Lab Rats to Unicorns

This episode is all about Anna Lisa Somera – Co-founder and CEO of Rhaeos, a Northwestern University spin-out developing wearable flow monitoring devices. Anna Lisa is an experienced life science start up entrepreneur and executive, venture capitalist, NIH grant writing expert, technology transfer specialist and biomedical researcher specialized in early-stage, cutting edge technology businesses.

David Schonthal is an award-winning Professor of Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University), the Director of Entrepreneurship Programs at Kellogg and the Faculty Director of the Zell Fellows Program.  During the pandemic, David and his colleague, Loran Nordgren, wrote The Human Element: a book centered around their original concept, Friction Theory, which is a ground-breaking methodology that explains why even the most promising innovations and change initiatives often struggle to gain traction with their intended audiences as released. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience during book release event; its content travels between personal stories and inspirations, career pivots and evolutions, academia: how it succeeds and fails and, especially Friction Theory/The Human Element.

Lindsay Androski is the President and CEO of Roivant Social Ventures (RSV): a 501(c)(3) social impact organization started by leaders from Roivant Sciences. RSV takes a venture philanthropy approach to investing in and incubating promising health initiatives. Prior to her initiation into the life sciences industry, Lindsay utilitized her degrees from M.I.T. as a trial lawyer and an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Alexandria, Virginia, where she led investigations and prosecutions of high-profile cybercrime and national security cases and received the highest awards given by several federal agencies. In this episode, Lindsay tells John about her journey, about social impact in the life sciences industry (as well as why it is important to her) and about the future of science as a process and as product. 

Nathan Gianneschi is the Jacob & Rosaline Cohn Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science & Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University and the Associate Director for the International Institute for Nanotechnology. Nathan is the co-founder of Grove Biopharma: a revolutionary platform biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of a new class of biotherapeutics to treat significant unmet medical needs in chronic inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. In this episode, John explores Nathan’s career, learning about the processes, motivations, challenges and failures that have and continue to contribute to his success. John also gives the listeners an in depth, personal tour of Nathan’s lab: what he has achieved and what he is trying to achieve. 

Through UChicago’s Polsky Center, Jennifer Fried started Explorer Surgical: a developer of software for surgical teams to use in the operating room; by improving communication, their tools/platform reduce disruptions and wasted disposables. In mid-October, in fact days after the recording of this interview, Explorer Surgical was aquired by Global Health Exchange. In this episode, under the guidance of John’s structured curiosity, Jennifer walks us through the life of a startup company–from start to (at this time, undisclosed) acquisition. Even beyond that, we get to learn about her influences, her motivations and her personal journey: we get to see the person behind the company.

Follow John Flavin as he describes Lab Rats to Unicorns–a show about building people and building companies in the life science industry.