The Healthy Enterprise

This episode is part of a limited series called Money Ball in conjunction with the BLPN Club . BLPN's Money Ball program helps founders step up to the plate and knock fundraising out of the park. You'll hear about the people, their ventures, and their pitch-making experiences.

In this conversation, James Lovgren shares his insights on the funding process for biotech startups, emphasizing the importance of team expertise, the art of pitching, and the need to balance scientific detail with storytelling. He discusses the iterative nature of pitching, the significance of understanding investor expectations, and the value of targeting the right investors to enhance the chances of success. James reflects on his experiences in the Money Ball program, highlighting the lessons learned and the importance of adaptability in investor conversations.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Money Ball and Aspiro Therapeutics
01:13 Understanding Obstructive Lung Diseases
02:59 Innovative Solutions in Lung Disease Treatment
05:04 The Journey of Aspiro Therapeutics
07:05 The Importance of Team Dynamics
09:09 Mastering the Pitch Process
10:50 Evolving the Pitch: Lessons Learned
12:58 Investor Engagement and Feedback
14:56 Navigating Investor Relationships
17:09 Refining the Pitch Through Iteration
19:01 The Role of Investor Fit
21:07 Future Directions for Aspiro Therapeutics

Guest Information:
  • Guest's Name: James Lovgren
  • Guest's Title/Position:  CEO & Co-Founder
  • Guest's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameslovgren/
  • Company / Affiliation: Aspiro Therapeutics https://aspirotx.com/
  • Guest's Bio:  As the CEO of Aspiro Therapeutics, James Lovgren leads the company’s mission to revolutionize the treatment of obstructive lung diseases with innovative CC16-inspired therapies.
    James is an accomplished life science executive with a distinguished track record of commercializing disruptive technologies and managing global product portfolios exceeding $250 million. His extensive background spans startups, growth-stage companies, and Fortune 150 biotechnology firms, where he has successfully brought a wide range of products, services, and reagents to market in the pharmaceutical, diagnostics, and life science sectors.
    James’ strategic insight and operational expertise are instrumental in guiding Aspiro Therapeutics through its preclinical development stage and beyond.

Takeaways:
  • Investors prioritize team expertise in funding decisions.
  • The pitching process requires practice and iteration.
  • Balancing scientific detail with storytelling is crucial.
  • Understanding investor backgrounds can shape the pitch.
  • Feedback from peers can refine the pitch effectively.
  • High-level narratives often resonate more than technical data.
  • Each investor may have different areas of interest.
  • Flexibility in presentation can lead to better engagement.
  • Building a targeted investor list saves time and effort.
  • Long-term relationships with investors are essential for success.

The Healthy Enterprise Podcast is produced by Bullzeye Global Growth Partners  https://bullzeyeglobal.com/






Creators and Guests

Host
Heath Fletcher
With over 30 years in creative marketing and visual storytelling, I’ve built a career on turning ideas into impact. From brand transformation to media production, podcast development, and outreach strategies, I craft compelling narratives that don’t just capture attention—they accelerate growth and drive measurable results.
Editor
Griffin Fletcher
Griffin Fletcher is a Junior Project Manager who wears a lot of hats. He’s skilled in podcast and video editing, film production, cinematography, and social media management, bringing creativity and organization to every project he touches. Griffin also has a sports background—he’s worked in hockey analytics and as a referee—which sharpened his attention to detail and teamwork skills. With a BA in Economics, he mixes analytical thinking with a creative edge, making him a versatile and hands-on contributor to our team.
Guest
James Lovgren
As the CEO of Aspiro Therapeutics, James Lovgren leads the company’s mission to revolutionize the treatment of obstructive lung diseases with innovative CC16-inspired therapies. James is an accomplished life science executive with a distinguished track record of commercializing disruptive technologies and managing global product portfolios exceeding $250 million. His extensive background spans startups, growth-stage companies, and Fortune 150 biotechnology firms, where he has successfully brought a wide range of products, services, and reagents to market in the pharmaceutical, diagnostics, and life science sectors. James’ strategic insight and operational expertise are instrumental in guiding Aspiro Therapeutics through its preclinical development stage and beyond.
Producer
Meghna Deshraj
Meghna Deshraj is the CEO and Founder of Bullzeye Growth Partners, a strategic consultancy that helps businesses scale sustainably and profitably. With a background spanning corporate strategy, IT, finance, and process optimization, she combines analytical rigor with creative execution to drive measurable results. Under her leadership, Bullzeye has generated over $580M in annual growth and more than $1B in client revenue, guiding organizations through large-scale integrations, business transformations, and organizational change initiatives. A Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Meghna’s superpower lies in strategic marketing and growth consulting, helping businesses grow through innovation, efficiency, and strong, trusted partnerships.

