Jan. 14, 2022
Mahesh Narayanan, Program Director & Venture Partner at Newchip
Mahesh Narayanan is an entrepreneur in biotechnology with extensive experience in the healthcare and life sciences industry, and a strong focus on business development and business start-up strategies. As an active member of the Small Business community, he provides business and scientific guidance in the development of therapeutics and medical devices. He has experience in taking an idea from concept to consumers and considerable knowledge on patents, business plans, fundraising, and incorporation. Mahesh received his Master’s in Biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania and his bachelor’s degrees in History and Pre-Medical Sciences from Boston University.
WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Latin Metech leaders podcast.
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A conversation with Metech leaders who have succeeded or plan to succeed in Latin America.
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Please subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform, apple podcast, Spotify, Google podcast, Amazon music is teacher tune in.
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I heard radio Pandora or welcome to the LA me leaders podcast.
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A conversations with leaders who have succeeded or plan to succeed in Latin America today.
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Our guest is Mahesh Naja.
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I hope I'm pronouncing your name right.
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Mahe all right.
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He's a program director and venture partner at Newchip and accelerator are new chip.
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An accelerator that since 2019 has helped founders raise over 300 million with over 70% of their graduates successfully.
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Raising capital Mahesh is an entrepreneur in biotechnology with extensive experience in the healthcare and life sciences industries, and has a strong focus in business development and business startup strategies.
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MIH provides business and scientific guidance in the development of therapeutics and medical devices.
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He receive his master's in biotechnology from the university of Pennsylvania and his bachelor's degree in history and pre-medical sciences from Boston university.
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So mien, I'm really pleased to having you here in the show today.
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I look forward to our conversation.
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How are you doing today?
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Absolutely.
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Thank you, Julia, for the invitation and thank you for that great, uh, introduction as well.
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Appreciate it.
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Sure.
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I mean, you deserve it.
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You are the guy here.
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I mean, I'm, I'm so, so thrilled to having you here and to hearing about your activities in Latin America, finding innovation in the region, clinical research.
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I mean, you've done all in Latin America, so let's get started with, uh, your journey to the region houses that you guys started, uh, getting involved with Latin America.
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Absolutely.
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So I actually started, uh, again as with most things, uh, in life serendipitously, I had a good friend, uh, that I met, uh, at a conference, uh, who actually at that point was doing his, uh, graduate studies, uh, in, uh, university of Texas, uh, a and M uh, and, uh, so we met at a conference and we really hit it off.
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Um, he was also a very young, um, inner scientist, uh, looking to become an entrepreneur and I just started, uh, his own biotech company.
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Um, so I started, uh, my first biotech company back in 2013, uh, and, uh, you know, that was kind of, uh, more in the, the, um, digital health space now had a quick exit and then, uh, moved into the therapeutic side, uh, of it, uh, kind of using, uh, similar technologies, but more applying those, uh, um, you know, the digital aspects into a therapeutic development.
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Uh, and so, um, you know, that's, that's the, uh, current company pep backs.
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And so, um, you know, our, our goal, uh, you know, between our combination there is that, uh, he had a particular technology that, uh, he needed help in delivering, uh, into patients.
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Uh, so he had a, um, a particular, uh, RNA technology.
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So back then, not a lot, not a lot of people knew about RNA.
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Now, everyone knows because of all the vaccines, you know, how well RNA works.
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Uh, but, uh, he had a particular RNA therapeutic, uh, for, uh, pancreatic cancer.
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Uh, but he, he was really struggling to get it delivered into, uh, patients, uh, and, uh, you know, cuz the RNA breaks down very quickly and uh, for a vaccine it's good cuz you know, you get it, it expresses and it's done.
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But when it's being used as a therapeutic, when you're actually trying to treat a disease RNA, it has to stay there for a long time.
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Uh, and you know, and, and you have to make a lot of it in order for it to work, uh, for a therapeutic and he wasn't able to do that properly.
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And so he came to us because we had a lot of experience in, uh, actively delivering, uh, any types of, uh, DNA and RNA based, uh, therapeutics.
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Uh, and so we started collaborating, uh, you know, uh, quite early on to, uh, see if we can help him deliver his, uh, therapeutic into patients actively and uh, you know, do well.
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And that was my really first interaction with a, uh, Latin American company because he is actually was originally from Costa Rica.
