing ever goes in a straight line, nothing's ever
plain sailing in this world, kind of what have been the key
challenges you face today?
Okay, yeah, and the liquid biopsy stuff is a key challenge
affecting a lot of companies is the low amount of DNA in the
blood. So in that circulating kind of DNA, we're looking to
get the tumor part of that. And that can be less than 1% of that
small amount of DNA that's there. So it's really, really
minut amounts that we're working with, particularly in the early
stages of a Varian cancer, and sometimes can be quite hard to
detect. So that's kind of challenges that we're looking to
overcome at the minute. And that's what we're working on.
And is that where the test them works that basically works on
the DNA to assess kind of any early stage cancer within the
patient. Yes, yeah. So we're, we're looking for a test to be a
blood sample and to kind of be as minimally as invasive as
possible. With Varian cancer, at the minute, quite a lot of
kind of women will be referred for the testing that don't have
ovarian cancer can be elevated in a lot of conditions. And
those women can often go for for scans and for biopsies as well.
So we want our tasks to be as minimally invasive as possible,
and reducing those false positives as well as kind of
reducing the stress for patients and their families. And the
healthcare providers as well. And for you personally, I guess,
you know, it's, it is very rare to find somebody such as
yourself, who's got the academic skills and the commercial skills
to run a business and grow a business. I mean, it's, it's an
impressive kind of combination, when you come across it. I mean,
what challenges have you faced personally, kind of making that
step into the commercial world? If you like? Yeah, it's
definitely been a steep, steep learning curve, I think, yeah,
kind of free. It's been, I've had a lot of support, and the
team has been great as well, which has been fantastic. I'd
definitely say that. Yeah, surrounding with the right
mentors, and support is a massive help. And probably the
academia, we're very, it has to be perfect. And it has to be
absolutely kind of 100%. Whereas kind of a commercial, we're
looking very much further forward into a very, very big
picture. So I think it's been able to see where we wanted to
go with the results we have at the minute. And I guess taking
the kind of the scientific results you get and assessing
the commercial market for that and commercial need for that,
rather than just saying, Yeah, this is great science. This is
actually something that we can actually drive forward, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, I think that was something that that I was,
whenever I was offered to come in and say in the IQ program,
I'm definitely jumped at the chance. But it was something
that kind of working in cancer research, it was very evident
that there's a lot of fantastic research that has a lot of
difficulty kind of taken from the lab bench into the clinic
and into benefiting patients. And I thought this was a great
opportunity of kind of the technology and the science had a
fantastic potential to be able to actually benefit patients.
So yeah, we talked about support and things. I mean, what kind of
support Have you had kind of Percy as an organization? I
mean, you're based within within Cubis we're based in within
queens in university, you know, kind of what support
and kind of how does that look like? And kind of what's been
the value to you of that? And yes, so yes, we're a spin out
company from Queens that was put up by Cubis. So we've been able
to avail of office and lab space in the Queen's campus and
Belfast, where the research was funded in that lab. So that's
been fantastic has really helped us to get off the ground. We're
also moving into your own dedicated spin out space, which
will be great and will kind of enable us to continue to grow
and scale.
They've been really helpful in getting kind of initial
introductions to investors and supporters, which has been
great. And other investors as well have been really supportive
for making key introductions, which is, which is so useful,
especially at the early stages,
in terms of qubits and cubicity support, kind of how do they
support you, I know that so you know, you've got a lot of
support around you. And you have the same kind of guiding it
their early stages as well what we needed to do to get set up
and what we needed to get in place. And then the big one for
us was the lab space and being able to kind of being able to
avail of equipment that we wouldn't have been able to
afford the early stages. And then the key and reductions are
some some of our kind of key teams. So our our Chief Business
Officer, Chris came in as the business mentor, and with the IQ
program on our executive chair Mark was introduced through the
Cubist connections. And they both have a lot of experience
and have been great additions to the team. They're brilliant. And
in terms of kind of do the support around you in Northern
Ireland and kind of ecosystem in Yeah, I saw you recently when I
was over in Belfast, and you know, we were working with with
some other startups and what have you, and what does that
ecosystem look like in Northern Ireland and Belfast in
particular,
I think I think those islands a great place for companies to
start up. I think the life science ecosystem in particular,
is very vibrant and growing. And for some are so small there.
