Episode #64 – Dr. Peter Hanson

Do you work in the animal health industry or veterinary profession? Have you ever wondered how people began their careers and how they got to where they are today?

Hi everyone. I’m Stacy Pursell, the founder and CEO of The VET Recruiter, the leading executive search and recruiting firm for the animal health industry and veterinary profession. I was the first recruiter to specialize in the animal health industry and veterinary profession in the United States, and built the first search firm to serve this unique niche.

For the past 25 plus years I have built relationships with the industry’s top leaders and trailblazers. The People of Animal health Podcast highlights incredible individuals I have connected with throughout my career. You’ll be able to learn more about their lives, careers, and contributions. With our wide range of expert guests you’ll be sure to learn something new in every episode. Thanks for tuning in and enjoy the episode.

Welcome to The People of Animal Health Podcast. On today’s show, we are talking with Dr. Peter Hanson, someone I have known almost 20 years. We met back in 2007. Dr. Peter Hanson is a board certified veterinary surgeon and seasoned biotechnology executive, with more than 30 years of leadership across human and animal health. As co-founder of VectrixBio, Peter is driving innovation in canine cancer and osteoarthritis therapeutics. His career includes pivotal roles at companies like eGenesis, Centrexion Therapeutics, Abbott and Merial, where he led product development, regulatory strategy, and major fundraising initiatives. With deep expertise in R&D, operations, and executive leadership, Peter brings a unique perspective to veterinary medicine.

Welcome to the podcast Dr. Hanson.

Thanks so much, Stacy. It’s great to have a chance to sit down and chat with you.

Well, it was so fun to connect with you back in May, in Boston, after having not seen you for a few years. So very happy to have you on my show today. So Peter, let’s start off at the beginning. What was your life like growing up and where did you grow up?

So I’ve lived in a lot of different places over the years. Growing up, I started in Minnesota, but during the early years we moved around a lot. My father graduated from medical school, went to do an internship in San Francisco. He then entered the Coast Guard as a flight surgeon, and that took us to Governor’s Island off New York City for a period of time, Pensacola, Florida, and Mobile, Alabama. And when he left the Coast Guard, he entered a residency in Rochester, Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic. And when he wrapped up his residency, he stayed on staff there. So going up through my school years, Rochester was home.

Okay. And Peter, when and why did you decide to become a veterinarian?

Well, growing up in the shadow of the Mayo Clinic, medicine was always prominent in my life, and both my father and his father were physicians for their careers. So I always had an interest in that. But veterinary medicine didn’t really come into play until I was in high school. Obviously I’d gone to the local veterinary office with our pets for vaccines and spays and neuters, but I really didn’t know what veterinarians did until I started dating a girl who was big into horses, in high school. And so I started following and shadowing local veterinarians, some with her, some on my own, getting into trail riding, and getting a much broader understanding of what veterinarians do. And so as I graduated high school and began to start college, I was dual tracking pre-med and pre-vet and trying to figure out could I make a decision along the way what was going to be best for me?

And one of the elements that helped with that was probably my first or second year in undergraduate. I met with a man who was a general practitioner in community practice for human medicine, because I wanted to get a sense for what does a GP do versus a specialist at the Mayo Clinic. Because those are very different practice scenarios and types. And the interesting thing about this man was that he started his career as a veterinarian, but owing to allergies, had to give up veterinary medicine and went on to do an MD degree. And during the hour plus that we chatted, with an intent to talk about human medicine, he spent almost the entire time talking about how much he missed veterinary medicine.

So that sort of set the stage for me thinking through the challenges on the veterinary side with all the insurance, at the time HMOs were really coming to the forefront, and managing what MDs could do in terms of their practice. And so I just decided to focus more and more on veterinary medicine, and that’s the path that I took.

So interesting. You wouldn’t believe how over the years sometimes when we’re posting job ads for veterinarians, how we’ll get MDs apply for positions as veterinarians?

Yep, it is pretty common indeed. And there’s a few that go the other way. One of the veterinarians I shadowed during undergraduate was a large animal dairy practitioner. But he injured his back and it was getting more and more difficult for him to do large animal medicine, and so he went back to do medical school and specialized in theriogenology, or OBGYN I should say, having been a specialist in therio as a large animal practitioner.

