🧬 From Games to Cancer Research: Why Drug Discovery Is an Economics Problem | Javier Tordable (3/4)
July 27, 2026
In this part of the podcast, Jon and Javier explore Javier's years as technical director in Google's Office of the CTO, where he worked with the world's biggest gaming companies—Nintendo, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Unity—helping them leverage Google Cloud technology. Javier then shares the deeply personal story of how his father's passing from cancer became the turning point that pulled him into life sciences, and how he taught himself biochemistry and pharmacology through Harvard Medical School's HMX program.
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"Pessimists are often right, but optimists are often wealthy."
In this part of the podcast, Jon and Javier explore Javier's years as technical director in Google's Office of the CTO, where he worked with the world's biggest gaming companies—Nintendo, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Unity—helping them leverage Google Cloud technology. Javier then shares the deeply personal story of how his father's passing from cancer became the turning point that pulled him into life sciences, and how he taught himself biochemistry and pharmacology through Harvard Medical School's HMX program.
The conversation takes a sharp turn into the economics of drug discovery and healthcare. Javier argues that the biggest failures in biotech are not scientific but economic—nobody wants to pay $10,000 for an antibiotic, so companies stop researching them. Jon and Javier unpack the misaligned incentives, administrative bloat, and rising costs that plague the US healthcare system, and debate whether AI can help solve problems that are fundamentally about money, not science.
Key Topics Covered:
- Working With Gaming Companies: How Javier partnered with Nintendo, Ubisoft, EA, and Unity as technical director in Google's CTO office.
- From Gaming to Life Sciences: How the death of Javier's father from cancer became the turning point that redirected his career.
- Self-Taught Biochemistry: Learning biochem, pharmacology, and physiology through Harvard Medical School's HMX courses while working at Google.
- Life Sciences Gatekeeping: Why the field is uniquely unwelcoming to outsiders—and why Jon compares academic science to fiefdoms.
- Drug Discovery Is an Economics Problem: Why the biggest barriers to new cures are funding, incentives, and economics—not science.
- Antibiotics and the Profit Problem: Why no company will develop novel antibiotics because nobody will pay $10,000 for one.
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Find our guest, Javier Tordable at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtordable
Website: https://www.pauling.ai/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/
Learn more about Excedr:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/
Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:
Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:
Best practices for using Spanner as a gaming database: https://docs.cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/best-practices-gaming-database
Biochemistry Fundamentals: https://learn.hms.harvard.edu/programs/biochemistry-fundamentals
Computational Platform for Molecular Discovery & Design - Schrödinger: https://www.schrodinger.com/platform/
Why 90% of clinical drug development fails and how to improve it? - PMC: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9293739/
How Does Health Spending in the U.S. Compare to Other Countries? | KFF: https://www.kff.org/health-costs/health-spending-in-the-u-s-as-compared-to-other-countries-slideshow/
Current economic and regulatory challenges: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44259-025-00123-1
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:
Google: https://www.google.com
Nintendo: https://www.nintendo.com
Ubisoft: https://www.ubisoft.com
Electronic Arts: https://www.ea.com
Unity: https://unity.com
Harvard Medical School: https://hms.harvard.edu
Schrödinger: https://www.schrodinger.com
MEDITECH: https://www.meditech.com
Marc Andreessen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:08 Working With Gaming Companies at Google Cloud
05:17 Pivoting to Life Sciences After Father's Passing
07:30 Self-Studying Biochemistry & Pharmacology
08:42 Life Sciences Not Welcoming to Outsiders
09:37 Jon's Experience With Academic Fiefdoms
10:47 Drug Discovery's Biggest Failures Are Economic
15:12 The Broken Economics of US Healthcare
16:27 Antibiotics & the Profit Problem
18:14 Can AI Solve Healthcare's Economics?
19:30 Systems You Can't Vote Your Way Out Of
20:38 Pessimists vs. Optimists
21:27 Outro
The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.