Shawn Singh, CEO of VistaGen, speaks with BioBoss host John Simboli about leadership and VistaGen's working to develop a new generation of medications for anxiety, depression and other central nervous system disorders.
Shawn Singh, CEO of VistaGen, speaks with BioBoss host John Simboli about leadership and VistaGen's working to develop a new generation of medications for anxiety, depression and other central nervous system disorders.
"I call it the Mom test. If my mom doesn't understand it, I'm not doing a good enough job."
That's the voice of Shawn Singh, CEO of VistaGen Therapeutics, headquartered in South San Francisco, California. Listen in now to hear Shawn’s thoughts about leadership, and how VistaGen is working to develop a new generation of medications for anxiety, depression and other central nervous system disorders.
I’m John Simboli.
You’re listening to BioBoss.
John Simboli
Today I'm speaking with Shawn Singh, CEO of VistaGen Therapeutics. Welcome to BioBoss, Shawn.
Shawn Singh
Thank you, I really appreciate the opportunity.
John Simboli
How did you find yourself at VistaGen?`
Shawn Singh
Well, VistaGen is part of about a 30-year career in this space started back in the early days in the 90s, when I had to decide as a corporate securities lawyer, which direction I wanted to lean, and at the time, I was running prospectuses here in Silicon Valley for high tech and biotech companies. And that was before we had a family. And 32 years later, I'm happy to say, four kids later, in marriage, it's been a good move, to be able to say, you know, make money and helping people and literally helping them physically and mentally.
Shawn Singh
And so I started off in the corporate finance universe, moved in-house to a company that was focused on hepatitis, then moved to venture capital. And then one of the companies in our venture capital portfolio that I was running was VistaGen. And so through an investment I got on the board, got close to the team, the science, and one thing led to another. And we got to a point where it made sense for my skills to be applied to the next two or three phases of the evolution of the company. And it was a good fit. So that was about 10 years ago, and I really haven't looked back since. So still driving force, which is to be able to not only deliver phenomenal results to stockholders at the end of what's typically a very long process, especially with drugs, trying to develop and get into the brain and do amazing things. But substantial benefits to people. And we all know there's a big need out there.
John Simboli
How did you decide you wanted to lead this biopharma company as opposed to, after you'd studied it and thought about it from your vantage point and venture capital? How'd you make that choice, I'm going to be the guy versus I'm going to find the guy or the woman?
Shawn Singh
Well, I knew the people. And it's always got to be at least about the people. And VistaGen was also involved, and still is, with one of our subsidiaries, with stem cell technology. And that was the initial attraction. But mostly it was the people, really the people in the company and the people who are around the company as part of the ecosystem. I had a high degree of confidence about the people and the technology had promised. At that time, we had the stem cell platform plus one of our oral assets for CNS indications. So we've since added on to that.
John Simboli
Did you feel like you were in the process of sifting and looking and looking and looking and finding this? Or is it more like, huh? This is it.
Shawn Singh
I always had the option to pivot in any direction from any of the portfolio companies that I thought had the potential. That was kind of the deal with partners going into it, and had a lot of opportunity, really, over a course of eight years of running the fund to go in one direction or another. And I really just saw the combination of people and technology as the most promising at the time that decision was made. And the need was also there. It was a time for really someone with capital markets, expertise and corporate finance expertise and partnering expertise, to come into the fold to really add an extra dimension to the strength on what was already pretty strong scenario.
John Simboli
When people say, that you don't know, what do you do for a living? How do you like to answer that?
Shawn Singh
I bring hope to a lot of people. I'm a very positive person that tries to lead through that example. And I'm absolutely a glass is half full person. And, you know, you have to have that factor. It drives so many things. It's not false hope; it just has to be really leadership -driven hope. And I think that's what we do. We do every day, we're committed to trying to bring a better situation, to people's lives than they're dealing with. And when you think about the possibilities, even if one of these three assets ends up becoming a new medication. And given the numbers involved, we're talking 10s and hundreds of millions of people, literally, with depression, with anxiety, and even more so now in the midst of the COVID pandemic and social unrest. I mean, these are skyrocketing numbers.
