AI Drug Discovery — Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's Rick Peng

Fred Schonenberg
Hello everyone, and welcome to the VentureFuel Visionaries podcast. I'm your host, Fred Schonenberg. On today's show, I'm so excited to welcome Rick Peng. So Rick is the Innovation Hub Manager and Digital Licensing Professional at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. 

He has an amazing background spanning pharmaceutical R&D, health technology, and academic oncology, and he brings a unique blend of expertise in product development, commercialization, and innovation management. Obviously, he's very passionate about empowering startups and fostering collaborations, but specifically to accelerate breakthroughs and solutions in oncology. So today, Rick's gonna share insights about the MSK Innovation Hub Challenge, which is a dynamic accelerator program fueling AI-driven advances in cancer drug discovery and digital health. I'm so excited to welcome Rick to the show. So please enjoy this episode with Rick Peng. 

Rick, welcome to the show.

Rick Peng
Thanks for having me, Fred. Super excited.

Fred Schonenberg
So you have this really cool, unique background that spans everything from pharma to health tech, now digital health innovation at Memorial Sloan. Can you share a bit about your journey and what led you to this current role as the head of MSK Innovation Hub?

Rick Peng
Sure. So I guess like, you know, caveat for anything career-related hindsight is 2020. So like how I got into healthcare was purely opportunistic coming out of college, but it remains a fact that I'm glad I landed and remained within healthcare. I think the mission orientation of the work and the people I get to work with, super unique and exceptional in this space. I started off my career in pharmaceuticals, bringing new drugs to market. And I think that's sort of where I initially caught the innovation bug. It's really focused on how we evolve the way that we do things by integrating new technologies. 

And I think it was there that I first, you know, came across the appreciation for the fact that like, innovation and technology, like the technology piece is always hard, but like equally hard or perhaps sometimes the hardest part of that is actually building the business case around why we invest in technologies and why these technologies are not gonna blow up in the faces of our executives. And so coming out of pharma, I actually got my MBA with a focus on technology and digital technology specifically with the goal of getting more involved in the healthcare technology space. 

Coming out of my MBA, I actually worked at Flatiron Health for a while. So it's a leading New York City-based cancer-focused health technology company. I really got a chance to apply some of my new perspectives and knowledge on technology product development and work that span multiple product and engineering teams. So coming out of that experience, I moved over to Memorial Sloan Kettering once this opportunity to lead a new digital health-focused innovation function opened up. And it's been a great experience. I've been here for just over four years. And in that time, we've been able to really redefine the strategy around how we approach digital health innovation specifically and also how we engage the broader ecosystem. So really excited to speak more about that in this podcast.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, I love it. I think it's really interesting. We had a conference in Boston called the Front End Innovation Summit. And we had the person that was running it on the show and the theme of their most recent summit was all around this idea of commercialization of innovation, which is like, it's in VentureFuel's mission statement. 

But I love your background and perspective. That's like, hey, creating the new technology is without a doubt challenging and hard to do, but almost as hard, if not harder, is the like, okay, what's the business case? How do we commercialize this? How do we get buy-in within a large organization that's already doing a lot of things successfully and make room for it? So I love that perspective. And you're right, it's one of the great challenges. It's not just the idea, it's the execution of that idea.

Rick Peng
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think in my heart of hearts, I'm still an engineer, but I think, you know, appreciating that, like the business part also has to work out for these solutions and the technologies to be sustainable in the long term.

Fred Schonenberg
I've been laughing as VentureFuel's evolved, a number of our staff are engineers that have MBAs. We had to do both, right? It's that dual mindset. So anyway, given your leadership role at MSK and your deep involvement in digital health innovation overall, I'd love to dive into one of your flagship programs, the MSK Innovation Hub Challenge. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is and how it fits into your overall mission?

Rick Peng
Yeah, so I can give you a gist of what innovation means at Memorial Sloan Kettering overall. So Memorial Sloan Kettering is a leading academic medical center that's focused on cancer. We deliver cancer care as well as perform research that yields new innovations that address unmet needs in cancer. Some of that innovation is in the traditional life sciences space, so coming up with new drugs, diagnostics, that sort of thing. But some of this is in the digital space, applying digital technologies to do everything from assisting clinicians and patients at the point of care delivery to accelerating the research around novel therapies. In terms of how we do the innovation, part of it happens through an inside-out approach where we invent things and then take them out to the broader world.

