Hello. Welcome to the Healthy Enterprise. If you're a return listener, thank you for coming back. And if you're new to the show, welcome, and I hope you enjoy today's episode. I'm gonna be speaking with Marsha Hartman.
Heath Fletcher:Marsha is an executive dedicated to advancing cell therapy and cell analysis for patient outcomes. She started her career in epidemiology, moved on to immunology, then went into sales, marketing, and now she is the CEO of Exedyne Biosciences. Please welcome Marsha Hartman. Hi, Marsha. Thank you for joining me today.
Heath Fletcher:I am excited to have you on this episode and hear what you've been doing in in this crazy world of life sciences and your talk about your journey from this, from from epidemiology all the way up to marketing. So, yeah, maybe introduce yourself and fill everybody in on who you are.
Marsha Hartman:Sure. Thanks for having me. Just really looking forward to the conversation. So yeah, my name is Marsha Lynn Hartman. As you alluded to, I'm trained as an epidemiologist.
Marsha Hartman:I did my training in, Houston at the Health Science Center, so University of Texas. I, was trained in epidemiology, but I actually chose a very unique path and that was to specialize in applying epidemiology to immunology. So through that, yeah, I worked with Dorothy Lewis and Ed Gravis at Baylor College of Medicine and then later at Methodist Hospital Research Institute. So my research background is very much in infectious disease. We worked in BSL four lab with doctor Gravis and worked with tuberculosis and all the fun microorganisms that you need to be suited up for.
Marsha Hartman:So after, my research phase, I actually went into working for commercial organizations. So I was the first PhD scientist hired by Becton Dickinson to sell. That was something they had not done before, but I very purposefully asked for that role because I was interested in standardizing, clinical cytometry in The United States. Most hospitals were doing things differently than other hospitals, and in Europe, they had standardized the flow cytometry portion of hematological disorders, with a consortium called UroFlo, and that did not fit the payer model in The US. But I was very interested in what could we do with The US payer model to standardize, clinical flow cytometry.
Marsha Hartman:So I put on my sales hat, actually, and went into labs and started a consortium in The United States through a, nonprofit that was already running called Flotex. We created a clinical arm that we called at first TextFlow, and then as we started to work across The United States, ended up calling it ContextFlow and released some standardized panels. And that was really what kicked off my career in industry.
Heath Fletcher:Wow. How did you even know you were even gonna be good at sales?
Marsha Hartman:Don't know that I knew that I was gonna be good at sales, but I, as a scientist, was constantly found working with companies with their new tools, like putting out posters or papers, really enjoyed that leading edge of science and figuring out how to use those tools to really take the next leap forward. And so I I knew for sure that I would be able to work with other scientists who would be interested in doing the same thing. And so I think I kind of thought I would be able to go in and enable things instead of selling things.
Heath Fletcher:Right. And I mean, you probably used education as a way to sell. Right? I mean, you're talking about some complex things. I heard a few words that I've never heard before and I have no idea about what some of them actually mean.
Heath Fletcher:But I mean, the fact that you can actually explain it in a way that's understandable by somebody else, that is a sales technique, right? Is able to translate concept to message, right?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. Absolutely. And then I think support, you know, MD Anderson was one of my biggest accounts and they had had a issue that they've been dealing with for several years that they were, you know, pretty fed up with. And so I was able to go in and find the right people inside VD to go into their lab and solve that pain point, for them that had been really slowing down, you know, patient data. And so, once we solved that, it was off to the races.
Marsha Hartman:Right? And they saw that I cared about their pains, more than I was, you know, trying to sell them something. So I think it's being able to use the science to sell and then really being dedicated to having other people's problems be part of your problem.
Heath Fletcher:Well, I guess being solution focused is probably a very scientific approach as well. Right? So maybe it goes hand in hand, scientists and sales. Right? So, yeah, you're always trying to and you can validate with data.
Heath Fletcher:So and now even more than ever, sales is all about data. So it's actually more of a world a world fit for scientists after all in sales and marketing.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. And epidemiologists love data. And so I think that that was you know, something else that was just a natural fit for me. So I like to understand what the numbers say and mean and then I like to take them to real life and, you know, pressure test them further and push them.
Heath Fletcher:So for listeners that are, I mean, we've all heard the word epidemiology and immunology. So when you merge those two things together, for those of us that maybe aren't as familiar with what that means when you apply those two things together. Where are you using this?