Well, so interesting. So Peter, walk me through the early days of your career. How did you get started in the veterinary profession?

Yeah, when I left the University of Minnesota, I got a mixed practice job. About 70% equine and 30% small animal. And the small animal side, I would spend one day doing surgeries, mostly spays, neuters, declaws, things of that type. We had a more experienced veterinarian there who would do the fractures and other things. But surgery was always very interesting to me.

And on the equine side, as an ambulatory equine vet, I put 32,000 miles on the truck that first year. Tried to get into the on-site clinic surgeries as much as I can, but with staffing needs and the need to generate revenue for the practice, I spent most of my time on the road.

So as that year was progressing, I applied to surgical residencies and got matched to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And so went there to start a combined program with a master’s in large animal surgery. Through that process I was tracking to be an academic, really wanting to become a professor ultimately with a research program in clinics. And with encouragement from my mentor, I included a Ph.D. as part of that education. But as things go, you don’t always take the path you started on, and so I ended up eventually finding my way into animal health on the industry side.

Tell me about that. How did you make that transition? How did you first enter the animal health industry?

So after the residency I stayed on to complete the Ph.D. and that was looking at bone healing for large segmental defects of bones like the femur, and trying to improve the incorporation of that allograft bone to become living bone again, which it usually doesn’t for a large segmental defect. One of the professors that I had interacted with, not directly that much but a little bit while I was at Madison, had taken a role as the head of R&D for Merck’s Animal Health Division. And so he called up one day and said have I thought about entering big Pharma? And I had to tell him, frankly, no, I hadn’t thought so much about big Pharma, I’d thought about biotechs, because there was a biotech working very closely in the area of which my Ph.D. was focused on. But he said, “I’m going to be in town coming up in a couple of weeks, let’s have dinner.”

And so we had a discussion. He told me about animal health, all the different things you can do in an organization like Merck or the other companies. Whether that was in clinical development, basic research, discovery, regulatory, clinical operations, jobs that could be in the U.S., or potential to work outside the U.S., And it just sounded really, really interesting. And so I decided to take a step back and try to explore several different paths.

And so I had opportunity to interact with somebody who was working at a company called Genetics Institute, which is now actually part of Pfizer. That company had an opening working with a bone stimulant, BMP, which would’ve been an exact extension of my Ph.D. program. And they had an opening for a researcher to come in there. And then there was also a faculty position at the time at Tufts University in the large animal surgery program. And so I ended up interviewing at all three different jobs, and coming out of that decided that Merck offered the best opportunity of the time to explore a variety of different avenues of veterinary medicine. And if for some reason I found it didn’t fit what I wanted, if within five years I wanted to go back to clinical practice, I could certainly do that or I could move to another company. So I made the jump at that time into animal health.

Well, you’ve had a unique career spanning both human and animal health, and then this intersection between veterinary science and biotechnology. And then now at VetrixBio, you’re targeting cancer and osteoarthritis in dogs, to high impact areas. What’s different about your approach compared to traditional therapies?

So if you look at how things have advanced over the years in animal health, the majority of therapeutics we have are still based on small molecules, vaccines for preventive medicine, which have extreme importance, but the areas that have had a gap are with biologic approaches. And while there are some new therapeutics that have come into this space, such as the monoclonal antibodies, of which there are about five on the market now, if you compare that to human health where there are more than a hundred monoclonal antibody therapies out there for biologic approaches to address disease, there is such a large untapped area to be explored in the animal health phase. And so with VetrixBio, what we’re trying to do is find these biologic approaches that can be applied to our pet patients, in this case. And two of the areas that have high unmet needs still, or opportunity for continued involvement in terms of the therapeutics that are applied, include cancer and osteoarthritis.

So that’s what we’re trying to do. In the osteoarthritis space we’ve seen the benefits of drugs like Librela and Solensia with anti-NGF. We know there are other products coming in that space. But one of the areas that’s been lacking is any product that is truly disease modifying, and either stabilizes or reverses the disease of osteoarthritis. And so we’re looking to introduce elements that will do that in addition to managing the pain. Obviously the pain is extremely important to be addressed, but over time you also want to reduce the OA itself if possible.

