Dinakar Singh

You could actually make a little bit of money from it.

And the head of one of the largest biotech companies actually laughed at me in the meeting and said, look, Jennifer, the most expensive drug in the world is Avastin, which was a mycology drug, at $15,000 a year.

No one's ever going to pay that kind of money for a small, rare disease for children.

It became a running joke in the end because this person, Alessandro, was an incredible advisor and helper to us.

joined our SAB and really helped us really immensely.

At the end, the first drug that we helped develop through Colts from Arbor Labs and then a company called Ionis, we then had them partner up with Biogen.

So Biogen essentially bought in the drug and became the first to market with an SMA drug.

And when they did, they charged, I think, $730,000 a year for it.

I think they're one of the top three drugs pulling in, I think, $4 or $5 billion in revenue.

And so amazingly today, the SMA drug market, I think, is high single digit billions.

And it's a top three drug for Roche, Novartis, and Biogen.

But the notion that a pediatric neurology drug

would be anything of value back then was a hard sell.

And so we basically had to go put it in a box with a bow on it and give it to people for free because otherwise they'll never touch it.

And that's really what we did.

I mean, we spent a fortune on models, testing everything.

It was clear after testing everything that the existing FDA-approved drugs, some would have some impact, but none would be good enough.

And you'd have toxicity issues, so it didn't work.

So we then pursued all three shots on goal that you thought were relevant.

Coastering Harbor Labs, they're a great scientist.