Marsha Hartman:That's actually a great question and I have a succinct answer that I think will bring at least some sort of imagery to everyone's mind and I would say COVID-nineteen. So COVID nineteen was a pretty perfect place for the merger between understanding the incidence and prevalence of a disease and then the immunology underlying driving people's outcomes for that disease.
Heath Fletcher:Okay. That must have been a bit of a mind blowing experience for you. That's like when the everything that you've been studying comes to an absolute global onslaught. Were you involved in any of that in any way, shape or form?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. So love this part actually, and that we even get to go here. So I would agree with you that I thought, man, so this is, you know, the perfect mix of everything that I've been taught to do. So I was fortunate enough to be at BD Biosciences at the time, and I was leading their portfolio that was dedicated to immune monitoring. So we had, a few years prior, started some learning tours and the purpose for the tours were to take clinical cytometry that for a lot of clinicians, it's not, you know, covered very heavily in medical school and really focus on what you could do by studying the cell for several different disease indications.
Marsha Hartman:And so we've been doing these global education tours for about, I guess, three years prior to COVID. And so I had really strong connections in China. China was one of the places that our learning tours, went. And so my team actually was boots on the ground, with instrumentation in Wuhan, because we had worked with SARS and MERS, so why not SARS CoV two as well? And, our early work actually showed that there was some prognostic biomarkers and we published a paper early on that and, actually held some science webinars that had record setting attendance, and went internationally and actually, shaped some of the clinical trials that happened next.
Marsha Hartman:So yes, it was like perfect. Wow. Yeah.
Heath Fletcher:You were on the front line. Yep. Yep. Easy. Wow.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. It was crazy, but it really shows the power of marketing because we also participated in the messaging, really putting the t cell at the front of people's understanding. And I think the Wall Street Journal put a big article out on the t cell, and I think people for the first time were like, oh, my immune cells are different kinds of cells. I have B cells and T cells. And I don't think we really got into NK cells, but we really started to help the general public understand that their immune system had quite a bit to do with outcomes.
Heath Fletcher:Interesting. Yeah. Because I mean, there was a huge amount of learning going out on media channels during all that time to try and educate the world about the importance of the immunization process and the of course there was a ton of concerns around all of that. I was a crazy time that nobody had ever experienced before, let alone clinicians like yourself or people who were in the field. Right?
Heath Fletcher:I mean, on one hand it was outrageous. On the other hand, it was a bit of an opportunity for you to kind of experience this. Right?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. I'll say this. The thing that I took away the most from everything that happened was the work that we had done prior to COVID. Meaning we had, laboratorians and scientists, from The United States, working over in China for things like primary immune deficiency and transplant and, immune monitoring for, personalized medicine. We were able to take those relationships that had formed and use them.
Marsha Hartman:Right? So the science webinar that we ended up hosting was, done by one of the scientists who had traveled to China. The scientists that we were working in China with were not able to attend that webinar, but the relationship between, those two collaborators was strong enough that he was able to present some of their data and show that, this is different than being diagnosed with COVID. There were prognostic biomarkers, c d four and c d eight, that could predict severity in COVID. And Oh, at the time, yeah, countries were pretty overwhelmed by just the diagnostics and so the prognostics themselves were not really adopted as widely as they could have been if there was access to more cell analysis.
Marsha Hartman:And I think that's something that needs to happen for cell therapy too. There needs to be more cell analysis. Only 10% of hospitals actually have access to cell analysis. And so those prognostic biomarkers were not used as extensively as they could have been. But believe it or not, they came from early and early early learnings in HIV.
Marsha Hartman:So leveraging an old foe to, you know, basically overcome a new problem.
Heath Fletcher:Interesting. Wow. What a world.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. I agree.
Heath Fletcher:That's great. Is this where kind of precision medicine starts fitting in here?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah, exactly. So I think and I'll take it back to MD Anderson even that example I was sharing with you. So one of the things that we were trying to do is really streamline their diagnosis, so getting the right diagnosis for the right patient so that they could move forward to something called minimal residual disease. In minimal residual disease, the oncologist uses biomarkers to inform what therapies are given when, when they're taken off and all of those. And so my account really exploded when we solved the problems they were having with diagnosis so that we could move into really that prognostic personalized medicine arm.
Marsha Hartman:And so I think in cell therapy and in personalized medicine, we have pretty lofty goals to continue to integrate those biomarkers. And I think that there are industry partners that, can come alongside and really support and make that happen more rapidly. It certainly hasn't happened at the pace that everyone expected. To just go back to what you said, yes, it is actually pretty crucial because we all it's not hard for me to tell you you're unique. Right?
