Table of Contents

* Alasdair Milton: The Innovation Inflection Point: Why 70% of Cures Never Reach Patients

* Executive Coaching – Why Conferences Fail After the Handshake

* Meet Us at BIO International San Diego (June 22–25, 2026)

* The Latest Podcast Episodes

* Reading List for Entrepreneurs and Investors from Series A to IPO and beyond

* Quote of the Week

* Call for Speakers

* Support the Show to Help Grow the Ecosystem and Plant Trees

* Podcast Media Data - A Global Top 10% Show - #1 Deep Tech Show in 2025

* Community Partners

Alasdair Milton: The Innovation Inflection Point: Why 70% of Cures Never Reach Patients

Last fall, Alasdair Milton, PhD, looked straight into the microphone and delivered a line that has stayed with me ever since:“We’ve been doing precision medicine in lung cancer for decades — over two decades — and we’re still not getting it right.”

It wasn’t drama. It was diagnosis. The biggest failure in modern healthcare, he argued, isn’t science. It’s delivery.

I first met Alasdair and the KPMG U.S. Biopharma team in the crowded hallways at BIO International in Boston last year. The energy was unmistakable — everyone sensed the market was turning, but few had the full picture. We agreed to sit down again in Q4 2025 for a longer conversation on Beginner’s Mind. What followed was one of the most forward-looking episodes I’ve recorded.

Now, as BIO International returns to San Diego (June 22–25, 2026), the data has caught up with Alasdair’s analysis in real time. M&A is accelerating. The first wave of biotech IPOs is returning. Big Pharma is aggressively hunting assets to blunt a $200–300 billion patent cliff. China’s innovation pipeline has moved from footnote to strategic imperative. In other words, the inflection point Alasdair mapped out last fall is happening right now.

That is exactly why I’m writing this:

If you allocate capital, build companies, or shape strategy in life sciences, make it a priority to meet experts like Alasdair Milton and the full KPMG U.S. Life Sciences team in San Diego this June.

Here are the seven timeless insights from our conversation that have proven sharper than most 2026 forecasts — and why they make in-person conversations with Alasdair and his colleagues so valuable.

1. Science keeps marching forward no matter the macro chaos. (05:25)“Despite the turmoil,” Alasdair said, “the science keeps evolving… and that is always what gives me hope.” Tariffs, the war in Iran, and oil prices above $100 have injected friction into everything. Yet cell and gene therapies, in-vivo CAR-T, and multi-omics platforms continue to advance. The science did not pause.

2. The industry must shift from selling sickness to enabling lifelong wellness. (2:23:59)Biopharma’s current model — treat chronic disease after it appears — is structurally unsustainable. Alasdair called for preemptive health, risk prediction years earlier, and true prevention. The healthcare system was built for pills and mass markets, not personalized data-driven interventions. That delivery gap is why, even after decades of precision medicine, far too many patients still never receive the therapies they should.

3. China has moved from “catching up” to “redefining the map.” (1:43:20)From roughly 5 % to 33 % of the global monoclonal antibody pipeline in a decade. Alasdair flagged this eastward shift early. In 2026 the data shows he was, if anything, conservative. Western pharma is now actively licensing Chinese assets. The U.S. innovation crown is no longer guaranteed.

4. Capital has swung decisively toward discipline. (1:17:36)The post-COVID “sugar high” is over. Investors and corporate venture arms are laser-focused on the top 20 % of de-risked assets led by proven teams with scalable CMC and clear commercial theses. Alasdair called this exact pivot. We are living it now — M&A volume and value are surging as pharma regains leverage.

5. Translation is the new competitive moat. (56:32)Great science dies in quarterly portfolio reviews unless it can be explained in clear business terms. Alasdair — a trained cancer biologist who became a trusted advisor to global biopharma boards — is the archetype of the translator every company now needs. His team at KPMG operates like a boutique inside a Big Four firm (50:07): taking deep science and turning it into actionable strategy.

6. Careers (and companies) are never linear — resilience is the differentiator. (30:01)Born on a 400-person island off Scotland’s west coast, Alasdair built his career on “Scottish grit.” In 2007, just weeks after moving to Boston, his entire life-sciences team was shut down. “When one door closes,” he reflected, “another one opens… what felt like the end of the world became one of the best things that happened to me.” That mindset separates survivors from casualties in today’s market.

