Ego, resilience, and the community that moves biotech forward

BLPN Series | Episode 1 of 4

As the industry moves into a new year and gears up for JPM Healthcare Conference week, this first episode of the BLPN Series sets the tone for what actually matters when building gets hard.

In this conversation, Deborah and Karim are joined by Christiaan Engstrom, founder and CEO of BLPN, to unpack why progress in biotech is so often stalled by ego, isolation, and misplaced focus on capital as the first solution. Drawing from experiences across athletics, life sciences, and company building, Christiaan explains how BLPN and its Moneyball framework were designed around a simple principle: help first, without agenda.

The discussion challenges the idea of “biotech winter” as something to wait out, reframing tough cycles as filtration mechanisms that reward resilient teams, clear leadership, and real collaboration. We explore why community often creates more leverage than money, why founders need peers who will tell them the truth, and how servant leadership becomes a competitive advantage in uncertain markets.

This episode is about getting out of your own way, choosing people over posturing, and walking into the next season with clarity, humility, and momentum.