So yes, absolutely, the regulations need to catch up with reality. I think as the outcomes of the science with Foundation Medicine, 23andMe, etc.,\u00a0start to become important to people and to patients, people will demand that change. And that\u2019s how it happens.<\/span><\/p>\n http:\/\/recode.net\/2014\/06\/21\/google-ventures-bill-maris-on-moving-medicine-out-of-the-dark-ages\/<\/p>\n <\/p>\n June 21, 2014, 7:00 AM PDT<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Google Ventures made health\u00a0startups a sizable part of its portfolio from the\u00a0earliest days, even as other investors avoided the space in recent years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Venture capital funding for\u00a0the life sciences sector\u00a0dropped by $5 billion<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a02008 to 2012 and\u00a0was basically\u00a0flat<\/a>\u00a0last year, according to market\u00a0reports.\u00a0But the search giant\u2019s venture arm, established\u00a0in 2009, has steadily plugged money into companies\u00a0throughout the space, including: 23andMe, Adimab, DNANexus,\u00a0Doctor on Demand<\/a>, Foundation Medicine,Flatiron Health<\/a>, iPierian,\u00a0One Medical Group,<\/a>\u00a0Predilytics, Rani Therapeutics, SynapDx and Transcriptic.<\/p>\n Some of the bets have started to pay off. Foundation Medicine raised $100 million in an\u00a0initial public offering<\/a>\u00a0in 2013. Earlier this year, Bristol-Myers Squibb bought portfolio company iPierian in a deal that\u00a0could be worth up to $725 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n The focus on the space at least in part reflects the background\u00a0of Google Ventures\u2019Managing Partner Bill Maris<\/a>.\u00a0He\u00a0studied neuroscience at Middlebury College and neurobiology at Duke University. In his early career, he was the health care portfolio manager at Swedish investment firm\u00a0Investor AB.<\/p>\n Maris also took a lead role in the creation of\u00a0Calico late last year, a Google-backed company\u00a0focused on delaying aging and the diseases that come with it. (Google has declined to\u00a0discuss the company, which is run by Genentech Chairman Arthur Levinson.)<\/p>\n \u201cMedicine needs to come out of the dark ages now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Bill Maris, managing partner, Google Ventures<\/p>\n Google Ventures generally isn\u2019t taking the old biotech route, betting on companies somewhere along the winding path of developing drugs that may \u2014\u00a0but probably won\u2019t<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 someday earn Food and Drug Administration approval. Rather, the firm is focused on companies leveraging\u00a0the increasingly powerful capacities\u00a0of computer science, including big data, cloud processing and genomic\u00a0sequencing,\u00a0to improve diagnostics or treatments.<\/p>\n In the second part of my two-part\u00a0interview<\/a>, which has been edited for space and clarity, Maris discusses the promise of these tools\u00a0for medicine as well as\u00a0what\u2019s still standing in the way.<\/p>\n Re\/code:\u00a0Looking through your health-care investments, there\u2019s 23andMe, DNA Nexus, Foundation Medicine, Flatiron. To the degree there\u2019s\u00a0a common theme, it seems these are all big data plays, using a lot of information and smart algorithms to make advancements in medical research or hit upon more effective treatments.\u00a0Is that part of your investment philosophy?<\/strong><\/p>\n Maris:<\/strong>\u00a0I used to be a health-care investor a long time ago in the public markets. One thing I learned that we tried to apply here is that investing in small molecules, trying to invest in the next treatment, there\u2019s an element of gambling to that.<\/p>\n I\u2019m glad that people started those companies and I\u2019m glad that they have people who specialize in investing in them. But that\u2019s not our specialty, because you have to build a portfolio to make a success overall.<\/p>\n What we try to put into our practice is \u201cinvest in what we know,\u201d which is where health care meets technology. In some sense, almost all companies these days need to be big data companies.<\/p>\n Especially when you get around genomics or, like Flatiron, looking for insights across vast amounts of oncology data. These are by definition big data companies that couldn\u2019t have existed 10 or 15 years ago.<\/p>\n Take Foundation Medicine. The tools didn\u2019t exist to actually genotype quickly the way that we can today, and in 10 years it will be even more advanced. So by necessity the companies we\u2019re investing in are in that space, because that\u2019s the forefront.<\/p>\n Clinicians treating patients based on \u201cif you present with these symptoms, I\u2019m going to treat you based on the knowledge in my head?\u201d Those days are either disappearing or will soon disappear, I hope. We can get much better outcomes from people if we understand the genetic basis of the exact cancer that they have, what interventions might be most effective against it, what\u2019s worked in the past and what hasn\u2019t.\u00a0I think that\u2019s where the future of health care is.<\/p>\n So yes, lots of these are big data companies, in that sense. But that\u2019s a catchphrase, they\u2019re more than that. They\u2019re data-informed companies that are trying to build businesses that are commercially important and, in this case, relevant to patients. That means they\u2019ll get better outcomes, you\u2019ll live longer and be healthier.<\/p>\n Medicine needs to come out of the Dark Ages now.<\/p>\n There is a unique challenge when it comes to data and medicine. Either you have a lot of information that is stored away in paper filing cabinets in doctors\u2019 offices, or you\u2019ve got companies that\u00a0did\u00a0studies decades ago that might be of use but they\u2019re either not digitized or they\u2019re holding on to them as\u00a0intellectual property. So while there\u2019s this great potential, it\u2019s actually really hard to get at it. Can you talk a bit about what needs to happen technologically?