With broad interests ranging from chemistry to international development, Drew Natenshon started in technology consulting and experienced the boom and bust of the late 90s. It wasn't until an epiphany on an island hilltop that he knew that delivering preventative medicine would be the way to marry the two. Find out how focusing on the impact you want to have and letting interests collide can point to the path to making the world better.
Guest Drew Natenshon, Dartmouth ’96, was a chemistry major but considered himself lazy and didn’t see the immediate path to a career after college. He interviewed with a small technology consulting company and became employee #32. After peaking at over 1,000 employees, the IPO in the boom years allowed him to get a really nice sports car. When his company—along with the industry—tanked, he had to sell the car (and more), but said he learned a very good lesson about how businesses should and shouldn’t run.
A friend from high school told him about a master’s program at Johns Hopkins in international development that would let him spend a year in Italy. It was all he needed to switch gears and try that. While hiking on the island of Elbe in the middle of the program, he realized that delivering preventative medicine would be a good way to marry his chemistry background and international development interests. He started finding ways to learn more and gain experience in the world of vaccine development and approval and hopped from interesting assignment to interesting assignment on multiple continents.
In this episode, find out from Drew how focusing on the impact you want to have and letting interests collide can point to the path to making the world better…on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Drew Natenshon is Vice President, Program Executive in Infectious Diseases at Moderna Therapeutics, where he has led clinical developments of their Zika vaccine as well as Cytomegalovirus or CMV. Prior to his current role, he has been in vaccine research and development and program leadership roles for other companies. He lives in the Boston area with his wife and twin sons.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Drew Natenshon: Right as I ended up starting the interview process they published their first proof of concept data in flu vaccines in humans and I was like, ok, this is amazing. And I was like it’s still maybe not going to work, but it's either going to be huge or it’s going to flame out and burn in this catastrophic style. And I was like: The people are exciting. The idea is really amazing. And, you know, why not take a risk.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: With broad interests ranging from chemistry to international development, Drew Natenshon hopped from random consulting job to another, not necessarily feeling the right fit. It wasn't until an epiphany on an island hilltop that he knew that delivering preventative medicine would be the way to marry the two. Find out how focusing on the impact you want to have and letting interests collide can point to the path to making the world better on today's Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley
I'm here today with Drew Natenshon and we are going to talk about roads that take us places that are healthy maybe sometimes and what health really means. So, Drew, nice to have you with us.
DN: Happy to be here, Leslie.
LJR: So, Drew, I start this the same way every time: When we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
DN: Hmm. When I was in college, I was kind of a lazy underachiever. And I had no idea what I wanted to become, except I wanted a job and I wanted it to be kind of exciting.
LJR: Yeah, but you say a lazy underachiever, but you didn't choose a major in basket weaving. You were a chemistry major, right?
DN: Yes, a chemistry major. And I think I got a history minor, but I'm not quite sure if I, I filled out the forms correctly.
I had a fun time at Dartmouth and it was a really good experience. I didn't pick up I think a bunch of lessons that people might've picked up earlier about, you know, just doing the homework and the problem sets and a whole bunch of other things, like I was roommates with Greg Jensen. I think it was junior year, it might've been from our senior year. We both took deferential equations. We both failed the first exam. And then I was like, oh, this is a problem. And I went into, you know, sort of didn't change much of what my behavior was. And Greg ended up getting an A in the class. I ended up failing the class. I had to redo it and stuff like that. And so it was interesting to learn, to say, okay, well, you know, some people can adjust and I wasn't quite at the maturity level to adjust sort of what I was doing. I was doing what worked in high school. So yeah.
LJR: Well, I will say you either faked it really well, or there were other things that paved your path well for you, because you did get a first job and it might not have been the right fit, but what was your first path off of the Hanover plain?
DN: So I ended up interviewing with a guy who was, he founded a small consulting company. He was a Dartmouth dropout, of all things. And he had this vision for, you know, this company that was going to grow and it was the tech space and it was ’96 and it was quite exciting. And I looked in the, I got a couple other consulting jobs with bigger firms and I was like, well, this guy seems kind of energetic and exciting and stuff like that.