7. The next decade belongs to those who master both innovation and execution. (2:38:13)Precision medicine is no longer just a scientific question. It is a leadership, capital-allocation, and systems-design question. The leaders who win will be the ones who translate complex science into decisive strategy — exactly the skill set Alasdair and the KPMG precision and advanced therapies team bring to their clients every day.

These are not abstract points. They are the exact topics that will dominate the floor in San Diego.

Navigating 2026: Uncertainty and Unprecedented Opportunity

As we look at the world today, Alasdair’s insights are the perfect compass. Geopolitical headwinds—from the war in Iran and rising oil prices to new global tariffs—are injecting friction into global supply chains.

Yet, the science marches forward.

Will China continue to strengthen its grip on early-stage investment and pipeline volume?

Or will US powerhouses retain the global innovation crown?

Just weeks ago, Eli Lilly answered that question by doubling down on AI with a massive $2.75 billion collaboration with Insilico Medicine, perfectly complementing their recent Nvidia supercomputer partnership.

And let’s not discount Europe, where Jeito Capital just closed a record €1 billion ($1.2 billion) fund this month to back “plug-and-play” biotechs explicitly targeted for pharma acquisition.

Prepare for BIO International 2026

BIO International 2026 is expected to be even larger than last year’s record-breaking Boston event. More than 20,000 of the world’s sharpest minds in M&A, funding, product development, and science will gather under one roof. This is where the conversations that actually move capital and strategy happen — not in slides, but in the hallway, at the coffee station, and at the KPMG booth.

If you want to understand how the patent cliff is really being navigated, how China’s rise is reshaping licensing strategy, or how precision medicine can finally move from promise to delivery, the highest-ROI thing you can do is meet the people who are living these issues every day.

Start by watching (or re-watching) the full episode with Alasdair Milton below — it will sharpen your thinking and give you better questions when you’re on the ground. Then make it a priority to meet Alasdair and the KPMG U.S. Life Sciences team while you’re there.

Alasdair Milton and the KPMG U.S. Life Sciences team are precisely that caliber of expert. They advise the world’s largest biopharma and diagnostic companies on growth strategy, commercial due diligence, and advanced therapies. They translate the same science that excites researchers into the language that boards and investors actually act on.

Reach out to Alasdair directly on LinkedIn today — tell him you read this and you’ll be at BIO. He’s always happy to connect. These are the conversations that turn insight into real advantage.

The science is marching forward.The question is whether your network and your strategy are keeping pace.

See you in San Diego.

Christian SoschnerHost, Beginner’s Mind

Watch (or re-watch) the full episode with Alasdair Milton here: [YouTube Link]

Conferences fail for the same reason great science fails: brilliant conversations with no delivery system afterward.

In my 1:1 coaching, we build the exact follow-up architecture that turns hallway insights with experts like Alasdair Milton and the KPMG team into closed deals, strategic partnerships, and real competitive advantage.

If BIO International San Diego is on your calendar, now is the moment to set it up.

Meet Us at BIO International San Diego (June 22–25, 2026)

Podcast Episodes and Clips

EP 174: Wanwipa Siriwatwechakul | Funding the Next Industrial Era

EP 173: Bret Kugelmass | The West Bet on the Wrong Energy Future

Incorruptible

We just explored why even the best science in biopharma routinely gets shelved in quarterly reviews, why delivery systems built decades ago push companies toward reactive treatment instead of prevention, and why success itself can quietly bend organizations away from their original mission.

That same relentless logic drives Eric Ries’s new book, Incorruptible.

For decades we’ve blamed corporate drift on bad actors or moral failure. Ries shows the real problem is structural: the very systems of ownership, incentives, charters, and decision-making that fuel growth eventually turn companies against the principles that made them worth building in the first place. Even principled leaders find themselves making the short-term choices they swore they never would.

Incorruptible reframes governance not as bureaucracy, but as a creative, strategic act — the only reliable way to protect mission, culture, and long-term value when success becomes its own form of financial gravity.

It is about designing organizations that stay incorruptible by design.If you want to build (or back) life sciences companies that don’t lose their soul the moment they scale, this is the absolute baseline.

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