Adial CEO Cary Claiborne on Treating Alcohol Addiction with Genetics

Hello, and welcome to the BioTech 2,050 podcast. BioTech 2,050 is a think tank chronicling the disruptions changing the biotech industry over the next several decades. Check out our website at biotech2050.com. My name is Alok Tahey. I'm the CEO and cofounder of VibeBio. We're an AI platform that helps support pharmaceutical companies with their strategic decisions. I'm really excited here today to be in San Francisco at JPM twenty twenty six interviewing Carrie Claiborne, the CEO of Adial Pharmaceuticals. We'll be having a really interesting discussion today about alcohol abuse disorder, neuropsych, some of their exciting drug development programs, and what the future holds for the industry. Kerry, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. You know, maybe to kick it off, we'd love it if you can give us a couple quick words on yourself, how you got to where you are today. Sure. It's interesting because I, you know, Adal is a relatively small biopharm company, but I started my career with big companies. I started with GE right out of school, spent fifteen years there Mhmm. Mainly in the finance organization. After GE, I spent time at Home Depot and MCI. And then about halfway through my career, I really started thinking about what kind of mark was I making. I was helping big companies do really well and make a lot of money, but if you thought back on what impact would you really leave, I didn't really feel that way. So I got into life sciences about twenty years ago, twenty two years now with a really small stem cell company called Osiris Therapeutics. They were looking for a CFO that could take them public. I took them public, and the work we were doing there, we were, like, working on a drug that had no treatment. You know, graft versus host disease. People were dying from this disease. Mhmm. And I looked back and said, wow. We're saving babies. And I said, that is so much more important than how many cans of paint Home Depot sold. And, you know, I never looked back after that. I said life sciences is it for me. You know, what an impact you can make. You know, I you know, after that, I spent some time at, you know, Sucampo Pharmaceuticals as their CFO. Mhmm. And then I joined a company called Indivior as their CFO, and they were the leader in addiction. That's what first brought me into the addiction area. And I lost a close family member to addiction. So addiction was near and dear to my heart as I learned about, wow, there are medical treatments out there that can actually help someone with that. And that's what ultimately brought me to ADAL first as a board member. And ADAL is focused on alcohol use disorder, and I ultimately took over as CEO about three years ago now. Yeah. Well, I think it's, you know, alcohol …