Jeb Keiper

I've always enjoyed studying the history of drug R&D, and to share a small snapshot of one perspective on @ldtimmerman's podcast was quite humbling. I submit for your 1.25-1.5x listening pleasure a small piece of the @NimbusTx story (along with some personal early career stories)

Learned today of the passing of Phil Low, a drug hunter, scholar, educator and just lovely man. His work to target cancer cells via folic acid receptors, among so many other creative ideas, were a source of inspiration so many years ago. It was an honor to work with him on PSMA radioligand therapy, and to develop his inventions further to real medicines while at Novartis. Phil was a dynamo in his Purdue laboratory, surrounded by adoring trainees, at a whiteboard or pounding through 80 packed Powerpoint slides in 30 breathless minutes. I am glad and better to have known you, Phil. Your memory is a blessing. linkedin.com/posts/purdue-u…

Claude now with a Clinicaltrials.gov integration. So cool!

To invest the billions it costs to make new medicines, companies need to be able to trust the word and actions of the FDA. To capaciously change the rules at the end of the game ultimately hurts patients.

For those legislators who are working on healthcare legislation right now , here are some suggestions : 1. For intercompany medical charges, require them to be priced at Medicare rates. Ends gaming of MLRs 2. Require all insurance plans to apply any cash purchase against your deductible. Let plan holders shop. 3. Require all pharmacy purchases by a plan holder to be charged at net price after rebates. Right now YOU pay full retail price for branded meds in your deductible phase. You can think your insurance company PBM for lying to you when they say they negotiate better prices. They obviously suck at their jobs if the best they can do is get you retail price ! 4. Require wholesale pharmacy pricing to be at net. This may seem like price controls. It’s not. The wholesaler buys at retail, gets a prompt pay/data discount of 5 pct from the manufacturer , then has the pharmacy buy from them at retail price minus a small discount. Which reimburses the wholesaler. Wholesalers complain then don’t make money on brands. Indie pharmacies get crushed on brands. Manufactures don’t make more money this way either. Why ? Because they write HUGE rebate checks to the PBM! Require pricing to be at net, and you improve cash flow and reduce reimbursement risk for indie pharmacies. Patients can naturally pay lower cash prices for brands because pharmacies will pay much less. The only loser in this ? The PBMs every one else gains 5. Create a moratorium on all acquisitions by ins carriers 6. If a medical provider of any kind, hospital , clinic , whatever , acquires another provider , they must retain the pricing ( pre any price increases meant to game this rule ) , for a period of 5 or 10 yrs allowing only for cpi increases 7. Investigate the acquisitions of providers by pharmacy wholesalers. 8. Allow doctors to own hospitals 9. Standardize contracts by insurance carriers by provider type. Every one contract with every hospital should have the same fill on the blanks with minimal variance. This will cut administration costs dramatically I can go on for days. This is a start

Lots of discussion of geopolitics, AI, and biotech lately…. Here’s the view of Abbas Kazimi, CEO of Nimbus, on the virtues of their globally-distributed, computationally-powered R&D model Why Owning the Learning Loop Matters More Than Owning the Lab lifescivc.com/2026/01/why-ow…

For Alzheimer's disease, it's no longer a debate of amyloid (Aβ) versus tau. They are interactive drivers and this new, optimistic review maps out a path towards disease-halting therapies @CellCellPress cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

Wow! 🎉 takeda.com/newsroom/newsr…

For readers interested in the potential of in vivo CAR-T therapies in oncology and autoimmune diseases, here's a recent review rdcu.be/eUJUe nature.com/articles/s4157…

Americans want lower prices & a fair shot for small businesses. This bill delivers both. With support from the most progressive to most conservative Members, Pharmacists Fight Back will lower prescription prices & put independent pharmacists on a level playing field they deserve.