And on the cancer side, again, there’ve been a number of therapies that have come into veterinary medicine to treat animal cancers, but a lot of them have still relied on chemotherapeutics that have relatively narrow safety profiles. Quality of life can be an issue while the pets are on those products. And when you look at what’s happened in human health over the last 10 to 15 years, biologic therapies have transformed the potential for extension of life and quality of life for human patients, and we feel we need to be able to do the same thing for animals. And so we’re starting off with a cytokine that’s involved in modulating the immune system to help the animal patient fight its own tumor as a first step, and then from there we hope to branch off into other areas that can take advantage of similar biologic approaches.

Well, Peter, given your leadership at companies like eGenesis and Centrexicon, what are some of the biggest operational or strategic lessons you’ve brought into your work at VetrixBio?

Well, one of the things I’ve picked up on from a variety of roles is that you always need to think several years ahead, while maintaining a focus on the priorities of today to get there. And the reason I say that is that the science is always going to change. The regulatory environment is going to change. Business needs will change. And the products we’re developing today, they won’t hit the market until 5, 6, 7 years from now. So we need to make sure that what we’re developing addresses those needs. At the same time, we have to be true to our core of the development plan or we’ll get sidetracked and not hit the milestones necessary to advance those products to become marketable. And so that’s why it’s a dual approach. You need to think ahead, but at the same time ensure that your team is focused on delivering the next step so that you can continue to advance going forward.

The other thing I would say is it is a little bit cliche, but it definitely truly takes a team to accomplish what we do when it comes to developing new therapeutics. It’s such a broad field of expertise required, that you need to have a team that you can trust, that works together and overcomes the challenges. Because every development program will have unexpected events occur that you have to address, whether it’s around the manufacturing, something in a clinical study, a change in the environment from the business perspective that you’re working towards, and the team that can adapt and address that will be the successful team. So you need to have a good team to work together.

Yeah, I think having the right team is the key to success. Well now you’ve helped raise more than $250 million across multiple biotech ventures, what advice would you give startup founders trying to navigate today’s biotech funding landscape?

Probably the most central piece of advice would be to maintain perseverance. Raising funds is challenging in any kind of environment that one happens to be in. Right now it’s particularly tough. I speak from personal experience there.

When I was at Centrexion Therapeutics, our CFO told me kind of a saying, that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. And that’s definitely true. You have to talk to many different organizations that potentially have interest in investing into biotech and animal health before you find the one or ones that fit with your mission and vision. And it’s a matter of getting that alignment. Because you want investors that believe in what you’re doing and that they’ll continue to support you as you go forward. At the same time, you have to keep true to your mission or vision for what you want to achieve as you talk to these investors. Because different ones will have different views. They may say you should go this direction or another, and some of that can be very valuable advice, but you also have to make sure that you’re continuing to stay focused on what your company needs to achieve.

Now, having said that, when you talk to investors, it is very important to adjust your presentations to the audience. If you have individuals there that have high understanding of science and medical needs, you can go deep into that with the presentation. If you have individuals who really don’t understand it, but they’re more of a big picture group, you need to start big picture and then let them ask questions to drill down deeper if they’re interested. And if you go down a rabbit hole into the molecular level of something and they don’t understand that, that’s not helping sell your story to them in a way that they can understand it. So think about your audience, but definitely stay true to it is what that you want to achieve.

Such good advice. And I love what you said about having to kiss a lot of frogs to get to the prince. That was exactly the advice that was shared to me by my former boss, and the person that brought me into the executive search business. And that’s so true. In the executive search world too, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to get to the prince when you’re looking for the right candidate and you’re building teams. So that’s why I love that.

Well, Peter, how does developing next-gen therapeutics for animals differ from doing so in human biotech, especially when it comes to regulation, market strategy or R&D timelines?