What is The Healthy Enterprise?

Hosted by Heath Fletcher, The Healthy Enterprise explores how innovation, technology, and leadership are reshaping the life sciences industry—from discovery and development to commercialization and care delivery. Each episode features candid, heart-centered conversations with founders, scientists, executives, and investors, sharing real-world experiences and insights for building resilient, future-ready organizations.

Created and Produced by Bullzeye Global Growth Partners — Let’s build it together!

Heath Fletcher (00:01)
Hi there, I'm Heath Fletcher, host of The Healthy Enterprise. This episode is part of a limited series called Money Ball. It's in conjunction with the BLPN Club. BLPN's Money Ball program helps founders step up to the plate and knock fundraising out of the park. You'll hear about the people, their ventures, and their pitch-making experiences. I hope you enjoy it.

James, welcome to the first of this awesome Money Ball series that we're working with right now. you're about to, you're been in this adventure for a little bit now. So we want you to explain to the audience listeners who, who you are and, a little bit about yourself and what, you're working on in the Money Ball program. Perfect.

Jim Lovgren (00:44)
So yeah, my name is Jim Lovgren the CEO of Aspiro Therapeutics. My background spans over 20 years in the life science industry. I've worked at large organizations like Thermo Fisher Scientific, as well as smaller innovative startups. Now I've teamed up with my co-founders to develop a disease modifying therapy targeting obstructive lung diseases like COPD and asthma. Our approach is actually mimicking the protective powers of a naturally occurring lung protein. So we developed a small peptide to do that. And now I've been working

with the BLPN and the Money Ball program to refine the story that we're telling, you know, ahead of some key conferences coming up at the beginning of next year.

Heath Fletcher (01:22)
Wow, very exciting. that was that core problem that you just talked about, there was you found a gap in that in the industry.

Jim Lovgren (01:30)
Yeah, absolutely. obstructive lung diseases like COPD and asthma affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. But fundamentally, the treatments are falling short. The standard of care for these treatments have remained largely unchanged for decades. They're primarily inhaled corticosteroids, which are really designed to manage symptoms, but don't do anything to address the underlying mechanism of disease progression. And that's really where we're stepping in. what we've identified is CC16 is a...

one of the most abundant proteins in the lungs, and they're responsible for maintaining healthy breathing. So what we're trying to do is to mimic its protective properties to restore lung function in patients and again, modify the progression of these diseases, not just manage the symptoms.

Heath Fletcher (02:15)
Right, for those of who are listening and are familiar with anyone with COPD or asthma or have it themselves, understand that most of what is out there on the market is to just sort of maintain or get rid of symptoms, like you said, right?

Jim Lovgren (02:30)
Absolutely. I think one of the things that's even come up as part of some of these pitches and feedback that I've gotten in conversations, I've been able to engage with some people in the BLPN community is really the idea that ⁓ management isn't actually treating the disease. And there's this real perception where if someone has an inhaler and they're not necessarily having exacerbations or asthma attacks, the idea is, their disease isn't progression. But what actually happens is over time,

this patient's lung function is going to decrease. So the disease is still having an impact on their lung function over the long term. And if they do have an exacerbation or an asthma attack, using that inhaler is actually not gonna be helping them maintain their healthy breathing. know, inhaled corticosteroids actually have their own sets of side effects, so you become dependent on them. So there is really a gap here where there's a lot of people that are having their disease maintained and managed on a day-to-day basis, and maybe they're not suffering those

really ⁓ aggressive say asthma attacks, but that doesn't mean that they're treating the disease long term. What we believe is that CC16 has the potential to do that by restoring levels up to a more typical homeostatic level of the protein.