And It was technology consulting. And it was called originally the Counsel group. Cause he was a guy named Frank Selldoor and Counsel. And then the internet age happened and we got in and we were one of the big tech consultancies for awhile, called Breakaway solutions. And it was really, really interesting.
I was a 32nd employee. We grew to up over a thousand and went out of business relatively quickly after that. And so it was a really fascinating period. I learned a lot. I found out I'm not a very good technology consultant, but you know, good enough to talk strategy and things like that. And it was a really interesting experience and in a certain way making a lot of money through the IPO and then basically losing all of it and going on unemployment was a really good lesson for me. So I, it was a huge amount of fun. I got a very nice sports car out of it that I ended up having to sell, but it was really interesting to see sort of technology and what was happening and how businesses should, and shouldn't be run the end.
It was very, very cool. And I learned a lot in being on unemployment also taught me a bunch and then I ended up getting to go to grad school. Friend of mine back from junior high school had gone to this program at Johns Hopkins sys, and he told me about it and I sound great. And I looked at it and there's one way you could spend a year in Italy doing it.
I was like, okay, this is could be fun. And I'm like, even if it doesn't help me get a better job, spending a year of my life in Italy, going to school can not be a bad situation. And I ended up doing it and it was phenomenal. I got to study European economics and politics and history and all sorts of really fun and interesting stuff in Italy.
And there's a great amount of friends. And then I spent the summer and that was a really formative time. Working as a chef on Elba for a professor who had this beautiful, like farmhouse on the island of Elba. And so there were three students that he hired every summer: one was to be the chef, one was to be the gardener, one was to be the maid. And it was like working for your cranky old grandfather. And it was really interesting and, you know, having the garden was beautiful and I cook some really amazing things and it was an interesting experience. He was absolutely awful to work for, though. And then made me realize I didn't want to be a chef because like I loved cooking, but I like to cook for fun and cooking for work was not great.
But one of the nice things about that was I still didn't know quite what I wanted to do. I knew I didn't like technology. My dad was a doctor. My grandfather was a doctor and then, you know, I was like, okay, I think healthcare seems to be an interesting space, but you know, is there something I can do more than that or whatever? And so I got to take some long walks up these mountain paths on Elbe near the farmhouse and, you know, take some time and think. And so I was listening to sort of like, I had an old Apple iPod that I'd listened to while walking. It made me think in one time I was walking up and I was like, hold on. What do I want to do with my life?
And I was like, I want to make things better. I like, what, what makes it work better? And I was like, well, you know, healthcare and medicine makes the world better. That seems to be a good thing. And I said, well, I'm studying economics and history and politics. I was like, is there a better way of doing it and stuff like that?
And I was like, okay, well, you know, preventative medicine, keeping people healthy or making them healthier as opposed to waiting until they're sick. That might be a really good way to approach. And I was like, okay, this sounds like something really exciting. And I was just really, walked down. And I had, you know, this feeling of amazing relief and excitement, having walked down out this mountain and figured out, okay, this is kind of what I want to do. And I was like, how the heck do I do it? And I didn't have a very good idea. But when I went back to DC for my second year of classes, there were a couple of opportunities to study international health and economics.
They have—Hopkins of course is a great medical school, but they also very good school of public health. And there's some professors who do some joint stuff. And so I started to do that and I applied for a bunch of internships and I got one of the think tank called CSIS, which is the center for international studies. And it was a very okay internship, but it's very, very nice people, but I, I didn't get to do that much, but I got wait-listed for an internship at the Gates Foundation. And so it's actually ended up working out really well. I didn't get the internship at the first part, but I had a good interview and they said they liked me.
And they said they couldn't fit me in this time. How about they fit me in for the spring term? I was like, that's great. I got an internship. Now I get an internship there. And it was what an amazing organization to work for. It was really, really cool. And I was in the DC office was their policy office and some exciting, amazing people to work for.