“We are standing on the precipice of the future of genetic medicines.” Strand Therapeutics CEO @DrSynbio joined @ashleevance on @corememory to share how Strand is building mRNA therapeutics that sense their environment and activate only in target cells, like cancer. Learn how mRNA is shaping the infrastructure of medicine and what’s coming next. Full episode: corememory.com/p/theyre-attac…

Great profile of great investor Bruce Booth @LifeSciVC

Second

Amazing journey for Maxwell Freed... See my post from back in 2019... they raised the money to fund a gene therapy, followed a saga thru academia and Taysha... and, despite all that, now Maxwell has been dosed and appears to be responding... Motivated, passionate parents are a force in bringing new therapies forward... endpoints.news/nationwide-chi…

@StrandTx is super impressive. 🚀 A platform aimed to ultimately deliver cell-specific RNA expression 🧬 has already saved patients lives with their first clinical program, and with a second clinical program on the way soon, the ability to achieve tremendous patient impact is upon us. Fueling this is a stellar R&D team that has accomplished so much since Strand's founding. I've run and advised many biotech companies at this stage, and Strand has knocked it out of the park. I am humbled and honored to join as their first Board independent to help grow and scale for even greater success alongside the co-founders, the rest of the Board, and the amazing team. 🙏

This will help you understand why the big PBMs are bad. You can go to lillydirect.com and buy a GLP1 for under $500 and falling. It's cheaper, because no PBM is involved Your company, uses a big PBM for your pharmacy benefits. It charges your company $1300 for a GLP1, which means you pay $1300 during your deductible phase. The PBM then gives the rebate it gets, from the money you paid, to your company. And it won't allow you to buy the GLP1 from lilly direct. No PBM < $500. Big PBM $1300 This is one of many reasons you should show this to your CEO and tell them to switch away from their PBM

Did you know China’s antibody programs survive the clinic at rates the West can only dream about? >China clocks in at 57% Phase 1 to approval. >US/EU sit around 15%. Same modality, same underlying biology, completely different survival curves. The reason isn’t magic, and it isn’t better science. It is portfolio construction, target selection, regulatory tempo, and commercial incentives shaping an entirely different clinical ecosystem. We’re just scratching the surface here. >Tuesday on X, we break this down step by step. >Wednesday on the podcast, we go even deeper. If you care about where biologics development is heading over the next decade, you’ll want to follow this one. nature.com/articles/d4157…

China Biotech 🧬🧪🧫 panel @Jefferies HC20205. Wowed. Patients across the western world will be taking medicines from China. The USA will lose dominance in biotech & will happen sooner than most think. Sad for American innovation. So many barriers from NIH defunding, to university harassment by the administration, to FDA tumult, and over all of it is a skepticism/ negativism toward science. Biotech in China is all about the science. That’s a winning formula.

Thank you to all who engaged on my blog trifecta on my two decade “Atlas-versary”…. They were fun and cathartic to write, and hopefully of broader interest. ICYMI - here are the links to the three posts: The science of startups: risk, novelty, innovation: lifescivc.com/2025/10/twenty… People, talent, and building/growing organizations: lifescivc.com/2025/10/twenty… Business of biotech – corporate development , boards, syndicates: lifescivc.com/2025/10/twenty… Thanks for reading and engaging! Happy to hear DM/notes about other topics to cover in future blogs. Might help with the pervasive writers block I’ve had recently! (h/t to Jay Bradner on the “Atlas-versary”)

Twenty Years In Early Stage Biotech VC (Part 1) Here are some observations on the “Science” of startups from my vantage point as an early stage VC… · Science-first opportunism beats top-down strategy for deal selection · Don’t believe what you read in science papers at face value · Don’t over-value reductionism, but also avoid phenotypic over-enthusiasm · Rare disease drug development isn’t as “easy” as it seems on paper · The single most important value creation activity in biotech is excellent clinical trial execution · Novelty is great, but only when it’s unlocking something truly valuable to patients. · Be skeptical, as most things fail, but embrace “a permission to believe” · Understand the real risk you are underwriting and the value of discharging it · Seek the scientific truth, not just “making money”. · Innovation and optimism are tightly interconnected – and have been ever present in biotech lifescivc.com/2025/10/twenty…

Twenty years ago in mid-October 2005, I joined @AtlasVenture. Hard to believe - time flies. A big thank you to my partners JF Formela and Peter Barrett, who took a bet on me. Both have been great mentors, partners, and friends. Since 2005, I've worked with hundreds of incredible people around the Atlas ecosystem and dozens of biotech startups... So to celebrate this milestone, I've done some fun reflecting on my observations of biotech venture... and will have three blogs out this week. Tuesday, Part 1: I'll share my thoughts on a few Science/R&D topics relevant for biotech startups. Wednesday, Part 2: People topics, like working with CEOs and more. Thursday, Part 3: Business - including corporate development, boards, and syndicates. So much more I'd love to share, but 6000+ words across three blogs is plenty!