Q&A with Jay Gaines, CMO at Forrester

MEDIA 7 | December 5, 2019

Andrea Lechner-Becker, Chief Marketing Officer at LeadMD is an experienced Marketing and Sales Executive with a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry. Skilled in Business Process, Marketo, Sales, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and IT Service Management, Andrea is also a strong business development professional and a storyteller. MEDIA 7: What inspired you to get into marketing? ANDREA LECHNER: Frankly, not having better options. I originally attended the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse thinking I’d major in Archaeology. I wanted to be Indiana Jones! But, after visiting the archaeology building – i.e. the cold, dark basement of the science building – where a girl sat to piece together pieces of an old Native American vase, I knew archaeology was not going to be the right path for me. And so, without being good at science and a major in art or art history was unlikely to pay my bills, I decided to go into “business”. I originally registered as a management major, but took my first marketing class and thought it was more interesting and switched my sophomore year. That was pretty much it. I’d never been involved in business classes or DECA in high school – I didn’t really know what to do or what jobs in marketing were even possible. I dumb lucked myself into it really. M7: As a storyteller, do you relate the brand to a story or story to the brand? AL: Both? Neither? I think there are stories in every brand, because there are people working on the brand and people engaging with the brand and people using what the brand creates. People, most often a single person, are at the heart of great stories. You can start with the “point” of the story you’re trying to tell. Say you have a software that help accountants better create reports for board meetings. It’s likely you’ll want to tell a success story about an accountant getting promoted to CFO in part because your software helped better communicate their work product to the board. You could have the idea for that and go looking for that story in your customers. OR, you could hear that story, and say, “That’s amazing!” and share it with customers, partners and internal people. Stories are all around us – the most important thing is to keep your ears and eyes open for finding them.

Read More

MEDIA 7 | January 9, 2020

Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder & Chief Evangelist at Terminus is also an author and host of the podcast FlipmyFunnel. He is one of the leading minds in B2B marketing. MEDIA 7: What are you passionate about? SANGRAM VAJRE: Three things: Lead professionally. Grow personally. Love family. M7: Terminus has been recognized as one of Georgia’s 40 fastest-growing companies by ACG Atlanta. What factors contribute to this pace? SV: One of our core values is #OneTeam – which means we think and act as one team and know that if we treat our team right, they will treat our customers amazing. There are no great companies, only great people that make those companies.

Read More

MEDIA 7 | November 28, 2019

Ed Breault, Chief Marketing Officer at Aprimo is a marketer with over 18 years of industry experience. At Aprimo, Ed is responsible for the global brand and growth which includes all Paid/Owned/Earned media, Brand Experience, Product Marketing, Industry Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Strategic Communications, Content Marketing, Analyst Relations, Alliance Marketing, Public Relations, Events, Demand Generation and Account-Based Marketing. MEDIA 7: What’s your superpower? ED BREAULT: I would say it’s applying the full spectrum of art and science that is required in marketing today. Not just left or right brained, but whole-brained strategy. Being human yet data-driven and really understanding numbers and (the right) metrics to make connections to business drivers. Add storytelling to that, so I can effectively communicate to my team, the CEO and CFO as well as my Board of Directors on those metrics, and connecting all that we are doing in marketing to the mission of the business. Then quickly shifting gears to the art and creative aspects of marketing that are required to engage an audience and tell great commercial stories that take complex concepts and craft them in a way that is interesting for people to pay attention to. I have to be the ultimate point of truth for the brand. M7: At Aprimo, how have marketing leadership roles and responsibilities evolved over the past few years? EB: There are so many dimensions needed by marketing leaders today. There are several elements driving this evolution, it’s the new experience battlefront that is emerging and also marketers themselves driving changes. From a market perspective, there is a clear appetite for disruption and consumers are wanting more experiential elements to their buying experience and interactions with brands. Take a few direct to consumer disruptions like trialing products in-home, purchasing directly from a brand or even wanting to ensure that the producer’s trade practices are in line with the buyer’s or even a regulator’s for that matter. Then we want to try before we buy, and we emotionally care about the supply chain of products. Do we TRUST this brand to do business with them? Behind all of this is a story that needs to be told, and it is those marketers who know their audience well and make connections that will win the commercial game. Back to the marketer, there are so many diverse backgrounds that marketers bring now and I’m really intrigued by those who have unconventional backgrounds because they contribute something uniquely new to the field. I love hearing about the marketer’s journey.