I think the biggest differences really come to the speed at which we’re able to get into our target patient or species. In human health, you work through in vitro or in silico approaches, and then perhaps into rodents, and then maybe into dogs or non-human primates, and then eventually you get to your human patient. But by then you’ve spent quite a bit of investment as well as time to get there. And sometimes what you’re studying doesn’t translate when you jump from species to species.

A great example is the field of oncology. Rodents are probably the prime animal model for initial screening for oncology, but it’s relatively easy to cure certain tumors in mice or rats, that when you move to a more relevant species like a dog or a human, it’s not successful. That’s where we have a benefit in animal health. We may do some preclinical studies in rodents, but very quickly in research animals we can be in the target species. And as soon as we have a safety profile that demonstrates we can have comfort in treating individual animals in the field, be it a pet or a farm animal, we can move to the field pretty quickly. And so by the time we get into those first in-field studies, we actually have a pretty good sense of the potential success that a product may have, and its safety profile, and its efficacy for treating the disease of interest. So that’s a real benefit.

We do see some similarities though that I think people often underestimate, and some of those come in the field of CMC or manufacturing. Much of the regulatory requirements for animal health are the same or very similar to human health. And so that CMC section of a registration package remains one of the longest timelines and one of the most expensive parts of development. So as we go through quickly, have to scale things up and move to GMP, or good manufacturing practice standards that are required by the regulatory agencies. That takes significant investment and time to go through that. And I think sometimes people forget that.

When you think about timelines for development, yes, animal health is shorter, probably 5 to 7 years moving from preclinical to approved and on the market, whereas human health might be 7 to 10 years, but it’s still a long road to go down. And so some human health companies, particularly early stage biotechs, don’t always understand that the opportunity for animal health, while it’s large, it doesn’t mean they’ll be on the market next year in dogs, to help support their human development, it still takes time, effort, and investment to get there. And that’s where we as veterinarians that are able to work in this translational science can help companies like that.

It takes some patience.

Yes.

Well, Peter, with so many roles that you play in R&D, manufacturing and executive operations, how do you prioritize innovation while keeping execution on track in fast-paced companies?

This goes back to what I said earlier about thinking several years ahead while making sure that current activities keep moving. And it’s also the importance of having a good team that’s involved in working with the development program. You have to have individuals in the company that are continuing to look ahead to new technologies that are coming, new processes that need to be implemented in the company to support the advancement of that company. Those could be related to the science, that could be related to finance controls as the company matures and is becoming larger. It could be introduction of quality assurance and approaches that come into play at the right time. And then also looking at the potential market. Having good market research is really important as you’re putting a program together.

But all of that can be a distraction. So you also need to have the core team focused on the development of each product and ensure that they’re able to continue to meet the needs of that program and advance it in a timely manner. And so I think that having the ability to both prioritize but also strategically look ahead, it’s a combined effort, but it’s extremely important to be successful.

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And now let’s get back into the episode.

Now you’ve emphasized the importance of disease modifying therapies in osteoarthritis. How close are we to making disease reversal, not just pain relief, as standard in veterinary care?

I think we’re on the cusp of starting to see new therapies that truly have disease modifying properties. I don’t know that we’re yet at the point of saying it will be the standard of veterinary care. To date in the area of OA the closest regenerative approaches we’ve had relate to stem cell therapies, and there’ve been some good indications of success coming with that. In the earlier days, a lot of the data was fairly anecdotal or small studies. There are some companies like Gallant and others now that are taking a more true clinical scientific approach with formal studies and going through FDA to look for approval. And I think their success will help cement the role that products like stem cells have in a range of different diseases, including OA as one of those.

The other area that is definitely starting to come now is the translation of potential biologic approaches that has advanced more rapidly in human health, but now is accessible to animal health. And so whether that’s application of gene therapies that can reverse and be restorative and disease modifying, it’s interference RNAs that can stop certain processes and genetic elements that are there, it’s antibodies that may address a process that breaks things down. Like with VetrixBio where we have the bispecific antibody, and one part of the bispecific is focused on an enzyme that degrades cartilage. So by blocking that enzyme, we can stop the breakdown of cartilage associated with OA.