Marsha Hartman:You just look at the world around you and as soon as you assume everyone else is like you is when you realize, no, they're not. But you're unique in many ways, but sometimes in medicine, we've been unable to leverage that uniqueness in the way that we should when we're using therapies.
Heath Fletcher:Right. I mean, blanket therapies you know, for across the board. I mean also the cost up till now, and the science hasn't been, the cost is too high and the science hasn't really been there. But now we're at this stage where it's becoming more accessible.
Marsha Hartman:Absolutely. Absolutely more accessible. And I think also more accessible because the outcomes have improved. They've even been able to, you know, use some of the biomarkers in biomarker discovery as therapeutics moving forward.
Heath Fletcher:Right. So is that where Exedyme comes in?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. That's a great question. So Exedyme is unique in that we pretty transformative disruptive technology. One of the things that we've always been able to do since HIV is look at the protein on the surface of the cell. So that's that c d four marker.
Marsha Hartman:With HIV, you used to get a diagnosis called AIDS once that c d four marker dropped below 200, and that's a protein surface marker. You might remember from school that everything starts with the code. You have the code, and that's the genome, and then you go to RNA. So you have mRNA, and that basically then turns into protein. So it's that, like, one, three step.
Heath Fletcher:Mhmm.
Marsha Hartman:So up until this point, there's not been an ability to look at RNA in a live cell. So in order to look at the RNA, the cell has needed to be either lysed or crushed, so opened up so that we could get to that genomic information inside. And one of the benefits to studying a live cell, especially on the clinical side of business, is you can see over time, like what a dose response curve looks like. You can monitor over time and that actually really tells you, most cells are not static. So it kind of tells you, you know, what's happening.
Marsha Hartman:And you can do that with protein, but because you've always had to kill the cell to look at the RNA, we don't have any of that live cell information on RNA. And so what Exodyme is enabling is a first time live cell real time sensing of RNA. And why that's important is because we remember it's the second step. So there are some proteins that we know we don't want your body to express and there's some proteins that we, you know, do want to. And so if at the mRNA level, we can either, you know, stop building a therapy incorrectly or actually, you know, use that information to kind of shift the cells to one phenotype or another.
Marsha Hartman:It just helps us do things with less waste and potentially more more therapy. Right? Because the big thing with cell therapy is access. Can everyone get access? So there's a lot of work that has to be done because RNA has never even been studied in the research lab in the live cell.
Marsha Hartman:So we have a lot a lot of work to do, enabling that functionality we think is gonna be incredibly transformative.
Heath Fletcher:Wow. That's very cool. So where is Exodigm in the process now? It's early stage still, right?
Marsha Hartman:Yes. We are in seed stage as far as funding goes. We were fortunate enough to get started through a company called General Inception that finds startups outside of universities. So Exedyme is out of ASU. General Inception discovered them, partnered with them, and basically connected them as early as 2022 with some, key initiatives, one of them being IARPA funding.
Marsha Hartman:So together, Exedyme and general inception went in for IARPA funding, And that funding enabled us to put our technology through the paces. And so we just finished, that work and, we are moving on to going after seed funding. And so, yeah, we've been around since They 2020 hired me in December and we'll be starting to raise money very, soon.
Heath Fletcher:Yeah. December year.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah.
Heath Fletcher:Yeah. Great. Wow. That's so that's yeah, that's a big stage. So now you're CEO Exedyne.
Heath Fletcher:So now your job is to take this to the investor stage. How are you gonna approach that? What's your first step?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. So we've actually already been talking to a couple investors. We were able to, in January, go to a key cell therapy meeting called Advanced Therapies Week and kinda share a little bit about our technology. So as we move away from government funding and go get data that's meant, you know, for the masses, we're just working on that and then we'll take that data, share our basically first decks and pitches with the people that we have who've expressed interest. Hopefully, you know, throughout the next few weeks, we'll get more of those investors expressing interest.
Marsha Hartman:And we're also looking at more non dilutive grants as well. So that's really the next stage. Right? Raising awareness. We created this a little video that just actually is launching probably this week on LinkedIn.
Heath Fletcher:Oh, wow. Okay. I was gonna say I didn't see a video on your website. Yep. Oh, cool.
Marsha Hartman:So like a short explainer video and yeah. Just working hard on all the next steps. Looking for those key collaborators as well.