There's a lot of kind of world leading expertise and a really
wide range of areas. I think there's definitely a lot of
companies starting up at the minute and also looking to grow
and scale into the asset and beyond. And I think that that's
very exciting. And I think there's a lot of opportunities
for support and networking that's offered as well, a fund
that people are very generous with their time and kind of
offering advice and mentoring. And that's been really, really
valuable. And we've had good kind of engagement and support
with Innovate UK and Innovate UK edge team in Northern Ireland
and invest in AI
given us a lot of kind of support and training in areas we
were less experienced in which has been pretty good. And that
kind of transitioning for the from the academic to the
commercial role. I think from from our perspective, when we
come over to Belfast, it is it is really refreshing to see the
collaborative approach taken within the area. I mean, you
mentioned a few barriers there, you talk about lots of catalyst,
and people like that as well, you know, it's just such a
strong ecosystem of support available, which, which, from
our perspective is great. And one of the reasons why, you
know, we're so keen to support more Northern Irish based
companies, because you've got that support there. You've got
that ecosystem, whether that be funding support from the likes
of Clarendon and people like that, and what have you invest
in AI and things but also you that that that practical support
and mentoring, it's actually alluded to, and yeah, from our
perspective, that's, that's really refreshing, because I
don't think many regions of the UK that have that level of
support that you do, which, which is great from our
perspective, and hopefully Greg from yours as well. Yep, no
doubt, I definitely think if people are people have been
through a similar journey, and we're very, always very keen to
help and kind of offer any advice and it's been it's really
useful. And I think, you know, just kind of a lot of our kind
of listens to the podcast will, will be aware of Alas, Majan.
We're involved with the investi companies based in Scotland and
Dr. Caroline Burwell there, who's an extremely impressive
founder and CEO and you've benefited from some of her
mentoring as well. Yeah, yeah. New Caroline's fantastic. Yeah.
So she's the the entrepreneur in residence at Queen's. So I've
had a few few chats with her into Yes, she's, she's so
impressive. On Tuesday, very, kind of very Austin, very, she's
so refreshing to talk to you. And it's always kind of come up
very motivated. Again, to me, it's been on the same journey as
you go from the academic into the commercial world. And again,
leading a company very, very astutely. And then taking it
forward. Yeah, we I know that very, very, very successfully.
She's, she's led that forward. So she's fantastic child too.
Yeah. So kind of what's what are the next steps and you know,
what's the next phase is for for genomic going forward?
Yeah, so So our next steps would be kind of our first key ones to
validate our ovarian cancer test and the plasma samples.
Once we have that we're engaging with a manufacturing partner at
the minute as well to develop that the fiscal kits, which will
then look then to come complete our necessary validation and
documentation to file for CE marking to bring our ovarian
cancer test tomorrow.
gets,
will also kind of initially bringing the ovarian cancer test
to mark as a disease monitoring tool. So Alongside this, then
we'll be performing the validation to assess the Varian
cancer test in the diagnostic setting.
And our longer term ambition is to develop the ovarian cancer
tests as the first screening tool for ovarian cancer. This is
a much larger scale validation and over a much longer timeframe
in larger cohorts of blood samples.
Were also started the minute to continue our platform
development. So we're beginning to kind of meet laser or bespoke
biomarker pipeline to begin development for early morning
tests for their disease indications. We've just got a
grant to begin that in a collaborative grant to begin
that in pancreatic cancer, so we're starting to kind of scale
and grow the company in the next year or so, which is very
exciting. So I guess the scaling opportunities, then then are the
things that beyond ovarian cancer and what have you once
you've come at it in terms of Yeah, we talked about your kind
of target market etc healthcare systems? Will that likely be
start with the NHS? Or is it you'll be going to the US or
elsewhere where you've got more private kind of care? Or Or how
do you envisage that looking as you go to market in the next few
years? Yes, it was a well, it's starting with CE marking
approval is the first kind of regulation, regulatory pathway
that we're going for, and then look to get in some kind of EU
regions, which adopt new diagnostic tests earlier. And
then alongside that, we'll be doing the kind of engaging with
with nice to get into the NHS, that's just a longer process.
And then
we know how to take a different a different animal entirely in
the NHS.
