🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners.
"Getting tough feedback, when it comes from a place of someone that wants to help you but is willing to tell you the brutal truth to help you learn and help you grow, is a gift, and not everyone is capable of doing that."
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee sits down with Mati Gill, CEO of AION Labs—a first-of-its-kind AI venture studio backed by Teva, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, and Amazon Web Services. Before AION Labs, Mati spent six years in the IDF, ran a minister's bureau, and rose from legal intern to global legal COO at Teva over more than a decade. Part one covers the formative years: moving from Columbus, Ohio to Jerusalem at 12, extending military service by three years, and the two teachers who handed him D's and changed how he works.
Key Topics Covered:

• Columbus to Jerusalem: How a trial year in Israel at age 12 became a permanent, repeatedly chosen life.
• The Rule of Three: Mati's framework for building a career, prioritizing family, and committing to one other thing—without compromise.
• Two Teachers, Two D's: The English teacher who walked in like Robin Williams and the constitutional law professor who handed Mati a 60, and what both taught him about coasting.
• Six Years in the IDF: Why Mati signed up for three years beyond mandatory service and how those values still drive every major career decision.
• Law as a Foundation: How studying under Professor Amnon Rubinstein—a Knesset member who helped draft Israel's civil rights bills—built the analytical foundation Mati still draws on today.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcastWebsite: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/
Find our guest, Mati Gill at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matigill/?originalSubdomain=ilWebsite: https://aionlabs.com/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:AION Labs — AI Venture Studio Overview: https://aionlabs.com/Amnon Rubinstein — Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnon_RubinsteinIsrael Innovation Authority — AI and Bioconvergence Programs: https://innovationisrael.org.il/en/Top Equipment Needs in AI-Driven Drug Discovery Labs: https://www.excedr.com/blog/top-equipment-needs-in-ai-driven-drug-discovery-labs20 Biotech Accelerators to Check Out: https://www.excedr.com/resources/biotech-acceleratorsHow to Spin Out of Academia and Into a Startup: https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-to-spin-out-of-academia-and-into-a-startupArtificial Intelligence in the Development of New Drugs — Israel Innovation Authority: https://innovationisrael.org.il/en/drugdiscoveryai2024/
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:AION Labs: https://aionlabs.com/Teva Pharmaceuticals: https://www.tevapharm.comPfizer: https://www.pfizer.comAstraZeneca: https://www.astrazeneca.comMerck: https://www.merck.comAmazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.comIsrael Biotech Fund: https://ibf.fundIsrael Innovation Authority: https://innovationisrael.org.il/en/
Amnon Rubinstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnon_RubinsteinRobert F. Kennedy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy
Timestamps:00:00 Intro04:40 Columbus to Jerusalem: Moving at 1206:43 A Trial Year That Became a Permanent Life08:31 Parents, Education, and the Jewish Career Joke09:52 Choosing Law Over Science12:44 The Rule of Three: Career, Family, and One Other Thing15:56 Six Years in the IDF and Extending Beyond Mandatory Service17:17 Law School, Constitutional Law, and Professor Amnon Rubinstein19:35 The D That Changed Everything21:35 David Berman and the Dead Poets Society Moment23:32 Brutal Feedback as a Gift25:56 Outro

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.

🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners.

"You could have an academic with an idea for a drug, hand it off to a system, and the system could do all the knowledge work required to take that drug through the development and regulatory process—and get it to market. We're very long way away from that. But that's the future we want to work towards."
In part four, Alex Telford, founder of Convoke, covers the platform architecture and roadmap. He walks through Convoke's modular system—building validated structured datasets from trial registries, regulatory filings, and patents, then stitching them with workflow tools for competitive intelligence and document generation. He breaks down how pharma and biotech customers engage differently, why an "everything app" is a trap, and how Convoke is moving from reactive data storage toward proactive, predictive intelligence.
Key Topics Covered:

• Content Quality in the LLM Era: Why spending six months writing the definitive piece beats volume publishing—and how the internet's sorting mechanism rewards genuinely excellent work.
• Convoke's Platform Architecture: Building infrastructure for autonomous drug development through validated datasets, workflow tools, and embedded customer partnerships.
• Big Pharma vs. Biotech Go-to-Market: Why scope of influence—not culture—determines AI adoption speed, and why biotechs move faster despite smaller budgets.
• The Everything App Trap: Why being opinionated about where you deliver value matters more than building every feature.
• From Reactive to Proactive Intelligence: Moving from dataset creation to a system that continuously ingests data and makes autonomous recommendations, starting with trial site selection.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Links:Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcastWebsite: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/
Find our guest, Alex Telford at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-telford/Website: https://www.convoke.bio/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:The Agentic Era: Why Biopharma Must Embrace AI That Acts, Not Just Informs: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12048886/What Is Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)?: https://www.databricks.com/blog/what-is-retrieval-augmented-generationAI for Clinical Trial Site Selection: https://pplelabs.com/ai-for-clinical-trial-site-selection/Knowledge Management in Pharmaceutical Companies: https://pharmacores.com/knowledge-management-in-pharmaceutical-industry/Convoke Raises $8.6M to Build the AI OS for Biopharma: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/convoke-raises-8-6m-to-build-the-ai-operating-system-for-biopharma-302533188.htmlAcquired Podcast: https://www.acquired.fm/
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:Convoke: https://www.convoke.bio/AION Labs: https://aionlabs.comExcedr: https://www.excedr.com
Mati Gill (CEO, AION Labs): https://www.linkedin.com/in/matigill
Timestamps:00:00 Intro02:32 Quality Over Volume: Writing the Best Thing on the Internet05:00 Convoke's Mission — Autonomous Drug Development07:03 Platform Architecture: Datasets, Workflows, and Agents08:37 Big Pharma Use Case: Automating Oncology Indication Refreshes10:34 Biotech Use Case: Reimagining the Organization11:49 Embedding with Customers to Encode Workflows13:08 Being Opinionated: Avoiding the Everything App Trap14:08 Big Pharma vs. Biotech: Scope, Not Culture15:48 Roadmap: From Reactive to Proactive Intelligence17:40 The StarCraft Analogy for Where AI Is Headed18:01 Shoutouts and Gratitude20:11 Advice to Your 21-Year-Old Self21:49 Outro

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.

🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners.

"No. I do think you do need to recreate the orchestration. I think you have to retool the organization around these new technologies, and some will not be able to rearchitecture, and they will die. Some will be able to rearchitecture and they will thrive."
In this episode, Jon Chee sits down with Alex Telford, founder of Convoke, to examine why large pharma resists AI transformation. Drawing on seven years at Charles River Associates, Alex maps the coordination tax of siloed orgs, the tacit knowledge lost when experts retire, and why software efficiency is the wrong axis to compete on. His frame: factory electrification — the gains don't arrive until you redesign the whole org around the technology.
Key Topics Covered:

• Re-architecting Around General-Purpose Technology: Why pharma's AI gains won't arrive until the org is redesigned around it.
• The Tacit Knowledge Problem: Why decades of regulatory expertise walks out the door when a scientist retires.
• The Two Paths That Could Disrupt Pharma: Why differentiated target discovery or vertically integrated DTC beat competing on software efficiency.
• LillyDirect and the Consumer Health Bundle: How Eli Lilly's DTC platform hints at a new pharma business model.
• Signal-to-Noise Beats Raw Data: Why more data often makes LLM systems worse, and what Renaissance Technologies' data-cleaning edge was actually about.
• Writing in Public Built a Company: How a blog post led to a podcast, a cofounder email, and Convoke's $8.6M seed round.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Links:Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcastWebsite: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/
Find our guest, Alex Telford at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-telford/Website: https://www.convoke.bio/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:The Dynamo and the Computer — Paul David on electrification and the productivity paradox: https://www.almendron.com/tribuna/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/the-dynamo-and-the-computer-an-historical-perspective-on-the-modern-productivity-paradox.pdfGeneral-Purpose Technologies (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General-purpose_technologyKing – Man + Woman = Queen: The Mathematics of Computational Linguistics: https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/09/17/166211/king-man-woman-queen-the-marvelous-mathematics-of-computational-linguistics/Convoke Raises $8.6M to Build the AI OS for Biopharma: https://www.convoke.bio/blog/announcing-our-seed-fundraisePfizer and Lilly Move Into Direct-to-Consumer Pharma: https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/pfizer-eli-lilly-direct-to-consumer-glp-1/716866/
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:Convoke: https://www.convoke.bio/Charles River Associates (CRA): https://www.crai.comAlnylam Pharmaceuticals: https://www.alnylam.comBioMarin Pharmaceutical: https://www.biomarin.comEli Lilly: https://www.lilly.comHims & Hers: https://www.hims.comRenaissance Technologies: https://www.rentec.comBridgewater Associates: https://www.bridgewater.com
Ray Dalio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raydalio/Tobi Lütke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiaslutke/
Timestamps:00:00 Intro02:12 Rearchitecting Organizations Around New Technology04:06 Encoding Tacit Knowledge Before It Walks Out the Door05:42 Can Large Pharma Digitize 40,000 People?08:23 Target Discovery and DTC: The Two Real Paths to Disruption11:40 LillyDirect and the Vertically Integrated Pharma Model11:59 Remote-First Orgs and the Tacit Knowledge Advantage13:13 Signal-to-Noise Beats Raw Data Every Time16:10 The Data Cleaning Mandate Nobody Wants to Do18:04 The Vibe-Coding Mania and Disposable Software Trap20:45 From NLP Curiosity to Founding Convoke23:55 How Writing in Public Nucleated the Company

