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Derek Small

Derek Small

Co-founder and CEO of Syndeio Biosciences; founding managing director of Luson Bioventures, a venture creation firm focused on biotech and CNS drug development.

Jul 15, 2026

9:37
Well,
9:38
sure.
9:38
Yeah.
9:39
And we so just to transition a little bit from those neuroscience companies and Norex, which was acquired, and then we took a company public, which was a really an Indiana company that we started called Assembly Biosciences, science founder here in Indianapolis or Indiana University named Adam Zlotnick.
9:57
And Adam is now still doing now the serial entrepreneur thing, too, has multiple new companies.
10:02
And we had such a great time.
10:03
It was a really fun time to be starting a biotech company.

12 MINS LATER

22:35
What are some of those hallmarks or signs where you know, hey, it's time for me to step away, maybe bring someone else in and take the company forward? What are those signals for you?
10:36
Um, why, why has CNS been such a consistent focus for you despite how challenging the space has been?
10:44
Yeah, well, f- so I didn't know how ...
10:46
You know, it was all challenging to me.
10:47
So it, it, it, it's one of those, you know, where I just didn't know what I was necessarily getting into.
10:53
Um, in 2007, I met a scientist up at Northwestern, his name's Joe Moskal.
10:59
And Joe, um, had discovered this idea of using a s- very small peptide for modifying, um, really complex, you know, neural activities, and the peptide itself y- didn't make a ton of sense as I look back at it.
11:17
It was a five-minute pept- tetra, uh, five-minute plasma half-life tetrapeptide that's IV only, and we were gonna take it into the, the chronic depression.

7 MINS LATER

18:39
When, when you're looking ahead, what emerging trends or breakthroughs do you see redefining CNS?

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