Thomas Mitchell is a global biotech executive who has recently relocated to Adelaide, Australia, after spending time leading drug development programs in Boston, USA and Cambridge, UK. He works in an interesting area of medicine - developing microbial therapies for many gut-related conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease. Previously, Thomas held important positions at Finch Therapeutics and Microbiotica, both microbial therapy companies.
Having grown up in Newcastle, Australia, Thomas has returned to be CEO of BiomeBank and intends to build an Australian-based microbiome biotechnology company to treat unmet medical need globally, with an immediate focus on the APAC region.
In this episode, Thomas and Daniel broached a few topics, including Thomas's journey, his vision of where Biomebank could be, the benefits of the drug industry, growing and scaling companies, his beliefs around leadership, plus much more.
If you enjoy this episode, please share it with your friends and colleagues, and check us out on synergyiq.com.au.
Where to find Thomas Mitchell
Join the conversation on Synergy IQ LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram (@synergyiq) and please support other leaders by liking, subscribing and sharing this podcast.
Access SynergyIQ Website to get to know more about us.
Say hello to our host Daniel on LinkedIn.
Thomas Mitchell is a global biotech executive who has recently relocated to Adelaide, Australia, after spending time leading drug development programs in Boston, USA and Cambridge, UK. He works in an interesting area of medicine - developing microbial therapies for many gut-related conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease. Previously, Thomas held important positions at Finch Therapeutics and Microbiotica, both microbial therapy companies.
Having grown up in Newcastle, Australia, Thomas has returned to be CEO of BiomeBank and intends to build an Australian-based microbiome biotechnology company to treat unmet medical need globally, with an immediate focus on the APAC region.
In this episode, Thomas and Daniel broached a few topics, including Thomas's journey, his vision of where Biomebank could be, the benefits of the drug industry, growing and scaling companies, his beliefs around leadership, plus much more.
If you enjoy this episode, please share it with your friends and colleagues, and check us out on synergyiq.com.au.
Where to find Thomas Mitchell
Join the conversation on Synergy IQ LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram (@synergyiq) and please support other leaders by liking, subscribing and sharing this podcast.
Access SynergyIQ Website to get to know more about us.
Say hello to our host Daniel on LinkedIn.
Welcome to creating synergy, where we explore what it takes to transform. We are powered by Synergy IQ. Our mission is to help leaders create world class businesses where people are safe, valued, inspired and fulfilled. We can only do this with our amazing community. So thank you for listening.
Daniel Franco:Hey there synergises Daniel Franco here and welcome back to another episode of The creating synergy podcast. Today we have an extremely intelligent, and very, very humble human being on the show and his name is Thomas Mitchell. A little bit about Thomas Thomas is a global biotech executive, who has recently relocated to Adelaide, Australia after spending some time leading drug development and programs in both the Boston USA and Cambridge, UK. He works in a very interesting area of medicine, developing micro bio therapies for many gut related conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease. Previously, Thomas held very important positions at Finch therapeutics and microbiotic. Both micro bio therapy companies. Having grown up in Newcastle, Australia, Thomas has returned to be the CEO of barn bank and intends to build an Australian based microbiome biotechnology company to treat unmet medical needs globally, with an immediate focus on the Australian and Pacific region. It was a great chat today with Thomas we talked about his journey, his vision of where biobank could be his vision of where the drug industry could be, to growing and scaling companies to his beliefs, and practices around leadership. If you enjoy this episode, which I know you will, please like and share with your friends and colleagues, and check us out on Synergyiq.com.au. Cheers. Welcome back to The creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco, your host and today we have a very, very, very good man by the name of Thomas Mitchell. Welcome to the show, Tom.
Thomas:Thank you very much. It's pleasure to be here.
Daniel Franco:So Tom, CEO of biomebank, and just recently arrived in Australia spend some time in quarantine. Can you tell us a little bit about obviously that, but also your journey to become the CEO of biomebank?
Thomas:Yeah, yeah. So the journey really to get from here. So just prior to here, I was in Florida, and that's where my part of my wife's family is. And we live from there. We flew into New York, and then we flew from New York, through Qatar to Adelaide. And it's, it was very much threading the needle to try and get here. Yeah, as you can imagine, it's the bureaucracy. Well, I think it's like you have to get on the flight that makes it and you have to come in and you have to get directly into Adelaide student quarantine twice is a bit of a challenge. Okay.
Daniel Franco:Yes. didn't even think of that. Yeah. But you will be the Sydney or Melbourne or something.
Thomas:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And look, a lot of people are still stranded overseas. So we managed to get a pretty clear run. And we made it here. And then we spent two weeks in, in the hotel here.
Daniel Franco:And I remember I think,
Thomas:I think we spoke about this last time, but the hotel and the staff, really professional really, really attentive. And so you know, my wife and I really, really appreciative of that. But being stuck in a small room for two weeks is you think it's going to be relaxing, exciting. And then quickly after the first few days, it becomes a bit tiring especially
Daniel Franco:because I think he's told me that the windows are nothing open. They said there was no fresh air.
Thomas:Yeah, so we had one window and you would open a slight crack and overlooked into a parking lot. And I believe at one point we could smell kind of x body spray coming in. We don't use it. So we are curious about where it was coming from.
Daniel Franco:Really, so tell me about your mindset through that. That period, then how are you talking about thinking be relaxing, but where were you? I mean, because we've heard some sort of horrific stories of what's been going on in in the quarantine. How did you and your wife handle that?
Thomas:Yeah, I think we went into it. Well, we had a lot of work because I was I just started this position.
Daniel Franco:Sorry, how long ago was this?
Thomas:This was just over a month ago.
Daniel Franco:recently appointed CEO. Yeah. And so ran running in a hotel.
Thomas:Yeah, exactly. So I was on meetings all day, which kept me occupied and my wife is was teaching so she's teaching at a university in in the US remotely and so we worked a lot and then we tried to work out a lot so a lot of star jumps in the room.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, annoying the people below Yeah,
Thomas:yeah, that's right. Well, we had someone was definitely gonna skipping right above us. Oh, really? Yeah. But
Daniel Franco:yeah, that's, that's not good. I couldn't imagine not getting it much fresh air.
Thomas:Yeah, it was looking at overtime becomes really tiring and you really atrophy. But by the end of the day when we got out, we were like, Oh my god, like the pandemic. It has happened a little bit, but really not that much. No, not compared to Florida. No, compared to Florida. In it before that we were in Cambridge and in the UK. And then we have friends in California and Massachusetts. And yeah, it's a different world here.
Daniel Franco:That you never contracted COVID?
Thomas:No, no, no, no, we've been tests multiple times. We haven't. We've been very, very lucky, I think to dodge it. Yeah, to dodge it. And now we're here in the open, and we're not wearing any masks. So it's pretty good. Yeah, it is.
Daniel Franco:So you move you come out of quarantine. And you have to move into a house is that we're headed that Oh, where was all your stuff?
Thomas:Yeah. So we had it all shipped from Cambridge, UK. And it takes months to make its way back to Australia. Okay, when we arrived here, actually, we didn't realize that the pandemic was affecting the economics of Adelaide. And so we're looking for a house and the competition to get a house is high.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, and renting is almost really difficult, unless you're paying really difficult
Thomas:and getting cars and everything else. But we're all set up now.
Daniel Franco:So it's it's been a tough first month.
Thomas:Yeah, look, it's overall, it's been pretty smooth. And it's mainly been smooth, because it's a great community here. Yeah, everyone's been really supportive. Not only from a personal perspective for from the biotech perspective, as well.