Read More

CELL AND GENE THERAPY, INDUSTRIAL IMPACT

Sana Biotechnology | January 30, 2023

Sana Biotechnology, Inc., a firm focused on producing and delivering engineered cells as medicines, recently announced that the FDA has approved the company's Investigational New Drug (IND) application to begin a first-in-human trial of SC291 in patients with different types of B-cell malignancies. SC291 is an allogeneic CAR T cell therapy that targets CD19. It is developed by Sana using its hypoimmune platform. The hypoimmune platform's objective is to overcome the allogeneic cells' immunologic rejection, which, if valid for SC291, could lead to prolonged CAR T cell persistence and increased rates of durable complete responses in patients with B-cell lymphomas or leukemias. The hypoimmune platform includes disruption of the major histocompatibility (MHC) class I and class II expression to conceal cells from the adaptive immune system, which consists of antibody and T cell responses and overexpression of CD47 to inhibit activation of the innate immune cell system, especially macrophages and natural killer (NK) cells. The company has provided evidence from numerous preclinical models demonstrating the potential of this platform to cloak cells from immune detection and the therapeutic potential of SC291 for patients with B-cell malignancies. About Sana Biotechnology Founded in 2018, Sana Biotechnology is a firm focused on utilizing engineered cells as medicines for patients. It is constructing differentiated capabilities across the spectrum of cell and gene therapy. The company is motivated by three goals as it seeks solutions for people with poor outcomes or diseases that are currently incurable. The first is the ability to repair and control the genes in any cell in the body. It is developing innovative delivery technologies in order to deliver any payload to any cell in a precise, predictable, and repeatable manner, paving the way for next-generation in vivo gene therapy. Next comes the ability to develop pluripotent stem cells ex vivo into immune-cloaked functional cells, to replace any missing or damaged cells in the body. Finally, it believes that it can also enable broader access to its therapies by focusing on scalable manufacturing solutions, the manufacturing costs, and aligning with key stakeholders.

Read More

INDUSTRIAL IMPACT, DIAGNOSTICS

Kite Pharma and Arcellx | January 31, 2023

On January 30, 2023, Kite and Arcellx, Inc. informed that they have completed their previously-announced global strategic collaboration to co-develop and co-market CART-ddBCMA. CART-ddBCMA is Arcellx's lead late-stage candidate for treating patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. For the majority of patients, multiple myeloma is an incurable disease; hence, there is a continuing demand for treatments that are not only effective but also secure and easily available. Arcellx's T-cell treatment, CART-ddBCMA, uses the company's unique synthetic binder, the D-Domain, and is now being studied in Phase 2 pivotal trials. Kite and Arcellx will work together to develop and market the CART-ddBCMA asset in the United States, while Kite will handle sales and marketing for the product in all other regions. About Kite Pharma Kite, a Gilead company, is a global biopharmaceutical company with its headquarters in Santa Monica (California). Cell therapy, which aims to treat and maybe even cure cancer, is the company's main area of research and development. Kite, the industry leader in cell therapy, has successfully administered CAR T-cell treatment to more patients than any other company. Process development, vector production, clinical trial supply, and commercial product manufacturing are all part of Kite's expansive in-house cell therapy manufacturing network, the most extensive in the world. About Arcellx Clinical biotechnology firm Arcellx, Inc. is rethinking cell treatment by developing novel immunotherapies for patients with cancer and other fatal diseases. The company considers cell therapies one of the most promising areas of modern medicine. Its goal is to improve the quality of life for people everywhere by creating safer, more effective, and widely available cell therapies. CART-ddBCMA is the principal product candidate being developed by Arcellx and is now in Phase 2 pivotal trials for treating relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (r/r MM). The FDA has recognized CART-potential ddBCMAs by designating them as a regenerative medicine advanced therapy, an orphan drug, and a fast-track product.

Read More

MEDTECH, INDUSTRIAL IMPACT

ATUM and Codiak | January 25, 2023

On January 24, 2023, ATUM, a global leader in bioengineering solutions, announced that it has signed a comprehensive licensing agreement with Codiak BioSciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, for the Leap-In Transposase® technology. ATUM will grant Codiak access to its Leap-In Transposase® technology in order to create mammalian cells expressing exosomes engineered to deliver therapeutic payloads under the conditions of the agreement. The Leap-In technology is a comprehensive solution that integrates patented re-coding algorithms, unique genetic vector elements, and a transposon-based mechanism for efficiently inserting genetically stable elements into the genome. "Through years of rigorous research and clinical validation we have created a platform for engineering and manufacturing therapeutic exosomes with various payloads on the surface or inside the lumen. We believe ATUM's transposase technology has the potential to effectively synergize with Codiak's engEx® Platform to further enhance loading these vesicles, making them more potent and reducing cost of goods," Commented Scott Estes, Ph.D., VP of Cell Line Development at Codiak. (Source – Business Wire) "Exosomes are bio vesicles that have the potential to fundamentally change drug delivery. We are proud and excited to license the Leap-In Transposase® technology to Codiak for the engineering of cell lines that enables rapid and robust production of exosomes," said Claes Gustafsson, Ph.D., Chief Commercial Officer and Co-Founder at ATUM. (Source – Business Wire) About Codiak Founded in 2015, Codiak is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical firm focused on developing exosome-based treatments, a new class of medications with the potential to change the treatment of a variety of diseases with high unmet medical needs. It created a proprietary engEx Platform that uses exosome biology as natural intercellular transfer mechanisms to design, construct, and manufacture innovative exosome therapeutic candidates. By utilizing its engEx Platform, it has produced a rich pipeline of engineered exosomes for neuro-oncology, oncology, neurology, neuromuscular, and infectious diseases.

Read More