I think a number of different companies are looking at approaches along these lines, and as they start to come to market over the next 4, 5, 6, 7 years, we’ll see that transition to more and more disease modifying as a real endpoint.

We had Dr. Linda Black with Gallant on an earlier episode of our podcast. So if you’re listening to this, audience, and you haven’t heard that episode, please look forward and tune into that one as well.

Now, Peter, you have consulted with early stage biotech firms through Spruce Biotech. What common gaps or missteps do you see these companies make when scaling from concept to clinic?

One of the areas that runs common, not only in animal health but also in human health, is a misalignment of the development program studies to support the targeted product profile for the end product. And so I had a chief medical officer when I was at Centrexion Therapeutics who liked to coin the phrase, “We need future hindsight.” So we need to start by thinking about, what do we want the product to do for our patient? And what claims do we want to be able to make with that product? And then design the development program and the clinical studies that support that development program to address those points as much as possible.

And of course, over time you’ll learn certain things that can be achieved and others that can’t. You may identify new areas that can be addressed, and so that product profile evolves. But if you don’t start with that end goal in mind, you end up creating really cool science, but then trying to create a product profile that fits what you develop and may not fit the needs of the patient and the pet parent, or farmer who is looking for a therapy that will address an unmet need for them. So really making sure those are aligned. And a lot of times companies don’t think from the end goal back to the beginning.

The other big gap that I’ve seen frequently is not starting that CMC manufacturing piece early enough. As I said, that’s one of the longer pieces involved. It oftentimes includes stability studies that might be two years in duration. And even to get to that, you may have process development and scale up that could take one, two or three years to get there. With biologic therapies, you have the cell banks that have to be established, or cell lines that produce the material. That takes time for validation. And so being ready to commit to those investments, because they’re sizable, early and establishing those processes, or you’ll find yourself with a clinical program ready to go into target animal efficacy or safety, but not having a product that meets the requirements to do those studies.

Well, as somebody who’s worked with CRISPR-based technologies at eGenesis, do you see similar cutting edge gene editing tools playing a role in veterinary medicine soon?

I do with a few caveats. What we were doing at eGenesis was editing pigs to become more biocompatible organ donors for people. And CRISPR was used in a couple of ways there. One was to knock out certain genes that produce proteins that are immunogenic to the human recipient. So these are carbohydrates that are produced by pigs that are highly immunoreactive in us as people, like alpha-gal or beta-gal. And then they were also using the gene editing and engineering to introduce new genes into the pig, in this case human trans genes, that would down-regulate the immune response to that organ upon transplantation.

Other areas that we’ve seen CRISPR applied are in gene therapy. And on the human side, that’s oftentimes still limited to rare diseases or even ultra-rare diseases that the therapies are quite expensive, can be up to a million dollars for a therapy. We won’t see that on the animal health side, but we will see the application of gene editing where the disease, or element that’s being treated, has broader application.

One of those that I think will be perhaps quickest to market is in the space of diagnostics. In my role as a venture partner over the last couple of years, I had opportunity to review several human companies that are working on patient side or point-of-care diagnostic testing, that uses CRISPR to identify certain bacteria that are causing diseases. These handheld devices are fairly inexpensive and they’re quick. They give an answer in 10, 15, 20 minutes, to whether or not that particular disease or range of diseases is present. And I think we’ll see those sorts of tests continuing to expand more into animal health, and they’re at a price point that can be tolerated and managed quite well.

So I’m excited to see the prospects for that sort of approach. But then gene editing for broader indications, that will come, as the price comes down and as we’re able to identify standardization across a range of animals using a similar approach.

Now, looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of animal health biotech, and what role do you hope VetrixBio will play in shaping that future?

As we were talking earlier, I think it really comes back to the spectrum of potential biologic therapies that still remains to be tapped into for animal health. These biologic therapies on the human side have demonstrated the ability to improve therapeutic outcomes, and at the same time improve quality of life for patients. And those both have to be addressed for it to be suitable for animal health. It’s not just enough to extend duration of life if the quality isn’t there. So I think as we have the ability to introduce more of these biologic approaches because the costs are now coming down to the point where we can manage it within the realm of an animal health perspective, that really opens the door for a vast opportunity going forward.