Daniel Franco:So tell us a little bit about how you became the CEO of bio bank, the US proceeding you grew up in New Castle served in the military, is that correct?
Thomas:That is correct. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:What made you decide to join the military?
Thomas:Well, candidly, I had a bit of a rocky upbringing. But I had a very loving family. And I think I had this kind of romantic idea that if I went into the army as an officer, they know, i gain, the discipline to accomplish some pretty big things. And I feel like it turned out that way.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, that was gonna be my next question. Obviously, the the Army and the Navy and Air Force or whatever, it might be a notorious for teaching really great disciplines. What was some of the things that you weren't coming out of there?
Thomas:people that look at the military from the outside, and often think that you go in there and that you lose some element of independent thought I didn't find that was the case at all. I found it was. If anything, they promoted that. And I learnt I feel anyway, that to really kill the ego. If someone drops something, you go pick it up. Yeah, go figure. It's a very simple lesson. But actually, it's incredibly important and incredibly powerful. If you want a group of people to work together.
Daniel Franco:Well, if you're out in the front line, and and someone drops an eye, let's say the gun, you don't help them, they're going to be in a bit of trouble.
Thomas:Yeah, yeah. And everyone's accountable.
Daniel Franco:So you've decided to then move on from the military. What Why did you decide to get out of that world?
Thomas:One thing I found is that in the military, I people that that really love the lifestyle, but it is a very different world. And I found that I was always interested in biological sciences and thought it would be great if there was a world in which you could translate that seems a bit like a naive statement, because I had never really been exposed to it then. But I just wanted to, I guess, experience something different, and experience lots of different things in my life. Because I think that's why I felt that it's really important to grow as, as an individual.
Daniel Franco:Where does the love for Biological Science come in? Like, what is that? What if you're a child growing up and you're interested in biological science? What are you searching? What are you? What are you looking at?
Thomas:Yeah, I you know, I think it really stems from maybe some science fiction books that I have grown up with, and even some of the ones that I've read today, and I think that through that, I was thinking, wouldn't it be great if some of these things ever became a reality?
Daniel Franco:Let's say those were the master thought of all invention comes from similar science fiction books. I mean, you look at what Elon Musk in the topic doing today that settling on Mars? Yeah, the thought 40 years ago that we'd be doing stuff like that.
Thomas:These kind of books capture an idea. Yeah. And then you just for us, just we might not jump from where we are all the way to where they are, but it gives you something to, to romance about, I think and then and then you can kind of take gradual steps towards that. So So is that
Daniel Franco:what you're doing now and your path is to try to create the next next big thing is, you guys have planned it. Yeah, I
Thomas:really believe it. And look, I've been developing microbial therapies for some time and, and at the team here really plays it as well. So my chief medical officer, Sam Costello, and the Chief Technology Officer, Sam Foster, we really believe this is a new therapeutic class. There are a lot of different types of drugs that have been developed. And we feel like this is brain a new way of developing this new class of drugs, and it's really going to treat patients with unmet medical needs. So where other drugs haven't been effective?
Daniel Franco:We're going to come back to Yeah, going back, I want to get just delve a little bit more into your journey to where you are today. Did you have to, obviously go and study did you study while you were in the military? Oh,
Thomas:yeah. Yeah, I did. So I, I did an undergrad in biomedical science. And then I did a I had a bit of a weird and winding path and that at the time I was dating someone else. And through that I took on a master's in Queensland, and then that relationship, we were the right fit for one another. Yep. And I'm very thankful, in a way because through this journey I've taken, I've met my wife, and I feel like yeah, couldn't be a better fit. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. No regrets. And I think that, so I didn't do the masters. And then, and that really led me into computational biology.
Daniel Franco:computational biology?
Thomas:correct? Yeah.
Daniel Franco:So. So can you explain that? Yeah, me for COVID.
Thomas:You know, it most complex things are quite simple. It's just a lot of simple things put together and long words and long words. That's right. That's definitely if anyone says too many long words. So computational biology is really just using computers to to really assess genomes at scale, and then identify complex patterns that are linked with disease or resolution of disease. Okay, so yeah
Daniel Franco:all types of disease. Yeah, there's bacteria.
Thomas:Well, it can do it really, you can do it in multiple mediums. But I started looking at the human genome with computers. And then, and then I moved more into the micro biomes really, using computers to assess all the different bugs in your gut.
Daniel Franco:Okay, again, we'll get more into that. But I'm still wanting to continue this journey of Thomas Mitchell and follow the the windy road the do that. See, you then. Got
Thomas:Yep. And then I went to, I started a PhD at the your masters. University of Queensland. And then I was there's someone I knew from, from my time in the military guy called Tron Ton, has been a really great friend to me over an extended period of time. And he was in doing a Master's of Public Health at Harvard, I was explaining to him about some ideas that I had around using computational biology for drug and biomarker discovery in the microbiome. And I said, this is, this is the next thing. And he said, Look, Thomas, that energy, you can follow that in Queensland, but why don't you come over to the US and just meet some people? Because I feel like this is where you're best suited. I thought, you know what, someone very close to me says something like this. So I took it to heart. Yeah. And so I left and then I spent two weeks in, in the US and I met, everyone that I met, really had a culture of paying it forward. And I went to George Church's lab at Harvard, really reviewed lab people doing some really crazy science. I'm Eric arms lead at MIT doing great work in the microbiome. And, and a few other people. And it turns out, the few other people that I met, were pulling together a company called Finch therapeutics. And through discussions, I had many opportunities come my way to go do things in US in Boston? And they said, Look, why don't you quit what you're doing the PhD quit the PhD. And at that time, I was working and they said, you know, why don't you quit everything. And come across here and help us start this company.
Daniel Franco:So what did they see in you to make you want to quit or to tell you to quit?
Thomas:I think I had a tolerance for risk. And I wanted to do something that was maybe non traditional route. And I was interested in just rolling up my sleeves and working in drug development and with other group of people that would work really hard and that we're okay, not having, you know, being bound by the preconception that we need to have 20 years to start something 20 years of experience. We thought, if we just get in there and we work hard, and we just surround ourselves with the right people and the right experience people that we can be really successful. And you know, the company has been very successful. And I worked with really incredible people. And I really value that experience.
Daniel Franco:So as a young startup, young startup, you were one of the founding members or
Thomas:I'd come in after Mark Smith had kind of started to create that groundswell and establish the company. And another person I have to mention is Zane Kissin really, really great chief medical officer. So they were kind of getting the company started, and they brought me across to help run the portfolio. Yeah, so lead some of the programs. Yeah, well, and you grew the team. The team grew dramatically. So we grew. I want to say that space, two years, we grew to maybe over 180, between 180 and 200. People.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, wow. Yeah. So your employee number?
Thomas:I believe I was like, four or five, before five.
Daniel Franco:And you grew up? And you personally grew to the whole, like, obviously, did you manage big portion being the operational layer?
Thomas:Yeah, well, I really managed the program. So really getting, you know, the programs up and taking them through the drug development process and working with the right people to make that happen. Zane would always say, I just helped to put things on the rails and to push them forward. Yeah. And but as far as growing is concerned, I think everyone added a hand in that because we were you wear many hats, right? team?
Daniel Franco:Yeah, young startup. How do you cope with all that change in such a short time growing from a recruitment point of view, onboarding, getting people to see the vision and what we're actually trying to achieve going out there and hiring the right. the right people with the right skill set? managing all the governance aspects behind that. How did you as a young startup, and obviously, you know, in the early your early 20s, at that point,
Thomas:yeah.
Daniel Franco:So how did you all handle that rapid growth? and get it right?