Heath Fletcher (03:43)
Okay, and what makes your solution so different than what's already available in the market? are there, maybe, is there anything else like what you've got going in the market?

Jim Lovgren (03:54)
We're not aware of anybody that's doing anything similar to us. CC16 is a well-known protein. It's been studied for over 20 years. One of my co-founders has actually studied extensively. think one of the advantages that we, advantages or maybe that we're fortunate in terms of timing is our approach is using peptides, which are having a little bit of a, you know, lot of interest in the field right now. So CC16 is a 91 amino acid.

protein, we're actually having a smaller version of that protein. You know, so we're taking a very simple and elegant approach, I would say, to mimic its function. So we've done some modification and we've now we've done validation work in animals to show that we're able to replicate the function of the full length protein by developing something smaller that can still be inhaled where if you were to try to deliver the full length protein, it would have to be injectable, which obviously isn't what

people that suffer from respiratory disease are used to having. So we're able to kind of maintain a typical standard of care, have something that's gonna be aerosolized. And again, it's approaching that everyone has at certain levels. And then once they drop below a certain level is when you start having the respiratory challenges, there's an opportunity to bring it back up to natural levels and hopefully restore that lung function.

Heath Fletcher (05:04)
What was, was there a point in this on the, the progress here where you knew that you were on the right track? Like, was there this moment where you got, where you guys thought, yeah, this is where we got to go.

Jim Lovgren (05:16)
Yeah, so this is kind of interesting because, you know, I wasn't involved in the very early piece of this. So two of my co-founders, you know, one of them is a longtime friend, someone I've known for over 20 years. Back in 2019, she had mentioned some work that she was doing with Stefano, who's one of our other co-founders, and was telling me how, you know, she came across Stefano, he did this talk, we started collaborating, doing some work, and think we really have something. This is 2019. And she kept updating me, you know, over the years. And then in 2023, things just kind of came together where I was transitioning out of the role.

You know, they had gotten to the point where they had brought in Joseph, who's a medicinal chemist. He had developed some compounds and he'd done some evaluation in some animal models and got to a point where, we have a library of molecules that we believe are going to mimic the function of this protein. So I sat down with Julie, we had a conversation, you know, I walked through the data and I was like, honestly, it's blown away. One, just of what the implications of this protein are, just based on the publications in the field.

then what they were able to accomplish from designing the molecules and then the initial validation work done in the animal. So at that point, that was the end of 2023. We started the company in April of 2024. And now we've been kind of going at it for a little over a year and a half now.

Heath Fletcher (06:29)
Amazing. And then your role now in this is to kind of be more sort of front facing public facing. Is that the idea? Yeah.

Jim Lovgren (06:37)
So

I think, you know, we have a really good balanced team. you my background has been always been on the business side of science, I would say. So, you know, I'm the front facing person. I'm doing the pitches, you know, running the business side of the organization. ⁓ One of my co-founders, Julie, is more of a molecular biologist. She's done all the animal work. Stefan O'Greira, he's an MD, PhD, who's been studying CC16, understands the real clinical aspects. And then Joseph is our medicinal chemist.

who developed the peptidomimetics, these peptides that are mimicking the function. So we have a very balanced team that kind of bring a different skillset to the equation then allow us to kind of move the project forward.

Heath Fletcher (07:16)
In the journey of funding and finding funders for this venture, do you find that they're quite interested in who's on the team and who's behind you? You know, if you're the person doing the pitch, are they curious about who's behind you and what, what, who's on your team?