Heath Fletcher:So how are you adjusting to this new role as a CEO? You've been yeah. I mean, you've done a lot of things in the past. You've worked your way up doing a variety of things. You've got into marketing for a period of time.
Heath Fletcher:You've done some sales. So now you're wearing the big hat and how does that feel and how are you fitting in with that?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. So I'm incredibly grateful to all of the people who've helped me along the way. Like you said, BD Biosciences Biosciences opened their doors and let a scientist come in and sell and then, eventually let me come back and do marketing for them. So I spent a little over ten years there. They they invested a lot in me.
Marsha Hartman:They even sent me through some McKinsey work in, you know, leading companies and then went to Sci Tech for a short period of time and led their reagent team and built out a global workforce. And then at Slingshot, got a lot of experience in what does it look like to just leave marketing and then marketing and sales and then marketing and sales and biz dev. And so, yes, this time I am the CEO but it's still all about the people who are working me because my leadership style is very much, you know, a visionary. So I I like to cast vision, but then I'm right there alongside them. So I'm gonna cast the vision and then you're gonna see me right alongside you, making things happen.
Marsha Hartman:I believe that you should in life kind of make every day count, like, do you have in your hand today and work with what you have in your hand today because it will be different than what you have in your hand tomorrow. And I think that we're given certain things intentionally and on purpose. And so I just tell my team what's right in front of us. You know, we're gonna have a vision for where we're going, and how do we get from a to b is the days in between and how we spend them. So I do I absolutely love being CEO and I've really appreciated both the cofounders and then the team at general inception and the ability that they've given me to take this role and and fully own it.
Heath Fletcher:I think that's wise advice. Really, you do can what you have in front of you. You can stress and worry about all the stuff that's coming up tomorrow and next week and next month and next year, but there's really nothing we can do about it until we're actually you've actually got it in your hands and you've got something you can actually make a difference. So any other techniques that you use or you I mean, we talked about science as a solutions approach. You probably do apply that in your day to day, you know, always looking for solutions.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. I think my just approach to life is grounded in three H's. So hard work, honesty, and hope. And this is gonna come back to science for sure, but you can use it in other areas of your life. So you always you know, anything worth doing is gonna take hard work.
Marsha Hartman:It just is. Talk to anybody who's done anything worth doing and they're gonna tell you perseverance was the thing that made them successful because you're gonna wanna give up. That's how you know it's hard. Right? So Yeah.
Marsha Hartman:It's gonna take hard work. But if you're not being honest with yourself, then you can't be honest with anybody else. And so you've really gotta check-in and be like, you know, why am I doing what I'm doing? What am I thinking I'm gonna get out of it? You know?
Marsha Hartman:And and like really take that time. And some people kinda skip over their personal time, that time to, like, meditate, think through things. And I think it's so important because that's the time that you be radically honest with yourself so that then you can be really truthful with other people. Because sometimes I think when people aren't all the way honest with other people, it's really because they haven't yet been honest with themselves. So that's why my second word is honesty.
Marsha Hartman:And then hope, you can never live as big of a life without hope as you can with hope. And if you hold out hope, I think it'll, you know, take you a lot of places. And so in science, you need to be grounded in data, but you anything that's been hard to do, people who've had a vision for it and a hope for it, they can't lose hope when they get the data that tells them it's not working. You have to say, okay, you know, what have I not thought of? Who have I not talked to?
Marsha Hartman:What resources out there that I've not yet leveraged? So those are my three h's that hold forth in science and in life.
Heath Fletcher:Wow. That's a good bit of a philosopher too, think, Marcia.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. Yeah. Over thinker, philosopher. But yeah. Definitely.
Heath Fletcher:Perfectionist too, maybe?
Marsha Hartman:I used to be and I learned that that actually is, not it doesn't really produce the results as being able to really let go and say, okay. I'm gonna come along for the journey, and not even expect other people to be perfectionists. You expect from other people what you expect from yourself. So if you're not fair to yourself, you can't be fair to other people. And so, I did have to break free from perfectionism so that I could be a better teammate to other people.
Heath Fletcher:How did you do that?
Marsha Hartman:I had to understand that anybody who's done anything great in life has had grace for what they've done. We all marvel at, you know, the athletes, the Michael Jordans, etcetera, who
Heath Fletcher:Sure.