It was doing a little bit with education helping out. And then I ended up getting more into the public health aspects of things. And there was a guy named Raj Sha. Who's now head of the Rockefeller, but was prior to that, he was head of USAID. And prior to that was at the Gates Foundation and just this tremendously inspiring and energetic visionary guy who was not super well organized. And so I, I got a job sort of helping him out with his big project where he was trying to create this new international financing mechanism to help fund vaccinations. And so it was this really cool project. There was something that you created a special law that allowed them to create true long-term commitments as an off balance sheet commitment.
So it meant that it wasn't going to be counted against debt if they partnered up with a bunch of different countries. And so what happened was there was an idea that all these European governments would get together, create a promise, it wouldn't be counted as government debt. And then they could actually securitize that on the bond market.
I mean, it would allow you to bring money in, to spend on vaccination. Because the idea was, if you vaccinate people earlier, all of a sudden you can, you know, get the health effects and then the economic benefits of those health effects much earlier, it would have a really big developmental effect. And so it was so exciting and I, we were working with the British government and we were working with some of the Scandinavian governments, French government. The two of the coolest business meetings I've ever been at my life, I got to go to one in the Vatican, which was just amazing, like, you know, there's this meeting in the Vatican, meeting with the Cardinals and stuff like that.
And it was really cool. And then we got to meet…the French government has some of the most amazing restaurants in there. Okay. Fascinating experience. I was using my European studies stuff to do health-related work. And so it ended up being fantastic. And I got an opportunity to expand that for a couple of months after graduation as an advisor.
But what was really interesting was I was like, okay, I love this. And I think it's really cool, but I was like, maybe I'd have more impact if I could do it from the business side. And a lot of people at the Gates Foundation had been at McKinsey before, and it was much more traditional to be at McKinsey and then go to the Gates Foundation.
And they're like, well, maybe it might be a good fit for you. And so I got some recommendations and then Jim Brennan put my resume in for the New Jersey office and I got an interview and I got to join McKinsey for a couple of years to do a pharmaceutical consulting. Man, that was a horrible experience.
LJR: You hadn’t learned your lesson the first time.
DN: I like joke about McKinsey. Like I was not a very good consultant. I learned a lot of information and I met my wife and so it will like, and I got my current job because it was all because of the McKinsey stuff. So I can't complain too much, but just the atmosphere at McKinsey, it didn't sit super well with me.
I think it's a really good place for slightly insecure overachievers and I, you know, I havet he insecure part down. Okay. But it wasn't so good on the overachieving. And there were a couple of programs, projects, which I did really well at. And so I got a sense of things I did well at and things I just didn't do well, and I'm really not good at massively detail oriented projects.
And so that was a, I had done a project right before, which was sort of a private equity assessment of different drugs. And I was like, that was great for me. And then I got in for the I think it was J and J acquired Pfizer's consumer health business—Listerine, and all those products like that, and that integration there.
And that was a project that basically knocked me out of McKinsey again. So it was a really good learning experience, but I know it didn't fit me well. And I happened to get lucky enough to get a role at Novartis vaccines. And I'd always been interested in, again, preventing people from getting sick and that work at the Gates Foundation, you know, that really fit well with me and the idea of the chance to make vaccines was great.
And so I went there and I got to do a couple of projects and I learned a bit about the business and I realized I'm not really a scientist and I'm not a physician, but I really like, yeah. And so I got a chance to do sort of strategy and operations for the research group. And so I got exposure to all the new vaccine development and all the cool technologies and seeing what was being happening and how creative science was being done.
And I was helping out, you know, help provide the infrastructure in terms of, you know, setting things up. And we set up a large facility in Cambridge and it was really cool. And we set up this organization that didn't, you know, help out. They had this tremendously productive pipeline and really smart people and, you know, helping facilitate make their lives better. And it was really cool. Set up the facility in Cambridge. And then my wife is originally from China, even though we met in Canada while we're both living in New York. And so the opportunity came to set up a research facility. And so we went there and that was really exciting. And my twins were born there and, you know, we got to do a whole bunch of partnerships with a bunch of different laboratories.