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.

🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners.

"The models are like this bunch of fractured entities — depending on how you prompt them, you can access one fractured space or another."
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee sits down with Alex Telford, founder of Convoke, who spent nearly seven years in biopharma strategy consulting before what he calls "AI psychosis" set him on a different path. Alex traces the arc from biochemistry at Bristol and synthetic biology at UCL to discovering consulting existed only after graduating, joining a boutique Swiss firm two weeks before it was acquired, and learning one core lesson: clients want a recommendation to push back on, not a data dump.
Key Topics Covered:

• The Slot Machine Problem: Why LLMs fail to get it right the first time — data scarcity, epistemic unknowability, and model architecture.
• AI's Good Fits in Life Science: Where LLMs work in biopharma — document analysis, regulatory submissions, clinical data structuring — and where they break down in pure discovery.
• What a Harness Is: A plain-language breakdown of AI operating environments, with Cursor and Harvey as examples.
• The Consultant's Real Job: Why effective strategy means reducing decision friction, not dumping analysis — and why LLMs can't thread that needle yet.
• Coordination Tax in Pharma: How siloed functions and unknowable drug biology make decisions stall — and what AI might actually fix.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Links:Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcastWebsite: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/
Find our guest, Alex Telford at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-telford/Website: https://www.convoke.bio/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:AlphaFold: Highly Accurate Protein Structure Prediction: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03819-2AI-Generated Poetry Is Indistinguishable from Human Poetry: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-76900-1LLMs in Drug Discovery and Development — A Primer: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11984503/Top Equipment Needs in AI-Driven Drug Discovery Labs: https://www.excedr.com/blog/top-equipment-needs-in-ai-driven-drug-discovery-labsElectrification and the Productivity Lag — Why Retooling Takes Decades: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2019/04/the-latest-technology-isnt-enough-you-need-the-business-model-to-go-with-it/PD-1/PD-L1 Checkpoint Inhibitors in Tumor Immunotherapy: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8440961/
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:Convoke: https://www.convoke.bio/Charles River Associates (CRA): https://www.crai.comCursor: https://cursor.comHarvey AI: https://www.harvey.aiAppLovin: https://www.applovin.comUniversity of Bristol: https://www.bristol.ac.ukUniversity College London (UCL): https://www.ucl.ac.uk
Maged Ahmed (Co-Founder, Convoke): https://www.linkedin.com/in/magedaVikas Velagapudi (Co-Founder, Convoke): https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikas-velagapudiAdam Foroughi (CEO, AppLovin): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Foroughi
Timestamps:00:00 Intro02:26 Career Pivot and the Accidental Discovery of Consulting05:01 Growing Up Without Good Advisors07:31 Boredom, Shortcuts, and the Slot Machine Problem09:33 Why LLMs Get It Wrong: Data, Unknowability, and Architecture13:55 Good Fits vs. Bad Bets for AI in Life Science20:42 StarCraft Now, Cookie Clicker Later24:36 What Is a Harness?29:34 Joining C1 Associates Mid-Acquisition34:23 First Projects: PD-L1, Lung Cancer, and Learning to Have an Opinion38:51 Coordination Tax and What AI Might Actually Fix44:55 Outro

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.

🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners.

"We don't understand biology. It's so complex that it's not engineerable, really, in any useful way."
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee sits down with Alex Telford, founder of Convoke, who raised $8.6 million to build the AI-native operating system for biopharma. Part one traces his path from an expat childhood across Switzerland, Germany, and Spain — shaped by international schools, disappearing friendships, and a New Scientist subscription — through biochemistry at Bristol and into a synthetic biology master's at UCL that promised biological engineering and delivered toggle switches.
Key Topics Covered:

• Expat Childhood and Comfort with Impermanence: Growing up in international schools where best friends disappeared with each relocation built a tolerance for instability that made leaving a stable consulting career feel manageable.
• Science as Self-Directed Curiosity: No scientists in the family — just New Scientist, National Geographic, and two teachers who steered him toward biochemistry.
• Choosing University on Personal, Not Academic, Grounds: Applied to Bristol because his mum had a friend there, York because his grandmother lived there. Got into Oxford. Went to Bristol.
• What Wet Lab Work Actually Feels Like: Three months of Western blots on red blood cell proteins — slow, hard to debug, and disconnected from application.
• Synthetic Biology's Gap Between Promise and Practice: The UCL master's offered biological robots and re-engineered supply chains. The actual work was genetic toggle switches that mutate within a few divisions.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Links:Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcastWebsite: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/
Find our guest, Alex Telford at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-telford/Website: https://www.convoke.bio/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:Why Some Biotech Startups Struggle to Scale: https://www.excedr.com/resources/why-some-biotech-startups-struggle-to-scale IB Diploma Programme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IB_Diploma_ProgrammeMRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology — History: https://mrclmb.ac.uk/about/history/Genetic Circuits in Synthetic Biology: Broadening the Toolkit: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/synthetic-biology/articles/10.3389/fsybi.2025.1548572/fullArtificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery and Development: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7577280/
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:Convoke: https://www.convoke.bio/Dow Chemical: https://www.dow.comUniversity of Bristol: https://www.bristol.ac.ukUniversity College London (UCL): https://www.ucl.ac.ukKleiner Perkins: https://www.kleinerperkins.comDimension Capital: https://www.dimensioncap.com/
Leigh Marie Braswell (Partner, Kleiner Perkins): https://www.linkedin.com/in/leigh-marie-braswellNan Li (Managing Partner, Dimension Capital): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nanliQasar Younis (CEO, Applied Intuition): https://www.linkedin.com/in/qasar
Timestamps:00:00 Intro05:24 A Childhood Built on New Scientist and Big Questions07:50 Growing Up Across Europe: Switzerland, Germany, Spain08:51 Expat Life, International Schools, and Impermanence10:56 Choosing University on Entirely Personal Grounds13:11 Getting into Oxford and Choosing Bristol Anyway14:24 Wet Lab Reality: Three Months of Western Blots16:47 An Email Blast That Led to a Synthetic Biology Master's18:14 Synthetic Biology: Overpromised and Underdelivered20:14 Why Living Systems Fight Back Against Engineers

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.

🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners
"A job is what you might do every day, but a mission can be your life. When you put them together, that is so powerful."
In this episode, Jon Chee sits down with Sabrina Johnson, President and CEO of DARÉ Bioscience, to unpack the founding arc of a company built on a singular conviction: women's health is not a niche. Sabrina explains the choice to go public via reverse merger in 2017 to access capital in a space where only 1% of private healthcare investment funds women-specific conditions, and breaks down the groomed trail philosophy behind XACIATO, DARE to PLAY Sildenafil Cream, a pivotal Phase 3 contraceptive, and an ARPA-H-funded HPV treatment—all with 25 people and $75M+ in non-dilutive funding.
Key Topics Covered:

• Going Public as a Capital Strategy: Why DARÉ chose a reverse merger—not as an investor exit, but as the most viable path to funding women's health.
• The Groomed Trail Philosophy: Starting with patient need, matching to an FDA-approved active, and finding proven delivery technology to close the gap.
• DARE to PLAY and the 503B Pathway: Why DARÉ released its sildenafil cream through a compounding outsourcing facility now, while pursuing full FDA approval.
• 25 People, Multi-Program Efficiency: How a cross-functional team creates compounding returns—because of the size, not in spite of it.
• FDA Approval Is the Start Line: Why product-market fit matters in pharma and how GLP-1s are reshaping institutional interest in women's health.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/ 
Find our guest, Sabrina Johnson at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-johnson-27799829/ Website: https://darebioscience.com/ 
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/ 
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/ Website: https://www.excedr.com 
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin 
Resources & Articles:Sildenafil Cream for Female Arousal Disorder — Phase 2b Results: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11250102/ Women's Health Gets Only 6% of Private Healthcare Investment: https://www.bcg.com/press/20january2026-private-healthcare-investment-womens-health Reverse Mergers in Biotech: A Strategic Path to Public Markets: https://www.bioxconomy.com/partnering/reverse-mergers-in-biotech-a-strategic-path-to-public-markets What Is a 503B Outsourcing Facility?: https://www.safemedicines.org/2025/07/503b-fda-inspections.html Ovaprene Phase 3 Pivotal Study: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06127199 
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:DARÉ Bioscience: https://darebioscience.com/ Organon: https://www.organon.com Cypress Bioscience: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/cypress-bioscience-agrees-to-be-acquired-by-ramius-llc-and-royalty-pharma-for-6-50-per WomanCare Global: https://www.dktinternational.org/womancare/ Medvantx: https://medvantx.com Probiotical: https://www.probiotical.com/en/home/ ARPA-H: https://arpa-h.gov Gates Foundation: https://www.gatesfoundation.org Jay Kranzler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-d-kranzler-66b08b12 
Timestamps:00:00 Intro03:08 Why DARÉ Went Public via Reverse Merger06:03 Building a Pipeline Around Patient Need, Not Invention10:20 The Groomed Trail Philosophy: FDA-Approved Actives and Novel Delivery13:53 Bushwhacking vs. Groomed-Trail Drug Development16:34 A 25-Person Team Running a Multi-Program Pipeline19:48 DARE to PLAY Sildenafil Cream: Bringing a Compounded Product to Market22:41 What 2026 Looks Like for DARÉ26:40 Multiple FDA Conversations and the Advantage of Reps30:52 Educating Institutional Investors on Women's Health35:48 Shout-Outs: Roger Holly and Jay Kranzler36:39 Advice to Your 21-Year-Old Self39:10 Outro

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.

🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners
"Women's health is not niche. It's half the population — I just kept asking why no one was doing this. One Saturday morning I realized: I'm somebody."
In this episode, Jon Chee continues with Sabrina Johnson, DARÉ Bioscience CEO, tracing 13 years at Cypress Bioscience — from a hallway eavesdrop that earned her an FDA panel seat, to VP of Marketing, an "interim" CFO role held for nearly a decade, and COO. She covers a fibromyalgia Phase 3 that missed at p=0.058, the disclosure gap, and a hostile takeover that forced the sale — then shares the Monday resignation and elevator pitch that led to founding DARÉ.
Key Topics Covered:

• The Hallway Eavesdrop: A slide-database build over moving weekend and one ask to attend an FDA panel unlocked thirteen years at Cypress.
• CFO Is Sales: Why Jay Kranzler said the CFO role is really sales — and why Sabrina eventually agreed.
• When a Trial Misses at p=0.058: Stock down 50% in a day. What she knew vs. what she could legally say.
• Hostile Takeover and Shareholder Reality: Investor pressure forced a sale and what she wishes she had communicated about pipeline value.
• The Real Cost of Going Public: The $2–2.5M annual price tag and why DARÉ chose a reverse merger over an IPO.
• Founding DARÉ: The Saturday morning epiphany, $800K seed round, and why women's health is not a niche.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/ 
Find our guest, Sabrina Johnson at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-johnson-27799829/ Website: https://darebioscience.com/ 
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/ 
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/ Website: https://www.excedr.com 
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin 
Resources & Articles:Exit Strategies in Life Sciences Venture Capital: https://www.excedr.com/blog/exit-strategies-in-life-sciences-venture-capital Reverse Merger Considerations for Biotech Companies: https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/services/audit-assurance/blogs/accounting-finance/reverse-merger-considerations-for-biotech-companies.html Funding Research on Women's Health: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44222-024-00253-7 Savella FDA Approval for Fibromyalgia: https://www.hopkinsarthritis.org/arthritis-news/fibromyalgia-news/savella-a-new-drug-approved-for-the-treatment-of-fibromyalgia/ 
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:DARÉ Bioscience: https://darebioscience.com/ Cypress Bioscience: https://cypress-bio.com WomanCare Global: https://dktwomancare.org Calibr-Skaggs Institute: https://calibr.scripps.edu Nalu Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nalu-bio 
Jay Kranzler (CEO, Cypress Bioscience): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-d-kranzler-66b08b12 Peter Schultz (President, Scripps Research): https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-schultz-ba07a8373 Roger Hawley (First Investor, DARÉ): https://www.linkedin.com/in/roger-hawley-74067618 Caitlyn Krebs (CEO, Nalu Bio): https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlynkrebs 
Timestamps:00:00 Intro02:42 Why Sabrina Left Advanced Tissue Sciences for Cypress Bioscience05:38 The Hallway Eavesdrop and the FDA Meeting Bargain07:17 How Jay Kranzler Opened Every Door at Cypress08:00 Accepting the CFO Role — "Just Interim"09:51 Why a Public Company CFO Is Really in Sales11:23 Managing the Street: Disclosure and Investor Communication14:19 The Fibromyalgia Phase 3 That Missed at p=0.05818:21 Hostile Takeover Pressure and Selling Cypress19:48 Should Biotech Startups Stay Private Longer?21:53 The Real Annual Cost of Being a Public Company23:57 Post-Cypress: Finding Women's Health and WomanCare Global30:04 The Saturday Morning Epiphany and Founding DARÉ37:16 Building the Team and Raising the First $800K40:30 Outro

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.

🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners
"Formulation matters. I can put the same active pharmaceutical ingredient in the exact same concentration in 20 different formulations and have 20 different outcomes."
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee continues his conversation with Sabrina Johnson, President and CEO of DARÉ Bioscience. Sabrina traces her path from a name-tag encounter that led her to Advanced Tissue Sciences to joining Cypress Bioscience in 1998. She unpacks pharmaceutical marketing regulation, the medical-regulatory-legal review process, and the gray zone of compounded GLP-1s — including DARÉ's decision to make its sildenafil cream available via 503B rather than leave women without a validated option.
Key Topics Covered:

• From Sales to Therapeutic Marketing: A name-tag moment led Sabrina to Advanced Tissue Sciences and her first exposure to pharmaceutical commercialization.
• The Medical-Regulatory-Legal Review Process: Why every word in a prescription drug piece requires multi-functional sign-off — and why it still holds at DARÉ.
• The GLP-1 Compounding Gray Zone: How compounding expanded beyond its intent and why consumers can't tell compounded from FDA-approved drugs.
• 503A vs. 503B: The regulatory difference between patient-specific pharmacy compounding and outsourcing facilities.
• DARÉ's Sildenafil Cream: How phase-two data led DARÉ to partner with a 503B facility rather than leave women waiting on FDA approval.
• When Demand Outpaces Regulation: From compounded GLP-1s to a Gilead cat drug black market — what happens when need has no sanctioned outlet.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/ 
Find our guest, Sabrina Johnson at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-johnson-27799829/ Website: https://darebioscience.com/ 
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/ 
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/ Website: https://www.excedr.com 
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin 
Resources & Articles:Responsible Compounding Could Close the Innovation Gap: https://www.fastcompany.com/91503495/responsible-compounding-could-close-the-innovation-gap The Scientist's Guide to Understanding FDA Drug Approval: https://www.excedr.com/blog/fda-drug-approval-process-guide 503A vs. 503B: A Quick Guide to Compounding Pharmacy Regulations: https://www.thefdagroup.com/blog/503a-vs-503b-compounding-pharmacies Hyper Fixed — The Cat Drug Black Market: https://www.hyperfixedpod.com/listen/hyperfixed/the-cat-drug-black-market 
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:Advanced Tissue Sciences: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-oct-12-fi-tissue12-story.html Cypress Bioscience: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/cypress-bioscience-agrees-to-be-acquired-by-ramius-llc-and-royalty-pharma-for-6-50-per Smith+Nephew: https://www.smith-nephew.com/en-us/ Gilead Sciences: https://www.gilead.com/ Eli Lilly: https://www.lilly.com/ Novo Nordisk: https://www.novonordisk.com/ 
Jay Kranzler (CEO, Cypress Bioscience): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-d-kranzler-66b08b12/ 
Timestamps:00:00 Intro02:41 The Name-Tag Moment That Changed Everything05:41 Watching ATS Scale from 50 to 250 People06:31 Partnerships, Public Markets, and Leadership Lessons07:40 The Medical-Regulatory-Legal Review Process11:40 GLP-1s and the Direct-to-Consumer Compounding Explosion13:48 503A vs. 503B: How Compounding Was Designed to Work18:16 Patient Access vs. Responsible Drug Development21:10 DARÉ's Sildenafil Cream and Responsible Compounding23:52 FDA Warning Letters and Where Compounders Cross the Line24:46 The Cat Drug Black Market26:43 Outro