And then we're looking to kind of do our mdsap approval to get
into Canada and Australia and Japan and Brazil, and then doing
the kind of Yes, validation piece alongside that. So you're
kind of you've, you've been there, you've kind of been
involved in that in a company from an early stage. Yeah, as a
CEO of an early stage company. So what advice would you give to
entrepreneurs and kind of people working in that early stage kind
of area, particularly in life sciences space, which we know is
such a, such a different sector, to anything else kind of in the
world to kind of what your advice would be those to those
people looking to get in and starting their own organization,
or starting in the early stage business,
I kind of always have two pieces of advice that really helped me,
once one's a bit kind of more generic, in that, you're always
kind of looking forward. And the thoughts of I need to do this,
we need to get this finished room for this goal. I need to
develop myself and these areas, I get it can get very
overwhelming.
But if you did to kind of take a moment and look back and
appreciate kind of the small wins, and see how far kind of
you've came both yourself and as your company, even in a couple
of months. I find it incredibly helpful and kind of works as a
motivation that you've been able to do it before. And it kind of
breaks those longer term and into the shorter term goals.
It's a personal validation as well, you know, you talked about
scientific validation, bad she sometimes you need that personal
validation or that that commercial validation that
actually you've you've done some good things you've made
progress. Yeah, no, absolutely, definitely kind of that bit of
bit of motivation to keep going to apply.
But I think the kind of second ones could be relevant for Life
Sciences, and that every experiments never going to work
perfectly. So we work in PCR, and they're saying that PCR
stands for pipette, cry, repeat.
Sometimes it feels like, but I think it was, it was some kind
of always told me that it's very key to understand that everyone
in life science experiences that it's more important to be kind
of adaptable and innovative to work on these problems, rather
than because every experiment is not going to work perfectly
first time. But it's, it's not just up. And
I think that's the same on the commercial side as well. You
know, you'll try things, you'll do things and you know what,
it's never mentioned it before. It's never a linear line. It's
never straightforward. It's never there's never set formula
otherwise everyone would do it. And it's you know, you do have
to learn from mistakes you learn from what doesn't work, and
sometimes you have to give things a go and see if it work
or not. And it's kind of having that faith in what you do, I
guess. Yep, yeah, Caroline actually told me once that you
need to get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, which was
always just definitely good advice. And I guess particularly
as, as a as a CEO of a business, etc. You You're the one that is
the face of the organization, you're the one going out doing
presentations, doing pitching and things and that's not
necessarily a skill that everyone finds natural and
you've got to you've got to embrace those things and then
kind of it's part of the job, I guess. Yeah, yeah. I just kind
of feel it feeling uncomfortable but comfortable with Yeah,
absolutely. So away from the day job away from the all consuming
day job that you have, as you know, in
In what you're doing, yeah, what? Who are you here in these
podcasts we like to bring to life the people behind the
investi companies and what we're doing it's not just about kind
of the science etc. So So what are your interests at away from
away from work? Um, yeah, so So I love sports, really my key
interest, kind of playing or watching any kind of sport
really, the be kind of wisely or not. I'm the the hockey captain
for a local team. So it takes up quite a lot of my time, kind of
organizing the team and the marches. But I'm a very big
advocate for the positive effects of team sports, kind of
on mental health. So I'm always looking forward to the train and
a match days, which is great. I play a bit of piano as well,
which is always a great de stressor at the end of the day,
kind of you can go into your, your own little world with it.
And what's your go to tune? And what's, you know, stressful that
work? What's the first thing you kind of you
were quite funny being from Northern Ireland, probably
Chasing Cars, there's always there's always a good one.
Nice, nice too.
And yeah, I quite enjoy languages. So I tried to do a
language language class, here, kind of since leaving school, so
this this semester of DNA Spanish, the business class,
but it's quite apt as well, it's, hopefully will be helpful
going forward to what's gonna say that'll be very useful kind
of going into into foreign markets and explaining what
you're doing. So yeah, you're gonna have to learn all the
scientific terms in Spanish.
You've made there
are very good. Very good. And, you know, did the languages
stick because I'm appalling at languages, I can never remember
things. Yeah, if I go to Italy for a week, I can go get past
and order things and things. Then if I came back, if I went
again, six months later, I'd forgotten everything I picked up
and that week is atrocious. But yeah, is it? Is it something
just sticks with you? Or is it just the Yeah, yeah, I really,
really enjoy languages. So I kind of when I was doing my air
force, I did the two sciences and two languages. And I sort of
didn't really know which one I wanted to do. So I've always
really enjoyed them. So although it's definitely gone downhill
since I left school, and it's something that I need to kind of
keep up the practice of it. That's fair enough. That's good.