Shawn Singh
Imagine if even a fraction of those, let's say five million people, all of a sudden, become more productive, let alone one million, even. And they're innovative and the spread effect for that hope and that energy and that innovation. It's amazing what can be done and you think about how there's clear-cut examples of how current medications, combined with current circumstances, are just falling short. They have too many side effects, they take too long to work, the efficacy is too limited, the safety issues are overwhelming. Let's watch a commercial on TV, you know, the first 10 seconds are great, the next 45 to 50 seconds are scary.
Shawn Singh
So we definitely know there's never any one size fits all solution to these problems, any problem, let alone a neuro-psychiatric problem. But people need options. And in the bright side of this is, it's really great to be able to lead hope, when you have something to back it up. And that's really an attractive piece. I think that's my job, you know, I have to have vision, I have to have hope I have to secure sufficient capital and put together the right kinds of relationships, the right kind of ecosystem. And I have to surround myself with people that are typically way smarter than I am. And I know I'm in the wrong room if I'm ever the smartest person in the room. So that's the benefit of this job is you get to really surround yourself with some fascinating people. And I learned that early on when I had to learn how to write a prospectus for something I had no clue about, I got very good at asking questions. And making sure I was getting expert input. You have to have patience and endurance for sure. It's just part of the deal. Because there's very rarely a straight line from idea to objective. And especially in this industry, and especially with capital markets, the way they move in and out and regulatory environments move in and out and things are in vogue one day, they're not in vogue another. You have to stay. These are not widgets, you know, it takes a long time in drug development to get to a successful outcome. And the benefit then is that you get to realize that benefit over a nice period of time once that investment's been realized. So you got to stick with it. You have to have good go/no-go stopping points along the way too, so that you're not throwing good money at bad.
John Simboli
You have told me that you originally studied to be a lawyer, you were a lawyer. When you made that shift to go from law to being in a challenging field, like running a biopharma company, what was that transition like for you?
Shawn Singh
It really was exciting more than anything. I had been two solid years working and billing hours that probably totalled five years of work experience. At that time, we were billing 3400 hours a year, we're doing IPOs, left and right in the early 90s. And sitting in the heart of Silicon Valley, it just wasn't a lot of sleep. But it gave me a tremendous amount of experience and the ability to sort of survey the field. And it became pretty clear to me and I remember talking to the CEO of the biopharma company that ended up hiring me out of law. And I just said, Look, you know, I'm in my mid 20s, I just billed you a million dollars, I can absolutely guarantee you, I can economize on that if you bring me in-house. And you know, I need a raise, and I need a car allowance and all those things. But mostly what the driver was, is I've been married 32 years, and we knew we wanted a family. And there was no shot at having any sense of normal, having and building and having the kind of family that we wanted, if I kept on a track to become a partner in the Silicon Valley law firm. I could see way ahead, becuase I have a pretty good ability to see many steps ahead of wherever I am, at any point in time. And that was pretty clear.
Shawn Singh
So we made the shift. And I made the case to the CEO of the company, I just taken them public. So I had a pretty good familiarity with the team and the technology. We had done two rounds of financing plus their IPO all within the span of seven months. So it was very easy for me to make that move. And then once I got into the industry, it's just fascinating. I also had kind of a midlife medical crisis at 36. We had a few kids at that time all young all under five, three and one on the way and I got flesh eating bacteria, necrotizing fasciitis and it was just a crazy confluence of a spider bite and strep A and probably one of my kids sneezing on me, who knows? But the point was, I had a medical experience as intense and as close as you can get. I mean basically a Navy SEAL doctor came and said Look, we either operate in 30 minutes or you're done. And so I said suit up, and 15 days of ICU and nine surgeries later, I came out of that with such an incredible real life experience of what the medical universe can do. That was it, I was hooked. I was already hooked for what we were doing in hepatitis. But this one made it crystal clear the miracles and amazing things that can be done with medicine and with technology in the medical arena. And so that that drove me into the the venture capital side that was a little bit off the normal running around track and part of the reason I think I got the flu in the first place. If you get the flu, and then you get a spider bite, and then you have other bacteria floating around, you know, that's the bad confluence of events. It was because I was running around the street trying to scrape together money to support the company that ended up flourishing.