But also a lot of it happens from an outside-in approach where we identify external companies who are building things that align with the needs that we see, and then we work with them to enhance and accelerate the development and commercialization of what they're building. The MSK Innovation Hub and also the MSKI Hub Challenge, which is part of the MSK Innovation Hub, is really focused on the digital health side of that and the outside-in part of that, so the external innovation piece, with a bias towards startups just based on the types of projects that we work on. 

The projects that we work on focus on co-development and collaboration, so really focusing on what the companies that we work with, like what are some of the things that we could bring to the table to help them accelerate their products and to go to market for those products? So that might be access to some of the leading experts in cancer care and cancer research. It could be accessed to de-identified clinical datasets. It could be access to an environment to test, validate, and show the benefits of some of the novel solutions in digital health. And ultimately, what we try to do is we try to solve problems not only for ourselves, but for the broader ecosystem as well.

So the iHub Challenge specifically, as I mentioned, is a part of that broader iHub umbrella. So with the iHub, broader iHub approaches, we actually work with companies on a rolling basis. If we find an interesting company, we match them up to an opportunity, we can build a collaboration around that. What we've found is that there's a huge opportunity to address some of the bigger problems and rally together all of the different stakeholders who need to be involved in that by focusing groups of companies around thematic clusters. And so we created this iHub Challenge program, which is structurally similar to cohort-based accelerator programs for startups that you might see out there. The goal is to really bring in a group of companies that are oriented around this specific theme that we determine.

And it could be a theme, say, like within addressing an unmet need in care delivery, or it could be something, say, like in the development of new drugs for cancer, where we see an opportunity to apply these technologies. We work with these companies as part of this iHub Challenge to identify opportunities to work together to address the problems within that theme area. So ultimately, we're looking to engage with companies both on an opportunistic and ad hoc basis, as well as through this very structured approach through the iHub Challenge to bring companies in, and have them engage with our stakeholders, access various different things within our ecosystem to address some of the biggest challenges we have today.

Fred Schonenberg
I think it's so interesting. And you said like the accelerator cohort time bound, right? Like a lot of our programs do like to take that part of the accelerator, because I think those are the pieces that really are special, right? It's like, let's identify around a theme. Let's get people that are attacking that theme or offering something unique. Let's create some urgency around it, bring the right stakeholders in and attack it, right? 

And there's a lot of pieces of an accelerator, but like that piece still works for this commercialization and really focuses on outcomes because of that urgency and bringing the folks together, I think is a real strength. 

Rick Peng
Yeah, and I think bringing folks together, especially within larger organizations is always the hardest part. I think like at Memorial Sloan Kettering, some of those folks are very busy clinicians and clinical leaders. And so getting time on their calendars could take weeks to months in some cases. Unless you orient around something that's very well coordinated like this, like if you're just like a lone startup that's like sending cold emails, it's a very low chance that you're gonna get something to stick. So we try to create an environment where companies can approach us in a way where we create a fertile ground for those conversations to start and then blossom into more substantive collaborations.

Fred Schonenberg
I love that. Is there one of the things we think about a lot, right? Like the word accelerator or innovation challenge or any of these things, there's been such a proliferation of them. Some that are amazing, some that are less than amazing. And so as a startup, sometimes it's very difficult to decide, right? Cause as a founder, time is your resource, right? So where you spend time is a very big part of your capital allocation decision-making. Why would a startup wanna join your program versus whatever other opportunities they have? Can you pitch it a little bit to me as a founder?

Rick Peng
Yeah, so I think like, as you mentioned, there's a ton of other accelerator programs out there. I think it really comes down to, for each startup figuring out what each one offers and what aligns with their needs specifically. Some accelerator programs might offer co-working spaces and some initial funding. Like those are frankly not things that we provide to companies. Like our program is really focused on providing things that are unique to Memorial Sloan Kettering with a line of sight towards creating collaborations and partnerships between the startups that we engage and our institution.

