Are you craving laughter? Outright mirth and that unfettered sense of happiness? A certain quality of playful fun that you can share with trusted colleagues? Does it feel like humor is in short supply? Does it feel like it’s just now, under the pall of COVID-19, or has this forced COVID-19 lifestyle shed a light […]
Author Archives: avrobioprod
Our second wave: How tag technology is driving exciting preclinical results in Pompe disease research
At AVROBIO, we’ve been highly strategic in selecting our second wave of programs for our leading lentiviral gene therapy pipeline. We’re targeting three devastating lysosomal disorders in this next wave – Pompe disease, Hunter syndrome and Gaucher disease type 3 – each of which impacts multiple organ systems throughout the body and is marked by […]
You can’t yoga your way out of burnout: Reflections on keeping a team energized and productive during a pandemic
This pandemic year has been tough on all of us. But as I reflect back on 2020, I’ve realized that the strains also brought opportunity. The profound dislocations of the year prompted new ways of thinking about nurturing team culture, buoying morale and maintaining strong forward momentum as a business amid steep challenges. As chief […]
Returning to the workplace
There’s a topic looming on the horizon for many organizations: Whether we’ll be returning to the workplace full-time, part-time, or rarely. The insights come from a Hidden Brain podcast interview with Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist who focuses on analyzing management practices. This is one of my favorite podcasts, Shankar Vedantam does a terrific job […]
Brain candy
I’ve been thinking a lot about issues governing our working lives. There’s been a lot of reason to be contemplative this way. Our lives have been upended – how we work, engage, and spend time. To get a perspective, I stepped back and began reading and listening to a lot of experts and colleagues who […]
Leading the way in bringing gene therapy to the CNS with conditioning: A renaissance for busulfan?
Effective treatment of the central nervous system (CNS) through gene therapy is a promising approach for the many genetic diseases with neurological manifestations. It’s a particular hurdle for diseases with both CNS and systemic involvement, where an effective therapy would need to work on both sides of the blood–brain barrier. Prominent among this group are […]
Daring to lead in rare disease
Over the past year, we’ve had some incredibly courageous people come talk to us at AVROBIO from the Patient Advocacy communities that we work with. I played them back in my mind as I listened in to a very powerful conversation between Slalom CEO Brad Jackson and Dr. Brené Brown, who shared her thoughts and […]
Negotiating 101: Gaining leverage – and using it wisely
In a recent blog post, I walked through my tips for reading your adversaries’ body language while maintaining your own poker face throughout negotiations. In this second post, I’ll share practical tactics for gaining leverage and using it wisely. Women of biotech, there’s also a special section for you – so read on! Be prepared […]
Negotiating 101: Maintaining your cool – while making your adversary sweat
It’s back-to-school season, and that puts me in the frame of mind to share some of the most important lessons I’ve learned in a long career focusing on one of the most daunting pillars of the biopharma BD world: the negotiation. First, a metaphor: imagine a wobbly card table with a dozen rubber balls in […]
Picking the right path: The importance of identifying the right vector for gene therapy
I recently had the opportunity to participate in a terrific conversation with two of my fellow CEOs on a Meeting on the Mesa panel from other leading gene therapy companies entitled “State of Play in the Vector Arms Race: Perspectives on the Future of Gene Delivery.” From that title, you might have been expecting fireworks, […]
