Lab Rats to Unicorns

e.015 thinks Sree Kant is pretty phenomenal. Sree is an experienced biotech executive, and company builder. Over a 20-year career in life sciences and healthcare, he has worked across investing, operational, advisory, and entrepreneurial roles and functions. He is passionate about translating cutting edge science into therapies that significantly change health outcomes for patients.

Before founding BAKX, Sree headed the Investments and Partnerships function at Life Biosciences, where he built platform focused companies in the areas of age-related diseases. He also took on operational roles in the portfolio companies driving the corporate development agenda. Prior to Life bio, Sree led early partnering strategy for Pfizer, driving strategic partnerships across different therapeutic areas/technologies and geographies. He also built Pfizer’s early target partnering vehicle and drove academic partnerships and spinouts to advance novel target platforms.

Sree was also Principal at the Boston Consulting Group advising large pharma, biotech, and medical device companies in areas of Corporate development, R&D strategy, M&A, etc.  Sree started his career with Ranbaxy labs in New Delhi and London, and also was a founding member of India’s first preventative, managed health company.

Sree has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Lishan Aklog's journey to entrepreneurial and professional success was not an easy road. As a teenager Dr. Aklog fled political violence in Ethiopia, which led him to become especially active in philanthropic organizations later in life. Dr. Aklog is a member of the NY Executive Committee, the Africa Advisory Committee, and the Human Rights Watch serving on its Board of Directors. In addition, he is Board Chairman of the Boston ECG Project Charitable Foundation Inc., a non-profit corporation whose purpose is to save the lives of children and adolescents by preventing sudden cardiac death and identifying occult underlying cardiac abnormalities and conditions. Previously, Dr. Aklog served on Barack Obama’s National Finance Committee in 2008.

Dr. Aklog has been a heart surgeon for more than 20 years and received his degree from Harvard University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in Physics, and his M.D. degree, cum laude, from Harvard Medical School. He completed his surgical training at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital, Harefield Hospital, London and L’Hôpital Broussais, Paris. 

He is also a prolific entrepreneur and innovator having started many impactful companies including PAVmed and Lucid Diagnostics that he took public on NASDAQ.

PAVmed Inc. is a multi-product medical device medical technology company operating in the medical device, diagnostics, and digital health sectors. PAVmed in 2014 and it became public on Nasdaq in 2016.

Lucid Diagnostics, a subsidiary of PAVmed Inc., is a commercial-stage, cancer prevention medical diagnostics company focused on patients with gastroesophageal disease (GERD), also known as chronic heartburn, who are at risk of developing esophageal precancer and cancer.

In episode 013, Dr. Omer Inan shares insight on academia and entrepreneurship –– for example, how do they interact…and can a person pursue both? 

Omer earned his B.S., M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. During his studies, he worked at ALZA Corporation in the Drug Device Research and Development Group, then Countryman Associates, Inc. as the chief engineer.  Post-graduation, he stuck close to Stanford’s Electrical Engineering program as a visiting scholar. 

Omer is now a tenured associate professor and the Smith Chair in Bioscience and Bioengineering at Georgia Tech’s School of ECE. He is also a scientific advisor for Cardiosense –– a medtech startup leveraging non-invasive sensors and AI to build the next generation of cardiac monitoring. 

This episode will highlight the medical devices and systems research that has  been the focus of Omer’s research; in that process it should offer further insight into the boundaries, barriers and collaborations between academia and entrepreneurship as well as research and funding. 

Dr. Derrell Porter is a physician-entrepreneur with years of experience in the business of medicine, and one of the few experts with dual capabilities in developing and commercializing rapidly evolving cell therapies. Before founding his first startup, Cellevolve, Dr. Porter was the Head of Commercial at Atara Bio, a leader in off-the-shelf T-cell immunotherapy. Dr. Porter has held roles of increasing responsibility at three leading biopharmaceutical companies: Gilead, AbbVie, and Amgen.

Dr. Porter earned his MD from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine (where he was a Gamble Scholar) and an MBA from The Wharton School. He earned his BS in Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Additionally, he is on the boards of NASDAQ listed Passage Bio, a Philadelphia-based genetics medicine company, and a board member at Portal Innovations; he also serves as an Advisory Committee Member for the Penn School of Medicine. 

Dr. Porter has such a unique background and set of experiences ranging from medical training and experience in commercializing drugs at large biopharma companies to the application of that knowledge in start-up settings.

Kristen Holmes is the star of episode 11. She is the Vice President of Performance at Whoop, your personal digital fitness and health coach.

She’s also a science and medical advisor to several companies and organizations including Liminal Collective, Arena Labs, Evolve and Levels.