Thomas:Yeah, well, I'm, I'm not going to say we got it right. But we got it done. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:Okay. It's a big difference.
Thomas:There's a big difference. And I'm sure that the colleagues there would agree. There are things that I think we did, right, and there are things that we could have optimized, and managing that kind of growth is challenging, because now you have to kind of bring everyone on quickly. Because there's so much work to do that to bring on the right people. And you have to get them aligned to the vision. And yeah, I think it was, yeah, it was a challenge.
Daniel Franco:How did you guys know that? was a challenge that no, how did you know that you needed to do that at that early? I think, you know, young 20 year olds? You know, the correct me if I'm wrong, but when you I remember in my 20s dollar signs were things that were floating around in my head. Yeah. As opposed to how do I create a great company that's doing some great for the community or for the world?
Thomas:Yeah, we were, we were all aligned in the fact that the therapy that we were developing, was saving people's lives. Yeah. And we'd already seen it, right? Because it was, to some degree, a derivative of the product had been used to treat patients. And we were just taking something forward, which was kind of an optimized version of it. And we all rallied behind that. And we, we'd seen other companies kind of stumble in getting it done. And it was limiting access to patients. And so for us, we were like, We have to get it done. And we felt that we wanted to create a lasting company. Yeah, a new type of biotech in a way.
Daniel Franco:So did you have investors that come in and help support the Yeah,
Thomas:yeah, there was some investors that were they came in, and they've been supportive. And I think this is more Mark's room than mine. But from what I saw, the investors were very supportive. And from what I can see, from a distance, they've continued to be very supportive.
Daniel Franco:So for those who are in a rapid growth phase right now in their startups, can you? Do you have any learnings? Yeah, for them, anything that comes to mind?
Thomas:Well, first, when you first start a company, you need to roll up your sleeves, and you have to do a lot of things yourself, wear many hats, like you said, you have to wear many hats. Like, that's just a part of it. But as you grow, you need to really stop working in the business and start working on the business. And a lot of people say this kind of thing, in the fact that I say that because it's, it's true. It's true in the fact that like, you've got to start delegating properly and you've got to, you've got to really assign what people's goals are so that they can focus and how that aligns with the entire company. And I think that if I had known that Back in my early days of biotech, I probably could have had everyone going the same direction a lot more. And I think it would have reduced a lot of the burden instead of everyone just trying to do everything. So there's a bit of strategy to getting something off the ground, and you've got to face things.
Daniel Franco:You seem like you really love the biological aspect of the work that you do to go away from working in the business to honor that. Take away the love of what you're doing, or were you more interested in right now? I'm actually interested in the growth of the business.
Thomas:Yeah, I think my interest has changed over time. Yeah, I love being involved in a lot of different things. And I think working in an executive level allows me to do that. Yeah. But I like company strategy. Yeah, I've grown to love it. Like I enjoyed drug discovery and the science of everything. And I think that that's allowed me to be quite good at drug development, and that I've seen the whole process from top to tail. And I've seen every element and I've kind of rolled up my sleeves and worked in every element of drug development in microbial therapies, which is, it's kind of unique, because it's certainly emerging field. But now that I've involved just working on the moving some of the high level pieces in the place, so that the drug can transition through very quickly, like and then positioning it with other people and aligning interests. And I think that's dreadfully fascinating. So I you know, fallen more in love with that, I guess.
Daniel Franco:We'll get more into strategy. I want to pick your brand and strategy, which hopefully we get to later got a fair few questions here. So we've gone from FinTech. You've stayed there for a couple of years, grown the business considerably, and decided you've needed to, on that you need to move on but decided to move on. Or did you get poached?
Thomas:Yeah. So working in biotech in Boston, like Boston's an incredible place to do biotech. Yeah, great culture for biotech, a lot of funding. Like it's just a magical place to be. And I would like to say that I would like Adelaide to be like that. Yeah. And I hope I can bring elements of it here. But what happened was, my wife is US German. And we thought we were working so much, and the company was set up, and it was on its rails. And we were thinking, it'd be great to do to mix things up. It'd be great to go to Europe. And so I'd spoke with a few people in Europe about taking on some opportunities in some big, well known tech companies. And, and through that, I just happened to meet some people at out of the Sanger Institute that was spinning up a company and microbial therapies company. And they said, Hey, would you be interested in coming across here and helping us out? You were doing something similar, but a little bit different. And these sort of micro mottos and treble lowly. Now, micro, Manas is great drug developer, x GSK. And treble Ollie is down to some of the pivotal work in the field for microbiome science, working on gut bacteria, and how it links to health and disease. And just seemed like a really good opportunity to get in at a young company, and then kind of take everything that I had to learn and reinforce it in this new company, and then and to help them out in taking everything they wanted to do forward. And then I learned a lot from them.
Daniel Franco:So we just backtrack to Google, contacting you. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because you originally went to Cambridge? Because of
Thomas:Yeah, so I originally went to Cambridge, because I was doing interviews at Google for Google Health, really.
Daniel Franco:So how does Google find out about Thomas Mitchell?
Thomas:So I, some colleagues of mine, deep mind was becoming Google Health at the time. And I was really interested in machine learning and data, personal development and that front, and in that I just been connected with these people. And they said, hey, look, would you be interested in coming across and speaking with us about working at Google Health? And so from there, I had those interactions and then being in the same neighborhood, you obviously made a lot of other but
Daniel Franco:yeah. And you've so you've kind of decided to not take up the opportunity Google and start with microbiologica.
Thomas:Yes.
Daniel Franco:Tell me about your journey through those couple of years. You were there.
Thomas:Yeah. So we arrived in Cambridge. I think that in microbiome science, you talk about engraftment it's like bacteria that find a good home in your colon to live and then they stay then they reproduce and it's the commensal so they're good for your health, right? Yeah. Or don't do much. And I think that that same analogy, you could probably apply to Cambridge is that thing my wife and I didn't really engraft so he's of a bacteria Yeah, chromosome of bacteria. So this is a this is I live in Britain. But you know, we didn't really, we went there and we loved it. And we met great people. And the company started out small. And I came in and helped establish the portfolio, which is you set up all your programs and you define how you're going to develop your drugs. And you push them forward. And I got to work with some really great scientists on some really great science. And I got to work with also some great partners in California, like I worked with Genentech. Like they're like the Google of biotech. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was I learned a lot, great journey. And, but I think that it wasn't the right fit for my wife. And I know So
Daniel Franco:what, what role were you in? They're in the same sort of operational program? Yeah. So
Thomas:I was in a VP role there. Just overseeing the portfolio.
Daniel Franco:Okay, great. Yeah. And was a rapid growth within that company as well.
Thomas:Well, it's not us rapid growth. And that's no diss on Cambridge UK. But I think that people ask me, you know, very organic growth. Yeah, exactly. And people ask me, like, what, what is the difference between the US and the UK for biotech? And I say, if you want to move fast, do it in the US. You want to move slow, but you want to do it, right. Which is not always the best thing. Yeah. You do it in, in the UK. And so you can mix the two. That's Yeah, perfect medium.
Daniel Franco:So when you say, right, you're talking from a business perspective, not a
Thomas:drug? Yeah, exactly. Yes, exactly. Clarify. Yeah, that's
Daniel Franco:looking at drugs that aren't.
Thomas:No, no, no, no, no, I know. I mean, like, both are putting out great drugs. Yeah, they take a different approach to it. And the scale is totally different. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:I just wanted to reiterate that point. There's a lot of stuff floating around about pharmaceuticals. Oh, yeah. This is drug companies at the moment. So these pass by COVID happens. Thomas, Sir, what's your wife's name?