Peter, what has been the most surprising thing to you during your career in the animal health industry or veterinary profession?

I’d have to say that it’s how varied the options are for a veterinarian to be employed. When I started, I indicated I wanted to be an academic. Before that, I wanted to be a large animal veterinarian with a focus on equine. Then I ended up in industry, and in industry had a whole range of different roles from animal health to human health, from basic research and discovery to clinical development, to C-suite roles. And it’s just that opportunity to do so many different things, if you’re just willing to explore and give it a try.

How have you seen the profession change over the years you’ve been involved?

Well definitely see more and more specialization. The veterinary specialties have really taken off and found a role in how they can assist general practitioners. We’ve seen a large shift of that moving from just being centered at universities, to having major medical centers now with full range of services and specialties being present. With that we see the shift from small private practices to large corporate practices. I think we’re still understanding how all that’s going to come to be with private equity coming into play and what that means. It offers great opportunity, but it also changes things, and some of that changes for the better and some of it maybe needs to be adjusted as we go forward.

The other thing that you hear quite a bit about is, from the time I went to veterinary school, my veterinary class was the first class that had more than 50% females enrolled, and now I think that figure is greater than 80% for each class. And so we’ve definitely seen a shift in demographics as well. And again, I think it’s not good or bad, it’s just the way it is. And overall, the diversification of the field really has been for the better.

What does your crystal ball say about the future of the veterinary profession?

Well, if I could tell you exactly what that is, I would be set for life. I think it’s a profession that’s going to continually evolve and my crystal ball tells me we can’t yet predict where that’s necessarily going to go. Some things are fairly obvious, as I said, the introduction of more and more biologic therapies, the changes in veterinary practice, we have an idea of where that’s going, but the unexpected shifts that may come are hard to really get visibility to. And what’s important is that we are prepared to work with what we’re presented and ensure that it delivers what our animal patients require, what public health requires, because of the role that veterinary medicine plays in public health, and what we can do as veterinary researchers to support both veterinary and human therapies that need to come.

Well, every successful person has daily habits that help them to achieve success. I’m curious, Peter, what are some of the daily habits that you believe have helped you achieve success along the way?

Probably the areas that have helped me the most are things that help me take a step back and de-stress. What we do, whether it’s in practice or research or industry, can be quite stressful. And so taking time, which I haven’t always done that well, but taking time for yourself, or myself in this case, is really important.

What I’ve done the last few years is try to instill a routine where at least three or four days a week, I do some exercise in the morning right after getting up. I’ve gotten into rowing on an ERG in our family room for half an hour or so. And that little bit of a step away just to get into doing something physical, sets the tone for the rest of the day. And then just ensuring that at other opportunities you do take time to take a deep breath and then move on. With that having a strong support network is absolutely required for what we do. Whether it’s in the practice or research, there are many challenges, that we just need somebody we can talk to. And so whether that’s family, friends, professional therapists, whatever, having that support network is critical.

Who’s been the biggest supporter that you’ve had throughout your career?

I have to say that it’s my wife. She and I met in veterinary school. She understands what veterinarians do. She’s retired now, retired when her kids were younger and helped grow them. But that allowed me to do the things that I was doing, but at the same time she was able to understand those challenges and give me sometimes critical feedback, and other times strictly supportive and help me get through things.

That’s good. What’s been the biggest challenge that you’ve encountered up to this point throughout your career?

To be honest, I’d have to say right now it’s getting VetrixBio, as a startup, off the ground. Having been in human health biotech for about 10 years, and then doing some work as a venture partner, I felt that I had a really good grasp of what it takes to raise funding and get a program up and running. But it’s definitely been challenging. It’s a combination of factors. One is just the financial climate that we’re in today. The markets are not investing. Back 2021, ’22 companies were raising a lot of money. Those companies are starting to run out of that money and are getting desperate for further funding. With the way the economic markets are right now, investors are thinking very deeply about where they want to invest and limiting that. And so it’s been challenging.

