Eli Casdin
Founder and CIO, Casdin Capital · 1 appearance on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
investorfounderanalystcasdincapital.com ↗
Eli Casdin founded Casdin Capital in 2011, managing a life sciences fund across private and public markets. He previously served as a vice president at AllianceBernstein, where he co-authored the research report The Dawn of Molecular Medicine.
21statements → 9claims → 3claims resolved → 33%fully supported → 3.81/5average certainty → 2.14/5average debate potential →
1 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 5 not checkable as stated how the 9 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
4 predictions · 5 assertions · 2 opinions · 6 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 9 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Eli argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Casdin: Human genome sequencing cost dropped from $3B in 2003 to $500
“The human genome was finished in oh three, cost the government about three billion dollars, and took about 13 years to do.
If you had started in that day, it would have taken you three, four, five years, and cost you 300 plus million.
It was done in a room f…”
Everything Eli Casdin said on Capital Allocators that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Casdin: Biotechs no longer need big pharma to commercialize drugs
“Investors like me are saying, don't sell yourself. Don't partner. You don't need them. I'll give you the money. Go at it alone. Build out commercial. Become your own standalone company, and many, many more are going that path, and I think that they don't need …”
Casdin: Scaling check sizes over time de-risks capital-intensive life sciences investing
“What typical venture investors try to get as much money in, in their first slug, and then they fight dilution on the way down. What we're doing is scaling up over time because these companies are burning a hundred to a hundred and fifty million dollars every 1…”
Casdin: High event catalysts are negatively correlated with investment returns
“What we learned was that high catalysts were negatively correlated with return. And low catalyst actually was positive quarterly.”
Casdin: Drug development success rates will rise and costs will fall
“Our industry over the next 10 years, and I can say that comfortably, drugs are going to be higher chance of approval, higher chance of efficacy. Probability of success is going to go up continually, and cost of that success is going to come down.”
Casdin: All institutional allocators will have 5-10% life sciences exposure by 2031
“If I go to that conference in 10 years, everyone's gonna have exposure, and it's gonna be five to 10%.”
Casdin: Life sciences can compound at a 20% CAGR over next decade
“And I still think very confidently that you can compound at a 20% Tager over the next decade while buckle up because it's going to be very volatile and it's not going to happen in a straight line.”
Casdin: In major technology waves, ideas aren't wrong, just mistimed
“One of the big insights that I've had over the years is there is, for big technology waves, there's no wrong idea.
There's just timing.”
Casdin: Cell therapy will touch almost every family within a decade
“In a decade you will be much closer to all of us experiencing, whether personally or through our extended families, someone that's undergone cell therapy, whether it's to fight cancer or to replace some organ under dysfunction.”
Casdin: 70% of innovative drugs originate from small biotech startups
“Today about 70% of innovative drugs are coming out of small biotechs. They're still largely being commercialized by pharma through either acquisition or through a partnership”
Casdin: Big pharma spent 20 years jettisoning internal R&D
“And so I think pharma in the last 20 years had jettisoned their R&D efforts to focus on distribution of brand.”
Casdin: Picks and shovels offer steady returns, but applications yield big impact
“The picks and shovels generate the steady sort of tractable returns, but the big impacts come from the applications of technology.”
Casdin: Human genome sequencing cost dropped from $3B in 2003 to $500
“The human genome was finished in oh three, cost the government about three billion dollars, and took about 13 years to do.
If you had started in that day, it would have taken you three, four, five years, and cost you 300 plus million.
It was done in a room f…”
Casdin: Moderna created the COVID-19 mRNA prototype in two days
“In 2003, when the SARS outbreak broke, took us seven months to read the genome of the SARS.
And you have to read the genome to create an effective vaccine.
When COVID broke, it took us two days.
That information was digitally sent to Moderna, and it took th…”
Casdin: Public-Only Investors Miss Half of Sector Innovation
“If you're only investing in public companies and not talking to private companies, you're only hearing half the story. If you're talking to them, but not investing in them, they're only telling you half the story. And on occasion, the tip of the spear innovati…”
Casdin: Biotech companies go public faster than tech due to capital needs
“There is a IPO, time to public market, that has been far shorter than what the tech industry has experienced, Because unlike the tech industry, these companies' product development cycles are seven to 10 years, and they need capital, and so the public markets …”
Casdin: 90% of life science stock volatility is macro-driven
“When volatility hits in the public markets, I would say in my experience over the last decade in this fund, nine out of 10 times, it has been because of something unrelated to our industry.”
Casdin: Investment firms often fail on business operations, not investing
“Often they fail not on the investment side, but they fail on the business side. There is the business of investing, and then there's investing.”
Casdin: Casdin Capital manages $3.5B across public and private markets
“Today we manage three and a half billion or so in capital across public and privates. We've invested in over a hundred private companies.”
Casdin Capital invested in Paige AI to digitize eight million cancer slides
“We're invested in a company called Page AI that is digitizing all eight million pathology slides, little bits of tissue out of cancer patients.”
Casdin: Casdin Capital's therapeutics allocation will drop from 55% to 30%
“We're about 55% therapeutics. I bet we're 30% therapeutics.”
Casdin: Overweighting M&A potential in valuation models drove excessive position sizing
“The biggest investment mistake I've made in this firm, this fund, which, because I've made a lot, my wife can tell you about those, is that I calculated the potential of M&A into my valuation model and overly weighted it. For a particular outcome, and it drove…”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Eli Casdin – Casdin Capital (Manager Meetings, EP.02) | Jul 15, 2021 | 56m |