Thomas:Johana. . I
Daniel Franco:So Johana and Thomas, and you had to decide to come back to Adelaide? Did you get a knock on your door from biobank?
Thomas:Oh, so we were we were planning to move back to the to the US or for us? Yeah. Because that's what your wife's Yeah, that's Yeah. And we were thinking, pandemics happening. Things like I just completed are quite an important milestone at my previous company. And I thought, you know what, I'd seen that grown, I would like to take on some bigger challenges. And once again, we weren't in grafting, I think in Cambridge. And so going back to us seems like a logical option. But then I got in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of it, or that's maybe not so
Daniel Franco:number one, in a country, which has been affected.
Thomas:Yeah, so maybe not so logical that front, but from a family perspective, and from also a lot of my network was in the US. But I had known Sam, Sam Costello, the chief medical officer, and he's the founder, he's a founder as well, he is a founder, human and Rob bride, who's is a really, really incredible clinician. And he was really, really great individual, as in like, a really nice person, which you think why would you make a decision based on that, and I think it's incredibly important to work with good people on hard problems. And so we were in discussions, I told him my plans, and then he said, Look, I have a, I bind bank, it's a store bank, here, we're treating unmet medical need, by providing safe access to this fecal transplant material from healthy donors. But I want to turn it into a biotech, we've got great scientists here in Adelaide, and they've got all this, these assets here, but we need someone to come over that's done drug discovery, drug development, and that has that culture from US and UK, and to bring it here and to kind of bring everything together. I thought, you know, what, good people, great assets, a great foundation to create what I think is going to be a world leading company. And it's coming back to Australia to do it. I was like, oh, man, this is in very, very safe adult and very, very valid. I was like, Oh, my God, this is this is the Unicode I'm looking for. Yeah, yeah. The conditions. were right. And I think they are right.
Daniel Franco:Excellent. So tell us a little bit about biobank. What are you guys working on it? And what sort of triggered that? Yes, I want to go work with them. Because obviously, you have a love for the product. What are you guys working on?
Thomas:Yeah. So what we're working on at the moment is, we have a process for creating our kind of what we call a first generation product, which is derived from the stool of healthy donors. You basically take all the bacteria out of that and strictly anaerobic conditions because you know, there's no option you'd hate your guts testing to be healthy before there. Yeah, exactly, yeah, we have clinicians go through and they do a thorough assessment of them. And and then they go through a panel of tests to determine that they are, quote unquote healthy. And when they make it through, and there's not that many people that do, we have this, what we consider to be an ideal healthy donor data to have in itself, oh, it's incredible to have. And then we turn that into a drug product. And you can use that in treating clostridioides difficile infection, which is life threatening. Like if you go into the hospital, and you get antibiotics and not strictly in the hospital. you wipe out all the bacteria in your gut, and you get colonized with this bug. And it's really hard to get rid of through food with antibiotics. I think it's just through the environment. Okay. Yeah. And usually it's propagated by widespread use of antibiotics. And it makes us weigh in, it's really hard to get rid of with antibiotics, it's like a forest, right? You're knocking down the trees, and something grows in its place, and then use antibiotics gets rid of the trees again, and just keeps growing back. And so if you replenish, put all these, this broad community of bacteria, from a healthy donor in there, it prevents it growing back, and you essentially get rid of the infection, you you help someone that would have otherwise died.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, well, what's the one in? How many people?
Thomas:Oh, yeah, I don't know that off the top of my head, to be honest, but that the proportion in Australia is a lot larger than the proportion in other countries. Okay. So just because it's really good. antimicrobial stewardship? Yeah, yeah. But I can
Daniel Franco:Yeah, I was thinking I'm an Australian scale, but there's a world scale that I should be thinking you're not really thinking small.
Thomas:But you can use that. So that's the first generation drug. And you can actually add chief medical officer has shown that you can use that in treating ulcerative coladas, which is, essentially, you get this chronic inflammation of your colon. And in some cases, you end up having your colon removed. Oh, that's not good. It's not good
Daniel Franco:at all. And just that way, you have the bag on the outside and all that. So is that yeah, that's
Thomas:in some cases, when you get a colectomy, when treat current treatment is not working? Yeah. No, you have to get it removed. But inside, you know, Sam is shown in some cases, you can treat with this first generation product of these bugs, and you can actually induce and maintain remission, which is incredible.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, that's good stuff. Is that all through a pill format or
Thomas:so that's actually through, we have it loaded into a syringe and you're injected as, as a colonoscopy, and then as an animal, but we're working on on other formulations. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:So the purpose is there, right? You're you're saving lives. It's a pretty important, important product. Yeah. What's your vision for the business? What do you think?
Thomas:Well, I think there's, there's two things to consider three things to consider. One, that we want to be the leading microbiome therapeutics company, in the APAC region, I think we're on track to do that. And we're going to be a global leader, that's going to compete with other companies, mainly in the US. And we're going to do that by one, taking, I guess, a practical approach to drug development, taking our current drug and treating our medical need, right, we want to make sure patients getting especially in the APAC region, where they're not getting access to these sorts of drugs. And then separate to that we've got our eye on the future, we want to develop. If this is a new class of therapy, which we believe it is, we want to gel the next generation of these therapies and say we've got some things in the pipeline, we're developing this consortium of bacteria in quite broad a lot of different type of bacteria that have different functions that can treat different diseases. And so we're going to get to a point where you'll have a capsule full of all these bacteria that will have all these different functions. And you could take it and enroll and graft in your gut, and then it'll help ameliorate Yeah. Yeah, target many diseases.
Daniel Franco:By almost like little nanobots.
Thomas:Yeah, like organic. Yeah, yeah.
Daniel Franco:Yeah. That's amazing. So growth is essential. You think, like withstand the, the tidal wave that you're about to throw at
Thomas:it? Ah, you know what I so far, everyone's been pretty supportive. I think that doing buy tickets hard. like doing a software startup can be challenging, but it's you write code and it's infinitely scalable. But biotech is there's a lot of interconnected parts. You have to work with regulators. And we're speaking with like the TGA. And they've been incredibly supportive. And very professional and after work between scientists, you know, computational biologists micro like, there's all these pieces have to come together. And working the regulations. Yeah. And having people externally like hospital networks, and all these, do what they can to support us makes all the difference. And I we're getting that. And so what we're going to do is, I think, I think we're positioned, the conditions are right, and I think we're really going to, we're going to be really big company in Australia in the world. So
Daniel Franco:I like that vision. I like that outlook. I am interested, though, you've been hired by two founders of the company to come back and run. What is supposedly their business. You know, we've we've heard, we've seen the we've heard stories of the john Sculley, Steve Jobs scenario where the CEO comes in, and it didn't work out so well for, for the owner of the business, what's, how are you managing that relationship? You know, obviously setting new visions, new directions, are you working with those guys to do that?
Thomas:Yeah, I'm working with him. They've got a vision, I've got a vision, and then we get in a room. And we just talk really candidly about our intentions and what the goal of the company would be. And then we all adapt. So we're all going in the same direction. And it's been really great, like they've been, but it is challenging, I have to admit, yeah, write it, think about it, it'd be really challenging. If you would set up a company, and then you would had someone step in,
Daniel Franco:I run my own. Yeah, I have often thought, yeah.
Thomas:And so I, I really want to acknowledge that they've been very, like I, you know, I haven't come across any challenges from them on that front. They're both very humble people. So you know, they've been very, very good at navigating this. And I've been very acutely aware of this. And so I've tried to manage it with them.
