Podcast: Patients, Not Profits, Should Drive Drug Discovery | Vibe Bio, Alok Tayi

Alok Tayi joins Santiago Santos to discuss how Vibe Bio is leveraging crypto to fund research and development for rare diseases

article-image
share

In this episode of Empire, Santi is joined by Alok Tayi, scientist and founder of Vibe Bio. Alok started Vibe Bio because the biggest obstacle in treating patients with overlooked diseases isn’t finding potential treatments — it’s funding them.

Vibe Bio is leveraging crypto’s economic and coordination tools to fund the research and development that the legacy biotech industry ignores. Don’t miss this fascinating conversation!

We discuss:

  • Vibe Bio’s origin story and how it works
  • Big pharma’s dilemma
  • Why these diseases don’t receive funding today
  • Project prioritization
  • Crypto’s unique advantages
  • The $VIBE token
  • How to grow and leverage Vibe’s community
  • Diseases don’t care about interest rates
  • Biggest challenges

Check out what they had to say in the video below.👇

About the show

“Empire” is a twice-a-week show where we share the real crypto stories that aren’t heard elsewhere. On Mondays, Jason Yanowitz and Santiago Santos interview crypto industry movers and shakers to talk about their struggles, bold moves and tough decisions. Finish off the week with Friday’s weekly roundup episode that covers the top news and narratives of the week.

For any NPR or Guy Raz fans out there, you can think of “Empire” as a “How I Built This” for Web3.

Subscribe to “Empire” today on Apple or Spotify. Watch episodes on YouTube.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research

article-image

Trump says he’s “flexible” on electronic tariffs, and that more developments are “coming up”

article-image

Abstract app Bigcoin has polarized Crypto Twitter with its mining simulator

article-image

ColliderVM promises validity-based computation on Bitcoin—no soft fork required

article-image

The fate of Coinbase has been intertwined with Bitcoin long before the company went public in 2021

article-image

Forward Guidance’s Felix Jauvin noted that he’s bullish on both crypto and bitcoin on a “mean reversion basis”

article-image

This is the largest equity investment that Framework Ventures has ever made,” Framework’s Michael Anderson exclusively told Blockworks