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And so he ended up going back to Costa Rica, started his company there.
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Uh, and, and that's when we, you know, our interaction with a Latin American company started to come about is, you know, I was like, oh, he he's a great company.
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He started, you know, he was in the United States, but it ended up going back.
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And the reason he, he went back, uh, was actually, um, you know, because of the opportunities that he saw in Costa Rica that he wasn't able to see in the United States.
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Uh, and primarily that comes down to how quickly he was able to recruit patients, how quickly he was able to use certain, uh, you know, facilities that were readily available in Costa Rica, but no one was using them.
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Uh, and, uh, you know, so there was not a government aid that was available, but no one was aware of it or no one was using it.
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And, and so he kind of, you know, dug deep into the research and then said, okay, I have a lot of, um, ways to get funding and a lot of ways to get my company going, uh, in Costa Rica.
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So we decided to go back to Costa Rica.
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And so we start, we pretty much followed him there.
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That's
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Ironic, right.
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It's easy to, to develop a product in Costa Rica in the United States.
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Exactly.
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So, so, you know, while research is great here, you know, there are a lot of regulatory pathways in Western Europe, as well as in, uh, you know, United States that make it quite hard to, uh, quickly develop, uh, therapeutics, uh, you know, in certain, um, indications, especially in cancers, rare cancers where, uh, you know, it's late stage or, you know, it's, uh, you know, there aren't that many people, uh, to test, it becomes very hard in, uh, in America, but it's actually not that hard to recruit those type of patients in Latin America, primarily because they don't have too many other options here.
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You know, that that's where it pretty much comes down to access.
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Right.
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And so in the United States, you have so much access to, uh, in some advanced therapeutics that most of the world, uh, in know, uh, countries, uh, don't really have access to.
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Uh, and so in Latin America, that's quite, uh, you know, uh, prevalent as well.
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And so when, when they see that there's a experimental, uh, in a clinical trial that they're recruiting patients for, it's much easier to recruit them because, uh, they're like, oh, I don't have anything else.
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So might as well try this.
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Uh, and so that's a, you know, that was an opportunity that he saw, uh, in, in Costa Rica, but the other aspect is, and this is something that, uh, a lot of people don't realize as well.
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You can actually conduct, uh, experiments in Costa Rica and Brazil and take those results to the United States FDA, and actually, you know, use it actually to, uh, you know, uh, at least show them that you have, uh, initial human data and it's safe.
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And then you can actually expedite your process with the FDA into phase two and phase three,
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As long as the data is captured, following ICH, UCP standards.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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So, and, and, and that's not offered in all countries by the way, just because you follow the FDA guidelines in another country doesn't necessarily mean that they wanna approve it.
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So, uh, the, the FDA has, uh, identified a few countries that they have gone to the facilities they've worked with their, uh, you know, uh, FDA equivalent, I believe in Brazil, it's a, a VC, uh, and visa in cost, a visa, sorry.
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And, uh, the, uh, in Costa Rica, there's, I think the CR FDA, but, uh, you know, they, they have, you know, very, uh, similar, um, uh, hierarchies and they have similar regulations.
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And so the FDA's approved a couple countries out the world where you can conduct it there, and then you can actually bring the data back as long as you follow those particular guidelines.
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I just mentioned.
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Uh, and that's pretty much what, you know, he had planned and that's what he's doing at this time.
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Uh, he, he was actually able to expedite his clinical trials and, and through him, we were able to expedite our clinical trials, cuz our, you know, our, our, uh, device and our dev our, uh, drug delivery platform was also being used for that.
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And so we actually used that information to come back to the FDA.
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So he actually, we were able to kill two boards in one stone.
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He got, you know, he got his approval for his drug and we got approval for our platform all in the same clinical study.
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Uh, and I think that is, you know, one of the big opportunities that, uh, we can see in Latin America is, uh, you know, um, being able to, you know, if you pick the right countries and you able to pick the right, uh, facilities, and it certainly the right, uh, uh, you know, uh, medical personnel to run clinical trials, either in therapeutics or devices, you actually have a really good chance of getting it approved in the United States, just with that data.
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And so that's a, that's actually how my journey started in Latin America is you brought me there and then now I've been exploring it for the past couple of years, like where the faster opportunities, you know, the opportunities where I think, uh, you know, we can take advantage of not just in therapeutics, but medical devices and other, uh, aspects that, uh, you know, I feel are important, uh, to be able to bring that type of care to people.