Shawn Singh
So, you know, those real world experiences kind of settle in and 20 years now, ago, it's still as fresh as it was yesterday, I definitely. I'm no great shakes in a bathing suit but the scars are actually, they're interesting through the years, as I've coached softball for my kids and Little League, and it's a real good miracle conversation starter when you know, I'm out there coaching in my shorts, and they see all kinds of surgeries and scars. And it's a great conversation starter. So therein, also, is the reason I'm a hopeful glasses half full guy. It also makes you understand and appreciate the debilitating effects of some of these indications that we're wrestling with, with anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, pain. They really affect people's lives and what they're able to do, take their kids to soccer practice, go to their job interviews, whatever it is that's normal, and, you know, being able to remove that kind of worry from their shoulders is powerful.
John Simboli
Can you remember when you were a kid—like, you name it, eight-nine-ten, something like that and you had this self image, probably related to what your parents were in their professional lives—I'm going to be, whatever? Can you remember what it was you thought you might be, what your self image was, and how that connects, or not, in any way with what you're doing now?
Shawn Singh
I mean, I still have my my black bordered TOPS 1971 baseball card, so I can absolutely guarantee you it was baseball. Just look, I mean, you got Babe Ruth back here, you got DiMaggio up here. So I mean, my house is filled with baseball and Jackie Robinson over here. So that was me. And I played through my freshman year in college and then realized, well, it was actually my brother that said, Look, you're not going to make it dude, you better go get a good degree. And you can be a career minor leaguer. But that's it. The other thing is Tony Gwynn's brother came in and was going to be the centerfielder the next year, so I knew I had no shot. So I gave it up. I gave it up. And I transferred to Berkeley, and got a degree in Berkeley and never turned back. But yeah, it was baseball player. And then as I got a little older, I certainly thought I was going to be a Supreme Court Justice. So that tracked me all the way through college. And I was a political science major, as you know, I went to law school. So the biotech world didn't even exist. There really wasn't a biotech company, then there was big pharma as we knew it from the 50s, you know, Bayer and the rest, but there was zero appeal on that side of the world. And I wanted to be on the California Angels, and I wanted to be a Supreme Court justice after that. So I don't know how they connect. I mean, I know the team orientation absolutely followed me through my whole life. And teaching life through baseball to my kids and life through sports. It's been a hallmark from day one through, you know, yesterday, so that part's mattered. And I've always wanted to figure things out. You know, from the puzzle perspective of being a lawyer is just I always like to do corporate deals, because I like to see how everything fits and make it fit. That's still needed day to day when you're putting together the complex teams and full ecosystem you need to develop a drug.
John Simboli
What do you say when people ask who is VistaGen?
Shawn Singh
It's a company that's got a passionate focus on mental health and really changing the life stories of not just patients but also their caregivers in the day to day experiences that these debilitating—it's not all aspects, but it's anxiety and depression in particular, trying to flip the script for a lot of people.
John Simboli
Sean, what's new at VistaGen?
Shawn Singh
Well, the most exciting new developments, really a couple, one is a corporate partnering arrangement that we've got with a really well established group in the Asian markets, key Asian markets, for PH94B, our lead drug for anxiety disorders. But more important, really, than that even, closer at home is we've reached a very exciting consensus with the FDA on the study design for our phase III study, getting consensus with FDA on the design for our phase III study that is very straightforward, should be a very streamlined approach to be able to replicate almost identically, what we did in in phase II, and had highly statistically significant results. And so being able to now take that study design and put it into a phase III setting, we're just doing that with a lot of confidence and comfort about how to execute, and what it'll take, from the FDA perspective, to ultimately get approval if we're successful in phase III,
John Simboli
How would you describe how your lead candidate works?
