{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"NC Tweener Talks","title":"Ben Scruggs, CEO of Altis Biosystems: Building the Gut Model That Predicts Which Drugs Actually Work","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2572,"description":"Ben Scruggs, CEO of Altis Biosystems, joins me to talk about building human gut models that help pharma, biotech, and nutrition companies predict how a drug or ingredient will actually behave in the body before it ever reaches a patient. The conversation covers what an epithelial barrier is and why the gut is such an overlooked bottleneck in drug development, how Altis's technology is being used for absorption studies, inflammation research, and toxicity screening, and why GLP-1 drugs make such a compelling test case for the company's platform.\nJust as much of the episode is about Ben's own path: trained as a cell biologist, he spent close to a decade as a venture investor at Hatteras Venture Partners before stepping into the CEO role at Altis, a UNC spinout, about three years ago. He talks candidly about what surprised him most moving from advising founders to running a company himself, including the realization that most of the job is selling, not science.\nAltis Biosystems has scaled from testing a few dozen compounds at a time to routinely screening thousands, using automation and robotics to keep pace with customer demand, and Ben shares where he sees the technology heading next, well beyond the gut.\nTimestamps\n00:00 Cold open & sponsor thank-yous\n01:40 Scot's pre-show intro: today's guest, Ben Scruggs of Altis Biosystems\n03:33 Episode starts\n03:49 How Scot and Ben know each other\n04:25 Ben's background: PhD in cell biology, postdoc in genomics\n05:28 The pivot into venture investing at Hatteras Venture Partners\n06:43 How UNC connections led Ben to Altis Biosystems\n09:24 Inside Hatteras Venture Partners: 25 years, 100+ investments\n13:06 Making the leap from investor to CEO\n15:15 What Altis Biosystems actually does\n16:34 What is an epithelial barrier, and why it matters\n17:32 The three markets: absorption, inflammation, and toxicity\n19:58 Why GLP-1 drugs are the ultimate bioavailability test\n20:25 Altis's dual business model: full-service CRO vs. self-serve...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/UEzoK7N1siD9YRaSVBWfZ8B3suSS2aonEIZ5NwBH1Gs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80NjBh/YWVhZTA4ZTUyY2Fl/MDdhNzQwZWFhNDI4/MDc3Zi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}