Jim Lovgren (07:32)
Yeah, no, I think that's always a question that's going to come up. I think in particular, they want to see, you one, you have expertise in a variety of different areas. You know, I think it's obvious if, you know, you're the MD clinician, your expertise may not be in building the financial model. And obviously, you're not going to want me talking to a COPD patient necessarily about what their treatment options are. But when you bring us kind of together and you go, hey, this is what we're trying to accomplish. And you walk them through the plan. I think, you know, investors want to be able to see, all right,

each element that we're trying to execute on, have somebody that can help drive that forward and provide the input that's going to be required to get us over the line. So from that standpoint, think investors can look at our team and feel like we have the right people involved. And then, you know, we have some other advisors that we bring in on other areas and we have planned to bring in more as we continue to advance. And there's going to be areas where maybe we don't have the right expertise. They're going to want to see that, we're bringing in the expertise and knowledge that we need to keep the project moving forward.

Heath Fletcher (08:30)
And you were the one that brought up the pitch first. let's now talk about that process because it's a big process in in the funding world and when you're after ⁓ those funds, the pitch is a really important component. Did you have a lot of experience in your from your past in pitching?

Jim Lovgren (08:47)
I had done ⁓ one startup in the past where I had been involved in some pitching. It was a different experience because I was ⁓ a chief business officer for the company, but our CEO had a couple of exits under his belt. So the pitches are very different when you have exits and you get some existing relationships with investors that we were kind of following up on. it

I didn't get to do the cold pitches and it always kind of in a supporting role with the CEO. So this was definitely my first go round. And that's actually part of the reason why being involved with BLPN and Money Ball is really important because part of the pitching process is about reps and iterating through your presentation and learning what's the key element of the story that you want to deliver, understanding how investors are going to look at you differently depending on their background.

Being able to get that feedback in a structured way and frankly be able to do a lot of pitches to a lot of people all at once is a huge advantage versus you know having each conversation be with an investor where you walk away going okay I learned something but I wish I would have known that before I spoke to the investor so this process is great to get those repetitions in and be able to do those iterations on your presentation on your slides on Keywords that you might use and kind of how you want to take your your pitch depending on the audience you're talking to

Heath Fletcher (10:07)
And how have you seen your pitch evolve over the last however many weeks you've been involved in with the moneyball?

Jim Lovgren (10:14)
Yeah, I mean, it's been interesting because, you know, everyone in the program or the people that are giving you feedback, everyone comes about it a little bit differently, right? Some people want to see different things. And part of it is it's about iteration, not necessarily revamping everything. You know, at the end of the day, you know, we know our...

company and our story better than everybody, but it's really important to adjust the balance is what I would say. One is that part of your pitch is that patient story and the problem. You want to talk about the science and how you validated what you're trying to do. You want to be able to talk about your plan on execution and then the finances. All these things matter.

to an investor and figuring out how you're going to say that in a five to six minute pitch, it can be a challenge at times. I think the thing that I've learned more than anything is actually probably a little bit less of the science, as difficult as that can be sometimes. Not that the science isn't important, but to me it's almost shifted from the persuasion of the pitch is going to be that higher level story, really telling them what the problem you're solving is, high level what the science is, and hitting those more execution pieces.

later on the science and the data that we generate is about validating it and that'll probably be in your next conversation but it's not going to be able to it's too difficult to get across in a five-minute pitch you know so you want to make sure you give them enough to that they understand okay this is something unique this is different wow it's a natural protein it's been studied okay great now what are you gonna do with that and then later on I can walk them through all the mouse data and all the great work that we've done in the lab but you're not gonna get that it's not the right time to do it in a five-minute pitch

Heath Fletcher (11:47)
Do you find that ⁓ people that are going to the pitch process tend to really do that, over deliver on the science and the technology?

Jim Lovgren (11:57)
I think there's a, it can go either way, you know, and I think for us, at least for me, with what we have with CC16, I think it's a very interesting story about the protein. So there's a feeling of wanting to give all the data because it's so compelling. But again, if you don't tell the high level story, you miss the mark. And I think, you know, in biotech in general, everyone can get very excited about the science, right? We all got into this because we love science.

Even me on the business side, did it because I loved commercializing great science. So you want to tell that full story, but you

the investors are looking for something different and they may have different levels of scientific understanding. And that's where it gets interesting because I've spoken to medicinal, excuse me, to respiratory toxicologists who know the ins and outs of what we're trying to do and they can get very much into the science. And even they still want the high level but they'll quiz you on the details too so you can't avoid the technical pieces but you just have to know what is the right time to deploy that data. you know.