Shawn Singh
So PH94B, it's a pherine, it's neuroactive. steroid. It's really unique in terms of any drug that you probably know, I mean, a lot of your typical concepts of pharmacology just don't apply here. For example, there's no half life of the drug. We have formulated as a nasal spray, but really only because the receptors that are engaged that then create a series of neural transmissions that ultimately are mediated by the limbic amygdala are only in the nasal passage. So at very low doses, these are microgram doses, not even milligram doses, but microgram doses, when the drug is sprayed, 3.2 micrograms is the dose. So one quick spray in each nasal passage. The receptors that are activated send neuronal activity to what are called olfactory bulb neurons that are at the base of the brain. Those neurons then transmit to the limbic amygdala, which is the main fear and anxiety center of the brain. And at that point, there's a series of calming neuro transmissions, if you will, just to put it simply, sent to other parts of the brain typically associated with that fight or flight, the fear and anxiety complex. So it's all about really getting right to the neurons that are essential to create that kind of equilibrium you're looking for where you have not so much inhibitory, that you're falling asleep and sedated, and your cognition is impaired, but not so much excited to worry that you're also going too far in the wrong direction. So you have to almost achieve a nice balance, think about maybe a see-saw that's balanced out.
Shawn Singh
But the key point is getting there quickly. And because it's a direct path, from the nasal passage to the amygdala, the brain, the drug's not delivered through the blood. So there's no systemic exposure, as you see with many drugs, especially oral drugs. And that removes a tremendous amount of complication. And it also allows, in our case, to have, for example, in anxiety often used are benzodiazepine drugs like Xanax and Valium and Ativan. Well, they work quickly, but they're systemically delivered. And they also have a duration of effect that's many hours. And so there's a sedation component, there's a cognitive impairment component, there's other issues aside from arresting the anxiety that you have to deal with. Our focus with all drugs that we've got in our pipeline, especially PH94B, is, A, we want them to work quickly; B, they can't generate a set of side effects that are more troubling, and safety concerns that are more troubling than the underlying condition. And they also have to have multiple verticals, they have to have multiple potential applications, not just one single one single indication. All three of our drugs fit that., and PH94B in particular does fit it.
Shawn Singh
So for example, why is non systemic, a key factor? Well, take postpartum anxiety, for example. 17 to 20% of new moms, within the first three months, experienced postpartum anxiety and if you have to take a drug that's systemically delivered and you pass some of that to your baby, that's not a great option. If you have a drug that's not getting into the bloodstream, well, now you've got an opportunity to really address the anxiety that's often profound but not do something that's associated with, with care and feeding of your baby. And there is a lot of anxiety and failure to effectively breastfeed, failure to sleep, failure to shake the worry that something's going to happen to your child. There's all kinds of issues. Any parent knows that. So it's important to have the kinds of features and benefits that we see the current drugs falling short on. So it's not great if you have to give a speech or get a job interview or meet your in-laws or go to your neighbor's barbecue if you've got a benzo that's putting you to sleep or making you fuzzy. Same thing if you're in a work setting, if you're a broker and need to make a trade, you know, it's not great to have these side effects that limit your functionality. So we see that with PH94B the uniqueness of that mechanism that allows it to go on the direct path from the nasal passage to the brain and not go off targeting—not hit opioid receptors, for example, or not hit receptors associated with addiction. These are some of the major hallmarks of PH94B, in particular, as is the case for our other drugs. So we don't want to cause addiction, we don't want to cause sedation, we don't want to cause cognitive impairment, what we want to do is very quickly let someone have a drug candidate that's safe that they can pull out of their briefcase and backpack, their purse, up front of a particular event that they know is a stressor, much like an asthma patient would pull a rescue inhaler out up front of an anticipated asthma assault, or a migraine episode where you take a migraine drug in front of that.