Daniel Franco:So I'm interested in the level of conversation that goes on, I'm not really interested in specifics of it. But tough conversations are a thing that we often work with a lot of clients about are interested to pick his brain, when you when you sit in your room with other executives and leaders within the business, and you're having these really open, candid conversations, things can get heated. How does your did you think? Well, I guess where I'm going with this? Do you think your level of learning and discipline and you know, you mentioned before from the military, you put your ego, I do feel that plays a really big part in your ability to have those candid conversations?
Thomas:Yeah. I've seen before. Many times where ego comes into a situation where you should just be talking about the facts. And you should maybe talk through it together, you can always come to an amicable solution, right? But seen, I've seen that unfold in many different ways, and I've never really eventuates and then it will get disrupted with each other at least really bad culture. And then things spiral from there. And so yeah, I think that removing egos incredibly important.
Daniel Franco:But basing your discussion on facts is also as important.
Thomas:Yeah, I think you just need to need to seek to understand.
Daniel Franco:Yes, yeah, I love the Stephen COVID stuff. Yeah, you just got to
Thomas:also lead a lot of questions and get to the root of what the issue is, yeah. And if someone gets frustrated with you, like just speaking practically, someone gets really frustrated with you, or is demanding something, or just take a deep breath. And just keep on asking them questions. Just keep and keep on asking them questions. And eventually, you will get to a point where you'll understand what the root causes and then you say, look, I understand. And then you try and align with that. And if you don't align with it, then you you say, Look, I'm not aligned with it. But I can, I understand, yeah, so how can we get there?
Daniel Franco:This is a skill set. And the way you ask those questions isn't because if you come across from an interrogation point of view, then it's just not gonna work. Yeah. But if you ask with a genuine interest to understand, you can definitely hear that in your tone and in your actual approach.
Thomas:Yeah, yeah. No, I and if you have good intentions, where you want it, everyone to when people see that, yeah, see, right through that,
Daniel Franco:I think we mean, is huge. So I'm gonna ask if, as you said, it's difficult to be a biotech company, as opposed to a software. Does the world need more drugs? And that's probably a very naive question. Yeah, I'm not obviously.
Thomas:Yeah, no, no, but it's a it's a It's a fair question, given the current climate, I think the world needs innovation drugs, constant innovation, yes. Because the status quo is always not going to be good enough. When people are losing their colon because that bolster claudus, or they're accepting less than 30% efficacy of a drug like this is not good enough or good enough, or they're accepting a really poor safety profile, you take the drug, and you have bad adverse events. Yeah, that's, that's not good enough. And that might seem people might be listening to this and thinking, no, that's naive. But I think it's an ideal that everyone in biotech should strive for. And young biotech should be trying to develop the next generation of drugs and make them better. Yeah,
Daniel Franco:there's always this element there. If we met you, she wouldn't remember because you weren't here a few years back would have been no, five, six years ago, we had a statewide blackout. Did you hear about it?
Thomas:Yeah, I had heard about it. But yeah,
Daniel Franco:I had one one day, stormy, stormy night or evening, the whole state ran no power across South Australia. And I remember that level of thinking for most part was, in this day and age, that shouldn't happen. Right? We should not be in 2015, or whatever it was, we should not be without power for the whole state. And so Elan musk came in and said that I bought his back battery to the to South Australia. But I think where I'm going with this is that's the same sort of mentalities. Like 30% is not good enough. In this day and age, we should. Well, it's very, this is a very naive statement. But we should be on the road to figuring out what these problems are. And we've got a lot to learn, and we got a long way to go, I get that. But we should at least be investigating. Yeah, and
Thomas:I think the next generation of drug developers is going to help put us on the right track, because drug development was had a bit of a barrier, I think, like by setting up a biotech, there's a bit of a barrier, you have to get capital, you have to have access to the right experiments, so you can validate what you're seeing, and then you have to set up a company around it. And those are be collected, the barrier for that is becoming less and less. And so I think it's becoming easier for people to start biotechs, almost like you got this boom for the software companies, I feel like there's going to be there's a boom for biotechs happening at the moment. And I would like to see here in Australia and Adelaide, and finding a way to support it. So that's one thing I want to see for this company is when this company becomes big, it's treating so many patients and it's continually innovating. I want to create a fertile ground where people will get exposed to that startup ecosystem. So they know how like they know how to start that process. Yeah,
Daniel Franco:you plan to sort of work with the unis and everything like that. Yeah,
Thomas:well, you know, we'll get this this company off the ground first. But
Daniel Franco:they say if that's the ecosystem that you want to create, yeah, yeah.
Thomas:I think there are mechanisms that I've seen work quite well in Boston, in Cambridge, UK. And so maybe I'll try and bring some of those systems here. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:I'm just going to jump back to the drug. My previous question, does the world need more drugs. And we're constantly innovating. And we're getting to a point where we're creating drugs, which can almost solve what you mentioned before, we have few different types of bacteria, which can almost solve a few different diseases within one pill or whatever it might be. I've asked you this question before it's I know it's a it's a it's a it's a big question. I always think about the my other two young children, I always think about the Disney movie Wally of us becoming very reliant on the government or on whoever is sort of feeding the beast. Is there a potential that we can become too reliant on drugs that we then forget to look after ourselves and eat the right foods? You know, if there's this magical weight loss drug, what is this all these magical things that we can take that'll keep us healthy? Does that is that a concern for this industry?
Thomas:Well, we know to break this apart, I think in the short term, no, because I think when people have these diseases, they will. They know, and there'll be a cutely aware of what it was like to have that and so through taking it and ameliorating it Though I don't think they'll become complacent, because they will never want to fall back into that. And yeah, but from a long term from a long term perspective, I think that if we've got drugs that are training it before they're occurring, yeah, yeah, there might be an element of complacency, but sort of bad world to live in where you're not. You're preventing a disease. And I think that's where we ultimately want to go, where you're stopping before a happens. Yeah,
Daniel Franco:true. But is there anything better than some nice green vegetables like, you know, God, I'm saying like, we almost could only rely on oil, we could almost changed the way that we eat, we start eating more fatty foods and takeaway foods in the Uber Eats of the world take off and we're actually now we're not I'm cooking anymore, because I don't need to I don't need to worry about feeding my kids, the green vegetables anymore, because there's a stroke here that we can give them that'll make him more healthy. Is that?
Thomas:Yeah, you know what? I think that? I don't think so. Because I think that I think as time goes on, and there's better and better education around lifestyle. Yeah. And I can see it changing from a cultural perspective, but and I think that there's probably going to be some sort of economic costs with taking a drug, right? And so if you're eating a ton of takeout food, right, and then it's leading to potentiate, some disease, and you're like, Oh, well, I'll just take this drug to get rid of it. But then you have to fork out a bit of cash for that, then, does that play into complacency? Yeah,
Daniel Franco:that's true.
Thomas:I don't know that it's good question.
Daniel Franco:Let's see one for the ages. One for the ages. Yeah, we'll come back to part two. Yeah, guys. See, going back to where biobank is going and growing. I'm really interested about the community and the ecosystem that you're thinking about driving here in South Australia, yes, the first point of call is to build a sustainable business for biobank. But you mentioned bringing that knowledge from Boston and Cambridge to LA Do you believe that we have the right makeup here, there's this common theme where there's the tonsley precinct that's happening at the moment, which was touted to be the next Silicon Valley. And as you saw all this talk about startups, we've got a lot forward and going on at the moment. Brilliant for the space work and the startup tech world that they're going through, you're now thinking about potentially introducing this new biotech into South Australia, and you feel like we've got the right genetic makeup to get it to the next level,
Thomas:you know, I think there's definitely a want, that's why these things are popping up all over the place. But when we do it, really need to start thinking big. And I've spoken to a few people here, and they talk about capital raises and tolerance for risk. And the tolerance for risk, what I'm saying is, is quite low, and the capital raises are also quite low. And so it's hard to make real big gains very fast. If you're not going to take a risk. You don't have a lot of capitals do it. And so people need to understand that the science coming out of Australia is incredible. And so if it's equivalent to Cambridge and Boston, which I believe it is, especially for microbial therapies, then why do we not have some of these big hitting companies here. And I think it comes back to giving yourself the expectation for more capital, more risk, and just saying, I feel like what we've got here is incredible. I believe in it, I believe people are going to back me for it. And I'm prepared to take a big risk on this. And to push it forward as fast as possible and compete in the global stage. You're just gonna be ambitious, you're gonna want it.
