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What you’ll hear in this episode:

• The exciting treatments in development at Lung Therapeutics, and how they can help combat COVID complications
• Brian Windsor’s journey from musician to Biology PhD and CEO
• The important role of community colleges in our lives, on a large and small scale

Since COVID has impacted the world, the next few episodes will focus on the work and science done locally in Austin.

As the CEO of Lung Therapeutics, Brian Windsor works with his team developing drugs to treat lung conditions that would otherwise require surgery. Given the complications that can develop while someone is infected with COVID and the lung damage that can persist even after a COVID survivor has recovered, Lung Therapeutics’ work has a broader scope of positive impact than ever. Growing up, Windsor wanted to be a rockstar, and he followed an unconventional path to end up in his role at Lung Therapeutics.

A native Texan, Windsor was working in the restaurant industry when he decided to start taking classes at the local community college. He was earning a general liberal arts degree, and at first he was peeved that the department required four science classes. But, when he took a biology class with a particularly inspiring teacher, he realized that he had found something he was passionate about, and that science was “a mystery – there’s something going on and we have to figure out how to solve this puzzle.”

Windsor transferred out to UT where he earned his PhD in Biology. He explains that he caught the “entrepreneurial bug” from the start, and was one of the inventors of a patented piece of technology used in one of his graduate school projects. He attempted to take that technology beyond the graduate program and make it into a commercial project. This venture led him to Emergent, a company that sought to match technology created at universities with start-ups that could incorporate it into their business.

After leaving Emergent with some experience raising funds, Windsor met the founder of Lung Therapeutics, who needed a CEO who could raise money for the company. Windsor points out that biotech start-ups face a unique challenge in this regard, requiring enormous amounts of capital to get started and posing a high risk investment that takes a long time to become realized.

Recognizing these difficulties, Windsor acknowledges that the work Lung Therapeutics is accomplishing would not be possible without the Bioscience Incubator at ACC. “Without ACC, companies like ours could not move forward,” Windsor explains, touting community colleges for the “tremendous role they play in the community” as well as the personal role ACC has played in his company’s journey, and that community college played in his own story.

Listen to hear more about the different phases a drug passes through before it can be approved for the market, how Lung TX’s drugs work to treat pneumonia complications and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and what’s next for Lung Therapeutics and the exciting medications they’re developing.

If you learned something new from the episode, don’t forget to like and subscribe! You can hear more about the exciting things happening at the ACC Bioscience incubator on other Science In the Mall Y’all podcast episodes!

Science In the Mall, Y’all is a founding_media podcast created in partnership with the ACC Bioscience Incubator.

Host: Dan Dillard, founding_media

Guest: Brian Windsor

Transcript:

this is a founding media podcast produced at Austin community college district welcome to science and all y’all I’m your host Dan Dillard since covert nineteen has impacted the world we want to focus the next few episodes on the work and some of the science being done here locally announced today I’m joined by Brian Windsor CO of lunch there a few weeks one thirty six is developing a pipeline of drug therapeutics for lung conditions that would otherwise require invasive surgery to treat one of the lung conditions that the company is developing a drug to treat is ideal path the homeowner a fibrosis this drug is particularly important right now because of people infected with Kobe if or more likely develop however this was not the path Brian plan on pursuing it all growing up he wanted to be a musician and a rock star but one biology course at a community college changed everything for him let’s jump into the conversation so we can hear more about Brian’s journey to the sciences and the life saving drugs lung therapeutics is developing Brian thanks for being with us I’d love to get to know a little bit more about your background and how you got started off with lung therapeutics sure no it’s my pleasure Dan thanks so much