Shawn Singh
It's that acute on demand, nature, and the need for that kind of treatment flexibly, that patients need. And they need that and they want a quick responder. You have to give a speech to your colleagues at Google, well, you want to be able to mitigate the anxiety right up front of that. And PH94B, so far, in phase II studies moving us into phase III, works in about 10 to 15 minutes. And that's a terrific period of time for most people to be able to deal with whatever anxiety provoking event's on the horizon. The rise in team orientation in the workplace, the rise in social media, and the pressures in social media, particularly among adolescents, academic pressures. The number one issue in business usually is public speaking, oriented, it is talking to your boss, talking to interviews like this doing your team work, they all indicated that there just needed to be something besides beta blockers, and besides benzodiazepines, and antidepressants are the only drugs that are approved, there's only three of them for social anxiety. And the awareness of that, it is an indication, you know, it's just make up anxiety related indications. That's not good either. There's really excellent data, especially from the National Institute of Mental Health and the NIH, in general. On their website, there's a terrific brochure about what it is. And remember, it's a fear and anxiety of essentially humiliation and judgment and embarrassment in everyday situations. And then it could be social, it could be performance oriented. You know, it's a diverse set of issues that people have to wrestle down and they know often what it is, and even though they know it, they still have the same anxiety provoking triggers and experiences.
Shawn Singh
So intercepting that is the key, right up front of it, is the key. If you've got to go give a speech in 15 minutes, 20 minutes, well, let's have a way for you to safely manage that anxiety down. Usually when people are into the event or experience that they're worried about, they do pretty well. It's just getting over that initial hump and starting the speech or starting the panel discussion or starting the interview. And luckily a drug like this, so far, what we've seen is you can take it up to four times a day through phase II, is what we've seen. So it's helpful and to also have the kind of confidence by the time the drug's through phase III, we would also expect to have what's called a liking study done where it's the kind of evidence you need to show that a drug isn't potentially addictive. And that's one of the biggest things here, especially with benzodiazepines, the more you use them, the more you need them, the greater your tolerance is, and the more you have to have. And so it just becomes this really scary rinse and repeat cycle that you somehow have to break. And the withdrawal is torture when you come off of benzodiazepines. So ideally, we can displace that class in as many anxiety related indications as possible over time. But the first target is the acute treatment of anxiety in adults with social anxiety disorder to be followed then by, ideally, pediatrics, mostly adolescence, because the mean duration of this illness is about 20 years. And the typical onset is, is in adolescence.
John Simboli
When you're presenting this story, and someone misunderstands it, what do they tend to misunderstand? And how do you help them get back on track?
Shawn Singh
When you have something new, and people have old friend notions of what's out there, and especially in depression and anxiety, where there really has not been anything new for decades, and there's been similar flavors of the same thing. And we've seen that with depression and anxiety that it's SSRIs and SNRIs, and in anxiety it's benzodiazepines. And the temptation for the listener is to just simply say, okay, this falls right into that category. And it's just another benzo, or it's just another antidepressant, an SSRI, and you really do need to spend some time. And and I call it the mom test, but if my mom doesn't understand it, I'm not doing a good enough job. And I think the key thing is, these are fundamentally different drugs than anything that's ever been out there. And sometimes that causes people to pause, and they're scared. And then you know, how is the FDA going to regulate this? And there's been many times in our history, there was a time when SSRIs were new, there was a time when they displaced the class before them. And there was a time when benzos were new, and they displaced what was before them. This is the time for the current depression drugs and the current anxiety drugs to be displaced. with drugs that work rapidly.