Daniel Franco:So the fear of investing for these, and the fear of risk, awaken a form that more US companies and European companies in the light coming to Australia, investing in companies like yourself, I think so. Is that, is that a problem? Or are we welcome, but it's not a problem for you as a CEO and for the business owners. But from it, we've got this technology, and these, this data and scientific information at our fingertips, and we're going to let companies from overseas come in and buy it.
Thomas:Yeah, well, as long as you've got a growth mindset, and you're like, well, I want to take this and I'm going to impact the APAC region, or the world. When these people come in, they're going to inject capital, which is going to enable you to do it. So just think big and think global impact. Yeah, right. So I don't think we should be precious about only taking capital within Australia. It Anything, it's the opposite. We're a global community now. The human race, the human race. That's
Daniel Franco:right. So much about the Australian. Yeah.
Thomas:But you know what? I always think I was saying this the other night to, to Sam. There's a book called June, June, June, any do any, and it's a science fiction book. And in it, there's a group of people called the fremen. And they're incredibly Hardy, and just one individual, many individuals see the planet they live on. And they only see the resources they can mine from the planet. But this one individual sees the people and sees the promise and the people. And if you could train the people, you could harness and power greater than the economic wealth of the planet. And it's a long winded way of me saying that I see the value in the people here. And I think if you expose it Australians to more to the startup ecosystem, and they learn it, it's going to be incredible things coming out of Australia, more so than there is Yeah.
Daniel Franco:That really resonates, I think with with me and the team, I think, because it's conversations that we've been having people say what sets you apart, and we often would say that we are concentrating on the people. So I'm going to read this book, I think, yeah, we do concentrate on the people. There's Yes, this process, yes, its financials. Yes, there's systems and buildings and everything that you can do to create a business. But ultimately, nothing can happen without the people in the business. So it's about making them feel engaged, enabled, empowered, all the words for the business to grow. So that brings, I want to ask you into a question about your growth through through the your last two businesses. So from Boston to the UK, back to Adelaide, and you've moved into as your first CEO role. It is Yeah. What How do you define yourself as a CEO? What type of CEO Do you want to be?
Thomas:Yeah, I think I'm, I'm very privileged that I've worked in the business. Now I'm working on the business, coming back to that point. I want to be the type of CEO that rolls up his sleeves and works with, with the team where needed, but can pull up and be quite strategic. And I feel like that's the kind of CEO I am. And then I'm always approachable. And I'm working on actually building the company rather than the next. Yeah. Just constantly projecting my myself to ever I think it's important than just pointing to market yourself. But I think that's important to work on your business. Yeah,
Daniel Franco:there's elements of this, you sound like a visionary to me from from that point of conversation that we've had, you've got big plans for not only biobank, but the actual community of South Australia, in Australia and and the community of the work that you do globally. Which for me, is very visionary, and very exciting. From an outsider's perspective, who knows absolutely nothing about what you're doing. But I can really appreciate the vision that you have. With from a leadership perspective, how much emphasis Do you place on your leadership skills? And how do you? How do you see that playing out in the years to come?
Thomas:So how much emphasis do I place on my leadership skills, I think that I've come to appreciate what leadership skills are, I learned in the military, and made a lot of mistakes. And then I, I guess I learned to throw out these previous companies. But I think a good leader is patient, approachable, and really helps reiterate constantly, where everyone is going. That might sound cliche, but I think it's, it's tough. It's tried and tested. It's tried and tested. And I think that you want to build a really good tribe, a really good group of people. Because if you have a good group of people, and they already, they all know where they're going, you can pretty much solve any problem. Yeah, and I would rather take five good people. Then one who is technically like incredible, but that has a poor attitude and toxic, it is behaviors, toxic behaviors, don't tell her at all. But and then where I see myself going. I see this company growing and being one of the largest, I think its most successful in Australia. People might listen to it and think Well, it sounds pretty ambitious, but I feel like I can see the path. You're reading the play reading the play, and we're just an all it's there is just to, is to execute it. Yeah. And then and then from there. I want to see more companies. I don't want to create a vehicle in the future for establishing more companies and making it easier. And, and making sure everyone's looked after in the process.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, I love it. How supportive the the board and the founders.
Thomas:Yeah, well, so the founders, Rob Bryan and Sam Costello very supportive. You know,
Daniel Franco:they're obviously keen to see their product grow.
Thomas:Yeah, there are. Yeah, there. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:If not, then. Yeah, that's another question.
Thomas:Yeah. Now they've been really good. And I think that's demonstrated by their roll up sleeves attitude, were in the room, discussing clinical trial design discussing portfolio strategy work, like bro working together, and they're not just, oh, he's here. I'll take a step back. It's not like that at all. Right. And then the chairman Steve rato is, he's been really great. I think that he's, he's got a really, really credible mindset as far as understanding the landscape of biotech and the culture of biotech. And him and I are aligned in making this big and, and putting the right pieces in place to do so. So having his ports been really incredible. And then, finally, Paul, Paul Flynn,
Daniel Franco:Paul Flynn got him on the podcast
Thomas:Yes, I listened to it, he's, you know, he's a really,
Daniel Franco:really individual auto human.
Thomas:What a human indeed. So he, but you know, at the end of the day, biobank wouldn't exist. Yeah. Well, maybe it would, but it wouldn't be where it is to pull me and I think if it wasn't for him, like everyone has, and for him in the hospital research, correct him in the hospital Research Foundation, they provided the the initial funding that allowed by Maine, to be where it is today. And, and that in turn, allow all these pieces to come together, to have Steve urato to have their Robin Sam working, and then for them to come across me and to have all those assets to kind of pull me in. And so yeah, I think that is a lot of credit that goes to us for Research Foundation and poor.
Daniel Franco:Absolutely, yeah, he's, it's a good man. He says, Yeah, we're having a few beers with him one day. Oh, yeah.
Thomas:Yeah. No beers.
Daniel Franco:We're in his office. Unfortunately. Next time, we'll bring him in Why? I really interested in obviously, the drug development. And this is kind of a left field question, but one that I don't really get to ask someone who's in bedded in the research and the understanding of drug development. There's this rule anti vaccine movement that's going on in the in the moment in a world with this vaccine. It's fast track, there's all these comments in that you can go on any social media or any news outlet and see every single naysayer having having their say, Yeah. What's your thoughts on the transparency that you need to bring from a drug development? And when I asked that, I asked it from the perspective of if you're creating these drugs, and probably not so much more, uses more sort of aimed at medical, really sort of targeted diseases, but from a COVID perspective, there seems to be a lot of unknowns. How do you feel it's all this whole situation has been treated?