Marsha Hartman:Like, just sort of elevate the field. But if they do their job well, they elevate everyone around them. And so to let go of perfectionism, I actually had to fail, right, a few times and and see that it was the perfectionism that was keeping me from being able to be authentic with other people and even authentic with myself. And so I'll tell you one of the failures and the guy who helped me through it, his name's Brian Bullock. I'm actually looking that way because there's a little letter over there from him.
Marsha Hartman:But we at BD were launching a product and we had had a financial setback in a recall that it happened. And they'd come to me to see if I would help launch it. And I said, of course, I will. That's like a dream. Right?
Marsha Hartman:But I hadn't checked with the other team members who had already told them, no, that they did not want to launch it. And, of course, we went forward and we launched and the money and the company made money and everything was great, I thought. And then it came time to my review. And Brian was brave enough to tell me, even though you did it, Marsha, you didn't do it in a way that built the entire organization. You did it in a way that built the revenue stream.
Marsha Hartman:And it really made me see that I had, like, lost the forest for the trees. And people who are perfectionists, we like to get a's and five out of five. And so he had given me a number that was at first devastating to me, but then I realized what he was really doing is giving me a gift for my future, which is when you Yeah. Don't think about other people along the way and you are a perfectionist and you wanna perform because someone knocked on your door asking you to perform, you actually can do more harm than good. So he just really taught me like it was a short gain for me, but it was a cost and it actually was a cost.
Marsha Hartman:I paid for several years with some fellow employees who just couldn't get over what I had done. I couldn't even see it. Right? But he helped me see it and I think it was a brave move on his part.
Heath Fletcher:Yeah, very brave. Yeah. I've heard something similar as if described as a means to an end, is that there's an end in mind and the means to get there is is is up for grabs. You can decide how you wanna get there. If the focus is always on the end and you don't focus on the means, it's kind of a similar thing.
Heath Fletcher:I I feel like I've been down that road myself where it's just like, you know, you just wanna get it done and you just wanna finish it. You wanna cross that finish line. And, yeah, you can injure yourself. You can injure people around you. You can injure your reputation.
Heath Fletcher:So yeah, I can see that. That's that's good advice. Again, more of a philosopher I hear coming out of there. That's good. But you gotta have to be a philosopher to be a leader, Right?
Heath Fletcher:You kinda have to pull from other people's experiences and things you hear that inspire you. And I think that's what I'm hearing from you is that you pull things and they inspire you and you use those as tools to help you with your leadership and with leading a team. And as your team grows, yeah, those things will be vital.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. And you have to be willing to know that you don't know what you don't know.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Marsha Hartman:Sounds like too easy to say, but as a leader, you have to really listen. Right? And then be able to reflect and be like, what are they trying to tell me that I'm maybe not even willing to listen to. Right? So, you gotta give your team that ability to say like, hey, I'm like, you know, timing out here.
Marsha Hartman:And, I think when I was on the ground level, I always wished that my leaders would give me more time to speak and that they would listen better. And I saw us go, you know, headway into several things that could have been avoided. And so I think, yeah, as a leader, you have to be a philosopher and a listener. Right? And part of listening is being able to take that back in and say, okay, how do I need to change?
Marsha Hartman:Right? If you're a leader, then you have a lot of, like, power and autonomy in that. And if you're not using that for the good of your team, then why lead? You know? And I think that that's, being able to hear what others are telling you and then dissect, okay, what part do they need to be, like, mentored and coached in and, you know, like, up?
Marsha Hartman:Because certainly people helped me grow up and they didn't always do it the way I wanted them to, but I'm better for it. Right? So how do you make sure you're helping them be better? And then how do you also make sure that the parts that they're telling you that you couldn't hear, that you're taking the time to stop and hear and say, oh, I actually didn't know what you just said.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah.
Heath Fletcher:Right. And helping reveal that so that it's a learning experience for everybody. Yeah.
Marsha Hartman:And you can take that back to COVID. Right?
Heath Fletcher:That's right.
Marsha Hartman:What did we think we knew and now we know we didn't know. What did we not stop and listen to? So I think there's a lot always and I think that's why reflection, like having the time to reflect and look at history and not repeat the bad parts of history and then overcome where other people couldn't.
Heath Fletcher:It's think this might be a little bit philosophical, but I think one of the things about COVID for all people was that it is the one thing that we have all experienced together collectively at the same time. This sort of, like, for for the first time ever. I mean, I don't sure. There's been world wars. Sure.