Shawn Singh
People need to know whether something's going to work or not soon, they don't need to take six to 10 weeks to figure that out, and then have to, in depression, for example, stop, take nothing, still depressed, dealt with the side effects the whole six to 10 weeks and then start something else. Again, that's another rinse and repeat scenario that just doesn't work. And if it's not going to work, let's let the patient know that quickly. And if it is going to work, let's deliver the therapeutic benefit as soon as possible and as safely as possible. So I think getting people to understand there isn't one way, and no one size fits all to deal with mental health disorders. And there's never a single solution that covers everybody. Same thing, one size fits all right. So you need talk therapy, you need the other professions in mental health. And I think that's getting them to understand that these drugs are fundamentally different in positive ways that we think fit the shortfalls of the current generations is key. The other part of it is it's complicated. It is not a process that you can just snap your fingers and get done. It's complicated to develop drugs for anything under the current system. Takes a long time and you don't just generate a press release every day. You try to get big wins in the milestones along the way. But especially when you're dealing with drugs, that you expect to go into the brain and do amazing things and change lives. You just have to be careful. And you have to do it. Walk the process. And and we're doing that and I think that's the main thing. These are big differences from the past. We're intentionally focusing on them because they are so different, and we think are better than what's preceeding. And that's what we intend to show.
John Simboli
There must be times when you say, Oh my God, this is an endless journey. And there must be times when you say, it oesn't matter. If this thing works, I'm really going to do some good. How do you work through that?
Shawn Singh
Obviously the grind. That's why I said patient endurance is absolutely critical. And you have to have a team that's willing to persevere and not be measured by where your stock price is at any moment in time. Where we find a lot of comfort and really it is the only place you ought to as a leader of a company find the comfort, is in the science and medicine. And what did the clinician say? What did the scientists say? What did the regulators say? What do partners that are big pharma partners that have spent decades and careers looking at unique specific aspects of your programs? What do the people that are expertized in the space say? And what are their critiques? What are their suggestions? And when you get a constant chorus back from those kinds of expertized folks, that is in sync with your vision, it's really heartwarming, you just get to the point like yeah, we are on to something no matter how we're measured in the moment. It's just like a poll. It's just, you know, the stock price unfortunately, does not usually reflect where the universe that's been confidentially. expertized understands things.
Shawn Singh
I cannot remember a situation where I've been in any public context, investor conference, partnering arrangements, broker meetings, whatever it is, where the audience, a good percentage, 25 30%, at least, I get a lot of head nodding. And that means that the experiences, whether it's anxiety, depression, suicide, these indications uniquely, and this isn't gout, right? If it's pain, if it's addiction, if it's suicidality, it's anxiety, there's so many people affected in every audience that I'm in, I'm uniquely benefited by that compared to the rest of the team. Because I experienced that all day, every day. And I understand the transformative potential that we have here. And it's not just one shot, it's multiple shots. It's, it's through anxiety and all its verticals, depression, all its verticals, suicidality, we're talking about veterans. In one of our studies, in trying to bring the veterans to a point where they can have the ability on an outpatient basis, to maintain whatever benefits they've achieved in their talk therapy, whether it's PTSD, or depression, or suicidal thoughts and behaviors. There's so many people that can benefit. And I come across them all the time, moms and dads talking to me about their teenagers, they're being bullied because of social media, and that's caused anxiety and depression, and college students, now professionals, workers, parents teaching their kids at home. It's a gigantic problem. And any dent we put into that is going to change a lot. A big dent is what we think we can put into it, based on the drugs that we're bringing to the table. And drugs, aren't it, only, you have to in all these mental health indications, complemented with quality talk therapy.
