EP 254: Triangulating genetic evidence and dodging bias to pick winning drug targets with Brent Richards of 5 Prime Sciences

This week on The Genetics Podcast, Patrick is joined by Dr. Brent Richards, CEO and Founder of 5 Prime Sciences and Professor of Human Genetics, Epidemiology, and Medicine at McGill University. They discuss how to triangulate different types of genetic evidence to validate a drug target, why herd psychology often drives which targets get funded, why strong genetic support didn't save the Zeus IL-6 trial, and how collider bias can distort genetically stratified clinical trials.Show Notes0:00 Intro to The Genetics Podcast00:59 Welcome to Brent01:43 How company size shapes access to genetic drug discovery tools04:10 Brent's framework for triangulating different types of genetic evidence06:50 The herd psychology behind which drug targets get funded10:01 Potential reasons the Zeus IL-6 trial failed despite strong genetic evidence12:49 What a gold standard genetic evidence package actually looks like 17:13 Closing the data gap with diverse genomes and systematic pipelines19:03 The diabetes patient story that drove Brent into drug development and balancing academia with industry25:39 Why obesity went from a drug development graveyard to its biggest frontier29:13 How collider bias can distort genetic risk trial results38:20 Where to go deeper on advanced genetic drug discovery concepts40:11 Closing remarksFind out more:5PrimeSciences’ symposium on human genetics at ASHG2026 in October