Episode 26: Christina Lopes- Building The One Health Compa
About Christina Lopes:
My next guest on The One Percent Project is Christina Lopes. Christina is the CEO and co-founder of The One Health Company, leaders in precision medicine leader for dogs with cancer. The One Health Company is a YC incubated start-up backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Tau Ventures. Christina has been also been recognized as Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
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In this conversation, she talks about:
Building a Bio company in Silicon Valley.
Learning from Y Combinator and who should apply?
Why have the likes of Andreessen Horowitz and Tau Ventures invested in The One Health Company?
Building a business in a market with established incumbents.
What does it take to build an effective multidisciplinary team?
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Transcript:
*The transcripts are not 100% accurate.
Pritish: Tell us about your journey building The One Health Company and how you narrowed down the product scope?
Christina: I've been always after group closing gaps of big unmet needs that perhaps aren't and say everyone's mindset or doesn't have, yet an asset class. So, it's a big need. The part that's been my superpower has been coalescing this big need, with the capital, with the people, with the technology, bringing it together and turn it into something that's a need that has, let's say, an economy behind it and a driver, like, I call that making a movement. That’s been my MO and I worked before from Brazil. So, I always worked with emerging markets, actually, and middle income countries or developing countries. I did that both in a point of view of bringing the capital but also in a nonprofit point of view, and eventually got into global health and health inequities. So, in that was when I was saying, I'm really interested in those, helping to serve better those that are marginalized and voiceless, and closing the access to especially health care, because so much of the technology already exists. Some of it isn't even that expensive. But there's just this access gap and so, you're from India, actually I went to India and looked at different things they were doing, so I was very in that movement. Then I met my co-founder, and I used to say that I am interested in those that are marginalized and voiceless. But I wasn't dogs, okay and I met my co-founder, and who had gone to vet school and had this kind of profound insight that, on one hand, you have all these animals in the world that need better care, the technology is there.
Then on the other hand, you also have a different machine, which is the R&D machine that, frankly, tests on animals, and in order to move things to people and there's no connection between these worlds. Could it be? That we could make something really for the 21st century which isn't destructive, but actually is a win for everyone. It's just a different paradigm. Then we honed in on the dogs specifically and cancer. We thought, could we take the dog from being a subject in R&D to a patient? Could that be? And can we think of this? and have two sides of the leash versus this or that or kind of like an economy, where you have to abuse something to get a gain, but I meet so yeah, let's get out of this. That's where we launched "One Health and FidoCure", and we really thought of it as a movement. We identified pretty quickly that cancer in dogs is the number one killer and it's not understood, like nobody knows, apple, when you look at the numbers you learn. The other thing for me that I realized was the incidence and prevalence is just very high. Meaning in the US, 6 million dogs were diagnosed with cancer last year. But that's compared to like 1.8 million people and there's many more people than there are dogs. So, you start to see that hold on, this is pretty big problem. There's no movement around that, there's no conversation, there's no roadmap, you hear about it, because once you mentioned it to people, they're like, Oh, my cousin's dog, my neighbor, my dad, you start to really like hear it more. But our role is to come in and really bring all of this together, close the gap in terms of technology.
So, lift from the human side, and lift those technologies and kind of advancements that were actually already tested on dogs. So, there's a lot of data already there, especially safety data, and then bring it back to the dog and help build that and move forward. But what's particularly interesting is what we learn in the dog? It might just help, what we do for humans? So, there's a moment now where we're basically trying to close the gap of access and really bring cancer care for dogs to the century. It just has to happen. Its mission one. But we may be able to do things that in the human world do certain rigidities that don't even make sense are really hard to figure out. That's kind of the promise and the hope.
Pritish: I actually didn't know that. There's humans only 1.8 million when I say only that's a big number. But to dogs, it's probably significantly lower. What does it take to actually build a bio company in Silicon Valley?
Christina: That's a great question. So, first of all, we're part of a movement. That is a departure of the past, or how biotech traditionally has been? Which has been one molecule, the one target, huge bets on that. If it doesn't go forward, or is not the disease state that has a lot of capital, it's like you're out. We're part of this movement trying to redefine that. I'm really interested in it because part of my broader mission in life, which is to close these gaps, so if we can figure out, how to accelerate R&D in a way that's beneficial in a way that accelerates cures to those who need it, then my mind even goes to other things that we could do, why we did? Part of our journey. We did Y Combinatory in winter 2018. They've actually been doubling down on the bio space, traditionally, really tech, and their contribution and such as them, but they're really thinking of it in a different way, in a platform approach, just really rethinking. Look, in the end they want, this is starting to win. The first sign is the maternal vaccine, which is comes from highly think of engineering. It's like a hardware world and really thinking how to do is a platform approach. So, it is already a new thing. It's impacting, how we look at COVID and care for COVID. Similarly, we're part of that story. So, in the valley, broadly there's a movement of that. Then our first big funder, Andreessen Horowitz, a16z bio fund. It’s really eating the world. It's very much the intersection of computation, the intersection of tech, how tech and biology can meet? We are taking the companies. The companies are very tech Type Company attacking a really tough problem. So, we're into speed, we're into the wave culture. We don't drop balls, certain things that we're taking that lending from the tech world here.
Pritish: Who would you say, should apply to a program like YC? And what did you learn about growth and scaling a b2b business?