Thomas:Yeah. Well, it's hard for me to say because I think a lot of the you know, a lot of people I acknowledge a lot of people say there are unknowns, but like you can read the research papers and you can see you can go in the New England Journal of Medicine and others and see the outcomes from these clinical trials and you can see the efficacy, but there is a barrier to going and reading research papers right? And so maybe there's just better scientific communication comes into it. But there are always going to be individuals that are going to oppose something new especially if it's such a really difficult time pandemic. A lot of people are getting impacted their lives and people are dying obviously from from COVID and but I think the work that Pfizer and Madonna and others the fact that they got something together in transition through the drug treatment process so quickly, so you could start treating patients is really incredible, incredible for the regulator's because they had to assess it and make your call from a risk benefit point of view, because you had you're always weighing up how the drug is going to impact the patient population. And then the patient population, if they don't get it, what happens to them. And so you've got to balance that. And they balanced it, taking the drug through approval incredibly quickly, which is a lot of work. And there's a lot of work that goes into discovering and developing a drug. So maybe I'm biased. But I think that they've really done an incredible job.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, I agree. I, there's an element of me that just goes, Yeah, and I'm not I'm not really concerned about what these nurses are saying. But when you have certain amounts of the population not adopting it, which puts then others at risk, then that's when it becomes, you know, a problem, right? So yeah. But yeah, I think the, the scary thing for me is, for those who are sitting on the fence, they then get influenced, okay, that's the bit that, like, for me, it's jumping in whenever I can be available. Obviously, I'm down the track, but whenever I'm available, I'll jump in and get in get vaccinated, but it's the I know, a few people sitting on the fence and they read these comments, and all of a sudden, they're coming in hiring me hiring and and then we don't get to that 70%, which gets that herd immunity. And then this is where the problems then we just continue on this spiral of that's sort of my concern.
Thomas:Yeah. But, look, as long as you know, people are allowed to have concerns, as long as they're founded on the outcomes from these clinical trials that have been run to establish the safety profile of the drug. Like, you shouldn't just be like, well, it's a vaccine. And and I don't really like vaccines. COVID is impacting the world and its people are dying from it. Absolutely. So
Daniel Franco:do you think businesses This is on the same topic? Do you think businesses should or control not control should tell their stuff? That they have to have a vaccine otherwise? That'll work?
Thomas:That is a really interesting conundrum that I think a lot of companies are facing at the moment. Yeah, yeah. And it's a tough one. Yeah. I think there are there are many workarounds for this. So at the end of the day, this is something that we're facing here. And I don't have a good answer for you at the moment. No,
Daniel Franco:it's a tough one.
Thomas:It's a tough one. But you know what, at the end of the day, I think what's most important is that people are safe. And they're helping. Yeah. And so to that end, what is the right system to ensure that
Daniel Franco:because the common thought that goes through my head is, I don't want to, I don't want to force anyone to do anything that I want to do. But then I also don't want to be in a position where we're consultants, right? Where we are when we go in to other businesses. And so there's risk with sending our stuff out into other businesses, and who knows what they're doing. So there's this element of Well, yeah, what do I do? Where do we go? And I don't think it's a question I need to ask just yet. Because I feel like we've got a team that's all pretty level headed. Yeah, they're gonna do the right thing. But it is for other bigger companies, and who have much more stuff than what we do. I feel like it is a very, very tough situation.
Thomas:Yeah. But you know, we're very fortunate here in South Australia, ami.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, absolutely. What is the next five to 10 years look like for you? Thomas Mitchell, not not buying bank? Yeah, but Thomas Mitchell?
Thomas:Well, I'd like to be here in South Australia. So I think that my wife and I are talking about starting a family. Great. So that's an exciting step. I see myself continually learning about how to grow a company, and trying to adopt all the lessons that I've learned. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:Where you may be located. So yeah, because I'm still trying to figure
Thomas:Yeah, yeah. And, you know, like, I've, I've met a lot of mistakes. Yeah. And I think it's important to make mistakes. And I, I think it's important also as a CEO, and as other CEOs come up, to acknowledge that not to come off as a Polish profile, to say that you do make mistakes, and you've got to learn from them. And actually, if you create a really good ecosystem of people you can talk to about it, then everyone can learn from one another. I spoke to a CEO just here from fleet, which is a space satellite company and the CEO is Flavio and she's, you know, I think what she's doing is really incredible. And the way she's running her company is really incredible. And so, yeah, she'd be really good one to have.
Daniel Franco:You mark that as a potential. Okay? We could facilitate this podcast.
Thomas:But you know, I think that I'm learning new things. And I think that my challenge over the next couple of years is going to be like figuring out how to how to successfully scale this company quickly. But Sorry, I'm going on a tangent, to go back to what I'm going to be doing, I want to change it. I want to grow this company, and I want to explore Adelaide. And hopefully everything opens up and I get to travel more to APAC, because I want this company to be present throughout AIPAC and and then who knows, wherever this company ends up, maybe there's more companies to come and more than enter the ecosystem here. Yeah. And so and then we just have a great environment where I get to enjoy my lactose free flat why to live in my world of biotech.
Daniel Franco:And sort of family. Big one big family planning.
Thomas:Yeah, yeah, I think that. Yeah. My family is actually Newcastle, New South Wales. So I'm finding time to spend time with them, I think will be a big thing as well. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:And is your Hannah's family? are they thinking about coming over here? Are
Thomas:they gonna do well, I've read trying to persuade them. Yeah. So we send the pitches at the beach and we don't know mass. Which beach? Oh, it's not going Oh, it's the Henley. Yes. Perfect. And we're scheduled to go to silver sands. I think it is. Silver sands. Beautiful. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:I live in Henley beach. Oh, okay.
Thomas:Class. Everyone's got that. You know, when we. When we came here, everyone was saying, Oh, this is the best location? No. adore Henley. Yep. So
Daniel Franco:add an order Henley. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, nobody's beautiful. There's no beats there though. Now there is some hills in the distance
Thomas:that my admin absolute reminds me that all the time.
Daniel Franco:Very good. We're coming to a close and we finish off the podcast with few rapid fire questions. They can be rapid fire. Sometimes they turn into an hour long conversation.
Thomas:Rapid responses?
Daniel Franco:Well, I can be if you feel like that's you can answer however you want, right? It's not gonna tell you what to say. Yeah. But I like asking these questions, because I just, it's a little bit creative. I like getting into the mind and seeing where they're at and the way that their brain can think so you haven't been. But one is the first one. I know you're a big reader, you've read a lot of books you mentioned during before, and we've spoken about a few others. But what is one book that you could recommend, and I'm going to be a bit more specific to leaders of businesses.
Thomas:Yeah. There's a book that I've been reading recently. It's let me just bring it up here. traction, traction, traction has been really good. Get a grip on your business, it was actually recommended to me by a colleague of mine. And I enjoy reading business books amongst science fiction, but I'm a firm believer of, you've got to understand what kind of leader you are. And then you've got to take what you learn and create your own system. And I think that, but this, this kind of lays out a bit of a system for scaling and company and getting everyone aligned. And it does it in a really lean fashion. So it's not like all these. No, establishing a really complex process. It's just like, here are a few simple things you should adopt, just to be disciplined within your company. And I'm working to adopt it in this company here. And I think it's going to be really successful. So I love
Daniel Franco:that. Can you make note of that book? Because I think I'm getting probably get in the car and check it on audio audible. This isn't part of my Rapid Fire question. But how much development Do you believe should go into a CEO? Personally, do you feel like should always have a podcast or a book open? listening or reading? Or anyone's need to be CEO?