Good. So then the question we ask all of our guests on the
deepest discovery podcast is about the decreased dinner
party. If you invite three guests dead or alive, no friends
or family, you don't offend anybody. Yeah, who would you be
invited to dinner debrief dinner party? And why would you be
invited?
Yeah, so the first one I'd probably like to invite would be
Rosalind Franklin.
So she kind of was the one that discovered the DNA is the double
helix structure was really kind of paved the way for an
incredible amount of research. And so many therapies that were
available today are based on that. Yep. And she really
excelled in science and research, getting grants. And
kind of a time, we're still wasn't really accepted for women
to do that. And she worked in universities in several
countries across the world.
And she was really a trailblazer over time and research. And she
actually died of a brain cancer when she was 37. So she achieved
an incredible amount in a short time. So I think it'd be be very
inspiring to have her at the dinner party. And also, when you
talk about scientists, in particular, when when somebody
that they not met had discovered or they've eloquently put into
language, etc, becomes normally spoken about. I mean, you know,
DNA now is, you know, everyone listening to this will know,
kind of, or understand what you mean by DNA will understand what
it is, etc. So, those people that kind of almost at the
forefront, and then the spearhead of that kind of
thinking must be, it must be fascinating to to kind of speak
to those guys. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think it's, quite
often when we're in the lab doing experiments, I sort of
always think, how did anyone ever find out that this is this
is how you get it? But like, what, what did they go through
to be able to identify that there will be fascinating, I
mean, just on a on a very basic level, you know, the fact that
you could send off a DNA kit now to find out your ancestry and
who you're related to and things like that. It's just it's just,
it's mind boggling science, isn't it? I guess. If you think
about it, that Yeah. Right. So that's, that's number one.
That's That's great. So number two, who's who's your second
guests? You have item
number number two is probably quite a generic one. I'd love to
meet David out and
while I may have voice you could just sit and listen to him for
hours anyway, but at a margin, here's some some fascinating
stories. I really love that he uses curse platform nine I'm
really kind of highlights and educates how climate change is
affecting the entire world and from plants in the smallest
animals to the biggest in humans and AI
Something happens and kind of one part of the world affects
climate change. And another. I think he's able to capture that
really well and be very educating. I think it'd be, it'd
be fascinating to talk to. But he also talks about the science
behind it as well, which is a scientist yourself must be
fascinating. Because yeah, he makes a lot of science around
things like that very simple for laypeople like myself to
understand, you know, so that must be Yeah, that must be a
fascinating conversation where I can imagine he goes into much
greater depth with somebody who's on more than equal like
you are the main
conversation.
Yeah, I think it'd be just be fascinating. I think it has so
many different topics to talk about as well. Great. And number
three, who's your who's your third person. And my third one
is a bit of a different one I actually spoke about about that
earlier, but it's Snow Patrol. I'd love to meet Gary Lightbody.
One, I love their music, and also from the kind of the
Northern Ireland perspective. And it does a lot of work to
bring kind of Northland together and forward and but he really
supports going to Northern Irish talent underneath it, it needs a
lot of money to music programs that kind of brings young
artists on tour with them. And he does a lot of work in
supporting charities in Northern Ireland. So kind of his last
birthday he donated, I think it was maybe 70,000 pounds to local
food banks for his birthday present, which is amazing. So we
I'd love to love to be able to chat with him. No, that'd be
fascinating. Again, yeah, if somebody does, who's we're now
for doing so much for for the region is phenomenal. Yeah,
great. Excellent. Well, look, that's I'm conscious of the time
and consciously with eating into your day, you've got lots of
things to do. So thank you very much your time really appreciate
it. It's great to catch up. And, you know, some of these bits
here, we've kind of had this conversation previously, where
we've met and things and I think it was over again this last
time. But, you know, it's nice to get these kind of on record
and to share kind of our ramblings with other people. So
yeah, I'm doing the rambling, you're doing the eloquent bit.
So that's good. But no, really appreciate your time, Shannon,
and and thank you very much for joining us. No problem. Thank
you very much. Yeah, it's good to talk to you. Thanks for
joining us if you have any subjects you'd like us to cover
in future podcast and please email us at Discovery at deepish
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