#868: Tim’s Founder Kitchen — From Brainstorm to The President’s Office in Two Months (Featuring Jake Becraft, Strand Therapeutics)

Rna Can Be Engineered to Instruct Cells to Produce Therapeutic Proteins, Offering a New Approach To Treating Disease At Its Molecular Root

Jacob Becraft explains that inside each cell, DNA produces RNA, which in turn makes proteins—the fundamental building blocks of life, encompassing skin, hair, organs, and every aspect of cellular structure. Most diseases, from rare enzyme deficiencies to conditions like cystic fibrosis, stem from problems with specific proteins being made incorrectly. While science has long understood which proteins need correction and often where in the body these changes are necessary, the formidable challenge has been safely delivering instructions for the right proteins to the right locations in the body.

Strand’s approach uses engineered RNA as a precise message, delivered into diseased tissue to program the production of the correct proteins or initiate specific immune responses. This effectively resets cellular function and corrects molecular-level disease mechanisms. For example, in cancer, rather than just blocking tumors' abilities to escape the immune system, Strand reprograms cancer cells to send their own "danger" signals, mimicking a natural immune response and directing the immune system to attack malignancies. Unlike previous attempts, which injected artificial distress signals that dissipated or caused widespread toxicities, Strand’s method delivers the genetic script directly into the tumor, ensuring specificity and efficacy.

Notably, this marks a departure from traditional drugs whose activity often originates outside of affected tissue. Instead, Strand’s platform enables the therapeutic signal to arise from within the disease site itself, reproducing how natural processes would respond in healthy circumstances.

Therapeutic Platforms Need Shared Infrastructure for Quick Medicine Development by Component Swapping

Therapeutic platforms—modular technologies allowing rapid adaption for new targets—are necessary for scalable, fast medicine development. Moderna’s mRNA technology is a prime example: while its COVID vaccine was famously built in just 62 days from the sequencing of the virus, this was made possible by years of prior investment into a platform capable of swapping target sequences as needed. This "plug-and-play" model allowed Moderna to quickly insert the COVID sequence into their existing vaccine technology when the pandemic hit.

Tim Ferriss and Jacob Becraft liken this to SpaceX’s reusable rockets: the upfront investment and engineering in a reliable platform removes the need to start over with each new payload. Once platforms like Falcon rockets or mRNA manufacturing pipelines are mature, launching new missions (or new drugs) becomes exponentially faster and less expensive.

Strand is developing similar platforms for distinct therapeutic delivery challenges. They are building and validating delivery systems specifically optimized for tumors, T cells, and, in the future, kidneys, brain, and other organs. Becraft emphasizes that each tissue or cell type requires a different "rocket" or delivery solution; not all platforms are interchangeable, as earlier companies like Moderna initially hoped. For each platform, Strand uses a blend of technologies—AI, advanced manufacturing, and deep biological know-how—forming a self-reinforcing flywheel for rapid platform and medicine development. As with spaceflight, building and perfecting initial products provides the springboard for broader, more advanced applications.

Abscopal Effect: Injecting a Therapeutic Into one Tumor Activates the Immune System to Attack Distant Metastases, Offering a Breakthrough for Visceral Organ Involvement

The abscopal effect—where treating one tumor triggers the immune system to attack others elsewhere in the body—has been an immunology curiosity, but, until now, seldom translated into reliable clinical outcomes for internal organ tumors. Jacob Becraft details how their programmable RNA medicine, when injected into a skin tumor, leads to activation of immune responses that cause distant tumors, including those in deep visceral organs such as the lungs, to regress. Clinical data shows that in their early patient trials, injecting a single site led to systemic, whole-body immune activation, representing a reproducible abscopal effect in deep organ metastases.

What differentiates Strand’s approach from previous attempts is both the consistency of the response and its applicability across a wide variety of patients—not just one-off “miracle” cases. Early trial outcomes are notable for sustained benefits: among the first three enrol ...

Jacob Becraft advocates for significant FDA regulatory reform to accelerate clinical trial processes in the United States, arguing that the current system imposes excessive costs, delays innovation, limits patient access, and duplicates already robust safety protocols performed by hospitals.