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Yes, yes.
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Maje, thank you for that, that answer.
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I mean, it was a fantastic answer and, and, and, and you talk about so much stuff.
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We can have five different episodes with, just with that answer, but a quick con a quick comment here is that, uh, a lot of our clients, you know, we do a lot of clinical research in Columbia and, uh, we can do clinical research over Latin America.
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We just happen to believe that Columbia is perhaps one of the best countries for this type of work.
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So a lot of our clients and sponsors use that data, that clinical data, and they sit down for the FDA and with their investors.
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Right, right.
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I mean, that represents a huge milestone in the development of every technology that first in human experience, those 20 patients, 15, anywhere between 10 and 20 patients and they sit down for the FDA and they, they can talk about their pilot or pivotal in the United States, if it is a medical device.
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And, uh, and of course with investors or also with these strategic acquirers, they can now talk to Medtronic FIC and say to them, listen, I already got human experience.
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Now I'm more attractive.
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Let's talk about evaluation here.
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Let's talk about, uh, acquisition.
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Exactly, exactly.
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So, and it's a great opportunity for early stage companies because, you know, the, the, if you are able to get the funding, I mean, that's, that's the other, you know, I think the, the downside to some of the, the work is that, you know, funding's not readily available.
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So the funding probably has to come from the United States or somewhere in Europe, but, you know, but the, the work can definitely be done in that, in that region and done really well to the same standards you, you might be able to do, uh, uh, in front sometimes better, you might be able to do in the United States.
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However, before we move on, uh, I wanna make a quick comment here.
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I've been faced with a few, uh, sponsors, clients sponsors, who have told me, Julio, I'm getting all these financial or incentives tax and financial incentives in Australia in Poland.
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And I'm like, huh, interesting.
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Let me do some research in Columbia.
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Let's see what financial incentives or tax incentives the government has for companies to do research or, or to, um, do trials, any type of R and D work in Columbia.
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And I was amazed about, I mean, of what I found, I mean about the amount of money that the government is, is offering free government grants.
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It's not many people know about it and not many people take advantage of it because they don't know what to do for those grants, because there isn't much innovation.
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There isn't much local innovation.
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So foreign companies can take a lot of advantage of these opportunities in Latin America, since all these governments or looking at science, technology and innovation as a way to, to diversify their economies and to create knowledge economies, they wanna export knowledge, not export bananas and avocados and mans and coffee, right.
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Or oil.
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That's the thing pass.
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I think America has already passed that.
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I mean like countries like Chile, Colombia, Mexico, they're already thinking big.
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So, so yeah, that's, that's an opportunity that very very few companies are, are seeing in Latin America.
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Uh, there are a lot of grant opportunities in the region.
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It says that you have to, to wait a little longer, you have to point it with a local company and apply for the grant.
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You cannot do it from the United States.
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You have to do an application locally in Spanish, but can be done.
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There's there's money just recently.
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Um, I was just talking to a sponsor, uh, we're doing a couple clinical trials for them.
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They were looking at another indication and, uh, stem cell work, generative medicine.
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And we were looking at a grant by the Columbia government of almost$300,000.
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I mean, that's enough for a clinical trial.
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Right.
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And, and, and that was actually a similar type of grant that my friend was pursuing in Costa Rica, you know, and, and, and he realized that, you know, there was almost for, you know, for using$300,000, he actually got over 10 million of money that no one else had used.
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Uh, it was there and the government was just holding onto it.
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Uh, and he's like, well, I want all the money.
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And they said, okay, here's all the money don't want it.
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.
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And so, you know, he got so lucky cuz 10 million goes so much further in Latin America than it does in the United States.
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So, you know, so he's actually, you know, he has enough funding to finish.
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His phase.
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One is phase two is phase three, get all the reason, you know, all the trials it needs, uh, and, and still have more left to go do another product, you know, so the, the, the, the, the amount of money goes much further in that America.
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Uh, and, and, and speaking of, uh, you know, Mexico and, and I, I have another, um, uh, you know, company that I've been working with in, uh, in Argentina as well.
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Okay.
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The med, the medical device and equipment market in Mexico and Argentina are unbelievable.