Thomas:Yeah, one of the if someone's asked, what would be a defining trait for me that's led to where I am now? And I would say, would be a
Daniel Franco:defining. Great,
Thomas:excellent question. I think that adaptability, yeah. So if I come across something, and I don't know what it is, I'm not afraid to be vulnerable and say, I don't know. And I would just consume any piece of knowledge I can. And I don't have such a fragile ego that I can't pivot, who I am as an individual. And so every interaction I have, I try and grow and and I think you have to have a growth mindset. If you want to To grow a business, because if you think about if you one thing is setting up a business, right? That's like, that's just the beginning, right? That's like the first kind of threshold. And then there's many, many thresholds, and you can't as who you are at that time, break through each threshold, if you stay who you are, yes, in steps in steps and steps. And if you can't see what you need to become, then you need to find people that help you reflect. And, and don't listen to everyone. Listen, to listen to everyone, but take away what you feel is right. Yeah. And, and so I think that's more than zero. Yeah,
Daniel Franco:I love that. That's so good. I could almost be the question. Maybe I did have a what would be? If you're looking at a picture of yourself 10 years? Well, let's just say you can, let's go sci fi, right? You traveled back in time, and you see yourself as a 10 year old? Well, what's one thing that you would say to you? What's one piece of advice that you would give your 10 year old self?
Thomas:I don't know if my 10 year old self would interpret it, but I would say, understand the stupidity of intelligence. And that sounds very, very cryptic. But I was very, very judgmental of myself back then, always thinking that I need to be much better than I was. And maybe that has led to my growth, but I really don't like them. And people say, oh, that person is really intelligent, or that person is really intelligent, because I think it's some arbitrary threshold and some arbitrary judgment. And I think that, back to that comment about the freshman and junior, I think that I think everyone is capable of doing some pretty incredible things, but you just need to be able to communicate with them, and get them on board with that. And if I had, there was a point in my life in which I had, I'd shifted my mindset. And I thought that there's no reason why I can't be who these other people are. And I just stopped accepting other people's judgment. Because I grew up in humble beginnings. Yeah, I worked in construction, I did all this other stuff. And I think that, at that point, which I stopped accepting, that is the point at which I became able to just tackle so many things. And I think that, and I had people in my life that contributed towards that self judgment. And as soon as I broke free of that, it was, it was an incredible thing. And if I knew that when I was 10 years old, and I knew the stupidity of intelligence, then yeah,
Daniel Franco:I love that. The stupidity of intelligence. There's a lot of intelligent, intelligent people who are acting and behaving in ways that they should not. Yeah. Which I think just adds to that, which is great. What's one item on your bucket list?
Thomas:I kind of want to go to New Zealand. That sounds really like it's like you want to do something grand. Right? Or you want to go next door? Yeah, want to go and so, you know, I would love to just like, go chill out in the South Auckland, New Zealand.
Daniel Franco:Yeah. This sounds down there. My Milford Sound?
Thomas:Yeah, he's amazing. I would love like, some sort of, like, house there where I could just do drug development remotely for like, you know, like, like a lab there and stuff like that. That's, that's on my bucket list for some secret lab.
Daniel Franco:Like a legal business perspective, right? Yeah.
Thomas:On the record, legal week, wait. Yeah. If you had
Daniel Franco:access to a time machine, going back to the time machine if you have access to a time machine, one way trip, right. So two way trip. Yeah. But one trip two way. You go there and you come back to reality of life today. Yeah. Where would you go?
Thomas:I can go forward in time,
Daniel Franco:right. Sorry. I said go back. But yes, you can go anywhere forward or back.
Thomas:You know, I would go forward. And there's there's a book called The three body problem. That's another one actually, people want to read. It's, it's incredible. And it talks about life, these events take place, with the same people over really the lifetime of the human race. Yeah. And, and I think I would jump forward. Like I always thought it was incredible jumping forward and just seeing the change in humanity over time through consecutive times.
Daniel Franco:And jump forward
Thomas:I would go like maybe like 500 years or 1000. Yeah, not so far that I just don't know what the hell's going on. We've got green people around. Yeah, that's enough to be like to be connected in the kind of evolution of humanity.
Daniel Franco:As a spin off question, do you feel disappointed that you're not going to see that far ahead?
Thomas:How do you know? Yeah, wow,
Daniel Franco:if you create the drug, I'll take it. No. I just feel really bummed that I'm not gonna see where we end up. I don't know. I shouldn't think about it. Who knows? Yeah,
Thomas:I feel bummed. But I feel pretty optimistic about. And this is something I think about quite a lot, which maybe is maybe just telling him something, because like, there are a lot of problems to solve engineering problems, biological, like drug development problems, and you only have so much time to solve it on earth, and it's like, how do you make it go faster? How do you how do you solve more problems, and you increase your ability to think faster and communicate faster? And that's it. I romance about this, but that's why I really love neural link the company. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a loan, right brain computer interface. But I think that
Daniel Franco:we could go anywhere with that. Well, I
Thomas:think it's like another layer to your neocortex, right? You can see more patterns, so you can sell more things. But I guess we'll just see where the technology goes. But it's an exciting time to be in biotech. Really?
Daniel Franco:It is. There's more questions out of that, but we're supposed to be rapid fire and we're not doing that. So
Thomas:I'll be faster.
Daniel Franco:That last Oh, actually, I got two more. If you had one superhero power, what would it be?
Thomas:One superpower. It would probably be like, click my fingers and stuff time. Oh, and because just think about how much knowledge you consume. It's like, you asked me a question. I click it, and I just go like, quickly find a book, quickly find a book and, and just consume it. And then I could, we could discuss this guy knows everything. Yeah, this guy knows everything. Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't have that. And I don't know everything. But yeah, I think that I think that
Daniel Franco:wouldn't just the answer be all powerful knowledge. Well, it's no, no, no, no.
Thomas:You know, one of my previous companies was talking about what kind of superpower you have. And he said, No, no, no, what kind of mediocre superpower would
Daniel Franco:you have? Oh, that's even is a better question. You
Thomas:know what I mean? And then you get some really weird answers. But it was a beautiful question.
Daniel Franco:I could adapt that. Yeah.
Thomas:What mediocre power and then you say, Oh, no, no, no. too powerful. You know what I
Daniel Franco:mean? So what's the scale of bow?
Thomas:Oh, yeah, that's it. Yeah. Like someone that said once. They could look at $1 note in the US, and they would turn into quarters. And so you could use it for for like all your washing machines, a lot of houses, they don't have their own washing machines. You have to go to the laundromat.
Daniel Franco:And you could physically check those two powerful though. Well,
Thomas:it was only dollar notes. Yeah, but the caveat to it is, it's like a Midas touch. Any dollar note you look at instantly turns into quarters.
Daniel Franco:That'd be annoying. Yeah.
Thomas:Yeah. So
Daniel Franco:very good. Now you're not a dad yet, but you want to be what's your best dad joke? You surely you would have heard it?
Thomas:Oh, what did sushi a say of sushi be? wasabi?
Daniel Franco:That's horrible. My daughter is a massive sushi. I love sushi so she will love that wasabi. Excellent. Well done. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Thomas. That's It's been an amazing, amazing chat. Where can we find you? And also the business?
Thomas:Yeah. So I'm always open to people connecting with me on LinkedIn, you can find us at biomebank.com. And we've got a series of forms, whether you're an investor or a patient, or even a hospital that's wanting to order one of our drugs. And, and yeah, there's where instead button. So if you ever see me around, and you know you're interested in microbial therapies, Dan just pulled me aside. I'm always
Daniel Franco:joking. Yeah, he's done. Again. Thank you so much. It's been actually really, really great podcast. Thank you. much. Appreciate your time.
Thomas:Excellent. Thank you. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:Thank you very much, guys. We'll catch you next time.
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