Portal Biotechnologies Founder and CEO Armon Sharei, Ph.D. and team announce the launch of Boba & Biotech, a new podcast offering an unfiltered look at what it really takes to bring new drugs and cell therapies to patients. The video and audio series will feature conversations with scientists, founders, pharma leaders, investors, and clinicians shaping the future of human health.
Hosted by Armon, a biotech founder who has raised more than $400 million, led oncology clinical trials, taken a company public, and been fired by his own board, Boba & Biotech blends hard science with hard-won lessons about leadership, failure, funding, and the realities of clinical development. Each episode pairs deep technical insight with candid storytelling, all over boba tea – infusing a little sugary fun into these sometimes intense, bold conversations.
“When I was a newcomer in biotech, it was so hard to decipher how our world actually worked, and after a while you realize this ecosystem is often misunderstood even by the people living it everyday. My goal with the show is to help spotlight the real people and challenges behind drug development without the misleading, sugarcoated narratives.”
Armon Sharei
The podcast also traces Sharei’s unconventional path, from MIT Ph.D. student inspired by engineering immune cells, to founding SQZ Biotechnologies, raising hundreds of millions of dollars, partnering with Roche in a $1B+ collaboration, leading three oncology clinical trials, going public on the NYSE… and ultimately being ousted, and starting again with Portal Bio – a company with now over 100 customers and a large DARPA contract.
Portal’s mission is to develop a universal cell-engineering platform that enables many advances ranging from novel drug screening assays to portable cell therapy generation and creating rich data sets for training AI models.
Boba & Biotech is a video series and audio podcast, publishing bi-weekly. It’s available on all podcast platforms and on YouTube.
About Armon Sharei, Ph.D.
Armon Sharei is the Founder and CEO of Portal Biotechnologies. He previously founded and served as CEO of SQZ Biotechnologies (NYSE: SQZ), where he raised over $400 million, advanced three oncology clinical trials, established a $1B+ collaboration with Roche, and led the company’s IPO. A Stanford and MIT graduate and former Harvard Medical School postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Sharei holds more than 30 patents and is widely recognized for his scientific and entrepreneurial leadership.
About Portal Biotechnologies
Portal is building the universal infrastructure for cell engineering across drug discovery and cell therapy. Its proprietary mechanical platform enables efficient, scalable delivery of RNA, gene editors, probes, and other molecules into hard-to-transfect cells across a wide range of cell types and workflows. With more than 100 customer sites, including the top 10 pharmaceutical companies, researchers use Portal to run high-throughput, physiologically relevant screens and de-risk targets earlier in discovery, while cell therapy developers use the platform to multi-engineer cells beyond the limits of viral and electroporation methods. Integrated with leading automation and GMP manufacturing systems, Portal is powering next-generation discovery and laying the groundwork for future point-of-care cell therapy manufacturing.
For Press Inquiries
Contact Arielle Nissenblatt – arielle@pinwheelpods.com