Fda Oversight Costs Incentivize Incremental Over Breakthrough Innovation

The current FDA oversight model creates massive barriers to entry for novel clinical trials, favoring incremental innovation over breakthroughs due to the immense costs and complexity involved.

Ind Application Requires 22,000 Pages, Specialized Writers, Preclinical Studies, Analytics Validation; Costs $25 Million, Takes 18 Months

Becraft points out that bringing a novel medicine from concept to clinical testing now requires extensive regulatory paperwork. For a first-in-human (phase one) trial, the Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA commonly stretches to 22,000 pages. Its assembly demands teams of specialized writers, rigorous preclinical studies, and analytics validation, driving up expenses. Becraft’s team, for instance, spent $25 million and 18 months just preparing a single IND submission. This “antiquated and vestigial” process drains resources and time, limiting the number of medicines that can be tested and developed.

Top-tier Centers Attract Trials, Isolating Most Hospitals and Depriving Non-metropolitan Patients of Experimental Medicines Access

Because of sky-high IND costs, biotech boards and investors expect trials to be run only at prestigious, high-throughput institutions such as MD Anderson and Sloan Kettering, ensuring return on the substantial regulatory investment. As a result, most hospitals—especially those outside major metropolitan areas—are isolated from participating in early-stage clinical research. This system exacerbates disparities by depriving many Americans of access to experimental medicines unless they can travel to faraway elite centers, an often impossible option for critically ill patients.

Fda Pre-approval Before Hospital Safety Review Is Redundant With Institutional Board Assessments

After submitting to, and gaining approval from, the FDA, companies must still secure permission from Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) at each hospital running the trial. This FDA pre-approval step is thus redundant, as hospitals are already equipped with robust, professional IRBs responsible for patient safety and ethical oversight, further adding costly and unnecessary bureaucracy.

Ctn in Australia: Companies Notify Regulators, Hospital Boards Ensure Safety

Becraft proposes adopting a model similar to Australia’s Clinical Trial Notification (CTN) system, where sponsors notify regulators, but primary safety oversight resides with hospital boards.

Decentralizing Safety Oversight to Review Boards Nationwide Would Enable More Hospitals to Join Clinical Trial Infrastructure and Attract Biotech Investment

In Australia, companies simply notify authorities of trial intent. Certified IRBs—often centralized and managing multiple hospitals—review safety and patient suitability. By decentralizing oversight and certifying US IRBs nationwide, more hospitals could host trials. This would spread infrastructure investment, increase biotech engagement, and dramatically expand patient access to cutting-edge therapies.

Removing Fda Gatekeeping For Early Trials While Keeping Post-Market Approval Preserves Safety Standards and Accelerates Testing

Becraft urges the FDA to abandon direct permission-based oversight for first-in-human trials, shifting primary responsibility to hospital IRBs. For certain high-risk categories, FDA review could remain a requirement. The FDA would still retain its core post-market role: rigorous analysis of efficacy and safety data for ultimate approval. This approach preserves safety, speeds patient access, and empowers IRBs already invested in protecting lives.

Reform to Free Fda to Focus On Efficacy and Safety Data For Approvals, Not Administrative Burdens Duplicating Institutional Review Boards

Such reforms would relieve the FDA of duplicative, administrative preclinical burdens, allowing it to channel resources toward evaluating the clinical data that truly matter for public health—efficacy and safety. The FDA could thus become a more effective, globally competitive regulator ...

The global landscape for biotechnology innovation is shifting rapidly, with the United States facing intense competition from China and other regions in clinical trials, capital flows, and talent. As other countries implement streamlined regulatory systems and attract significant venture capital, the U.S. risks ceding its role as the epicenter of biotech innovation due to high clinical development costs and regulatory sluggishness.

China's Streamlined Clinical Trials Outpace U.S. In Speed and Cost

China has created an industrialized and highly efficient infrastructure for first-in-human clinical trials. According to Jacob Becraft, this provides speed and cost advantages that have transformed China from a destination for American companies to run clinical trials for FDA data, into a powerful ecosystem where Chinese companies now independently conduct rapid trials and then bring their domestically developed drugs to the U.S. market. The backbone of this acceleration includes centralized Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), streamlined regulations, and integrated manufacturing, all of which allow trials to proceed faster and more cheaply than in the U.S.