Money Ball when you're doing that five minutes it helps you hone in what that five minute high level is and then if you're having a able to continue the conversation in the next one Then you can have that detail and be able to talk about all the pieces of data that you be able to generate

Heath Fletcher (13:12)
So in your experience is that you get this first five minute pitch that you get to present to somebody. And then if that interests them, then you go to the next conversation. They say, hey, I'm interested in what you're doing. Let's talk further. And that's kind of when you sort of unveil a little bit more of the science and talk a little bit more about the financial aspect. But initially, it's just finding the balance in the first pitch, right?

Jim Lovgren (13:38)
Exactly, giving them enough information where they understand the general story and then you do that next conversation either might be a general deep dive, know, so for example, you might do a, you know, five slide pitch during moneyball, but then you have an 18 slide deck that you might go over over a next, you know, 45 minute call.

you know, and do it that way. Or, you know, an investor may have a very clear area where they want to focus, you know, and that'll happen and I'll use the old, I can bring in my co-founders if they're going, hey, we really want to deep understand the assay you used to identify your, your Peptidromomatic that you're trying to advance. And they may want to understand the details of that. And that's where, you know, bringing in the scientific team is worthwhile. Other investors, they go, hey, we want to see your financial model. And what do you think it's going to take to get you to this next value inflection point? And that's a different conversation. So each investor is

little bit different. That's kind of a that challenge again of that high level pitch because you're trying to meet the needs of all these different investors and give any of them enough to want to kind of have that next conversation but you can't give them everything they want because you'll never meet the need for everybody.

Heath Fletcher (14:44)
Yeah, and you're not really getting an opportunity to talk a little bit. So you can't really read them. Like, no, this person more interested in you got that five minutes to kind of make your initial pitch and then it goes from there. Do you recall having an aha moment where you feel like, I nailed it, I got the balance.

Jim Lovgren (14:56)
Exactly.

There's been a couple of those, you know, there's one that jumps out where I think it is reinforced some of my thinking where a particular investor was an MD and you know, I've joked with my other co-founders that think he was the most prepared investor I've had to speak with where I felt like he might have read every one of the publications on CC16 and came in knowing the science. So if I kind of mentioned the default is you want this need to

go into the science world, that was kind of taken off the table. So it made me stay more high level, tell the bigger story around what we're trying to do and the potential. And it took the conversation in a very different area where we didn't...

go into all the science, was more the potential. Even like our focus is on obstructive lung diseases like COPD and asthma, but the protein is implicated in a variety of different respiratory diseases. And he saw that right away. So it just allowed to even grow what the potential of what we're doing could be. if he hadn't done that, or if I would have spent the time on the data, I would have missed that opportunity to go more high level. So I think it just reinforced that need to keep it high level early.

If someone gets the high level message, then you can almost really expand what the potential is. And you always have that later conversation to give them the data that they're looking for. So that particular investor, think, has kind of reinforced some of the things that I was already seeing, but just made it very clear that the deep dive on the data can wait till a later point.

Heath Fletcher (16:30)
Right. ⁓ That's interesting. That's, you know, trying to figure out what investors really want to know is probably one of the hardest parts of this, right?

Jim Lovgren (16:41)
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think you're never going to be able to meet all their needs. think it's finding, refining that pitch early and then staying flexible in that next conversation. Like one thing that I've definitely noticed even when I come with the longer deck is it never flows in order. Like it's pretty much at that point that that should be the, and I actually think it's a good thing if the investor were having a conversation and then they go, well, what about this? I go, oh, here's this slide. And then you end up kind of.

moving in and adjusting based on what they're telling you. They've already seen the high level so you know the basic story. You may get an opportunity to repitch that but if they're asking me about specifics and I can kind of draw them to specific pieces of content that addresses that then I feel really good because I know I'm hitting exactly what they want versus me having to guess and walk through a 20 slide presentation not knowing which slides really matter to them.