And so I think for startups, if you're looking to engage with a leading cancer center with great recognition in the healthcare space, if you're looking to access clinical data assets that can help you develop AI, validate solutions, you're looking for a care environment that spans just so many different disciplines, disease areas within oncology, and work in a way that's, as far as like a program is set up, very focused on the founder perspective. I think our program definitely has a lot to offer. I think it's actually one of the few oncology and cancer focused ones as well. And so I think the types of companies and/or startups focused on cancer specifically, the types of people you get to interact with this part of our program is probably unparalleled out there as far as the accelerator market.

Fred Schonenberg
It's so interesting. So I've spent a lot of time, like 11 years, studying and thinking about this. Like how do you structure these programs? What are the best elements to include and not include? And I think you nailed like so many of the things that I've come across and that I sort of preach, which is like, what is unique about this program? Specifically, like why is MSK doing it? And what did they offer that no one else can? And then make it about outcomes, right? 

You kept the time bound, you kept some of the other things, but like co-working space and checks, like all that stuff, there's a lot of places to go and get that. So I love how you've really dialed into what the special sauce is of the larger org and figured out how to make it something that both the big company and the small company get value out of. And it's very clear. 

I wanted to turn a little bit to your theme for right now this year is the AI drug discovery. I'm curious why that as a theme out of all the different ones you could have selected and what impact are you hoping to see from that?

Rick Peng
Yeah, so I think one of the big use cases for digital technologies within healthcare is to accelerate some of the things that we've been doing for decades, which is how do we develop new drugs and bring them to market sooner? If you think about it in terms of patient access, there are many different diseases, especially within oncology that are still unaddressed. And so if you can bring something new to market that helps bring a cure for a certain group of patients, it's really invaluable.

Then as far as the commercial value proposition for stakeholders, including pharma, if you can get drugs to market faster, even by a year, that's also economically very valuable. So I think one of the biggest challenges in AI for drug discovery and other aspects of therapeutics development has always been how do we provide access to the data that really drives that AI? It's really the key input for that. And I think over the past years, things have come a long way, not only within MSK, but also for the broader ecosystem.

I think at MSK currently, we're at a really interesting inflection point as far as maturity of our ability to access and provide access to really valuable datasets that can be applied in AI for therapeutics development use cases. I think like one of the things leading us to pick this apart from just like the huge potential impact in this space is we now have some of the key tooling required and infrastructure required to actually engage a group of companies in a really sort of data science focused type of engagement where we provide access to datasets to do AI innovation that ultimately results in advancements in technologies serving drug discovery and drug development needs. Ultimately, that's one of the key reasons why we selected this particular topic.

Also for our iHub challenge program in general, each year we go through a strategic discovery and theme selection process. I think part of it is also organically this has come up as just one of the top areas of interest for our research clinical and also corporate leaders here at Memorial Sloan Kettering, just based on just the excitement around the opportunity in this theme.

Fred Schonenberg
I love that. I think it's interesting that we help Comcast with their AI and Accelerator, air quotes around Accelerator, a very similar type of model to what you all do. One of the great challenges was this access to data, de-identified safe datasets they can use that are meaningful. And it's really interesting if you can unlock that, it becomes a very huge draw for a startup who maybe has something really interesting but does not have access to the data they need in order to test their hypothesis and move this forward and really deliver the value on it.

So I think it's a really cool draw to get the best startups in the space attracted to the program. And then of course, obviously because of the focus area, it's pretty dynamic from that front as well. Is there, so how do you decide on selecting the cohort? Are you, obviously as you, if you focus on something like AI, it's moving incredibly quickly. There, it feels like innovations every day. How are you making sense of the different emerging startups and opportunities for a program like this?

Rick Peng
Yeah, so we evaluated it on a couple of different dimensions. So first we look at the, for each applicant, we look at what do you bring that's special to this area? We kind of understand that this space is well populated by startups that recognize the opportunity here. So we're ultimately looking for the best startups who have a clear sense of what the problems are. 