Chinese biotech firms increasingly leverage venture capital flows to outpace American companies, developing medicines quickly and efficiently for their domestic market even before seeking U.S. FDA approval. This has led risk capital to favor Chinese over American drug development ventures, as capital is drawn to where efficiency is highest, regardless of national allegiance.

U.S. Cedes Global Innovation Role Due to High Clinical Development Costs

The high cost and complexity of American clinical development are driving biotech trials overseas, driven by economic logic even when the U.S. still retains some infrastructure and talent advantages. As Tim Ferriss remarks, he and other investors sometimes fund science in places like New Zealand because red tape is lighter and approvals are faster compared to the U.S. This global shift is not limited to China; regions like the UAE are now building fast-track regulatory and funding systems to attract biotech innovation by offering rapid approvals and substantial capital.

As a result, the U.S. risks a brain drain if restrictive regulations push scientists and entrepreneurs to alternative innovation hubs abroad. Many countries in Asia and the Middle East are proactively courting talent and capital with promises of better technology, quality of life, and a willingness to make early, aggressive bets on future health initiatives. Becraft warns that if the U.S. does not modernize, it may lose much of its drug development leadership to countries like China within a few years.

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Jacob Becraft describes fundamental structural misalignments between the current venture capital-driven biotech business model and the infrastructure needed to build generational, transformative companies.

Biotech Venture Capital Rewards Asset Exits Over Building Generational Enterprises, Misaligning With Breakthrough Innovation Incentives

Becraft observes that the traditional U.S. capital formation ecosystem for biotechnology is designed to incentivize incremental advances and single asset exits, not ambitious platforms or generational enterprise building. Most biotech companies operate like real estate developers: they start with an idea, take it through early validation (point A to point B), then sell the asset to a larger player. Point B is rarely true commercialization; it is simply a level of "de-risking" or early evidence. The mindset is akin to private equity or asset development, not entrepreneurial scalability.

Biotech Model Treats Drug Development Like Real Estate—Buy, Enhance, Sell—Not Building Platforms

Becraft compares the current biotech environment to the origins of the industry, highlighting how early trailblazers like Genentech and Genzyme built broad platforms that yielded multiple medicines and sustained enterprise value. Today, biotech mostly produces “assets” for pharmaceutical acquisition rather than platforms for generational innovation.

Incentive Flaw: Companies Prioritize De-risking Over Bold Transformative Challenges

Companies tend to minimize risk and optimize for short-term steps rather than fund long, expensive, and potentially groundbreaking research. The drive to produce short-cycle returns means that most ventures invest in projects that are guaranteed to be adopted in acquisition pipelines, rather than transformative undertakings that require patience and vision.

Pharma Acquisitions Drive Venture Capital to Fund Companies As Acquisition Targets

Becraft points out that public market investors frequently short biotech companies planning to commercialize drugs themselves, anticipating they will falter in unfamiliar tasks. Capital markets, by expecting and rewarding acquisition, orient the whole innovation industry toward pharma’s preferences instead of patients’ greatest needs. If the entire tech industry had to sell ideas to the big incumbents for validation, innovation would stall in a similar way.

Replicating the Capital Genius of Industrialists Like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Requires Attracting Patient Capital With Twenty-Year Horizons and Articulating a Coherent Vision For Investors

Becraft emphasizes that building a genuine platform for delivering curative medicines, rather than just another piece of biotech IP for exit, requires the kind of patient, long-horizon capital that fueled SpaceX and Amazon.

Elon Musk's Concentrated Wealth, Capital Attraction, and Storytelling Enable Spacex to Endure Failures While Maintaining Investor Confidence

He highlights Elon Musk's unique combination of concentrated wealth, willingness to repeatedly risk everything, and a powerful ability to tell stories that keep investors engaged. Musk repeatedly bet all of his capital on the long-term goal for SpaceX, enduring repeated failures and setbacks while maintaining support throughout a years-long journey. His storytelling was key to sustaining belief in the vision.

