In a recent episode of The DeSci Podcast, we welcomed Krister Kauppi, founder Rapamycin Longevity Lab, and Dr Mitchell Lee, CEO and co-founder at Ora Biomedical.

Dr Jack Scannell has been at the forefront of diagnosing the problems in biopharma research and development (R&D). As one of Molecule’s advisors, his work has inspired and informed much of Molecule’s positioning and goals.

“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome” — Charlie Munger

Today we’re excited to announce Molecule’s IP-NFT funding paradigm has crossed the ocean to support age-related oral health research at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Paul Kohlhaas visited the Podcast of Andrew Steinwald, and spoke about his path into the pharmaceutical space and web3. He shares his experiences in biohacking, the pharma industry, the drug development process and how web3 could play a crucial role in making drug development more efficient, fair and transparent. This is achieved through BioDAOs an open source approach of pharmaceutical early stage research and leveraging the traits of NFTs through and a new standard, the IP-NFT. Molecule is a company that is virtualizing and decentralizing how drug development works. They do this by attaching data and IP rights to non-fungible tokens (NFT's) and then bringing the core IP into web3. This makes the intellectual property liquid, which is very hard to achieve in biotech today, and also enables price discovery around IP. Molecule has created a curation market where people can trade and discover therapeutics for drugs. Molecule has also started building biotech DAOs, which are research collectives that are comprised of patients, investors, and researchers in a specific therapeutic area. The mission is to democratize access to medicine by empowering researchers and patients to become co-owners of the IP and data associated with a new therapeutic. Paul describes how the company's IP-NFTs work to store data associated with a new therapeutic and how they can be used to fractionalize ownership of the IP. He also walks through the company's roadmap and explains how they plan to decentralize ownership of the data and IP associated with a new therapeutic. Paul discusses the origins of VitaDAO and IP-NFT, the process of setting up a DAO, and the long-term vision for a DAO-based ecosystem for pharmaceutical research and development.The grand vision for the projects is to develop a drug that is enabled and discovered through the process and reaches patients in a eight to ten year timeframe. He also discusses the potential for IP-NFTs to be used to fractionalize the ownership of IP and allow patients to contribute funding to research."

Imagine a world where patients directly fund researchers developing the next therapeutic breakthrough they need. One where drug development is collaborative, open, and decentralized — an open bazaar anyone with the right intentions can join. A system that could radically increase the diversity of treatments, and lower costs and time to market.

In a few short weeks, we will be launching one of our flagship longevity projects with the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Healthy Aging. Here, our Chief Scientific Officer, Tyler Golato, discusses why Molecule is doubling down on longevity.

We are currently facing one of the largest healthcare crises in modern history — and it’s far from over. The hunt for cures and vaccines for COVID-19 is forcing scientists, governments and the public at large to rethink our current biopharma innovation models. They’re too slow, too expensive and risky. But there’s hope, because the current focus on vaccine and drug development is unparalleled in history and with it, scientists across the globe are quickly developing new collaborative ways of working together. I believe this crisis will catalyze a paradigm shift for new business models in pharma and biotech. Open markets in which drugs can be approved on much shorter time frames and smaller budgets, bringing treatments to patients at a fraction of the current cost. This shift is unavoidable. And it will be facilitated by new digital platforms that drive open science. We will break away from the traditional paradigm in drug discovery — to frictionless data sharing without the commercial constraints of intellectual property.

At the beginning of this year, the world was a different place, unrecognizable compared to the world we inhabit today. Over the past three months, we have witnessed the fabric of society change in profound ways previously unfathomable. We are living through, perhaps, the defining event of our lifetimes, and we will be judged by the history books based on how well we respond to the challenge at hand.

The pharmaceutical industry is facing a wide variety of challenges, but perhaps the most pressing is the ongoing innovation crisis. Drug discovery rates are declining, the price of bringing a drug to market is increasing, and ROI on R&D is expected to hit 0% in the next few years. Taken together, these factors have a direct impact on the number and types of therapeutics being brought to market. In light of the capital requirements being so high, drug discovery represents a special challenge for its actors, especially pharmaceutical and biotech companies and universities. Compounding these problems, industry and academia struggle with an unprecedented reproducibility crisis. Today, two innovative companies have joined forces to fight these trends.

Molecule Catalyst is a crowdfunding platform for Scientific research, and we are excited to introduce you to the first project that we will be hosting! The project is in partnership with Rotem Petranker and Thomas Anderson, directors at the University of Toronto Mississauga Psychedelic Studies Research Program (PSRP), the pioneering group leading the study that will take a look at the effects of microdosing psilocybin.

Launching your first product is no easy venture. Long hours, endless task lists and self-doubt are just a few elements involved in bringing your idea to life. The way you approach all these challenges is what will ultimately determine the success of your launch.