<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course it\u2019s difficult. If it were easy it would be done by now, there would be nothing remarkable about what Nat [Turner] and Zach [Weinberg] are doing at\u00a0Flatiron<\/a>. The fact that it\u2019s difficult is what makes it something an entrepreneur needs to tackle \u2014 and this isn\u2019t unique, right?<\/p>\n All the information in the world has been pretty dispersed, but Google\u2019s mission has been to organize it and make it universally accessible. That\u2019s kind of a crazy mission and they\u2019re doing okay at it. It takes people with a vision to say, \u201cWe\u2019re going to try to organize this and make it accessible to people.\u201d When we do those things, good things will result from that.<\/p>\n Maybe it takes a generation, because doctors will start using the system. Or maybe it just takes one big push, where we\u2019re just going to go into clinicians\u2019 offices and help them get all the data organized and put into electronic formats. Once you\u2019ve done it one time you can gain an infinite number of insights to help your patients, so there\u2019s a good motivation to do that.<\/p>\n Organizing healthcare information is a daunting task, but it is not an impossible task. We\u2019ve had people walk on the moon. This is a lot more doable.<\/p>\n I want to ask about 23andMe. We\u2019ve seen a handful of companies in that space\u00a0that have closed<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0haven\u2019t gone anywhere<\/a>, and 23andMe obviously hit a big wall with the FDA last year.<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n Yeah, I read it somewhere. But that was a big part of their business, can you talk about what their ongoing prospects are and what direction they could steer in?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, as I understand it, the heredity product is still available and we see big businesses being built there, like Ancestry.com and others.<\/p>\n At the same time, their vision is bigger than that. They\u2019re at an impasse with the FDA right now, but no one has thrown up their hands. Communication is ongoing, they\u2019re trying to work that out, we\u2019re dedicated to trying to resolve that roadblock. And we think it\u2019s a product that is of value to people, so they can look at and understand their own genomic information.<\/p>\n I think the company\u2019s prospects are great, I\u2019ve known [co-founder] Anne [Wojcicki]\u00a0for almost 20 years now, and she\u2019s nothing if not focused, dedicated and motivated. She\u2019s a believer in this. I think the company has been a little bit ahead of its time.<\/p>\n It\u2019s inevitable that everyone will eventually be genetically sequenced because it\u2019s going to be really important to their health care, to understanding their future and what they\u2019re at risk for. If you believe that, then you believe that there\u2019s probably a big business to be built here because someone has to deliver that information.<\/p>\n So we have a lot of faith in the team.<\/p>\n Taking that case \u2014 and\u00a0given that health care and medical research is moving in this digital direction \u2014 do you think there are some regulatory shifts that need to take place?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think the laws need to catch up with science and reality, and the law is never good at that. It\u2019s always slow.<\/p>\n I mean, look at the patent office. I just saw a\u00a0patent<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0Smucker\u2019s has for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich<\/a>. It\u2019s sort of crazy.<\/p>\n Look at Uber and its regulatory challenges, taxi and limousine commissions\u00a0trying to stop Uber<\/a>. When you sit with my job \u2014 which is a really fun job to do,\u00a0kind of a judge at a science fair \u2014 it\u2019s really important to look at the technology and how it might benefit people, and not worry about the bureaucracies that might try to impede that.<\/p>\n At the end of the day, what always happens is, the right products for society and the people get out there.<\/p>\n You shouldn\u2019t ignore the laws. But if you worry as an investor about, \u201cOh, you shouldn\u2019t invest in any personal genomics companies because there\u2019s a lot of regulations that need to be updated.\u201d Well, you won\u2019t do anything innovative.<\/p>\n Bill Maris, the Man Behind Google Ventures, Wants to Redefine Silicon Valley Economics<\/a><\/p>\n By\u00a0James Temple<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Jun 20, 2014, 7:30 AM PDT<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n So yes, absolutely, the regulations need to catch up with reality. I think as the outcomes of the science with Foundation Medicine, 23andMe, etc.,\u00a0start to become important to people and to patients, people will demand that change. And that\u2019s how it happens.<\/p>\n You studied neuroscience and neurobiology.\u00a0What are some exciting developments you\u2019re seeing in your own area?<\/strong><\/p>\n I also think we\u2019re just coming out of these Dark Ages in neuroscience. The forefront of neuroscience is (he points to parts of his head), \u201cWell, this is the learning area, this is memory, this is where the right arm is controlled.\u201d That\u2019s not really how the brain works, it\u2019s this cloud-based understanding.<\/p>\n I forget which neuroscientist said this, but you essentially have a\u00a0Jennifer Aniston neuron<\/a>. There are certain pathways in your brain that remember who that is. The more you fill up your brain with those things, the more neurons get used up.<\/p>\n So we\u2019re getting closer to a point, and there are some folks at MIT working on this and other places as well, to really understanding the wiring of the brain. What makes it a whole, what causes consciousness. It\u2019s not just that these cloudy regions all talk to each other.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t do anything without a map. Until you can diagnose something you can never cure it, you can\u2019t understand it. It\u2019s hard to get from here to there without a map. So the first thing to do is to build a model.<\/p>\n When you can\u00a0map an entire human brain<\/a>, then you can really understand how it all works.<\/p>\nGoogle Ventures\u2019 Bill Maris on Moving Medicine Out of the Dark Ages<\/h1>\n
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