Heath Fletcher:There's been plagues and things like that, but never has there ever been in a moment where everybody on the planet was experiencing the exact same thing, the same emotions, the same fears, the same, you know, isolation, and all those other things that went along with our human experience for that. And then the for how the science community come together in a way that the science community did to find the solutions to to get everyone through to the other side. You know, it was pretty unique experience, you know, in hindsight. Sure. No.
Heath Fletcher:We no one wants to do it again. But I think a lot of there were a lot of good takeaways that came from that experience that we're all moving forward with.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. It was absolutely global in nature unlike anything that we had seen up into that point. And I absolutely agree with you that even if we were all forced into COVID number two right now, we're gonna do it different from those.
Heath Fletcher:Differently. Yeah.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. Those learnings, all of them.
Heath Fletcher:He revealed our strengths and our weaknesses at the same time.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. And to me, I think one of the things that I would love to see addressed more is the space and time. So I'll review my age a little bit, but we definitely had graduated children, children getting ready to graduate and then some one still in middle school. But they were really impacted by how immediate that hands off came in education and the tools have definitely developed. But there was a gap in there where they were kind of in the lurch.
Marsha Hartman:Right? And so Yeah. I'd love to see technologies and I don't and I actually AI is maybe one of them. Right? So my older daughters were taught, like, AI, you know, don't use it.
Marsha Hartman:Right? Like, it's cheating if you use it.
Heath Fletcher:That's right.
Marsha Hartman:Instead of, hey. Like, we had encyclopedias. Sure. We couldn't go on a test and then, you know, go to the library at home and pull the encyclopedias out. Right?
Marsha Hartman:We didn't even when I was young, we didn't even yet have the Internet. It was like the encyclopedia that we could potentially cheat with. But those reference materials are key, to leveraging and learning. And I was actually just talking to our middle daughter this morning. She's designing websites now, and we were talking about some of the different AI tools.
Marsha Hartman:And she's the one who said, you know, in high school, I wasn't even allowed to touch any of this stuff. And she's like, I couldn't live without it now. And I think that's a real key differentiator as well. An accelerator. Right?
Marsha Hartman:So COVID accelerated a lot of things for us that before had kind of been on a slower pace.
Heath Fletcher:Yep. 100%. Like telemedicine and, you know, that, I mean, that that exploded after COVID. I mean, it took I was just I I I actually interviewed the he was like the father of of telemedicine, and it literally took to COVID sixty years before it actually was embraced as a global concept as like, oh, wow. This actually works.
Heath Fletcher:What a great idea. And so, yeah, it did. You're right. It made it fast tracked a lot of things that that may have not still really taken off. Yeah.
Heath Fletcher:But now that we're on the topic of technology, let's talk about the technology you're using at Exedyne. What are what are you guys leveraging? What are you what are you maxing out on?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. So we definitely don't shy away from looking at the AI tools for, you know, predicting where we should be, you know, hedging our next bets as far as, you know, which RNA targets to look at. I think there's a lot more out there that we can be leveraging and we're setting up those key relationships. In cell analysis as a whole, the technology has really taken off over the past decade for sure. They're looking at far more number of surface proteins, the algorithms that they're using to analyze the data, the different approaches to actually, you know, visualizing that data, all come into the key decisions that are made in the next step.
Marsha Hartman:A lot of clinical trials, I think you know, are very data intensive, and analyzing that data is a huge part of, what happens next. So at Exedyne, we know that there's a lot known, in live cells about protein, and there's a lot we you know, we've known about genomics for a long time. And so we're really excited to be, starting a technology that's gonna put all of the RNA knowledge that we know from before lysing cells. All of that is so important because it informs what targets we go after. And we hope when we show their live cell state that we're able to actually help predictive biology because you've got that live cell information for key protein markers.
Marsha Hartman:And then you, you know, understand the different genomic profiles and how is the RNA actually predicting what protein markers will be expressed and what the cell will do next. So we think that we're gonna help write that story.
Heath Fletcher:Well, sounds like you're gonna write you're writing it already.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. Yeah. We still, like you said, we're early stage and we have a lot in front of us. But yeah, it's exciting for sure.
Heath Fletcher:That's very exciting. Wow. Yeah. So what's next in the world of health care? What do you think is the next big thing?
Heath Fletcher:What's coming?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. So I absolutely I think personalized medicine is gonna is going to become more and more savvy coming back to, you know, the thing you said about, you know, more people being able to, like, jump on Zoom and solve problems. And, you know, even if you're pitching investors, you can pitch it without having to go in person. And so I think the next next big thing in health care is going to be integrating RNA into patient information. And I think the key place where that's gonna come in is in cell therapy.