We actually visited the Wuhan Institute of Neurology and Facility [LJR: Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of it.] And it was, I was really interested. They're really nice people. And I'm so not surprised about what's happened. So it was a really interesting thing. We made some cool partnerships and then due to some, you know, financial issues and management of overall vaccines business, they needed to shut down the China facility.
So I set up this facility and research result, and then I shut down the research facility. And while I was doing that, I was sort of looking for my next role or job, because I was kind of come back and, you know, somebody had filled my old role and you know, what was I going to do? I had an opportunity to run a strategy session for the head of marketing and a few other people on what opportunities were in the China business and things like that.
And I did a good job on that. So she liked me and recommended me up for a position that I ended up eventually doing. And that ended up getting into my sort of a program leadership of the vaccines. I was a junior program leader for a cool meningitis vaccine. And then they gave me another one to do that was already approved for lifecycle management over time.
And I was really excited and it was having a lot of fun at Novartis. And then they sold their vaccines business to GSK and yeah. Yeah. And then GSK said, we don't know where we're going to put our research facility, but it's not going to be Cambridge. And that was like the second day of the acquisition.
And. You just can't. I don't think it was quite used to this sort of the talent spacing in Cambridge. And my wife made the joke. She's like what? You can't get another biotech job in Cambridge, you know? And so I turned around and got a job actually at the part of the business at Novartis that wasn't being sold.
GSK lost 90% of the talent because they could go and run and get jobs in Cambridge. So it was interesting. And then I got to oversee an influenza vaccine. This was acquired by an Australian company called CSL, which renamed the Novartis business as Securtus. They're a fascinating company. One of the leading companies in Australia, because the flu business had to be divested for anti-trust reasons. They were able to buy it for pennies on the dollar. And so they were really smart business people. And I got a chance to see how they work and it was a well-run business. It was really cool. And I got to oversee the approval of the first adumented flu vaccine in the U S who had for the elderly and then from cell vacs, Tetra Velop was another vaccine I got to see the approval for, I was responsible for, and those were two big innovative flu vaccines. And it was really exciting. Again, the CSL people who became Securus, really good business people, but they weren't terribly interested in innovation.
They had these great products and they are going to, you know, cut costs and make a lot of money selling it, which was, I think, a really good business decision, but for what I wanted to do for innovative vaccines, I ended up looking for another role and I joined a biotech called Genosha. And I worked on a really cool therapeutic herpes vaccine, which had really interesting clinical data.
And we went through this whole process and we got this big pivotal end of phase two meeting, and they gave us a pathway to licensure for it. But weren't able to raise money for the phase three trials. And I had gotten a call from a random head hunter who said, Hey, I have a really exciting role and stuff like that.
And I was like, I don't know. I kind of liked my company and I'm enjoying it. But I was like, oh, I talked to these people and it happened to be Moderna. And they were looking for somebody to lead their Zika vaccine program. And I started doing research. And I going Wow. This technology is amazing and we'd done some stuff with self-replicating MRNA at Novartis.
And so I knew the technology and was aware of it. And so I was like, okay, this is really cool, but I'm not sure. I don't know if it'll work or not. And then right, as I ended up during the interview process, they publish their first proof of concept data in flu vaccines in humans. I was like, okay, this is amazing.
And I was like, it's still maybe not going to work, but it's either going to be huge or it’s going to flame out and burn in this catastrophic style. And I was like: The people are exciting. The idea is really amazing. And, you know, why not take a risk? And so I ended up joining and it's been a phenomenal roller coaster of a ride.
Yeah. Started with the Zika program. We had some challenges for that. We ended up coming up with a product that was 20 times more immunogenic than the product that was in the clinic. And so we went back to the development board and that program was handed off to a different program leader, Hamilton Bennett, who actually ended up becoming the, a program leader for our COVID vaccine.
