🧬 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.

🧬 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 hurt letting people go — large amounts of people — if that doesn't hurt you anymore, it's time to get out."
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee continues his conversation with Martin Brenner, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of iBio, tracing his career through Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Merck. From re-engaging demoralized scientists after layoffs to a Moderna encounter when the company was just eight people strong, Martin offers a rare insider view of what it actually takes to drive innovation from within Big Pharma.
Key Topics Covered:

• Leaving Eli Lilly: A painful Hamburg site closure and the leadership instincts it forged.
• Pfizer vs. Lilly: Same targets, different machine — what the Wyeth acquisition revealed about scale.
• Cultural Fit: Why every rejection is a bullet dodged.
• Rebuilding After Layoffs: The biotech playbook Martin used at Pfizer Groton to re-engage scientists.
• The Moderna Spark: Eight-person Moderna outpacing AstraZeneca's 150-person team ignited Martin's biotech drive.
• Building a Biotech Inside Merck: The vision, the wins, the politics — and the Keytruda mic-drop that pushed him out.

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:Why Biotech Startups Struggle to Scale: https://www.excedr.com/resources/why-some-biotech-startups-struggle-to-scale Common Biotech Startup Mistakes: https://www.excedr.com/blog/common-business-mistakes When & How to Pivot a Biotech: https://www.excedr.com/blog/when-how-to-pivot-a-biotech-startup Biotech vs. Big Pharma — Which Is the Better Place to Work?: https://www.biospace.com/biotech-vs-big-pharma-which-is-the-better-place-to-work Chagas Heart Failure in Latin America: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5490952/ The History Behind Merck's Keytruda: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidshaywitz/2017/07/26/the-startling-history-behind-mercks-new-cancer-blockbuster/ 
Companies, Universities & People Mentioned:Eli Lilly: https://www.lilly.com Pfizer / Wyeth: https://www.pfizer.com AstraZeneca: https://www.astrazeneca.com Merck: https://www.merck.com Moderna: https://www.modernatx.com iBio: https://ibioinc.com Kobe University: https://www.kobe-u.ac.jp/en/ University of Tokyo: https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ UT Southwestern: https://www.utsouthwestern.edu Columbia University: https://www.columbia.edu UC San Diego: https://ucsd.edu 
Markus Schindler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcus-schindler-phd Saswata Talukdar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saswata-talukdar-3b20942a Roger Perlmutter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roger-m-perlmutter-73033920a Mark Ahern: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markeahern 
Timestamps:00:00 Intro01:44 The Hamburg Site Closure and What It Takes to Lead Through Loss08:17 Pfizer vs. Lilly: Same Targets, Different Animals10:04 Finding Cultural Fit: Why Rejections Are Bullets Dodged12:11 Re-Engaging a Demoralized Team After a Layoff17:23 Why Big Pharma Stumbles More Than You'd Think18:35 AstraZeneca Gothenburg: Tearing Down Silos and Ringing the Cowbell22:21 The Moderna Spark That Changed Everything24:58 When Personal Life Forces a Professional Pivot25:40 Building a Biotech Inside Merck30:19 The Chagas Mic Drop: When Keytruda Killed a Promising Program32:14 Smallest Teams, Bottom-Up Culture Change

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
"Making medicines, you can help literally the entire world if you get it right."
Jon Chee sits down with Martin Brenner, CEO and CSO of iBio, an AI drug discovery company building immunotherapies for difficult-to-treat cancers. Before biotech leadership, Martin built one of pharma's most unconventional careers—electrical engineer in Stuttgart, vet medicine at LMU Munich, PhD embedded at Eli Lilly, youngest scientist to lead a 20-person team there. Part 1 covers his formative years: the family that shaped him, the vet clinic that changed his path, and the professor who lit the match.
Key Topics Covered:

• Engineering Roots and a Rebellious Phase: How Stuttgart shaped Martin early—and why meeting his wife gave him focus.
• From Circuits to Vet Clinics: What made an EE student spend two months in a vet clinic before committing to six years at LMU Munich.
• The Lecture That Changed Everything: How a retired professor who took benzodiazepines on himself sparked Martin's passion for drug discovery.
• Straight Into Eli Lilly: From his last vet exam to a PhD at Lilly Germany's diabetes lab without missing a beat.
• Leadership Before He Was Ready: How Martin became Lilly's youngest 20-person team lead and what he learned the hard way.
• Told He Had No Leadership Potential: What a blunt theater coach said that became one of his most defining career moments.

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/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:Monoclonal Antibodies: Past, Present & Future: https://www.excedr.com/blog/monoclonal-antibody-research-and-production The NDA Process: FDA Submission & Approval: https://www.excedr.com/blog/new-drug-application-process AI in Small Molecule Immunotherapy Discovery: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44386-025-00029-y Breaking Into Biotech BD as a PhD: https://www.excedr.com/blog/how-to-break-into-biotech-bd-as-a-phd-student AI-Powered Antibody Discovery in Oncology: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11954232/ Biotech Partnerships: How They Support R&D: https://www.excedr.com/blog/how-biotech-partnerships-support-research 
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:iBio: https://ibioinc.com/ Eli Lilly: https://www.lilly.com/ Pfizer: https://www.pfizer.com/ AstraZeneca: https://www.astrazeneca.com/ Merck: https://www.merck.com/ Stoke Therapeutics: https://www.stoketherapeutics.com/ Recursion Pharmaceuticals: https://www.recursion.com/ Ligand Pharmaceuticals: https://www.ligand.com/ Moderna: https://www.modernatx.com/Siemens: https://www.siemens.com/ Ohm University (Nuremberg): https://www.th-nuernberg.de/en/ LMU Munich: https://www.lmu.de/ Univ. of Veterinary Medicine Hannover: https://www.tiho-hannover.de/en/ 
Rohit Kulkarni: https://www.hsci.harvard.edu/people/rohit-kulkarni-md-phd Michael Coghlan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-coghlan-312a6824 

Timestamps:00:00 Intro02:43 Growing Up in Stuttgart: Engineering Roots and Family Influences04:49 Rebellious Years and Finding Focus Through His Wife06:38 Choosing Ohm University and Committing to Electrical Engineering09:31 The Pivot: From Engineering to Veterinary Medicine10:41 Life Inside Veterinary School at LMU Munich14:48 Clinical Experience and the Professor Who Lit the Fire for Pharmacology18:02 Straight from Vet School to a PhD—and Straight into Eli Lilly22:39 Academia vs. Industry: Why Lilly Won25:14 Building a Career at Lilly and the Power of Mentorship28:09 Leading a Team of 20 and Developing a Leadership Philosophy31:01 The Theater Exercise That Told Him He Had No Leadership Potential32:02 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 financial model is the strategy of a business expressed in numbers."
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee sits down with Mike Stadnisky, Managing Director of Thielsen Capital, a seed-stage life science tools syndicate. A veteran of four-plus M&A cycles as CEO of FlowJo and Phytonix, Mike walks through the mechanics founders most often get wrong: when to call in partnership favors, how shared customers become acquisition seeds, what IP and cap table hygiene should look like before a deal, and why a rigorous financial model is your most powerful negotiating tool.
Key Topics Covered:

• Patience in BD Partnerships: Why the right time to call in a favor is rarely when you're stressed — and how to use conference deadlines as quiet leverage.
• Shared Customers as M&A Seeds: How raving fans in a shared customer base are both your best BD signal and the earliest seed of an acquisition.
• Corporate and IP Hygiene: What to fix before anyone opens your data room — cap tables, NDA labeling, trade secrets, and VDR discipline.
• Financial Models for Acquirers: Why top-down TAM slides kill deals, how to hire a de facto CFO, and how to reveal scale breaks and pricing leverage.
• Thielsen Capital's Picks and Shovels Thesis: Why life science tools are the Gold Rush infrastructure play and why the power law VC model fails commercial biotech.
• Default Alive and Incentive Alignment: Charlie Munger's "show me the incentives" — and why the right cap table is a founder's most powerful lever.