Marsha Hartman:So now you're not just studying the cell to treat it. The cell is actually the therapy itself, and you're building that therapy and you're scaling it in bioreactors. And there's a lot of those things that fail. Sorry for the long pause there, but there's a lot of of the cell therapy bioreactor expansions later that don't actually make it into the patient. And so there's that access issue.
Marsha Hartman:And so we think by being able to look at the RNA before the cell has fully gone from its stem cell state, look at the RNA and basically change what the cell is doing sooner. So don't get it all the way to protein where it's a lot harder to shift that cell subset. So we think we're the next big thing in medicine. But I I wanna add to that that it's really not just the RNA because you're gonna still need to know the whole multiomic story. And there's people like Jared Birx at MD Anderson that are very focused on how does all of this work together.
Marsha Hartman:Wake Forest has a really cool initiative from the National Science Foundation to be looking specifically at regenerative medicine and the tools that are out there and making sure we're integrating them as fast as we can knowing that there's a patient at the end of everything each one of these companies is doing. And so, if I amend my answer at all, I think the next big thing in medicine is really that collaboration. Seeing companies come together like they never have been able to before to solve problems for, you know, the person who's waiting for that therapy.
Heath Fletcher:Yeah. I think company is coming together and also the information coming together too. Right? I mean, I think these all these things are really amazing because it's both it's, you know, we put the end the end care, the patient in mind, the person with the diagnosis or with the or if even if we're looking at this from a prevention perspective, it's like the information that we have about every individual, about each individual, there is nowhere to get it. Like, if you pull all this information, it should be it should belong to the individual.
Heath Fletcher:Like, if I get all my genetic testing done and I have all that information, it's accessible to my doctor and to my specialist, etcetera, etcetera. Where is it kept? You know? And I think that is a missing part of this story is that there's nowhere for me to go and look at my my data. Right?
Heath Fletcher:And I should own it. It should be my data. And so if every time I get a test done or this done or sample made, it should all be kind of centralized in a place where when I go to see you, you can have access to it because I get you access to my data. And and then as things happen, it's it's collected and it's and it's a centralized resource for myself as an individual.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. So patients some patients in many centers, my daughter actually faced a chronic illness for quite a while. And so at Stanford, we were there when they were integrating something called MyChart and MyChart is pretty similar to what you described there.
Heath Fletcher:Is that right?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. So my daughter really struggled with Crohn's and there was this, you know, with the immunology background I had, there was this like constant nagging for me that she should be on this drug, Stellara. So I kept telling her gastroenterologist, we need to get her on Stellara. He's like, it's not approved for pediatrics. I'm like, we need to get her on Stellara.
Marsha Hartman:And not every parent has these resources, but parents who do, we should use them. And so I made a few phone calls to, you know, friends of mine in the industry, and she was able to basically get work done at Cleveland Clinic to further subset her cells, so a bunch of flow cytometry work. And then we went to MassGen in Harvard, and they did genomics workup. And you got all these minds together, and they collectively decided that she would be the perfect first pediatric patient to be put on Stellara. And so it ended up changing, Stanford's protocol for pediatric, Crohn's disease.
Marsha Hartman:It was, you know, not an easy process, but I promise you that my chart of hers went to all sorts of different institutions to help make that happen. So I think what you're saying needs to happen more often. It can. Right? But then going back to really, you know, being able to do better and more, You're always gonna have me on the lab side.
Marsha Hartman:We need to have better diagnostic tools than we do And that's gonna need more partnerships. Right? And a little bit different maybe pathway with regulatory agencies. And I don't mean different as in lighter. I mean, you know, maybe some of these AI tools, and I already see the FDA starting to figure out how to leverage them.
Marsha Hartman:How can we, you know, get things being submitted at at lower cost with more efficiency and in the end, you know, with the patient in mind. And I think another thing that I've already seen that really excites me about AI is AI has a way to cut through I'm gonna say, like, the politicization. Like, when people take data and try to make it, like, say one thing versus another, one of the things I like about AI
Heath Fletcher:arise to yeah. Yeah. Right. It it it won't do it. Yeah.
Heath Fletcher:I know.
Marsha Hartman:So It's
Heath Fletcher:really cool.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. In life, I'm like, what have I been believing that, you know, if if somebody could just cut through and be like Yeah. Just to the truth of it. So
Heath Fletcher:Yeah. Like, to give AI all that information, like, that was somebody said to me that, like, it's like it's like AI is like the ability to assess and review all our collective information. So all the science data on the on the planet from the beginning of of humanity when we started recording all this stuff. Eventually, we it'll all be in there, and it'll be able to review it and provide feedback. I mean, we'd one person would never be able to to achieve that in a lifetime.
