Saudi Arabia has spent the last four years building one of the most ambitious biotech gatherings in the region: the Riyadh Global Medical Biotechnology Summit. This September, the fourth edition brought together delegations from more than 57 countries and over 200 speakers, closing with more than 40 agreements and initiatives worth over SAR5 billion. From gene editing and genomics to AI-driven drug discovery and biomanufacturing, the Summit is positioning itself as a serious node in the global biotech map — and it's timed deliberately, arriving just weeks before BIO-Europe in Cologne.

To unpack what happened in Riyadh, what it means for Saudi Arabia's biotech ambitions, and how the Summit connects to the conversations happening at BIO-Europe, I'm joined by Abdulaziz Aldayel, a nanomedicine researcher at the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center.

• 01:20 – Meet Abdulaziz Aldayel
• 07:21 – What RGMBS has set out to achieve since 2021
• 11:44 – RGMBS dealmaking jumps to $1.3 billion
• 21:17 – How RGMBS and BIO-Europe complement each other
• 28:14 – What to expect at the next RGMBS

This episode is presented with the support of RGMBS. Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here!

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• Genomes to bioreactors: Saudi Arabia’s gene editing oncology push
• Saudi Arabia: is the country set to become a global biotech hub?
• Saudi Arabia to inject $3B into vaccines and medicines industry

AI has been one of the biggest buzzwords in biotech for years now — but for all the technological progress, actual R&D productivity gains have been hard to find, and the cost of developing a new drug keeps climbing. My guest today believes that's because AI alone was never going to be the answer.

Valo, a biotech founded by Flagship Pioneering, is betting on a different approach: combining AI, predictive chemistry, and — crucially — real-world human data from the very start of drug discovery, using access to more than 17 million longitudinal patient records, some spanning 20 years. That approach has already attracted major partners, including a Parkinson's collaboration with EMD Serono worth up to $3 billion and a cardiometabolic disease partnership with Novo.

Joining me to talk about it is Valo's CEO, Brian Alexander — a former practicing radiation oncologist whose years treating patients with aggressive brain tumors helped shape his mission to reimagine how we discover medicines. Brian, welcome to the show.

• 01:30 — Meet Brian Alexander
• 04:17 — How treating brain tumor patients shaped his mission
• 09:58 — Valo's two-platform approach to drug discovery
• 16:23 — What 20-year patient records reveal about disease
• 22:23 — Why Valo positions itself as pharma's R&D engine
• 32:43 — How this approach could raise clinical success rates

Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here!

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• Episode 198: The problem at the heart of drug discovery: Lexogen & Ochre Bio on the power of AI on human data
• How human-first datasets are reshaping AI drug discovery
• Webinar: How AI has changed drug discovery & development, and what’s coming next

By 2050, nearly half the world's population is expected to be myopic, with around a billion people projected to progress to high myopia — a leading cause of irreversible vision loss later in life. Children face a narrow window in which to intervene, while the eye is still growing, before those structural changes become permanent. Yet despite the scale of the problem, there is still no FDA-approved drug that slows myopia progression in children, a gap underscored just last month when the FDA declined to approve an atropine eye drop for the same use.

My guest today is Thomas Ruggia, President and CEO of Theialife, a late-stage biotech developing an oral therapy for pediatric myopia derived from a natural caffeine metabolite. Tom joins Theialife after 25 years in ophthalmology leadership, including roles at Johnson & Johnson, Alcon, Novartis, and most recently as CEO of Samsara Vision. We'll talk mechanism, evidence, and the road to Phase 3.

01:49 Meet Thomas Ruggia

06:50 How progressive myopia develops in children and why it's misunderstood

15:55 ND10's mechanism of action

19:51 20 years of Danish compassionate-use data vs. a randomised trial

26:44 Why no FDA-approved pharmacologic therapy exists yet

37:57 Theialife's pipeline beyond myopia

Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here!

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• Innovation in ophthalmology: How biotechs are reshaping the treatment of eye diseases
• Can gene therapy treat vision loss?
• Europe’s Ophthalmology Scene Stays Hot for Biotech Funding