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, Mike Stadnisky at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikestadnisky/ Website: https://www.thielsencapital.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:What Is Financial Modeling & How Can It Help with Fundraising?: https://www.excedr.com/resources/what-is-financial-modeling Exit Strategies in Life Sciences Venture Capital: https://www.excedr.com/blog/exit-strategies-in-life-sciences-venture-capital Intellectual Property Strategy for Biotech Companies: https://www.excedr.com/resources/intellectual-property-strategy-for-biotechs How Biotech Partnerships Support R&D: https://www.excedr.com/blog/how-biotech-partnerships-support-research Why Some Biotech Startups Struggle to Scale: https://www.excedr.com/resources/why-some-biotech-startups-struggle-to-scale Default Alive or Default Dead? (Paul Graham): https://paulgraham.com/aord.html 
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:FlowJo: https://www.flowjo.com Phytonix: https://phytonix.com 
Frank Slootman (CEO, Snowflake): https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankslootman Carl June (Pioneer of CAR-T Therapy, University of Pennsylvania): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_H._June Charlie Munger (Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Munger Steven J. Visco (Co-founder & CEO, PolyPlus Battery Company): https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-j-visco-2910b57 

Timestamps:00:00 Intro01:36 Patience and Asymmetry in BD Partnerships02:44 Using Conferences to Create Partnership Urgency08:53 Shared Customers and the Seeds of M&A12:41 Strategic Optionality and the FlowJo Acquisition Story16:06 Corporate, IP, and Cap Table Hygiene for Exit Readiness20:25 Building a Financial Model That Moves Acquirers27:46 Thielsen Capital: The Life Science Tools Thesis37:11 Power Law VC and the Overfunding Problem42:09 Default Alive, Incentive Alignment, and Charlie Munger54:42 Advice to Your 21-Year-Old Self56:24 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
"Startups don't partner with startups, okay? Let's just get that out of the way right now."
In this episode, Jon Chee continues his conversation with Mike Stadnisky, Managing Director of Thielsen Capital, on his transition from academic scientist to BD leader. Mike unpacks what business development really means in life science, why chasing "the decision maker" is the wrong frame, and how to identify the technical and business champions who actually move deals inside large organizations.
Key Topics Covered:

• Informational Interviews: The career advice Mike once dismissed — and why he now evangelizes it to every scientist he meets.
• What BD Really Means: How scientists break into business development and why technical credibility is the key entry point.
• Startups Don't Partner with Startups: Why small-to-large is the only structure that works — and the asymmetry that drives it.
• Decision Makers vs. Champions: Why the most common BD advice is wrong and how to find the champions who actually move deals.
• Semantic Hacking: How mining earnings calls for a company's own language transforms a pitch into a strategic fit.
• The Human Side of Entrepreneurship: Why your significant other, peer group, and mentors are the overlooked scaffolding behind every founder's success.

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, Mike Stadnisky at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikestadnisky/ Website: https://www.thielsencapital.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:How to Bootstrap a Biotech Startup: https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-to-bootstrap-biotech-startup The Ins and Outs of Informational Interviewing: https://www.berkeleysciencereview.com/article/2020/12/15/the-ins-and-outs-of-informational-interviewing The People Side of Biotech Deals: https://lifescivc.com/2013/07/the-people-side-of-biotech-deal-making/ Champion vs. Decision Maker in B2B: https://www.frederikvosberg.de/blog/champion-vs-decision-maker-whom-to-target-in-b2b-customer-discovery How to Read Earnings Reports: https://bookmap.com/blog/how-to-read-earnings-reports-a-guide-for-traders The Lean Startup Principles: https://theleanstartup.com/principles 
Companies, Universities, & People mentioned:FlowJo: https://www.flowjo.com 

