Grow Everything Biotech Podcast

The episode contains substantial technical and strategic insights about biomanufacturing, particularly the shift from steel bioreactors to using genetically engineered chickens as production systems. However, the opening 20+ minutes devoted to 4th of July celebrations, personal anecdotes, and tangential discussions about AI companies and Midjourney significantly dilute the insight density. The core interview with Neon Bio founders delivers concrete details about cost structures, regulatory pathways, and supply chain advantages, but this is bookended and interrupted by lower-substance segments.

“Our inputs are chicken feed and water. Our outputs are life saving medicines.”

“40% of the human secretome, the proteins that the human body secretes cannot be made in this one cell type that we use to make all our biologics in these Chinese hamster ovary cells.”

While using chickens for biomanufacturing is presented as novel by the hosts, the founders themselves acknowledge this is not entirely new - four drugs already on the market were produced using genetically engineered animals, with one being chicken-based. The core insight about harnessing evolved biology rather than forcing simple organisms to behave unnaturally is sound but not deeply contrarian. The execution and specific application to monoclonal antibodies is differentiated, but the foundational philosophical argument builds on established synthetic biology critique.

“There are companies that come out the gates really flying and lose momentum and momentum is really important”

“I think the last 50 years of synthetic biology has been, there's a handful of organisms we know how to engineer. E. Coli, Cerevisia, Cho. Let's try to shove them and try to get them to do our bidding and work really hard to go against evolution.”

Sam Levin and Dimi Kölari represent high-caliber operators: Levin is an evolutionary biologist with prior startup experience (Melonfrost) building automated bioreactors; Kölari brings aerospace hardware engineering from Airbus and Google X plus policy experience at CERN. Both have moved from stealth to commercial partnerships with major pharmaceutical players and have secured substantial seed funding. They are practitioners with skin in the game and relevant domain expertise, though as a very early-stage company (emerged from stealth recently), their execution record is still limited.

“Sam Levin is an early member of the Brooklyn biotech mafia because we knew him from his previous startup. After finishing with that startup, he ended up joining forces with D. Me Kolari to start Neon Bio.”

“I worked at CERN for some time and there millions and millions of dollars to build a part that would only ever be used for one single purpose”

The episode includes concrete examples: Humira production requiring <4,000 birds for global supply (vs. USDA small farm threshold of 25,000), $10 per gram cost target (sourced to Gates Foundation), 40% of human secretome unexpressible in CHO cells, four existing drugs on market from genetically engineered animals. However, many claims lack specificity: no named pharmaceutical partners disclosed, no timeline for clinical trials, no data on actual batch-to-batch variability comparisons with CHO, regulatory pathway discussed only at high level. The downstream purification process is described qualitatively but lacks quantitative metrics on processing time or cost reductions.

“We could produce the global supply of, uh, something like Humira using, uh, a very, very small chicken farm. So specific numbers would be under 4,000 birds.”

“58% of manufacturing facilities registered with the FDA are actually overseas. And when it comes to generics or biosimilars, that's 87% plus.”

The hosts ask reasonable opening questions and demonstrate genuine enthusiasm, but follow-up questioning is often superficial or deferential rather than probing. Critical gaps go unexplored: How do you maintain genetic stability across generations? What is actual manufacturing timeline compared to CHO? Are the three monoclonal antibody partnerships in biosimilars or novel biologics? The hosts pivot to lighter questions (union demands, tic-tac-toe chickens) rather than push on regulatory uncertainties, competitive threats, or execution risks. The interview reads more as a celebratory platform than investigative conversation. Host push-back is minimal; claimed advantages are largely accepted without skeptical follow-up.

“I love that. Better biology for sure. And we're going to dig into that.”

“I'm a huge fan of Sam and DME and what Neon Bio is doing.”