I’ve been with one therapeutics about seven and a half years now almost from company inception the company was founded out of the university of Texas health Science Center at Tyler in early two thousand thirteen by Dr Steve I tell and Dr injure may star and I was up brought in as the first employee as the CEO in the summer of two thousand thirteen so it’s it’s been it’s been a good time with the company so far your cells more about what you guys do overlook repeaters yes and so the company was named before I came on board additionally I thought that the name was a little vanilla but but then I realized it’s actually great to work for a company whose name says what you do right how we we develop drugs for severe lung conditions and specifically we’re working on two two drugs are better in the clinic one is for a complication of pneumonia call they lock your latest pleural effusion the other is I think pulmonary fibrosis which is a scarring inside belongs we normally ask you what each of those drugs does just kind of give us some of the people that aren’t in science understanding of what what would you guys actually do with those drugs absolutely and I I had never heard of a lucky lady pleural effusion I studied science

I’ve been in in biotech some of them a number of years but so it’s quite common with hospitalized ammonia to develop what’s called the pleural effusion and that is fluid around the lungs normally the lungs there’s a wall that a box right up to the lungs but if you get sick sometimes that that that it fills with fluid and create a fluid filled pocket that’s called the pleural effusion typically that fluid is resorbed by the body or sometimes a doctor has to come in and physically insert a chest tube to drain the fluid occasionally about ten percent of the time scar tissue begins to form in that pocket just like when you cut your finger your body’s responses to clot and so that’s what your body is doing with the fluid around the lungs it’s trying to clients but what ends up happening is the scar tissue walls off the flu it in it creates pockets that trap the fluid so now you’ve got this collection of infected fluid but no way to drain it the the only approved way to resolve that condition is to go see after Rask surgeon and it’s obviously a very invasive surgery to go and clear out the scar tissue and drain the fluid some doctors use a clot busting drugs off label to try to break up the clock to get it to drain they’re not very safe they’re not approved so our drug will be the first approved labeled drug is injected into the chest tube it goes and it breaks up the scar tissue and allows for drainage so you don’t have to go see a surgeon and spend the whole month of hospital while graduation

sounds really exciting then indefinitely so the revolutionary for sure not anytime there’s a drug that produces an invasive surgery that’s thumbs up absolutely yeah it’s it’s really up a win win for everybody it’s great for the patients prefer the the hospitals it’s an we we we we just want to help these this patient group so I was I was gonna say the other drug is for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis so this is a condition that afflicts probably hundred forty thousand people in the U. S. are living with it each year maybe forty thousand new cases each year approximately it’s a devastating disease so scar tissue begins to form inside the lines and doctors really don’t know why and the mortality rate is eighty percent within five miles was really really devastating there couple of drugs currently on the market they they don’t do very much they slow the progression of the disease by about a year so our truck we are hoping will be one that can actually sort of resolve the fibrosis or scar tissue formation and help restore some lung function but we’re still still working on that well that sounds exciting as well I want to get back to move an origin story like what got you involved in this type of medicine this type of work so it’s it’s a really interesting story a little bit a little bit of a wandering path

I I never intended to study science or medicine I was a musician our growing up I studied that piano fourteen years and wanted to be you know the rock and roll superstar that was that was the goal throwing up I grew up in in Irving Texas so elegant suburbs of Dallas grew up in in the Dallas area I think I merely thought Austin but no not us missile technology yeah still still taxes still Texas and it kind of my my thought was that okay I’ll go to school and study something but then the other band will get discovered and right and all paths to drop out of school the two were run relying but yeah that’s right so we all know what happened right the so I went to the university of North Texas for a year I studied radio TV film but but really it was still very much into music and after a year of the band’s part didn’t really work out so well but I dropped out of school anyway I started working in restaurants okay just to just obviously just to just to make some money I I ended up owning a restaurant in Waco I was there for a year had a restaurant with a with a partner that didn’t ultimately work out but I started going through this so I was I was waiting tables at a restaurant a in the Dallas area and my manager and I got to be good friends and he and I would go out at night and talk you know coffee shops and things and he would always complain because he specialized in opening restaurants for other people so he would come in and decide the menu designed the kitchen hire the staff on the get paid on a contract basis and then leave and he’s at all I do all this work for other people and and and then they get all the all the rewards and so stupidly I said we ought to open our own restaurant you know if that was the mistake