Timestamps:00:00 Intro01:41 Informational Interviews04:58 Job Search as a Sales Pipeline09:13 Significant Others & Entrepreneurship11:56 The Power of Your Peer Group14:10 Wearing Many Hats at FlowJo16:58 What Business Development Means18:22 Startups Don't Partner With Startups20:22 The Value Proposition Pitch22:33 Big Game Hunting & Semantic Hacking25:48 Decision Makers vs. Champions33:44 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
"I always joke — I got my MBA from my dad before I ever even considered what the heck I wanted to do with it."
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee sits down with Mike Stadnisky, Managing Director of Thielsen Capital — a seed-stage life science tools syndicate. Before Thielsen, Mike was CEO of Phytonix (acquired by Thermo Fisher) and FlowJo (acquired by BD Life Sciences), and has taught at MIT Sloan. In Part 1, Mike traces his path from growing up with a chemical engineer father who gave him early exposure to business strategy, to studying biochemistry at Clemson, to working as a Red Bull Student Brand Manager — a role that shaped his enduring "care before you share" philosophy: meeting people where they are, not where it's convenient. He carried that mindset into grad school at UVA, where he joined Michael Brown's lab to study NK cells and innate immunity, fell in love with flow cytometry, and had his first (tearful) encounter with FlowJo.
Key Topics Covered:

• Business at the Dinner Table: How his chemical engineer father gave him an early, unfiltered business education
• Red Bull Brand Manager: Lessons in authentic connection and meeting people in their "moment of need"
• Biochemistry at Clemson: How a high school biology-chemistry program and Gattaca locked in his life science path
• Choosing Brown's Lab at UVA: Why lab culture matters as much as the science, and how small labs mirror startups
• NK Cells & Flow Cytometry: His PhD research focus and the origin story of a tools obsession that defined his career
• The PhD as an Ultra-Marathon: Why sustainable effort beats sprinting, and how grad school stress-tests you for every business ahead

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, Mike Stadnisky at these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikestadnisky/ Website: https://www.thielsencapital.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:What Is Flow Cytometry & How Do Flow Cytometers Work?: https://www.excedr.com/blog/what-is-flow-cytometry-how-do-flow-cytometers-work How to Break Into Biotech BD as a PhD Student: https://www.excedr.com/blog/how-to-break-into-biotech-bd-as-a-phd-student How to Spin Out of Academia & Into a Startup: https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-to-spin-out-of-academia-and-into-a-startup Why Some Biotech Startups Struggle to Scale: https://www.excedr.com/resources/why-some-biotech-startups-struggle-to-scale Gattaca (1997): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ Hidden Talents of Natural Killers: NK Cells in Innate and Adaptive Immunity (EMBO Reports): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2759738/ How Experts Practice Better Than the Rest — Deliberate Practice & the 10,000 Hour Rule: https://jamesclear.com/deliberate-practice-strategy 


Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Companies & Universities:Thielsen Capital: https://www.thielsencapital.com FlowJo: https://www.flowjo.com BD Life Sciences: https://www.bd.com Thermo Fisher Scientific: https://www.thermofisher.com Red Bull: https://www.redbull.com/us-en Clemson University: https://www.clemson.edu University of Virginia: https://www.virginia.edu MIT Sloan School of Management: https://mitsloan.mit.edu 
People:Michael Brown, Ph.D. (Professor of Medicine – Nephrology, UVA; Principal Investigator, Brown Lab): https://med.virginia.edu/faculty/faculty-listing/mgb4n/