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Uh, you know, the, the amount of, um, innovation that's coming out of Mexico and Argentina, and even, uh, you know, uh, Columbia, uh, when, when looking at like heart valves, when you're looking at, uh, you know, uh, MRI machines or ECG, they, they are finding new and better ways because they have to, uh, you know, to, uh, to, uh, get it to patients faster, cheaper, more efficiently.
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And, and so, you know, I think I mentioned, you know, when we spoke before, there's a, uh, a, a, uh, device company that, uh, that was, uh, you know, actually, uh, invested in that was looking at, um, a, a Sonic and light machine in order to kill bacteria, right.
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Because, because antibacterials are such a big market, but no one wants to work on it, cuz the more you take antibiotics, the less they work, you know, cause bacteria keeps, uh, they, they keep mutating and so it becomes less effective.
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So none of the big companies want to work in, in antibiotics anymore because they don't make any money.
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Cause the more they sell, the less money they make.
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And
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So,
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So it's like one of those paradoxes in, in pharmaceuticals, but this company, uh, their, this company was started by a doctor in a hospital, uh, in, um, in Mexico.
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And, uh, he, he saw that, you know, there was so much rampant, uh, MEA, uh, you know, this, uh, Methin resistant, um, uh, bacterium that no matter what you do, they don't die, you know?
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And so, um, they, they, they actually more patients, he lost more patience to MEA than he did to what, why they came in for, they could have come in, you know, they could have come in for like a wound in their leg.
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They broke their arm and they died because of MEA, you know, it was like the worst situation for them.
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And he's like, this, can you look, I can't lose patients, something I can't see, like this is, you know, like I can't treat this way.
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And so he actually tried to, you know, uh, not try, he actually created this medical device, uh, which, uh, uses light and sound.
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He realized that you use certain frequencies of light and sound.
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He's able to kill the cell wall of the bacteria.
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Wow.
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So the dies, so there's fascinating.
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An there's no antibiotics, there's no an antibacterial, you know, uh, uh, agents, you just use light and, uh, sound and the bacterium dies and he did it because he had to, uh, you know, and, and now I think he saved the entire world by doing that because this is so relevant to every country, no matter where you go in the world, Mesa exists, uh, no matter where you go, uh, bacterium exists.
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And so you, uh, you know, and they will mutate the, the more you take antibiotics, the more they mutate.
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And so by now being able to just kill, uh, the bad ones, and this is actually what he's working on specifically, cuz there's good bacteria.
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You don't wanna kill the good bacteria as well.
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Cuz the entire gut is made of good bacteria, but uh, to be able to identify the bad bacteria and then kill it using specific frequencies, that was brilliant, you know, and that came out of Mexico and we helped fund them.
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Uh, and now, uh, they're looking to expand the entire world.
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Uh, and so they're going after markets in the United States, in the Europe, but that came out of Mexico and, and those are the opportunities I feel, uh, you know, that, that the innovation is happening because it has to, not because we want to.
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And so, uh, and, and you know, that, that innovation is, is, is that's something that I love coming out of Latin America, cuz I don't see that in too many parts of the world.
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Beautiful, beautiful example.
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I love it.
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All right.
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So let's talk about trends in the region.
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Uh, I know we touched a little bit on that, but let's, let's talk about what trends you see happening in Latin America from the political social economic standpoint.
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What do you see in the news?
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What do you see happening
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Well, I, I think in, in terms of trends, uh, you know, I think because of COVID the entire world is kind of in a, you know, a depressed model economically speaking, but I think it's coming back up, uh, I mean the, uh, you know, like markets like Mexico and Brazil and, you know, Columbia and Argentina, they're, they're too big to fail and, and they need to grow faster.
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And, and I think right now is a good opportunity for all of these countries to really step up, uh, their, their game when it comes to innovation.
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Cuz uh, uh, you know, you often see that innovation happens right after a big economic dip.
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Uh, you know, new companies take over and we, we saw this in 2008 and we had the whole sharing economy.
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So we had an Uber and Airbnb and all these other big companies that, that came into place.
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Uh, and that all happened because of 2008.
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And so I think there's another big trend that's gonna change and Latin America can certainly be ahead of that.
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Uh, and I see, you know, some of that coming from the, um, the expanses in, uh, artificial intelligence and machine learning and that's certainly taking place in Latin America, there's a lot of companies working around those aspects, uh, in, in terms of, you know, diagnosing people faster, diagnosing them in different ways.