Heath Fletcher:So but it can review everything in a short period of time. It's like our our whole global collective database of information of everything humans have ever done on planet earth is there at and it can start reviewing it and providing information back to us quicker than we could ever imagine.
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. It's gonna be amazing too. And I think it's, know, coming back to that thing of just always being really radically honest with yourself. So as we use these tools and as we find ways to implement them, you know, what are our motivations for doing that? And are we implementing things in ways that are, you know, inclusive and ethical and
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Marsha Hartman:You know, we are shaping tomorrow and that is a gift. The fact that, you know, you get to help the next generation by what you're, you know, sacrificing and building today. So let's make sure we make the sacrifices that make tomorrow a better place and that we integrate things in ways where we're not leaving the same, you know, boundaries that we faced in in place for the next generation, but we've really given them a way forward that is gonna bring better and more life to them than we've been able to have ourselves.
Heath Fletcher:What a way to wrap it up. Well done. Excellent. This has been awesome. Really enjoyed this conversation.
Heath Fletcher:Thank you, Marsha, for sharing your time with me and, and with our listeners. Is there anything you wanna add? You know, certainly, how can people connect with you and learn more about Exit nine, but anything else you wanna end with?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. I just thought to myself, I'd like to wrap it up today with really telling the listeners, know what your why is in life and follow that. That. And your why is gonna align with other people. And if you look at, you know, coming alongside them and helping them, accomplish in their lives what they're after, it will also end up, you know, being the right move for you when your whys are aligned.
Marsha Hartman:So it's kind of like when the NIH puts out a big, like, hey. This is, you know, the grant, and you're like, hey. I aligned with that, and this is how my science aligns with that. And then before you know it, everyone's, like, solving the, microbiome because that was, you know, what the NIH wanted everybody to put their efforts towards. So really take the time to know your why and then, pursue it with all the passion that you have.
Marsha Hartman:You're gonna have grace in that area of your life, and other people aren't gonna understand the grace you have, but that's because that's what you were put here to do. You have a purpose. And so that's what I wanna leave your listeners with. Right? Like, any rainy day, there's a sunny one coming tomorrow.
Marsha Hartman:And just really, I'm very hopeful for what the future holds. And thanks again for having me. Heath, I've really enjoyed the conversation.
Heath Fletcher:Yeah. Thank you. That was a great great ending. I love that. Great piece of advice and words to live by for sure.
Heath Fletcher:So where can people find more about Exedyne? Where can they connect with you at somehow if they wanna learn more or or maybe they're interested in investing?
Marsha Hartman:Yeah. Both. Great. So LinkedIn is my favorite. Right?
Marsha Hartman:So on LinkedIn, you'll see Exedyne Biosciences. You'll also see me, Marsha Hartman. Hartman is h a r t m a n. I also have my Gmail address, which is just doctor Marsha l Hartman, which is super long. But m a r s h a, l as in Lynn, that's my middle name, and Hartman, h a r t m a n.
Marsha Hartman:But we like I said, we'll get that short little commercial up for Exedyne very soon. And so we are Exedyne Biosciences out of Arizona.
Heath Fletcher:Excellent. And we'll put all that stuff into the description too so there's some hyperlinks when people look down below after listening or watching this video. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here with me and sharing this episode with me, Marsha. It was great to meet you.
Marsha Hartman:Thank you too, Heath. Take care.
Heath Fletcher:Okay. That's some smart stuff. There were some big words in that conversation, but she did a great job explaining a lot of that for me and making sure that I understood exactly what she's been up to. What an interesting career journey. She has some great advice, you know, for those of you following in her footsteps in a similar fashion, maybe making your way into the corporate world, perfectionism can hinder authenticity and connection with others.
Heath Fletcher:Also, understanding your purpose can guide your actions and align with others. And her opinion about the future of health care was that collaboration among companies is essential for solving health care challenges and that personalized medicine will become increasingly important in the future of health care. Fantastic conversation. If you wanna learn more about Exedyne, the video is coming out soon. So visit the website, and you'll be able to see that there and join the newsletter so you can keep up with the progress in the startup of Exedyne.
Heath Fletcher:Thank you for listening, and please be safe, be healthy, and we'll talk to you next time.