Shawn Singh
The thing that I think has changed a lot, and COVID has brought this to the forefront, and I'm always looking for silver linings from this COVID tragedy. One of the things is we used to look at things like breast cancer, sort of how mental health was before or prostate cancer before COVID, which was we didn't talk about it. And someone had it and they were sort of secret about it. They didn't want the stigma. And now today, if you present with prostate cancer, breast cancer, it's like, okay, we got it, here's the program, let's go do it. And mental health was the same thing. In many ways. It still is people didn't want to say I have to go to the my therapist's office, they didn't want to have people know they're on antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs. And I think we're shifting to the point that is like, Look, we know this is a problem. It's a logical problem when there's so many trauma and anxiety and stress provoking scenarios out in the world. And we know that there's potential solutions out there. But we also know that there's a need for new solutions. Let's just address it. Let's bring it all above board. And there's some really good groups. Our website has a finding help section, you could go to at vistagen.com that leads you to those groups, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, for example, they have a tremendous outreach and educational program. And that's the first step, figuring out yeah, this is something we need to address, and then what's the best fit? What's the best way to address that? And I'm so happy to see that happening right now. We know there's a mental health epidemic because it's finally being reported on. And same thing with the benzo epidemic, that's on par with the opioid epidemic. Fortunately now it's getting media attention. And people are a lot more circumspect about taking benzodiazepines for more than a short period of time. So we can get through all these problems just like with COVID. We will get through it and it just takes it takes time to walk the process. So we're doing our part.
John Simboli
In the Coronavirus, have you learned anything new about the scope of the problem and how you can address it?
Shawn Singh
Well, this is it's an unprecedented time, as we know, and I think in a time when we are finding that our communities are struggling it's critical that we normalize finding help. And part of it is through our efforts through our website vistagen com we've a whole finding Help section on depression, anxiety, suicidality. We hear about it unfortunately, after the fact, when a celebrity commits suicide or you hear someone overdose. We have to absolutely normalize that finding help is okay. And that we can't let the stigma interfere with the potential to find treatments. And we're in a mode, fortunately, as a company where I think we can help open that conversation. We have already, we've encouraged a lot of people to do the same. I encourage you and your listeners also to really do more on that. There's all kinds of places where hope can be found with help.
Shawn Singh
And at the same time, you know, we sit back and our dream as a company and my dream, certainly as a leader of the company is really to develop that new generation of medicine, that for anxiety and depression and some neurological disorders that really debilitate people's day to day existence. Let's flip that let's let's find a way to get these people more productive and more mainstreamed and really enjoy their lives, especially with anxiety and the opportunity cost related to social anxiety disorder and other disorders where people aren't going to interviews, they're not going to take job opportunities, they're not seeking social relationships, you know, that opportunity cost is profound on top of these issues. So I think the COVID epidemic has certainly highlighted the consequences of the diverse impact of the pandemic—economic loss on employment, health and safety concerns, social isolation, these all bring to the forefront that, yeah, you know, on the other side is something like this, but it doesn't necessarily have to be getting COVID or fearing COVID. It could be abuse, it could be social bullying, it could be all kinds of trauma inducing scenarios that affect people day to day, where talk help, as needed, and complemented with medication. People can really put their lives back into the spot where they'd love to live them.
John Simboli
Thanks for making time to speak with me today, Shawn,
Shawn Singh
It's been, absolutely, my pleasure.
Near the start of our conversation, Shawn told me “I’m a ‘glass-half-full’ person.” And he’s clear—as a CEO, this doesn’t mean he’s reliant on false hope—it means he’s determined to lead, armed by science, toward realizing his vision for the company.
One way Shawn works to stay grounded is by surrounding himself with experts who can provide a range of perspectives. As Shawn likes to say, “I know I’m in the wrong room if I’m ever the smartest person in the room.”
For Shawn, understanding the data is just part of the equation. To communicate insights, he relies on what he calls his “mom test,”—“if his mom doesn’t understand what he’s saying, he’s not doing a good enough job.” I heard Shawn’s simplifying approach in action when I asked, “What do you do for a living?” His reply—“I bring hope to a lot of people. I'm a positive person who tries to lead through example.”
I’m John Simboli. You’re listening to BioBoss.