Of course, like that's something that we can develop in partnership with the startups as part of our cohort program, but also bring some sort of technical, technological secret sauce to addressing that. So that could be something about their digital technologies. It could be just like an innovative approach to applying them. We really focus on how we do things in a slightly different way that can lead to better outcomes as far as application of the technology as well as the commercial outcomes. 

We look for companies that are well aligned with the interests of our stakeholders who would be engaging with them. And so this could be a panel of different leading researchers who have worked in this space. We're ultimately looking to match companies that are solving for similar types of use cases, for similar types of disease areas and similar types of whole research and scientific angle of things. And so I think that sorting in more individual matches is also very important for us.

We also look for companies that are looking to work with us in a collaborative engagement style. Our program is not specifically aimed at sourcing companies for procurement of solutions. We really focus on how we work together, providing you access to things on an in-kind basis to help you accelerate the development of your technologies. 

And so ultimately, part of it is companies need to be specific about things like, what are the things that we can help you with so that we can evaluate like, is this going to be a good use of your time? So as you said, like, you know, startups' most valuable resource is their time. And so we wanna make sure that like, the companies that we engage through this program, it's a good use of their time as well as the time of the folks who are participating on our end. 

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, it's funny. I always say things like, you know, I talk about, it's very easy to grasp that the startup's time is so valuable, but the executive's time is so valuable too, right? There's a million things they could be working on. And so it's that balance of just removing anything that doesn't add value to both parties so that you can accomplish something quickly and then see that. 

I also love your point about this isn't like glorified procurement of solutions, right? There is that collaboration. There's this opportunity to unlock something bigger that could be more transformational. And so it's definitely different than that. But that was a very interesting thing to call out. I'm curious if you could walk me through, okay, I'm an unbelievable AI startup. I apply, you select me. Walk me through what that three-month, I believe it's three-month program is and what happens at the end of it.

Rick Peng
Yep, so over the course of the three-month program, one of the key things that we are centering this cohort specifically on is access to clinical data sets. We've prepared a data sandbox environment with access to a de-identified data set of about 30,000 patients across all different cancer types. And this is a data set that's been clinically curated. We've invested several years and millions of dollars into making this really meaningful data set for research and technology AI use cases. 

Goal is to provide access to this particular data set and then also surround the companies with thought leaders in research and clinical care around cancer to really advise the companies on like, as you're playing with this data, developing new AI, like how do we apply those innovations to actually address unmet needs in ways that are clinically meaningful, scientifically meaningful, and also have commercial potential. 

So our goal is by the end of the three months through the use of the data, through some of these advising mentorship relationships, as well as through, we also offer like various other programming elements which help companies, especially those who might not have worked with a large academic medical centers before, understand the perspective of institutions like MSK and how to engage them effectively and what are the things that matter in building solutions for health providers, as well as broadly in healthcare.

Then our goal is by the end of this period, we'll have a showcase day where our goal is to highlight all the different things that have come out of those interactions between the companies and our folks. And so showcasing the technologies, showcasing the opportunities to apply those technologies in follow-up co-development partnerships, as well as application of the technology to achieve like what they originally intended to do.

So it's like, it's a great opportunity if the company comes up with AI that's going to come up with the new drug molecule that addresses unmet needs within specific rare cancer type, like we would love to use the opportunity to highlight that innovation to not only our internal community, but also broader community of external stakeholders, including investors to really help the companies along, promote their visibility within this ecosystem and add fuel to the fire as far as moving their innovations forward.

Fred Schonenberg
I love it. I have a question for you and it's a little off script. So feel free to tell me to go back on script, which is, so at the end, right, they've developed something meaningful.They've been able to benefit from the access to the data that you've provided. And then there's this sort of demo day and there might be investors there. There might be other people in the ecosystem, other clinicians potentially, right, or other academic research groups. Do you ever fight internally with the like, hey, we're adding a lot of value here. Shouldn't we be taking investment or like, should we be locking down IP or exclusivity? Like, how do you all think about that? That part of like what's in it for me from the big corporate lens?

Rick Peng
Yeah, so it's definitely something that's important for us. One, we are generally very committed to promoting innovation that ultimately benefits patients in the end, but also like, you know, where we make a contribution of value, especially one that we've poured a lot of effort, resources and investment into.