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.

🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.

As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners
"A calculated risk is not the same as being irresponsible or cutting corners."
In this episode, Jon Chee sits down with Sabrina Johnson, President and CEO of Daré Bioscience, a Nasdaq-listed biopharma advancing women's reproductive health. Daré's team of 25 executes the groomed trail approach — matching therapeutic gaps to FDA-approved actives — with a non-hormonal contraceptive in pivotal Phase 3 and $75M+ in non-dilutive funding from the Gates Foundation, NIH, and ARPA-H.
Key Topics Covered:

• Entrepreneurial Roots: Immigrant parents forged unconventional paths and seeded her comfort with risk.
• The Science Fiction Pitch: A teacher reframed biomedical engineering as sci-fi and changed her path.
• New Orleans as a Classroom: A cross-cultural city and cross-disciplinary field that shaped her.
• At the Dawn of Biologics: A junior year at UCL put her in the room with early biologics pioneers.
• The Bench Isn't for Everyone: Month one at Baxter revealed she loved science, not the bench.
• The Authenticity Breakthrough: Dropping the sales persona took her from worst rep to first.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/ 
Find our guest, Sabrina Johnson at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-johnson-27799829/ Website: https://darebioscience.com/ 
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/ 
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/ Website: https://www.excedr.com 
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin 
Resources & Articles:Non-Dilutive Capital for Biotech Startups: https://www.excedr.com/blog/the-benefits-of-non-dilutive-capital Marketing & Sales for Biotech Startups: https://www.excedr.com/blog/marketing-sales-strategies-for-biotechs Funding Research on Women's Health: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44222-024-00253-7 History of Monoclonal Antibody Development: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4284445 Daré Bioscience Pipeline: https://darebioscience.com/pipeline 
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:Daré Bioscience: https://darebioscience.com Baxter Healthcare: https://www.baxter.com Clonetics / Lonza Bioscience: https://bioscience.lonza.com Tulane University: https://tulane.edu University College London: https://www.ucl.ac.uk Thunderbird School of Global Management: https://thunderbird.asu.edu 
Scott Cowen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Cowen Malcolm Lilly: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biochemical-engineering Peter Dunnill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Dunnill  Timestamps:00:00 Intro06:29 Growing Up Between Rome and Phoenix07:45 Entrepreneurship Beyond the Startup: Lessons from Her Parents09:43 The Science Fiction Pitch That Changed Everything12:05 Finding Tulane at a College Fair14:33 New Orleans as a Classroom: Cross-Disciplinary Thinking15:41 At the Dawn of Biologics: Junior Year Abroad at UCL19:20 Landing the Dream Job at Baxter — and Discovering the Bench Wasn't for Her24:55 Lunch Table Informational Interviews and the Case for an MBA31:26 Everyone Said Start in Sales — But Not That Kind34:42 Worst Rep in the Building: Six Months at Clonetics37:16 The Authenticity Breakthrough39:05 Outro

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.

🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr's partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners
"If you don't solve a problem, don't even think about talking about it."
Martin Brenner, CEO & CSO of iBio, closes out his three-part conversation with Jon Chee by tracing the arc from Stoke Therapeutics to Recursion to Phenex — and into the reinvented iBio. Martin unpacks the resilience required when nothing works, the line-of-sight portfolio system he built to run 100 programs with 20 biologists, and how a team of opposites at Phenex became the most effective R&D unit of his career. He then dives deep into iBio's current antibody discovery platform — epitope steering, masked antibodies, and StableCube — and shares an unfiltered look at what it's really like to run a NYSE-listed micro-cap biotech.
Key Topics Covered:

• Resilience at Stoke: Staying the course when every program fails and finding the breakthrough that triggers a Series A.
• The Recursion Identity Shift: How challenging 15 years of pharma truths made Martin a "real biotech guy."
• The Orchestra Principle at Phenex: Letting a team of opposites each play to their strengths to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
• iBio's Pivot: Acquiring Rubric's ML tech, divesting the Texas CDMO, and relaunching as a next-gen antibody company.
• Life After IPO: The real costs, back-office burdens, and why "build to flip" always goes wrong.
• Communicating Science with Integrity: Why being honest about what you can't do yet builds more credibility than hype.

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/ 
Find our guest, Martin Brenner at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinbrenner/ Website: https://ibioinc.com/ 
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/ 
Learn more about Excedr:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/ Website: https://www.excedr.com  Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:Website: https://flow.page/kyojin 
Resources & Articles:The In Silico Human Surfaceome (Bausch-Fluck et al., PNAS): https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1808790115 AlphaFold2 Applications in Biology (Nature): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-023-01381-z Mammalian Display for Antibody Discovery (PMC): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11459229/ Stoke SCN1A/Dravet Syndrome Study (PubMed): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32848094/ Nucleate: https://nucleate.org 
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:iBio: https://ibioinc.com/ Stoke Therapeutics: https://www.stoketherapeutics.com/ Recursion Pharmaceuticals: https://www.recursion.com/ Phenex Pharmaceuticals (now OmniAb / Pyrus): https://www.omniab.com/ Ligand Pharmaceuticals: https://www.ligand.com/ OmniAb: https://www.omniab.com/ Enveda Biosciences: https://enveda.com/ Apple Tree Partners: https://www.appletreepartners.com/ Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: https://www.cshl.edu/ Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/ 
Adrian Krainer: https://www.cshl.edu/research/faculty-staff/adrian-r-krainer/ Isabel Aznarez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabel-aznarez-aaa21417/ Art Levin: https://www.stoketherapeutics.com/about-stoke/leadership/arthur-levin/ Vishwa Gulati: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishwas-gulati-a4474338/ Thomas (Gus) Gustafson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-gus-gustafson-96210a14/ Matt Greving: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewgreving/ Felipe Duran: https://www.bioxconomy.com/finance-and-accounting/cfo-felipe-duran-leads-ibio-s-financial-strategy-with-agility-and-vision/ 
Timestamps:00:00 Intro01:50 Choosing Your First Startup — Team, Runway, and Technology02:24 Stoke Therapeutics: Resilience When Nothing Works05:30 Learning to Run Lean — Art Levin's IND Lesson07:13 The Mental Shift from Big Pharma to Biotech Accountability09:41 Building a Peer Network When You're the Last Expert in the Room11:36 What Recursion Taught Martin About Challenging Every Assumption15:31 Running 100 Programs with 20 Biologists: The Line-of-Sight System18:31 Deconstructing Drug Discovery Truths After Recursion20:08 Vishwa Gulati, Enveda, and the No-Plan-B Entrepreneur24:02 Phenex: The Magic of a Team of Opposites30:54 The Ligand Acquisition — M&A, Due Diligence, and the Cooling-Off Period35:57 Why Martin Joined iBio and What the Plant Technology Promise Looked Like41:03 The Pivot: Acquiring Rubric's ML Technology and Laying Off 70 People in Texas41:40 iBio's Current Platform — Epitope Steering, Masked Antibodies, and StableCube51:54 iBio's Layered Business Model and the Pursuit of Validating Deals55:04 Cultivating Innovation Culture — Free-Flowing Conversation Over Structured Meetings01:00:44 Running a Public Biotech — What They Don't Tell You After the IPO01:06:34 Communicating Science to Investors with Integrity01:10:24 iBio's Horizon: Survival Mode, Data Flywheel, and the Dream Sequence01:15:02 Shout-Outs: Manuela, Dodd Michael, Gus, Isabel, and the iBio Team01:17:41 Advice to 21-Year-Old Martin: Get Into Biotech Faster

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.