Faculty Feature: Dr. sean brady

For this newsletter’s Faculty Feature, Francis He and Nick Bartelo had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Sean Brady. Dr. Brady received his PhD from Cornell University in Organic Chemistry in 2002. He completed a short postdoc at Cornell University before becoming a Fellow at Harvard Medical School from 2002-2006. Dr. Brady became an Assistant Professor at Rockefeller University in 2006 and earned the title of Professor since 2018. His research centers on the discovery and characterization of new, genetically encoded small molecules from microbial sources, with a special focus on those produced by uncultured soil bacteria, human commensal bacteria, and pathogenic bacteria. He founded Lodo Therapeutics in 2016, a drug discovery company using novel insights from soil metagenomics. Lodo Therapeutics was acquired by Zymergen in 2021, which was then acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks in 2022. Dr. Brady has initiated a new form of therapeutic discovery through the investigation of numerous bacteria species. 

SVG: Lodo Therapeutics was acquired by Zymergen in 2021. Based on the company website, Lodo Therapeutics used metagenome and sequencing methods to develop novel compounds for therapeutic treatments from bacteria. Can you tell us more about what Lodo Therapeutics did?
 
Dr. Brady: Lodo was designed to spin out some methods that we developed in the lab for finding new natural products from uncultured bacteria. Most of the antibiotics that are used in the clinic today come from cultured bacteria and we can’t grow most of the naturally occurring bacteria. We developed the methodologies to access antibiotics from bacteria we can’t grow and spun out the method development into a platform company to identify new antibiotics. 

SVG: How was your experience of acquiring funding for Lodo Therapeutics? Also, how was Lodo Therapeutics’ experience of forming collaborations? 

Dr. Brady: One of the accelerators that used to exist in NYC had learned about us. They started talking to me and we decided let’s make a company. Then the Gates Foundation learned about our work. What really got us off the ground was when Bill Gates was in town and I had the chance to pitch our idea to him over lunch. Through serendipity, both the Gates foundation and the accelerator pledged money for us to start the company. With these developments, we were able to sign a pretty big deal with Genentech as our outside deal early on. 

SVG: How was your experience recruiting a CEO? 

Dr. Brady: We didn’t have a CEO at the beginning, similar to most accelerator driven companies. However, most of the accelerator driven companies don’t have the same venture backed size of money that we had. Retrospectively, we should have had a CEO and a business development person from day one. It is important to find a CEO as it is hard to find the perfect time to execute. My advice is depending on the money you raise, once you hit an inflection point or milestone you should hire one. They are expensive but they are worth the money. 

SVG: Lodo Therapeutics has been acquired by Zymergen. How did the company come across Zymergen and how was your experience facilitating the sale of your company? 

Dr. Brady: It was pretty clear that we needed to raise another round of money and we waited too long to hire a CEO to do that. During COVID, we were rounding down our first round of funding and it was very difficult to secure more funding. There was a Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC) craze at the time so we had another way out. We thought about raising another round of money, but it was challenging due to the time constraints. In the end, the board decided selling to Zymergen was the best option. 

SVG: We read that when Lodo was acquired, Zymergen brought on the Lodo R&D team. How did your role in the company change when this happened and did you become more or less involved? Do you still have a position or some involvement with the company as an advisor/investor/etc. after Zymergen was acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks?

Dr. Brady: I became tied to Zymergen when Lodo was acquired. In fact, when Zymergen got sold to Ginkgo Bioworks in 2022, I was still tied to the company and the R&D team. They were paying me very little as their stock had gone down so much, and they still would not release me. My advice is to get some legal advice early on in the startup process so that you understand your legal responsibility when selling the company. 

SVG: What would be your advice for graduate students and post-docs who want to start a company?

Dr. Brady: I think as scientists we usually get very excited when the VC people come and invest in our companies. We assume that the investors will get financial returns while we will get prestige. However, I would encourage scientists to ask for a bigger slice of the financial pie because our scientific expertise is worth something. On top of that, educate yourself more about the valuation of a company or idea and learn more on the business side of the company. You need to have well defined inflection points so you can make milestones and raise money before the funding runs out.