Timestamps:00:00 Intro02:28 Growing Up at the Intersection of Business and Science07:52 The Science Obsession: Chemistry Textbooks and Secret Knowledge10:13 Biochemistry at Clemson: Earning the Hard Course16:09 Becoming a Red Bull Student Brand Manager on Campus18:31 Care Before You Share: Selling to Engineers at Midnight24:46 Leaving Red Bull Behind: The Pull Back to the Lab31:16 Michael Brown's Lab at UVA: NK Cells and Lab Culture39:12 Falling in Love with Flow Cytometry and Crying Over FlowJo41:31 The PhD as an Ultra-Marathon: Finding Your Sustainable Pace48:45 The Lab as a Startup: Skin in the Game Science49:55 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.

"Trust yourself, trust your instincts, and also the relationships and partnerships that you build along the way — because at the end of the day, it's all about the people."

In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, we dive into how Nalu Bio CEO and co-founder Caitlyn Krebs is harnessing AI and the largely untapped endocannabinoid system (ECS) to build the first nonhormonal therapeutic for the two hundred million women living with endometriosis, while running an ultra-lean company with no lab, no university royalties, and a fully outsourced CRO/CMO model. She explains why CB1 and CB2 GPCRs are among pharma’s most druggable targets, how Nalu’s platform has sped drug development by 5x while doubling phase one success rates, and why the ECS may be medicine’s most overlooked frontier amid a women’s health landscape still dominated by opioids, chemical menopause, and invasive surgery.


Key topics covered:

• Capital Efficiency in Biotech: Why your next value inflection point matters more than a two-year runway
• Founding Nalu Bio: How two VC cofounders built a lean, lab-free CRO/CMO-driven company from day one
• The Endocannabinoid System: Why CB1 and CB2 GPCRs are among pharma's most druggable — and most ignored — targets
• Endometriosis & the Unmet Need: The brutal reality of treating 200 million women with opioids, hormones, and surgery
• AI-Driven Drug Discovery: 5x faster development, 2x better phase one success rates — before a molecule is ever made
• Pipeline vs. Platform: Feeding the engine while bringing your drug assets to market
• Global CRO Strategy: Picking the best partners worldwide for speed, quality, and cost efficiency
• IP Strategy: Why Nalu guards its platform as a trade secret — not a patent
• Women's Health as an Investment: $100 billion in exits over 25 years — women are not a niche market

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/@thebiotechstartupspodcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/ 
Find our guest, Caitlyn Krebs at these links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlynkrebs/Website: https://www.nalubio.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 Endocannabinoid System: Essential and Mysterious https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-endocannabinoid-system-essential-and-mysterious-202108112569Review of the Endocannabinoid System – NIH/PMC https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7855189/CB1 & CB2 Receptor Pharmacology – NIH/PMChttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5812699/Endometriosis Treatment Options – Franciscan Healthhttps://www.franciscanhealth.org/community/blog/endometriosis-treatment-optionsThe Four Stages of Endometriosis – CCRM Fertility https://www.ccrmivf.com/blog/four-stages-of-endometriosis/The Role of AI in Biotech and AI-Driven Drug Discovery https://cbdw.ai/the-role-of-ai-in-biotech-and-ai-driven-drug-discovery/AI in Pharma and Biotech: R&D Case Studies & Trends https://intuitionlabs.ai/articles/ai-pharma-biotech-drug-discovery-case-studies

Companies, Universities, & People mentioned:BlueStar Genomics: https://spirolab.com/project/bluestar-genomics/Rock Health: https://rockhealth.comNVIDIA Inception Program: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/startups/Silicon Valley Bank (SVB): https://www.svb.comFounders Fund: https://foundersfund.com
Phyllis Whiteley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phyllis-whiteley-phd-b5821317Ken Mackie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-mackie-2602057


