A Q&A session with Euclises' John Talley

[iSelect] You have the honorable position of being one of the leading medicinal chemists in the world.

[John] It’s funny. I don’t think of myself that way at all. I’ve had the great fortune to work with really great people on really good projects. We worked on some fabulous projects that lead to me finding some pretty good compounds. I have this knack to see stuff that others just don’t see. And I can’t explain where it comes from. I guess it’s just intuition.

Talk about how Celebrex was developed.

On COX-2 there were three large lead chemistry teams. I had a small group that was part of a much larger team. I kept looking at the data and I would say to the lead teams, “you guys ought to make things like this”. The team leaders really didn’t express much interest. But the data was so strong and I would keep suggesting to the larger teams, saying, “You really ought to make these”. After a while, I just decided to make the compound myself. In June, of 1993, I ordered up some of the raw material leading to the creation of Celebrex. And in August of 1993, I created the first analog. It was crazy good. The first year after Celebrex launched it was a 1.5 billion dollar drug.

How did you discover that COX-2’s could treat cancer?

COX-2 was first observed in tumor progression. There were a couple of key papers published. We’ve learned a lot about COX-2 role in tumor progression, initiation and maintenance. The data was telling us to create a treatment that would be an adjunct on top of the current standard of care. There is 20 years of literature that lead us to developing this entirely new compound of this caliber. We feel as confident as one can be that this will work in a clinical setting. Of course with any drug there is high risk, but we think we’ve wrung out most of that.

The Euclises executive team is very impressive.

Bobby Sandage is great and we are so lucky to have him. I met Bobby when I was presenting at a venture capital investor meeting. Bobby was in the audience and he asked a lot of questions. I could tell that he was really interested and expressed a strong interest in wanting to be involved with what we are doing. George Capps and Kathleen Beckmann are both Stanford University graduates. We have a really great team.

What milestones has Euclises reached?

We are doing combination therapy studies in animals. We are working closely with the former Deputy Director of the Oncology section of the FDA. He continues to say extremely positive things to say about the safety margin being so good on these new molecules.

Thank you John

Consideration

With 2021 well underway and with public markets still strong, we think it is an important time to highlight some of the key private market, venture investment themes that iSelect fund has identified for the year. We believe technologies transforming the Agriculture, Food and Wellness markets will flourish, with a focus on four areas: technologies that enable better food choices to drive better health outcomes, technologies that drive better, more profitable farm operations, technologies that drive the Consumerization of Healthcare, and biome-based treatment technologies. At iSelect, we invest for impact AND performance. We offer qualified investors access to emerging growth companies through our national venture capital strategy. Our unique structure allows our investors to continue to invest in these companies as they develop.

Timing

Why is now the right time for venture? The answer is that now is not explicitly the right time. Venture is something we need in our economy at all times. Now is not better than any other particular time. The question is, why ever stop? When we look at the challenges we’re facing in food and healthcare the reality is there is someone, somewhere who has an insight about how to build a product that will solve those problems. And if they put the right resources to it, they will succeed. As long as we need new technology to make life better or make our lives more enjoyable, we need venture capital to help fuel those entrepreneurs.

What is iSelect as a product?

iSelect is a very unique product, but when you break it into its parts it’s fairly easy to understand. On the front end we’re a traditional venture capital fund. We have a diligence process. We have an investment process. We have categories of industries where we have focus and real expertise, and we invest in companies in those areas that meet requirements for the fund. On the back end we’re unique in that we don’t raise a large amount of capital at one time and deploy it over the life of our fund. Each deal that we bring onto the fund, our investors have to prove and determine to invest in that deal. We have to constantly prove our diligence standards. It’s accessible, transparent and easy for investors to come in and see our comprehensive process.

What is the ideal iSelect company?

We are looking for founders that are passionate and we want the problem they’re trying to solve to be big, real, and painful. We want the solution to be revolutionary and we want our capital to be able to help them solve that problem. We want to know that they have customers involved and that the solution they’ve come up with actually meets those customers’ and market needs. And we want the team to be capital efficient with the money they’re spending.

What does the ideal iSelect company look like?

We’re looking for a company that has an opportunity to have a 10x return to our investment or greater in a period of three to seven years. What excites us at iSelect are companies that are solving big problems. We want companies that are going to be the Monsantos of the future. Not just in the size and the scope, but the impact they have on people’s lives. We want to create positive impacts on people’s lives, so we invest in areas like agricultural production and areas like producing healthy foods for our kids. They are problems that impact real people’s lives on a daily basis. That’s what we’re trying to do at iSelect. We’re trying to solve the big problems out there. Find ways to bring capital to the entrepreneurs who are the real heroes out there getting up every morning, beating away at these things that are problems that you and me and everyone else faces in their everyday lives.

What is iSelect?

iSelect is a venture capital firm. What that means is we look at hundreds and hundreds of different companies and we apply tough diligence standards to each of them, looking at whether the team has a good plan for growing the business, whether the team is qualified and credible, and more. We do that to resolve the few who provide the best opportunities for investors. And then iSelect takes that smaller set of investments and goes to investors who are interested in venture capital and provides a way for them to invest in these companies, either individually or all at once. We co-invest alongside other venture capitalists. We source transactions through to an exit where the company would become public or get bought. And we manage that whole investment process on behalf of our investors.

A Q&A session with Euclises’ John Talley

Related Posts