yeah I guess I guess number two learning lesson that’s alright learning lesson and so we did we we opened a restaurant in Waco I was there for about a year and then we kind of had a falling out I’ve I moved back to to the Dallas area and discovered after you’ve owned a restaurant people just assume you know what you’re doing so I could get a restaurant manager job pretty easy so I started I was managing an oyster bar on lower Greenville Avenue in Dallas and that kind of my life really wasn’t going anywhere and I’m sorry this is entering around as you know by some hi I was here working in the in the oyster bar and of course the restaurant lifestyle is just not a very good run styled you know and and not really any potential for your future and at the time my brother was an attorney my sister’s an attorney my sister-in-law’s the attorney and then there was me so mom and dad other sorts yeah specially mom and dad felt out of sorts they they were not thrilled with with their son you know just standing around in the restore all day but I really didn’t I really didn’t know what I would study I hit I told people I will never go back to college I said I’m never going back to college but I finally just kind of got pushed circumstantially into yeah I’ve got to do something else with my life and so I really one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast was because I personally have a a a big place in my heart for community colleges because when I was in Dallas working at the restaurant right and my life going kind of know where there was a community college el Centro community college in Dallas that was downtown and I could take some classes in the day and I was still working at night

I just got a general liberal arts degree plan I didn’t know what I wanted to study so I just thought I’ll just start taking a class or two a semester just to try to get some credits I was kind of outrage that with a liberal arts plan you had to take for science classes well yeah I didn’t understand what I listen in the skies that’s right that’s right but I ended up taking a biology class and the teacher Wayne Meyers is his name right it’s just he’s one of those teachers that are turn your life around and those teachers and their names for the rest of your life for sure yeah absolutely absolutely and I I had never to me biology was like dissected worm and memorize parts of a cell and it was it was completely boring but actually science is really about because it’s like a mystery there’s there’s there’s something going on and we have to figure out using these tools how to solve this puzzle and that’s it kind of opened my eyes and and I thought wow this is something really interesting and something I think I could study so I just decided to transfer to UT Austin and I finished my undergraduate and UT Austin and then got a PhD in molecular biology one Austin yeah certainly impacted your life for sure absolutely great

so then take us from UT Austin graduate to where you’re at now so you can kind of see from from my growing up I’ve had an entrepreneurial kind of bug in me from the beginning and when I was a grad student I got involved in a project another grad student really had started the the project entity in a different lab but I got to work on this project and indeed up being some technology that was invented during the process this related to drug resistance transporters and the the activity of those in in plants and other organisms and so this technology was patented by the university and I was an inventor on that patent and so I kind of I I had an adviser Alan Lloyd but then a second a person a stand rue was almost like a coach adviser and so I told my visor sizeable we ought to start a biotech company discounts and we’ll start our own biotech company no license our patents and and run with it and so that’s what we did so we were able to license the technology and I kind of started down the school of hard knocks on how do you pitch to an investor how do you put a work plan together how do you what take this scientific project size project and make it a commercial product and so we formed a company and that company was going for a few years and we finally got some some people involved to really knew about biotech and really knew about a running a company like that and and but by that time we were a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt to patent attorneys and I find out found out then that to venture capital doesn’t like to to find your dat so we were unable to get any any funding and that kind of also crashed and burned thank another of the office yeah bigger lesson bigger learning less and that’s right there they’re always always lessons in in hindsight you know when you’re in the middle of it it’s it’s such a tough go by Tom now in in hindsight I’m really thankful that I had those experiences all this time most of your family have a family and how to have the support you and all that kind of stuff yes sign I have a wonderful family I married my wife Rebecca and I we have three children our oldest daughter is going into her junior year in college right now and then we’ve got a son in high school and I had a daughter in middle school and they are incredibly supportive the family is very supportive fob you know to be in in biotech there’s a lot of risk then thank you take and I’m I’m really thankful that I do not see any local scientists or any little mathematicians are little entrepreneurs around it