2021 Hall Fame Inductee, 3x All American, 2 x Big 10 Athlete of the year at the University of Iowa competing in both Field Hockey and Basketball. 7 year member of the U.S. National Field Hockey Team and one of the most successful coaches in Ivy League history, having won 12 league titles in 13 seasons and a National Championship at Princeton University.

And to round things out, she’s pursuing her PhD in Psychology at the University of Queensland!

Episode 10 absolutely loves Lindy Fishburne. We are big on early-stage startup experts here at LRTU, so if John’s voice gets shaky, you just gotta know why: Lindy is the founder of Breakout Labs - a hugely innovative grant-making body operating as part of the Thiel Foundation - and managing partner at Breakout Ventures…like dang…she’s a person who needs only a sentence to impress.

She is the executive director of the Thiel Foundation, a board member of both Cytovale and Phylagen; she is an esteemed startup consultant; and her influence on the life sciences startup universe is widening…or, let me rephrase, she is changing the processes for this genre of startup culture. Her funding approach and philanthropic endeavors are contributing to the democratization of science. 

This episode is designed to further investigate her life, her goals, her inspirations and the personality behind what we see: her decisions and impact. I dunno, pretty wild and exciting stuff... and educational! like what better way to learn about the industry than to anticipate its growth??

Episode 009 is ambitious; by interviewing Barry Ticho, John has the opportunity to discuss and share a more comprehensive description of the relationship between entrepreneurial, R&D and clinical experience at both large pharma and emerging biotech companies. 

Barry is the Chief Medical Officer at Stoke Therapeutics––a company addressing the underlying cause of severe diseases by upregulating protein expression with RNA-based medicines––as well as a founder and board member at Verve Therapeutics which aims to protect the world from heart disease. 

Prior to his current positions, he was the head of development of mRNA treatments for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases at Moderna Therapeutics as well as head of external R&D innovation for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases at Pfizer (two widely talked about companies right now). He was also vice president of clinical development at Biogen. 

Barry spent time at the University of Chicago where he received his MD and PhD. He then completed his pediatrics training at Northwestern University and a cardiology fellowship at Children’s hospital in Boston. He stuck to the east coast following his move to Boston where he worked on the clinical staff at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital and conducted laboratory research. 

His experience centers around therapeutics across a range of modalities especially in the area of mRNA. Hearing about his continuum of experiences will help the LRTU audience connect some dots.

Episode 008 dives into the life, career and personality of Dr. Charles Polsky: the Executive Chairman of Bolden Therapeutics, Inc and the CEO of William Harris Investors; as well as a corporate board member of nearly a dozen companies and a member of the Investment Committee for the University of Chicago’s Innovation Fund.

From Mathematics at Yale to Medicine at the University of Chicago, Charlie developed a unique skillset to contribute to his success in finance––a destination as diverse as his path to it. In that realm, he has navigated a collection of entrepreneurial and investing experiences––transitioning his focus between early and late stage pharmaceutical companies. 

In this episode, we get more details surrounding the motivations, inspirations and passion that has been guiding Charlie’s journey. Through that, the process involved in investing and bringing pharmaceutical companies to market from the perspective of, especially, an investor is highlighted.

We've talked a lot about Chicago here at Lab Rats to Unicorns. e.007 is the time to really describe that setting–and dive into why Chicago is an exciting place to be for a life sciences startup company (or, say, a life sciences podcast lol).

Leave it to Chicago's Deputy Mayor, Samir Mayekar, as well as World Business Chicago's President and CEO, Michael Fassnacht, to teach us about Chicago and its growing life sciences ecosystem.

Samir is a tri-sector leader who has played executive roles in public, private and nonprofit sectors. He served in the U.S. government during the Obama administration; and prior to his work with Mayor Lori Lightfoot on economic development, Samir was the CEO of NanoGraf Technologies–an international company built around Northwestern battery technology.

Simultaneous to his role as President/CEO of WBC, Michael is the Chief Marketing Officer for the City of Chicago. His goals for inclusive economic development and his talent for initiating engagement through creative marketing were what made him such an effective President and CEO of FCB Chicago; they continue to make him a phenomenal leader at WBC.

Episode 6 teaches us about Dr. Stacy Lindau (Founder), Rachel Kohler (CEO) and NowPow: a platform designed to “Engineer Self Care.”  

Dr. Stacy Lindau is a practicing physician and tenured professor at the University of Chicago with esteem in the internation scientific research community – specifically for her published work on women’s and population health.

Rachel brings over 30 years of business experience spanning investment banking, management consulting and general management to her role at NowPow. She holds a BA from Princeton University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. 

They combine their first-hand experience in health care, medicine, technology, business and innovation to drive a fast-growing team and revolutionary product. Women-owned and led, with a diverse team based on Chicago’s South Side and New York City, NowPow reflects the populations they serve.