Heath Fletcher (17:32)
And that could throw some people right off track, right? Like, oh, well, that's a 12. We're only on slide. You know, I can't, I can't jump all that information in this, you know, in one second here. So that must that could throw a lot of people off track. But yeah, being having that fluidity in your storytelling process probably comes to an advantage.

Jim Lovgren (17:55)
Yeah, no, think it's definitely a learned thing. We've had it happen a couple of times and going, okay, this is, I haven't really made it through the presentation like the way I think I'm going to present it. So I just need to be prepared to bounce around as needed. I'm prepared to go through it, but just know that at any moment you're going to get a question or it's going to get taken in a different direction.

Heath Fletcher (18:14)
Do you have any, you know, did you have any experiences where you had, ⁓ you know, where you almost, you know, panic where you, you actually lost train of thought or lost track of where you're at, or maybe got thrown a question and, and it was a bit of a curve ball.

Jim Lovgren (18:33)
I think there's one that comes to mind where it wasn't necessarily a panic, but

I kind of went in with a different preconceived idea where this particular investor I had had a previous relationship with in that ⁓ I had done some consulting and advising to them on some cell therapy companies that they were looking at and they had reached out and we've had a couple interactions in the past. So, you know, I felt I had a rapport. And then at the time that their thesis now shifted where we were a fit. I reached out, you know,

had an email exchange, said, hey, send us your deck. I sent them the deck. Then we were having the call. When I entered the call, I kind of expected it to be a little bit more laid back. We didn't talk before, we had a different conversation. And it really took an immediate, this is a pitch, and I go, ⁓ this is not what I thought it was. And I was able to recover it, but it was a real important lesson to me where like,

every one of these meetings and again thinking about things that I've been doing with bullpen and moneyball where you you start learning about how to process make a process of what you do you know how you do your outage to investors how you kind of prepare for these meetings and yes I have a relationship and I can expect that hey maybe you know that that's a good thing to open the door

But once you have that call, it's a very different situation. like, you have to still approach it in a very positive way. Now, the meeting ended up fine, but like afterwards, I was just like, okay, that lesson learned, no matter what your past relationship is, that pitch is gonna turn into something very scripted or very regimental where you need to be focused.

Heath Fletcher (20:09)
And like you said, it's a learning opportunity because if you don't recognize in that moment that, ⁓ how could I have done that differently? Or how should I handle that the next time this happens? Because it's bound to happen again.

Jim Lovgren (20:22)
Oh, absolutely. it might be someone gives you an introduction and you think, this will be a little bit of an easier meeting. Nope. And maybe it will. Right. And you never know if it might turn that. But don't but don't go in expecting it. Right. Go in. Right. I'm prepared to do exactly what I've been doing with every like every 30 other things that I've done. Exactly. But this one, if it goes, if it goes more relaxed, I'll go there. But I'm not going to come in relaxed because you just never know.

Heath Fletcher (20:48)
And that may be one of the benefits of doing so many pitches in a short period of time, you know, like through Money Ball and is that you get every pitch is being presented to a different person. So each person has a different ⁓ style in how, collecting the data and information that they're looking for, right?

Jim Lovgren (21:07)
⁓

Absolutely that and like you can ask them afterwards like hey, what would you do differently in my spot? So it's a little bit of a different dynamic right after you've pitched an investor You're not gonna ask them. Oh what I do wrong Or what would you do differently? This is is a good thing where I'm like, I don't know everybody that's in you know that I pitched to but I can ask them questions of where would you have done make an adjustment? What where would you have like see me go and it like you're able to have that interaction afterwards that you don't you're not gonna get with an investor so it's a great tool

to help refine what you're gonna say.

Heath Fletcher (21:41)
do you have in your mind at the same time, you know, while you're being feel like you're being interviewed or you're under the microscope, are you also doing the same of the of the investor? Are you doing that? Because you're also in the room with somebody who might be considering investing in in you and the company. So are you also kind of interviewing them at the same time?

