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In this episode I talk to Jun Axup about accelerating biotechnology, how to transition people and technology from academia to startups, the intersection of silicon valley and biology, and biology research in general.

Jun is a partner at IndieBio - a startup accelerator specializing in quickly taking biotechnology from academic research to products. She has both started companies and did a PhD focused on using antibodies to fight cancer. This experience gives her a deep understanding of the constraints in both the world of academia and equity-funded startups and what it takes to jump the gap between the two.

Key takeaways:

• Biology is reaching a cusp where we can truly start to use it to do things outside the realm of traditional medicine and therapeutics. These new products fit more cleanly into the silicon valley startup ecosystem.
• The gap between research and products in people's hands is not just a technical gap, but a people one as well. Indiebio is built to address both - guiding both the research and the researchER out of the lab.
• While the capital overhead has come down, biology-based innovation still require different support systems than your standard computer-based innovations.

Links

Jun's Homepage

IndieBio

Flight from Science

Langer Lab Case Study (Paywalled)

No transcript this week - trying a different production flow. If you feel strongly, please let us know at [email protected].