actually it’s funny so my my oldest daughter who’s in college right now that kind of always used to say well I’m I’m I’m never gonna go in into science she she was the one that a dad did that so I’m not gonna do it right but she’s got a a pretty brilliant mind for maths and she is a creative writing major with a math concentration which is kind of an unusual right brain left brain combination she’s got the math part for sure and then my son I think my son they go into into science or medicine he he likes science he’s he’s taking some some tough sized core courses in high school right now I think he may have have the science bug our youngest what’s wrong with them yeah I’m still a little too early she’s a big time animal lover that’s that’s all we can tell from so far a daughter and that’s what she’s about as is animal animals and we’ll see what happens so yeah we’re asking about their yeah so let’s get back to okay we use you started the second business and did that for a while and that was another learning lesson and then how did you go from there to where you’re at now so I spent some kind of the in between years with a group called emerging technologies here in Austin is sort of a hybrid venture and kind of slash incubator group that your their mission was to identify interesting technologies out of universities and then spend those into companies my job as a merchant was really to help identify technologies at the university’s and that see about taking those and putting them into kind of a small start up companies so it was kind of a compressed lesson in going from idea to kind of development or product candidate in a very short period of time their business model was really not too kind of further funds those ventures but to try to do strategic partnering for all of all of the the products in there the young companies which worked out sometimes but it it doesn’t work out all of the time and in twenty thirteen I really began to feel that I wanted to be a part of something where we could kind of continue to build the company through rounds of venture funding or kind of the I guess the more old fashioned way of of building a company of building value

so spent spent be kind of the interim time at a merchant with a lot of their portfolio companies just on a running various aspects of the portfolio companies there okay and then they introduced you to long therapies one thirty six so I I have the believing the merchant just kind of wanted to to part ways into in twenty thirteen and and really was looking for an opportunity to do something like one therapeutics and I I I left without having a job the leap of faith Hey that’s that’s right that’s right so but I but I really strongly believe that the the best way to to kind of move forward was too tough to find an idea where we can kind of build the company ends I was doing the thing that everyone says to to have coffee with all of your contacts right you just have lunch or coffee with everybody that you know and say Hey you know some interesting ideas or have you seen anything and I met with some people at the UT horizon fund which is the venture fund of the university of Texas system and they I was talking to them about one idea which they really weren’t very interested in but they said you know we’ve got this technology out of Tyler that you might want to think about and initially I I kind of dismissed it and then I went back I thought wait a minute they’re they’re telling me there’s some technology they are they’re they’re interested in finding someone to you run this run this company and so I thought well I better go check this out and so I drove to Tyler I met with Steve I tell the physician founder who say it’s just a great guy tremendous a person and and founder of the company and we hit it off and hide it off with the horizon find

and and so they were they were looking for a CEO who was would be willing to come in and raise money for the company actually not draw a salary until the rest money for money K. so another kind of kind of leap of faith but doctor I del had received a tremendous amount of grant funding for the pneumonia related to our program that is eventually become R. LTI one truck and is now in phase two clinical trial and with all of the grant funding I mean millions of dollars of grant funding investors love non dilutive capital right so I thought I think I could get some investors interested in this program I started going around kind of pitching angel groups one of the angel groups was the counting on angels in for earth two of the members really light the the program they knew about biotech but the the the angel group as a whole I think just was not ready to do another pharmacy they’d already done a deal but the two individuals there contacted me they got they had gotten with the third individual and kind of started a partnership for funding life science ventures on their own and so that group today is called bios partners they are a bona fide venture find they’ve got several companies that they have have invested in one therapeutics was the second company that they invested in and you had no money raised experience before then you just jump in I’m I had a little bit of experience when I was with him merchants some of the portfolio companies we would raise a little bit of capital and then there was some some funds that were raised at a merchant and I would go along to help make the presentations and and help to the pitches and up with those sport fellow companies