We’ve spoken, my co-founder and I, with angel investors, high net worth investors, venture groups. We’ve looked at grants, we’ve looked at loans, a gamut of different approaches, and it’s truly been a challenge. And sometimes one has to question, “Okay, are we doing the right thing?” But then we step back, and we look at the products that we’ve got to develop and the potential benefit that they could bring to the animals we want to use them with, it reinvigorates us. And so we continue to push forward with efforts to be successful.

What advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

I’d have to say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” When I was younger, I was always planning every next step, looking ahead one, two years, going to do this to get there, and then the next step. Life doesn’t always come in a linear fashion. And so really learning to be flexible and adjust. Not losing sight of your goals, but not letting those deviations derail you or get you too stressed out.

That’s good advice. And then what message or principle do you wish you could teach everyone listening to our podcast today?

Over the years in particularly Big Pharma, but also in biotech, it’s important that the whole company realize not every task is a crisis that has to be done in five minutes. You just burn out if that’s the case. And I’ve been in organizations where if you don’t respond to an email rapidly, people wonder why and you get critical feedback. But there will be times you do have to address things. And so if you’re able to work through and realize we can prioritize truly on the necessity, and if it’s something that answering in a day or two days or next week, that’s what we do. If it requires immediate attention, we give it that, but not every task has to be done instantaneously.

That’s a good point. Now, some of our guests have said that they’ve had a key book that helped them throughout their life or through their career. Do you have a key book in your life that’s impacted you the most? I’d love to hear that story.

I wouldn’t say there’s been one key book I try to read on a regular basis. A lot of times it’s more for escape. During the pandemic, I got into Nordic Noir books and reading about Scandinavia and the crime dramas that take place there. But along the way, you read books that kind of trigger and resonate.

And one that I recently read, if you promise not to tell my dog, is, We’ll Prescribe You a Cat. And that is written by a woman named Syou Ishida in Japan. And it’s about this practice, if you will, that individuals are going for psychotherapy or emotional support, and the doctor prescribes a cat as the medication. And what it really makes you do is not only see the power of that human-animal bond, because as veterinarians, we all know how strong that is, many people that aren’t associated with pets maybe don’t have that perception, but it also just makes you take a step back and again assess what really matters in your life. Because as we go forward, we can get so focused on minutia or specific things, and sometimes we just need to take that step back. And in this case, the cats are helping be the catalyst to cause that step back and take a look at what an individual really needs.

Well, I love that, and I promise not to tell your dog that. But I have five kids. The youngest is 18, he just graduated from high school in May. In four weeks he’ll be going off to college, so my life is changing, I’ll be an empty nester here in about a month. I don’t have grandkids yet, but I do have a new grandcat, and my new grandcat’s name is Lovey. So I have all these pictures on my phone. In fact, every single day my daughter texts me a picture of Lovey. And so if you ever see me out at a conference, I’ll be very happy to show you some pictures on my phone of Lovey. She’s a Ragdoll and she’s the most beautiful cat. I’m the proud grandmom of Lovey now.

Well, Peter, you have got the mic. What is one thing you want to share with our listeners of The People of Animal Health Podcast today before you drop the mic?

I think what I would close with is just restating that this profession is so diverse and interesting, and at least for me it’s been about keeping an open mind for when opportunities present themselves. As I said earlier, I never would’ve been able to tell you 30 years ago that I would be a biotech executive working in human health, and then coming back to animal health. I thought I would be there a practicing veterinarian or in academia. And so as those opportunities present, it’s a matter of taking a step back and asking, “Does this make sense to try it?” And sometimes it’s outside your comfort zone and you just have to take that chance if it sounds interesting. So yeah, it’s a great field, lots of opportunity, and so many different approaches that we can apply what we’ve learned to help animals as well as people.

So take chances. Don’t be afraid to take a chance. That’s great advice. Well, Peter, I’ve been so happy to know you over the years. I’m so grateful that we reconnected in Boston in May, and got to get caught up with you on what you’re doing these days. And it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to have you today as my guest on The People of Animal Health Podcast. Thank you for being here today.

My pleasure. And congratulations on the grandcat.

Thank you.