Christina: First, I would say that everyone thinking of starting a business should at least look at the application and it is an exercise of clarity and just maybe do it, just for your own self. So, that's one, two, it's probably better if you have an idea that already has a little bit of legs, versus really non so that you can use the time there, they really help you think through hard problems. It's better if you're already in the game a bit, and you come up with hard problems. You can use it very quickly. The partners are amazing. You really have this thought partnership that you pose it and they just have so much data, I can say they've just seen it all. So, you can very quickly, almost do a leap, that if you didn't have that you just wouldn't be able to. So, you can see from, what I'm saying? The more you already are in the game, not too much in the game, they're really good at the zero to one. But the more you're in that a little bit more about your customers not really know them, but know a bit, the more you're figuring out the product, but you're in a situation, where you can be in the game? And be getting feedback, the better. So, meaning if you're too much in an ideation moment, I don't know if it would be as good. You see what I mean?
Pritish: You're almost at the MVP, or at the MVP stage. Maybe that's when you may probably say that it's worthwhile applying.
Christina: Pretty close. We didn't have everything together. But we very quickly in YC got it together. Then we're able to start working on other things, how to build custom? Just all sorts of things.
Pritish: That's an interesting segue, what did you learn from them? Or during the cohort about customers? Or how to take the next step? So, what were the things that you thought was really took you to the next level, being a part of YC?
Christina: First and foremost, this concept, and I believe it's an essay by Paul Graham of scale. It sounds super counterintuitive, but it was amazing. I use it now, even now as we're learning something new. I'm like, hold on, do it super manual. Let's bring engineering or whatever it is, but if you don't do it manually, it's a question of doing manual, then also documenting and really observing every little thing. Really like a curious cat attitude to really learn, and then once you nail it, then you bring in engineering otherwise you don't know, what to build? It was really reinforcing to have the Airbnb founders come and talk, they really did that. So, that was one thing. They themselves took photos of the places and went to see the people in the apartment. That's what they learned that it made a difference, the photos, and so all sorts of little things.
Pritish: Why do you think Andreessen Horowitz, Tao ventures and the others invested in your company?
Christina: That's a great question. There's a podcast and an essay by our partner at Andreessen Horowitz about it. They really saw the cleverness of hold on, there's a whole world of drugs that are tested on dogs. That data, you can access it. That's doesn't get really used, really it gets used in the sense that then it helps inform when it goes to humans, but it never comes back to that species and dogs concurrently, are going from being a worker of CO evolved with human as a worker. Then as a best friend, and especially after COVID is like as a family member. You're in Hong Kong, for example. We've had folks from Hong Kong say, they took their dog with cancer to the human oncologists. So, it's a glow, and it's a global thing. So, within those dynamics, it's really interesting, because we can take something that's considered collateral like a scrap the data and dogs. It was used for something but kind of move, let's move on, we take that and we almost repurpose that in a really meaningful way that impacts a family because the dogs have such a benefit for mental health, they are really more important in everyone's lives. Then you have this disease state, that's a huge unmet need. So, it just hasn't these interesting problems in this potential. There's a potential to create the asset class, create the market is kind the big one.
Pritish: Then a number of competitors in the market, the big pharmacy companies, like I have worked in pharmacy for five years. Recently, I also spoke to the head of China for pet care of Mars, they are working on actually bringing the product of doing a DNA test for your pets, how do you compete with them? When they see that there is success in a company, either they can collaborate, or they may actually build a product on their own.
Christina: Couple of points, they definitely have a distribution for those that don't know Mars owns, lots of the animal clinics. They have pet food, they're really a big conglomerate. That's a family owned conglomerate. So, they definitely have distribution. But in many industries, they generally are not the very cutting edge innovators. Because you really need an unusual mindset, you really need an ecosystem like the Y Combinatory, the Andreessen Horowitz, we're in the middle of Silicon Valley doing this crazy idea. My neighbor is a founder, you can't help it, but go forward in a way. It's really hard to beat. They are kind of partners and could be down the line potential acquirers or the other way? Who knows? Its lots of opportunity. But basically that's, how I would look at it more? Than an issue now. Maybe I'm too into it. But I just think, what we do have? Such a great team, we really just work with the top people in the world. What we do? That it's just better. So hard to pull this off.
Pritish: How do you get your teams to collaborate? Given that you have a mix of technical people, you have people who come from the pharmacy background, and other sets of the ecosystem? How do these cross functional teams work with each other?
Christina: That's a really good question. It's a really tough one, because we're highly interdisciplinary. That is the future. It's the present even it's the way to go. But it takes building a culture and a common narrative and making sure it in COVID people are not coming into the same office. So, everyone's distributed, which has its benefits too. We can unlock incredible talent in places, maybe in the past we wouldn't have thought of, so it has a benefit. But the downside is, you're not coming to an office together. We're making sure they're on the same page. So, the beauty is that by bringing these different minds together and blind in the mission, you really can transform. Because it's not coming from exactly, what we were just saying? Large corporate that is only in one sector. We'll just have a type, we're bringing in, top people from very different walks of life. The thing to guard against is just making sure, everyone is on the same page, that we're speaking, understanding each other. For that, you have to really up the game in terms of the corporate goals, the culture, and then all the different ways to communicate in a distributed way, stay in touch, and all pools that becomes really important.
Pritish: Now we get to the exciting part of the interview, which is a rapid fire. Three questions, one word, or one sentence. Are you ready?
Christina: Ready
Pritish: What is the toughest part of your job?
Christina: Dealing with folks, that are really negative on us because we're new thing and don't understand it really. It's for mission people. It's really hard.
Pritish: Don't focus on them. One book or a blog that has transformed you professionally and personally.
Christina: I love Ben Horowitz's, the hard things about hard things. Chapter Four, and then lots of the a16z blogs and podcasts about creating a market is amazing. More in our field, the bio podcast talking about real world data versus traditional clinical trials. Goes on and on. But they’re amazing.
Pritish: Your most favorite superhero?
Christina: Wow, the first word is like Superwoman.
Pritish: Brilliant. Thank you, Christina, for being on the 1% project.
Christina: Thank you so much.