but yeah some just some limited experience makes sense and that company obviously with LTE one that was a very different company where you guys are now so how hard is it to to do so I’ve had other guests on on occasions before a scientist and people that the that the build you know the pharmaceutical companies from the get go and I’ve also interviewed entrepreneurs that are just doing either tax or other type of business some very different business small the amount of money you’ve got a raise we kind of walk us through the the hardships of what some of things the challenge that you’ve got a renewed a raise when you’re trying to build a farm company yes you’re you’re right it’s a very capital intensive business so far we’ve raised I think just over fifty five million dollars in Plano with the financing and that’s that’s not a lot there are a lot of companies now doing series any browser their first round of funding that to fifty million plus for the first round of funding well so total of and that’s with over three rounds of funding so is it that’s really not a lot of money but it just takes a lot of capital to make the drugs to make sure that they’re safe to test the drugs to go into the clinic I think our current rejected manufacturing spend is about fifteen million dollars over the next year just for the for the one drug the L. tier one it’s just incredibly expensive to to make these drugs and to test them

so I don’t know what it’s like in a tech start up I I don’t wanna I don’t wanna minimize the the hardships that they go through but when I think of tech I think of you you can start with your computer in your garage you know you’ve got a phone you’ve got a computer you’ve got an idea a hundred thousand dollars and right now I’m going to get you started in semis yeah that’s right yeah you’ll have to raise money down the road but the fifty million dollars that you know gets a small tech way further much further than just testing one drug number one might the the scientist I was interviewing for talked about the compared to the comparison between the drugs and rock and roll bands go bring it back to romance in having these producers that what’s that would say we gonna lose nine times before we win one so we have to add all these losses into that once was like when you’re developing a drug you might spend two hundred million dollars on these drugs but you can fill four times so the real cost of the drug actually performs like a billion dollars and and that’s how it made sense for me cells that’s the first time that opened my eyes to how expensive it is to not only develop but also test and do all the testing they get sponsored and so on so forth so yeah right congratulations to all the shift consists of so it’s a big mountain climb well thank you and I I ten I’ve got a great team and I’ve got great investors are going to report I really do have a lot of help good so they’ve they’ve been a tremendous help but you’re right you’re right it’s it’s your the thing about drug development that I think come up people don’t have an appreciation of is that there comes a point in our business where things become completely out of our control and that is you get to a point in the clinic where the drug either works or doesn’t work and despite all the science despite all of the effort all the work that you put into it the drug can fail for a number of reasons that are outside of your control so you’re right there say a risk element involved and that’s that’s why mmhm investors want ten times their money back right because like we said nine out of ten are going to fail so that one oil well that does gosh they they they want to they want to make one for that sue speaking finances how does ACC help how does the the lab you know we with the size of the mall you also help tell us about that relationship and and how you value that relationship

yeah so I will just say again I’ve got a real soft spot in my heart for community colleges I think they they they played a huge role in my life personally and they play a tremendous role in the community without ACC companies like ours just could not move forward so here’s another difference between the biotech company and the tech company is if you’re doing any sort of research at all or even some aspects of development you have to have a lap you can’t just work out of your garage and you have to have a lab to be able to apply for certain small business grants that a lot of early stage biotech companies want to get these grants that’s baby the only means of funding that they have into do these you have to have a lab space and it has to be controlled by you so in other words you can’t be at a university where the university owns the intellectual property you’ve got to have your own lab space so for ACC to have this biotechnology program to help the lab space available to companies like ours it’s it’s it’s complete metrics yeah it’s it’s make or break so we hired a scientist a few years ago pre and mackenzie she’s really kind of single handedly done all of the research work for us but we we hired her to do some confirmatory experiments and then she’s she’s done all of that work at A. C. C. typically in conjunction with the investigators at the university of Texas so it allows us to have our lab space and and to do experiments and get all this stuff down that’s wonderful when I first heard about this and do the walk through with Nancy and looked at all the facilities and what they’ve got there’s just it’s just incredible what they’ve done with that space end it’s also inspiring to see how many companies are growing out of that space and and what that’s doing to our health it among other things it’s not just health related but they do a lot of things that are helping for example right now during cold food with all the you know we’re all really concerned about my health and knowing that there’s four five six companies here in Austin starting the space like this creating stuff and technologies that are just amazing for health so it’s it’s it’s pretty inspiring really really out of admire the the work is being done there my what you’re doing there