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Uh, and then when it comes to, uh, you know, I think, uh, innovation that that's pushed by the government, I think a lot of, you know, uh, governments that around the world are pumping money just to keep the economy going.
00:18:37.539 --> 00:18:41.700
And you see that in the United States, we see that in, in Latin America, uh, and uh, pretty much every part of the world.
00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:46.529
So there's money now available for ideas to be, you know, created.
00:18:46.910 --> 00:19:00.250
And so, uh, you know, I think there's a lot of push for companies to continue innovating and for entrepreneurs to continue innovating in Latin America because there's a need for it and there's a push, but all the governments keep the economy going get people, you know, anyone who's not working.
00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:00.849
Okay, it's fine.
00:19:00.868 --> 00:19:03.640
Go start something, start an idea and push that forward.
00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:22.990
Uh, so the next two, three years, I, I, I see a lot of progress that I'm, uh, that, uh, you know, anticipate, uh, in Latin America, just, just because of where we are economically and where the policies are going, moving forward, where, you know, higher access to care, uh, and, uh, you know, uh, easier access and, and in a more efficient access to care.
00:19:23.368 --> 00:19:28.910
All that's important now cuz uh, you know, these Latin American countries that are getting older and older populations.
00:19:28.930 --> 00:19:32.750
And so you, you got, you know, the younger generation has to now take care of the older generation.
00:19:32.849 --> 00:19:36.150
So things have to be more efficient than the they, they have been before.
00:19:36.670 --> 00:19:37.750
And I think that is going to drive.
00:19:37.910 --> 00:19:45.180
So the social economic drive is really gonna push for better healthcare, easier healthcare, uh, and more universal healthcare in, in general.
00:19:45.690 --> 00:19:45.980
Yeah.
00:19:46.650 --> 00:19:46.940
Yeah.
00:19:47.019 --> 00:19:54.380
I, I would summarize what's what's happening now in Latin America, uh, with D desperate for business.
00:19:54.740 --> 00:19:57.180
I mean all these countries, I was in a conference today.
00:19:57.299 --> 00:20:03.930
I was looking it, it was ahead of, uh, the economic department of Citibank, uh, out of New York.
00:20:03.950 --> 00:20:06.130
And he was talking about the trends in Latin America.
00:20:06.950 --> 00:20:20.599
And, um, the growth that is projected for these countries is, is not as good as the growth of the United States and, and China have grown higher than before the pandemic.
00:20:20.799 --> 00:20:22.880
I mean, these countries has rebounded.
00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:37.309
I mean, they, they are leading the world now, but Latin America, the growth of Columbia is gonna be significantly less than the, than, than doing 2020, or just a little bit both.
00:20:37.390 --> 00:20:40.630
I mean, he's just, I mean, in average in Latin, America's, don't gonna grow that much.
00:20:40.631 --> 00:20:43.630
That's my point, uh, versus, uh, 2020.
00:20:44.329 --> 00:20:51.819
And, and, and so what I see this country is doing is they're trying to diversify their economies.
00:20:51.820 --> 00:21:09.650
They're trying to attract foreign indirect investment and they're doing anything necessary for these to happen in the case of Columbus specifically, which is my home country and the country that we focus the most with our business, where we bring our trials and we bring companies that are looking to Australian Latin America.
00:21:10.690 --> 00:21:13.890
I, I see the work reactivation everywhere in the news.
00:21:14.099 --> 00:21:18.769
Every headline has the word economic reactivation, economic reactivation, right?
00:21:19.349 --> 00:21:28.599
So they are bringing, for example, just last week, I was in a, in a, in a meeting organized by ProColombia, which is the, uh, investment promoting agency of the country.
00:21:29.299 --> 00:21:37.599
And they have offices all over the world and you're promoting these initiative to bring pharmaceutical and medical device companies to do manufacturing in Colombia.
00:21:37.900 --> 00:21:45.108
And that will lead to clinical research and that will lead to local innovation and et cetera, et cetera, cetera, high paying jobs.
00:21:45.730 --> 00:21:49.750
So there are looking for very creative strategies to bring more business.
00:21:49.809 --> 00:21:56.390
So I think it will be a, a, a great, it's a it's, it is a great time for Latin America to, to, to do something different.