We also expect some sort of alignment around the commercial future around that. Through the innovation hub program broadly, our goal is to build collaborations and partnerships that align around, that have aligned incentives as far as the commercial upside. And typically in working with companies, we find ways to say, if we co-develop a new product, find ways to potentially share in the future revenue around that product.

In some cases in the company, with the companies that we work with, where our contributions support the company more generally, we might take a very modest equity stake in the company as well. Ultimately, we do things that, you know, make sense for the company, make sense for us, and are commensurate with our inputs. But we also recognize that the work that we do can be very non-trivial as far as the value it adds to the companies.

And this is certainly like a model that's pretty well, pretty broadly adopted across this ecosystem of innovation programs at healthcare providers and research institutions. So, yeah, I think ultimately, we're looking for opportunities to partner with companies, not only in terms of advancing their products and technologies, but also around the commercialization piece, finding ways to align incentives around the long-term upside. 

Fred Schonenberg
I love that. So let me ask you this, this is the crystal ball question, right? So how do you see digital health and AI transforming cancer research over the next, let's call it five years? Do you have a vision for what the AI Hub challenge and MSK Innovation Hub overall could be slash what you hope it to be?

Rick Peng
Yeah, so I think a big part of it is, you know, right now, AI is definitely like a super exciting space to be in. I think a big part of it is a proliferation of different technologies and solutions. I think the key will be marrying those solutions to the problems that they seek to address. And oftentimes they are developed with the problem in mind at the outset, but the thing is, the problems are dynamic, they may change over time as the environment changes. 

And so with the iHub program in general, we are seeking to connect solution developers to opportunity areas and an opportunity to test those solutions against the problems that they seek to address. I think more specifically for AI, we're looking to not only help companies build their AI using say our data assets, but also apply the AI and actually show that, hey, like the AI does what I guess I could start with like figuring out what we want it to do. And then actually demonstrating it does what we wanted to do and then at the tail end of it, like really demonstrating, hey, it's actually creating, apart from doing what we want it to do, it's actually creating meaningful economic value for the stakeholders who are involved so that we can build and sustain, you know, businesses and commercial endeavors around these.

Fred Schonenberg
I love it. So Rick, first off, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time today and everything you're doing to spark change in the world. It's really a cool program. And I have to say, we've done this for a long time. We've interviewed lots of people that do it in different ways. I think the approach you all are taking probably adds the most value. I really like how you've structured it. It's really impressive. And so congratulations. Where can people go to learn more about the MSK Innovation Hub, the challenge, everything you all are working on?

Rick Peng
Yeah, so I think a great landing page to go to is just, we do have a webpage as part of mskcc.org website. So if you go there, you'll find a page with all the information about MSK Innovation Hub, MSK Innovation Hub challenge, including for the challenge, like, you know, information about our cohort program this year, as well as a link to apply. The applications are gonna be open for a few more weeks. I think we're closing them later this month. And so definitely if you're a startup and you're listening, or if you know startups who may wanna apply, like, go there now and drop in an application. We review them on a rolling basis as we receive them. 

Yeah, I think the webpage is also a great place to learn about some of the past collaborations we've had with other companies. And so that's a great place to just get a gist of how we work with companies in general. But otherwise, you know, feel free to always reach out to me over email, LinkedIn. Happy to chat and hear about, you know, if you're a startup, what you're building, what you're building next, how we might be able to work together to move that forward. 

Or if, you know, you're just someone associated with a venture fund or a pharma company's innovation team, you also love to chat to kind of share notes on what are areas of similar interests, where can we share deal flow, that sort of thing. So, yeah, always feel free to reach out to me directly as well. Always open for a chat.

Fred Schonenberg
Awesome, well, I'd love it. And someone on my team shared that we've looked at 3,000 AI companies in the past two years, startups. So we'll send a note out or any of them that are listening, but we'll also send a note out to them to check this out because it's really powerful what y'all are building. So thank you for everything. I really appreciate your time, Rick.

Rick Peng
Great, thank you for having me on, Fred. Appreciate the opportunity.