so now you get L. T. one you wanna talk about the other week we touched on the other two drugs what what faces are they and and and what we what’s the future look like for next five years the dress yep so LTI one again is in a phase two clinical trials so that what we’re doing in that trial is to try to find the right dose of the drug to move forward ultimately in a phase three trial and also show that it works we have to for the audience how many faces you’ll before it gets approved and what does that look like just I just want to thank the picture typically there are three clinical phases phase one is traditionally safety looking exclusively at safety most of the time in just healthy subjects are people that volunteer to come in and take your drug in a in a clinical setting phase two is when you get into trying to find your toes and also proving that it works and they kind of relatively small setting phase three then is proving the drug works and a much larger setting so those are traditionally about the faces and then interface three that’s one other you know that’s when it can be public in and I guess other pharmaceutical companies come in and try to offers that kind of expand the struck I would assume some of the best that’s right that’s right a ticket typically for a biotech like ours you do want to continue to to grow the company but there’s always the possibility or the hope that big pharma will come in at some point and we’ve been yeah right for your company or for the drug or for one of those so many makes us work towards yeah you mentioned in our first conversation that you had a drug that has already been scooped up by by one is that correct no of nos so we receive yeah we’ve we’ve had some interest from pharma companies but yeah that’s that’s not unusual they are always on the lookout for going down interesting yeah interesting compounds okay so I interrupted you L. L. L. T. one it is phase two and then you’ve got okay to help the I. three is is in a phase one clinical trial so that’s a safety trials who were just having kind of a first preliminary look to see what the safety as a bedrock so I. D. N. I.

I’m sorry I I know what you’re talking about so we had a technology and long therapeutics that we spun out into a separate company and that company I actually went public last October this call TFF pharmaceuticals so yeah we we have a technology that we we spun out into its own entity well we talked once a couple weeks ago and I had a distant memory about something but it’s not now maybe I’m wrong yeah so that’s good so you know a little bit about that process we also talked about the question really in in everybody’s mind is you know what we’re doing for covert so how does does does one therapeutics impact anything with what’s going on with Kobe it is it a is it something’s gonna help or you know we’re not yes I I I think I mean the short answer is yes both of the trucks that were working on I think will benefit maybe not coded directly but in indirect effects of Kopet so there is the potential for increasing cases of pneumonia our first drug LTO one was certainly benefit patients that that become complicated with ammonia but because it is also beginning early on to show that survivors may have some long term deleterious effects I am one of those could be the potential for pulmonary fibrosis which is the second sort of indication that we treat so I think it’s possible that unfortunately pulmonary fibrosis may rise in terms of the incidents and our second truck was certainly be able to benefit those patients that makes sense so not if that’s what you might not directly but indirectly we are hearing more and more reports where all the other effects the code has it’s not just the immediate attack it’s the long term and then you some of these the drugs that you’re you’re producing now help in the long term effects of substance yep that’s that’s that’s right so I don’t I don’t think that we can have a impact on coated directly but I I do believe we can benefit the long term effects the patience of the no they are going to help so right was the rector in direct this to continue that so Brian was the next five years look like for you guys well primarily would like to continue to develop the drugs and grow the company so that we can get these drugs ultimately to patients and to the market whether that’s through funding or strategic partnering one way or another we just like to continue to move the company forward

Brian I really enjoyed this conversation hi there’s so much of obviously your industry I do not understand but it’s always nice to speak to someone that has especially taking the entrepreneurial route and kind of figure their own path because at the end of the day all humans are out there trying to figure and figure the path that works for them and it sounds like that’s what you’ve done and are doing continued to to a certain regulations and all that work and I’m really pleased with the work that you guys do minimal just wish the best of luck thanks for being on the show Dan thanks so much I appreciate it thank you again Brian for joining us on science in the mall y’all it was a pleasure to hear more about your unique journey and how this path has led you to life changing science if you’d like to learn more about what they’re doing please visit the link in our show notes sign small y’all is created in partnership between founding media and the Austin community college bioscience incubator to learn more about the ACC bioscience incubator please visit the link in our show notes if you like what you hear on the show please be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend or family member