Description
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, President & CEO of AltruBio, Judy Chou, shares her pivotal transition from academia to industry, revealing how she left AbbVie when the company went idle after Humira's launch to pursue more meaningful work at Wyeth. Despite Humira becoming one of the most successful drugs in history, the company's uncertainty about biologics left Judy feeling unable to fulfill her mission to make a difference for patients.
Judy describes how she pioneered high-throughput screening for biologics at Wyeth, earning the nickname "High-Throughput Lady" when colleagues thought her ideas were crazy. She explains how she adapted small molecule screening techniques to biologics despite widespread skepticism, ultimately generating 10 grams per liter antibody production for the first time and winning Wyeth's President Award for the biggest business impact of the year. Judy also recounts being recruited to Genentech to build a revolutionary product-driven department in Oceanside, where Ann Lee's vision to break vertical silos and create a "startup within a major company" generated much of the pipeline Genentech still develops today.