Jim Lovgren (22:04)
I think there's absolutely a little bit of that. mean, it's a tricky time where, you know, preclinical companies is tough to be picky when you're for investors because the market is tough. Exactly. So it's a little challenging. But your point is exactly right, though. You know, if this person, this company, this person invests in you, you know, ideally they're going to have, you know,

Heath Fletcher (22:15)
I want your money.

Jim Lovgren (22:27)
a vested interest in your success, obviously. So they're gonna be partnering with you, maybe giving introductions. There's somebody you're gonna be meeting with on a regular basis. Drug development isn't a three month process, it's years process. So you don't know how long you're gonna be interacting and working with this person. So I think on both sides, you are at least gauging, hey, how is this going? Is this somebody that I wanted to work with? I've certainly been on the side of...

the investor where I'm talking to and I feel like it's just trying to get like gotcha questions versus trying to understand or and tough questions are fair you know I want to be questioned but you go wait a minute is this person somebody I want to work with long term that absolutely crosses your mind now you know when they go to write the check

I want to be as thoughtful about that as possible. Hopefully we'll have a lot of options, when it's not, you go, okay, hopefully I don't sign up for the wrong investor, make a bad decision, but hopefully it won't come to that.

Heath Fletcher (23:25)
Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully there's a lot more dating before that actually happens. Before you put the ring on the finger, right? so ⁓ were there indicators ⁓ you know along the way where you needed more help like did you find did you get stuck in the process and go I'm just not hitting this like and and what kind of help did you have access to during the program?

Jim Lovgren (23:29)
Exactly.

I mean, think one that, you know, even beyond the pitching is some of the support on targeting investors, you know. So my background has been more on the life science tool side, where I think my network, that's more of where it's been. And if I wanted to find an investor for a more on the tool side, I think I had a decent network. But on the therapeutic side, to find those investors was a little bit more of a challenge. And you're doing, you know, you're screening LinkedIn, you're looking for introductions for people in your network. It's a little bit more of a challenge.

Through Bullpen, part of the support is helping you build your target list of investors and you can help identify companies that have invested at therapeutics, in the respiratory space, on an asthma drug. So the types of investors where it's a much more targeted dating scenario, as you would say, where, hey, I think we're a pretty good match right from the start. So when you have the conversation, they get what you're trying to do.

⁓ They can help identify maybe your blind spots or things that maybe you're Recognizing a particular risk. So these people are going to be able to be much more of a partner in your development journey for your therapeutic ⁓ and you know, ideally when you one thing you don't want to be doing is reaching out to a bunch of investors that Aren't going to be interested. It's a waste of my time and it's a waste of their time. They shouldn't have to you know, take ⁓ a Another email or another, you know reach out from somebody ⁓

from somebody that's not gonna be a fit. So now you have a much more focused list, you're gonna get better responses, and hopefully when you're actually being able to pitch and get into a deeper discussion, it's somebody who understands what you're doing and has already had the history of investing in this space.

Heath Fletcher (25:32)
Well said. Well said. James, thank you for this. ⁓ Really great to hear your experience over the last little while and in the moneyball program and also want to find what's what's next for you and the company and and how if people want to find out more information, how can they connect with you and get more information?

Jim Lovgren (25:51)
No Heath, well thank you so much for having me here. This has been a lot of fun. Really right now we're focusing on the development process and we'll have some data that we're hoping to have in January ahead of the JP Morgan conference. know, following up right now with a lot of investors that I've been speaking with over the last six months. I hope and looking forward to meeting with them there. For anybody who's interested in learning more about the company, you can go to aspero-tx.com or feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm obviously willing to talk to anybody who's an investor.

If you're another biotech founder, just want to talk about the journey that you're on or actually the journey that we're both on, happy to talk to you about that. Or if you're somebody that is just impacted by a respiratory disease and are curious about what we're doing, happy to hear from you as well. So don't hesitate to reach out.

Heath Fletcher (26:34)
And they could just bump into you JP Morgan Week as well if they're there, right? Yeah, best of luck there and thank you again so much for joining me today.

Jim Lovgren (26:38)
Absolutely, we'd to meet up in person.

I really appreciate

it. Thank you.