00:21:57.039 --> 00:21:57.710
Absolutely.
00:21:57.990 --> 00:22:01.589
And, and the pharmaceutical industry, you know, is, is a good place to be in right now.
00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:06.019
You know, it's one of the few industries that actually wasn't effective with the pandemic actually went up.
00:22:07.250 --> 00:22:07.539
Yeah,
00:22:07.539 --> 00:22:08.259
Totally right.
00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:23.849
And, and so it's, uh, it actually, you know, that medical devices and anything that has do with, with healthcare, uh, you know, that that industry, I think, uh, can really play an important role in recovery as well as, you know, uh, expansion within Latin America.
00:22:24.089 --> 00:22:30.809
And I certainly agree the, the foreign investment perspective of, uh, you know, getting big pharmaceutical companies to come manufacture.
00:22:30.930 --> 00:22:54.839
I mean, uh, looking at, you know, something like mRNA, you know, one of the biggest restraints that we had and I'm, and this is in general, and this is I'm seeing this, uh, happening quite actively in that America as well, uh, as actually, you know, synthetic biology, uh, you know, being able to produce, uh, other molecules, other proteins using cells and using, you know, bacterium and using plants, uh, to be able to do it.
00:22:55.059 --> 00:22:57.200
And, uh, you know, we saw this in with mRNA.
00:22:57.299 --> 00:23:09.630
It's, it's hard to make, uh, you know, it's hard to manufacture, uh, and as we're moving towards, uh, you know, these type of, uh, treatments in the future, we need more and more of these synthetic biology, manufacturing facilities.
00:23:10.150 --> 00:23:31.299
Uh, and, uh, I certainly, uh, you know, hope and, and I'm, you know, hoping all countries, but especially Latin America, uh, can really lead the way in, um, you know, creating more synthetic biology and synthetic manufacturing facilities to aid other, uh, you know, um, companies in making their particular products easier and faster, uh, and distributor.
00:23:31.319 --> 00:23:36.289
So, you know, we don't have to depend on one or two countries around the world to make a vaccine and then distribute it everywhere.
00:23:36.670 --> 00:23:43.368
You know, Latin America could be, you know, that, that center where everyone goes to manufacture vaccines, where, where everyone goes to manufacture proteins.
00:23:43.670 --> 00:23:55.440
And I think that is a, a opportunity that, uh, I'm hoping that, uh, you know, uh, countries in Latin America don't miss out, cuz I think synthetic biology is the future and, uh, and manufacturing and putting money there.
00:23:56.039 --> 00:23:56.279
It's gonna be
00:23:56.960 --> 00:24:01.279
Very, yeah, they are they're they call it nears reassuring strategy.
00:24:01.720 --> 00:24:03.160
They're attracting nears, reassuring.
00:24:03.608 --> 00:24:05.390
That's really the name of the game.
00:24:05.529 --> 00:24:11.150
Now since the relationships with China and the United States is now seeing China as a real competitor.
00:24:11.190 --> 00:24:13.470
I mean, they're getting aggressively into Latin America.
00:24:13.890 --> 00:24:22.220
The United States has said we need friendly countries to work with us so that we don't have to depend on potential enemies.
00:24:22.740 --> 00:24:23.380
right.
00:24:24.039 --> 00:24:33.299
So, uh, we want companies to manufacture their products closer to us here in the, our backyard because we have ignored Latin America.
00:24:33.769 --> 00:24:45.490
It's right here, Mexico, Costa Rica is a great example of a country that attracted all these Metronic of the world was scientific of the world to do manufacturing in their free zones.
00:24:45.490 --> 00:24:46.608
And everything is just amazing.
00:24:46.710 --> 00:24:53.289
So Columbia can easily be a, or get inspired with what Costa Rica is doing.
00:24:53.608 --> 00:25:07.000
Actually, that is what, that was a topic of conversation during the, uh, event that I just mentioned, they talk about Costa Rica, they talk about India, how India was able to come out of nowhere and, and become the pharmacy of the world.
00:25:07.779 --> 00:25:30.710
So the Columbian government, yeah, the, the, the, the Columbia ambassador in India was at the event and she is doing, uh, her work to collaborate with the Indian government to learn best practices from India to adapt to Columbia, to attract pharmaceuticals, uh, or medical devices to, to Colombia or
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