And it's awesome. But I got a chance to oversee our cytomegalovirus vaccine. CMV cytomegalovirus is the leading infectious cause of birth defects, both in the US and in the world globally. It's not a virus that a lot of people have heard about, but the Institute of Medicine identified it in 2000 as a really key area for vaccine needs, because these birth defects are the most common are sort of hearing loss, but you can get microcephaly. You can also do horrible and difficult, you know, brain damage and learning disabilities and other challenges. And so these families get blindsided by it because most of them aren't even aware about this virus until their baby is put in their arms at birth and something's wrong.
And so I was just excited and inspired to get a chance to work on this vaccine. And our technology allowed us to do things that never could have been done before. You know, there've been a bunch of attempts to do a CMV vaccine before. And the technology just wasn't there to make the best one. And the MRNA technology allows us to create a vaccine that's better able to represent the natural formation of the virus to stimulate an immune response that's much greater than any vaccine that we've seen before for this. And so it's similar to the technology that allowed us to create a COVID vaccine so quickly because we're able to take the natural sequences and express them in the form that a virus would naturally express them.
You have these antigen proteins that form up the same way. And so they present to the immune system the same way that the virus. But because you don't have the rest of the junk about the virus, which usually is used to sort of block the immune system, you get this really clear and clean immune signal.
And so it's exciting for our CMV vaccine, as we're getting ready to phase three trial, it was really exciting for our COVID vaccine because I mean, it ended up nobody expected that these vaccines would be 94, 95% effective, right from the start. It's been sort of an amazing transformational role.
And I, I can't say enough about the leadership of the company. Stéphane Bancel is just a phenomenal visionary CEO—really hard and really smart, but data-driven and pushing and visionary. And you can see, at the beginning of 2020, you know, where, oh, there's some news about this virus and stuff and things like that. And he had called up the people in our research group and said, get on this and work on this and, you know, push, push, push, push. And so, you know, you're working on a candidate before it even became big news in January and, you know, had 42 days later something in the clinic and if we had been a bit more familiar with the process, we probably could have moved a bit faster because we would have made our phase one trial bigger and then could have gone right into phase three.
You know, it worked out the way it did, but it's just been exciting.
LJR: Yeah. Well, I would say that's a far cry from lazy underachiever.
DN: I wanted to work on it, but it took me awhile, a lot of luck and a lot of sort of learning and also finding, you know, a space that fit me. Again like my current role happens to fit my personality well. I'm curious. I like to read about a lot of different things. I get bored with very small details, but I really like the big picture and trying to work people together. And so it ended up, you know, it took a long time of working on being lazy, which I still haven't conquered, but I'm getting better at it.
And being able to say, okay, what level of detail attention is required? And then just, you know, you have to find something that fits you. I mean, I've tried a lot of roles that were not great fits and you know, we can sort of power through them but it’s much much harder and less pleasant work than with something that you actually enjoy and are reasonably good at
LJR: Well, I think you also, you did the big picture work—I mean it took an epiphany on a mountaintop, right?—to give you the direction and then you started feeding that direction into the things that you already had lined up. But then it takes that insight of I’m not good at the details, I don’t want to do the details. How do I build the role or find the role that can put those things aside or minimize that and give me the kinds of things that really fire me up. I think that’s, you’ve done that really well it sounds like, finally.
DN: It took a while, but yeah.
LJR: Well, Drew thank you so much for sharing this story. It sounds like, I mean, what a time to be in this kind of work. But exciting and if people could see the smile that I’m seeing, it seems like the right thing for right now. So thanks again for sharing.
DN: Absolutely my pleasure.
LJR: That was Drew Natenshon, a Program Executive at Moderna Therapeutics where he has led clinical developments of their Zika vaccine as well as Cytomegalovirus or CMV. Every week, I talk with classmates like Drew about the ways they are making the world a little bit better. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts or at RoadsTakenShow DOT COM to hear me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, talk to them on the next episodes of ROADS TAKEN.