Jeff Bezos Used Public Markets and Shareholder Letters to Maintain Investor Discipline On Long-Term Infrastructure and Aws Development, Despite Disappointing Near-Term Profitability Metrics

Conversely, Becraft credits Jeff Bezos with maintaining investor discipline in public markets at Amazon through decades of low profitability, using transparent, visionary shareholder letters and runs of disciplined execution. The public market undervalued Amazon for years until the world recognized the power of products like AWS, making Amazon an “overnight success” twenty years in the making.

Transformational Capital Needs Leaders For "Post-Conviction, Pre-consensus" Insights Where Insiders See Breakthroughs Before Market Revaluation

Becraft refers to the essential period as “post-conviction, pre-consensus,” where the core insiders know something will work, but the broader market has not caught on. This is the window when the best transformative capital partners step in and support breakthrough innovation before widespread validation.

Strand Must Engage With Long-Term Investors and Sovereign Wealth Funds Supportive of Decade-Long Research Investments Without Requiring Immediate Returns

Becraft describes his own company’s goal as fundamentally improving how medicines are built, not simply generating incremental drugs or engineering a quick exit. That goal is “a long and expensive road” that demands a model different from status quo biotech.

Company's Mission: Build Infrastructure For Delivering Medicines To any Cell, Starting With Oncology but Not Limited To It

Strand aims to create infrastructure for precise medicine delivery to any cell in the body, focusing initially on oncology but with applicability to autoimmune, kidney, and neurological diseases. This platform-level ambition requires ongoing investment even after early successes.

Public Statements G ...

Cancer as a Chronic, Manageable Disease Validates Programmable Medicine

Tim Ferriss draws a parallel between cancer and diseases like HIV, imagining a future where cancer can be managed chronically rather than being an acute death sentence. Jacob Becraft expands on the current landscape of oncology, specifically melanoma, where immunotherapies like Merck’s Keytruda have revolutionized care. If patients respond to drugs like Keytruda or Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo, outcomes are greatly improved; however, non-responders quickly run out of effective options, cycling through various therapies with progressively fewer chances of survival due to the similar mechanisms of these immunotherapies. The challenge remains that, while checkpoint blockades have yielded impressive progress, they create diminishing returns for patients whose tumors evade treatment.

Strand’s approach to programmable medicine is validated by their first metastatic melanoma patient who, after having failed multiple standard-of-care and experimental therapies, experienced a complete remission and remains disease-free after eighteen months. Becraft highlights the profound personal impact as well as the broader ambitions for scaling such interventions to help many more patients. The platform approach Strand is building aims to generalize these successes, moving from single breakthrough cases to repeatable, population-level gains in patient outcomes.

Vision of Personalized Medicine Hinges On Solving Infrastructure Issues Of Cost-Effectively Producing and Delivering Custom Therapies At Point of Care

Realizing the vision of personalized medicine is less a scientific challenge in designing patient-specific proteins and more an infrastructural one: manufacturing personalized therapeutics economically and delivering them to patients at scale, especially within community clinics. Becraft emphasizes that the current economics, tied to mass-production models, are a major barrier. If costs remain prohibitively high, these advances will not be broadly accessible.

He draws a comparison to Spotify, noting that mass personalization only became possible and commercially viable with the right infrastructure—namely, the ubiquitous availability of smartphones and on-demand access. Personalized medicine has analogous requirements: local manufacturing capabilities, rapid clinical validation, and responsive regulatory and payment systems to accommodate smaller patient populations and greater therapeutic diversity.

Becraft asserts that successful infrastructure will allow the bespoke manufacture and deployment of tailored therapies, provided innovators can control costs and streamline systems. If expenses remain 10,000 times higher than mass-produced medicines, access will remain bottlenecked. Medical engineers, entrepreneurs, and regulators must collaboratively create a path where point-of-care customization and rapid rollout of new proteins are not only feasible but routine.

Transitioning From Accessible Tumors To Deep Visceral Organs and the Brain Requires More Sophisticated Platform Capabilities

Early development platforms have proven effective in melanoma, an accessible tumor, primarily via direct injection, which demonstrates the underlying principle of progr ...