Timestamps: 00:00 Intro02:24 Capital Efficiency and Getting to the Next Inflection Point05:39 The Origin of Nalu Bio and the Endocannabinoid System07:32 Co-founding Nalu Bio with Phyllis and Randall08:07 Early Days: Building the Team and Technology10:08 Endometriosis: The Market, the Problem, and the Patients17:05 Balancing Pipeline vs. Platform Development18:57 Business Model: Licensing Assets at Phase Two20:53 Company Structure: CROs, CMOs, and Capital Efficiency22:37 Choosing CRO Partners by Region and Size25:38 From Platform-Building to the Clinic: Nalu Bio's Evolution27:14 IP Strategy: Patents vs. Trade Secrets31:10 Looking Ahead: Phase Two, Pharma Partnerships, and AI34:47 Shout-Outs and Closing Advice37:55 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.
"You just don't know where these people will play a role in your life, but also, you don't know who they know. Business is a small community, and the journey's long."

In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Caitlyn Krebs traces her path from a gut-punch company shutdown on maternity leave — which unexpectedly forged a key cofounder relationship — through the digital health boom at Rock Health, to her role as COO at Neurotrack, where an eye-tracking Alzheimer's test launched to 137 countries within days and led to selling cognitive risk scores to Japanese life insurers as the only woman in the room. She closes out her pre-Nalu journey at BlueStar Genomics, where hard lessons in capital discipline and the dangers of scope creep shaped the focused, founder-ready mindset she brings to building Nalu Bio today.

Key Topics Covered:

• Turning Adversity into Opportunity: How a shutdown on maternity leave sparked an unexpected cofounder relationship
• VC Mindset at Rock Health: What VCs really look for — team, traction, market size, and the D2C trap
• Neurotrack & Cognitive Health: Going global in days with an eye-tracking Alzheimer's test and selling risk scores to Japanese life insurers
• Cross-Cultural Enterprise Sales: Holding her ground in high-stakes negotiations in Japan as the only woman in the room
• Capital Discipline & Focus: Why staying in your lane — and resisting the urge to do it all — is a startup superpower
  
  

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/@thebiotechstartupspodcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/ 
Find our guest, Caitlyn Krebs at these links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlynkrebs/Website: https://www.nalubio.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:Eye Tracking as a Tool for Alzheimer's Detection https://www.tobii.com/resource-center/learn-articles/4-methods-to-assess-alzheimers-with-eye-trackingIs D2C in HealthTech a Viable Business Model? https://healthtechd2c.substack.com/p/is-d2c-in-healthtech-a-viable-businessHealthTech Business Models Explained: The Case for B2B2C https://htdhealth.com/insights/healthtech-business-models-explained-benefits-of-b2b2c/A Guide to the Venture Capitalist Decision-Making Process https://www.excedr.com/resources/guide-to-the-venture-capitalist-decision-making-process VC Funding 101 https://www.excedr.com/blog/vc-funding-101 

Companies, Universities, & People mentioned:Rock Health: https://rockhealth.comNeurotrack: https://www.neurotrack.comGRAIL: https://grail.com

Timestamps: 00:00 Intro02:20 Lessons from Tethys: Reimbursement Risk and Commercialization Challenges04:29 Shutting Down on Maternity Leave and Turning a Wind‑Down into a Cofounder Relationship08:28 Long‑Game Relationship Building and Why You Don’t Burn Bridges10:26 Selling “Your Baby”: Finding a New Home for Tethys’ Technology12:28 Entering the Digital Health Boom at Rock Health14:38 How VCs Evaluate Startups: Team, Traction, Market, and Business Model17:02 The D2C Pendulum and Emerging Women’s Health Channels19:40 Joining Neurotrack: Eye‑Tracking to Detect Early Cognitive Decline22:31 Launching a Web‑Based Alzheimer’s Risk Test in 137 Countries and D2C Lessons24:09 Selling Cognitive Risk Scores to Japanese Life Insurers as a Female Executive34:18 Epigenetics and Early Cancer Detection at BlueStar Genomics, Focus, and Capital Discipline37:05 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.