The Biotech Startups Podcast

🧬 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've never actually taken venture capital.”

Steve Visco grew PolyPlus Battery Company on government contracts instead of a stack of tiny SBIRs. Lawrence Berkeley had already taught him how to write large proposals. The danger, he says, is chasing money that pulls the company off its North Star. Once you sign, you cannot renegotiate the work. You get reports, audits, and no BMWs in the parking lot. ARPA-E will kill a grant that stalls. His grant-writing rule is the same as a venture pitch: why should anyone care, who is on the team, and don't ask for too little.

They started on angels, then a chemical company paid the R&D bills. Strategic investors followed. They have never taken venture. First CEO Rudolph Hurwich did not want it. Venture fails fast. Grants and angels do not take the company. Manufacturing money later showed up in specialized government programs, including a seawater-battery line. Steve's play for corporates is not a cold email. Give a talk that scouts cannot ignore, or earn a press hit, and let them come to you.

Japanese partners move by consensus and assume Americans exaggerate. Some Korean partners decide fast and stay on you. Recruiting in California is a fight. Manufacturing is going to Indiana: dry rooms, ISO, a general manager, and a pro-business state. Asked what he would tell his 21-year-old self, Steve lands on follow the work that still excites you. He thanks Donna, then Rudy, who was on Nixon's enemies list, made the cover of Time with Dymo, and taught a 1960s skeptic that builders can be decent people.

Key Topics Covered:

• Non-dilutive grants instead of living on SBIRs
• Close to $100 million in government money
• Write the proposal so the North Star is already in the statement of work
• Audits, reporting, and ARPA-E's high bar
• Don't ask for too little
• Acting classes, storytelling, and a delayed Nobel
• Angels and strategics, never venture
• Why Rudy Hurwich kept VCs out
• Seawater batteries and manufacturing grants
• Conference talks that make corporates walk up after
• Japanese diligence versus Korean speed
• Hiring in California, building in Indiana
• Advice to a 21-year-old, and a shout-out to Rudy

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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep290

Find our guest, Steve Visco, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-j-visco-2910b57

Website: https://polyplus.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:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Non-dilutive capital: https://www.excedr.com/blog/the-benefits-of-non-dilutive-capital

Grant funding: https://www.excedr.com/resources/grants-public-funding-biotech-startups

Grant proposals: https://www.excedr.com/blog/how-to-write-a-grant-proposal-for-research

SBIR grants: https://www.excedr.com/blog/sbir-grants-guide

Survive without VC: https://www.excedr.com/resources/can-biotech-startups-survive-without-vc-funding

Corporate VC: https://www.excedr.com/blog/what-is-corporate-venture-capital

Corporate investors: https://www.excedr.com/blog/what-corporate-investors-look-for-in-life-sciences-startups

ARPA-E: https://arpa-e.energy.gov/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

ARPA-E: https://arpa-e.energy.gov/

Purdue University: https://www.purdue.edu/

Rudolph Hurwich: https://hurwich.com/

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: https://www.lbl.gov/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:29 Non-Dilutive Money, Not SBIRs

02:33 Close to $100 Million

02:51 Stay on the North Star

03:08 Audits, BMWs, and ARPA-E

07:52 Don't Ask for Too Little

09:15 Acting Classes and a Delayed Nobel

11:12 We've Never Taken Venture

11:35 Rudy Preferred Strategics

13:37 Seawater Batteries and Manufacturing Grants

15:22 Let the Corporates Come to You

20:09 Japanese Skepticism, Korean Speed

22:24 Recruiting in California, Building in Indiana

30:36 Advice to a 21-Year-Old

35:24 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

“We're going to burn your company to the ground.”

Steve Visco's spinout found its first CEO in the audience. Rudolph Hurwich had already built Dymo, cashed out, and was hunting for another shot at something big. He offered to raise the angel round and take the job when Steve said he wasn't ready. The founding four were faculty: Steve, Lutgard De Jonghe at Berkeley, Michel Armand in Montreal and Grenoble, and Meilin Liu at Georgia Tech.

They opened the doors in 1991. Sony introduced lithium-ion the same year. The bar moved overnight. US names like Duracell never caught up. Korea did. Then China. Battery production started to look like the new oil. For about a decade the company lived on fundamental patents and joint development with chemical firms such as DuPont, not on shipping cells.

Two years in, a Silicon Valley lead-acid supplier wanted to merge and IPO on the back of three Berkeley Lab patents. Diligence found the lab had skipped the maintenance fees. The patents were abandoned, then reinstated after a fight with the patent office. A competitor's packs exploded at Motorola two days before the offering. The bankers said no more battery IPOs. Later, a lithium-sulfur follower copied claims, sued, and sent a CEO to Berkeley with a threat to burn the company down. They hired the lawyer who wrote the book on interference law and won. Steve's advice from the scar tissue: license by geography or application, never the whole stack, and build a picket fence, not one patent.

Key Topics Covered:

• Finding a CEO at a Berkeley-Stanford pitch
• Four faculty founders across three countries
• Sony ships lithium-ion in 1991
• Japan, Korea, China, and the new oil
• A decade as a licensing company
• Lead-acid for Apple and a red herring
• Berkeley Lab missed the maintenance fees
• Exploding packs and a killed IPO
• Lithium-sulfur patent trolls
• An interference suit backed by a hedge fund
• Winning at the USPTO appellate court
• License by geography, not the whole company
• Picket fences, PCT filings, and in-house IP

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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep289

Find our guest, Steve Visco, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-j-visco-2910b57

Website: https://polyplus.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:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

IP strategy for biotechs: https://www.excedr.com/resources/intellectual-property-strategy-for-biotechs

How to protect your IP: https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-to-protect-your-intellectual-property

How investors evaluate life sciences IP: https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-investors-evaluate-life-sciences-ip

How patent licensing works: https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-patent-licensing-works

PCT (WIPO): https://www.wipo.int/pct/en/

Federal Circuit: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

DuPont: https://www.dupont.com/

University of Montreal: https://www.umontreal.ca/en/

Georgia Institute of Technology: https://www.gatech.edu/

UC Berkeley Materials Science & Engineering: https://www.mse.berkeley.edu/

Lutgard De Jonghe: https://mse.berkeley.edu/people_new/de-jonghe/

Meilin Liu: https://www.mse.gatech.edu/people/meilin-liu

Rudolph Hurwich: https://hurwich.com/

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: https://www.lbl.gov/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:57 Finding a CEO in the Audience

03:39 Four Faculty Founders

04:38 Sony Introduces Lithium-Ion

05:28 Ten Years as a Licensing Shop

06:16 The Center of Gravity Leaves the US

09:46 A Merger With Nothing to Sell

11:05 The Lab Let the Patents Lapse

12:38 Exploding Batteries Kill the IPO

13:53 Patent Trolls on Lithium-Sulfur

15:39 Burn Your Company to the Ground

16:15 The Lawyer Who Wrote the Book

19:08 How to License Without Giving Away the Company

22:26 A Picket Fence Around the Invention

32:20 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

“He says, no, I'm serious. Icebergs. I'm going to Santa Barbara.”

Steve Visco was an introverted kid with a microscope, pond water, and books on Louis Pasteur and Jonas Salk. School science lagged years behind what he was already doing at home. Literature almost pulled him into writing instead of the lab. He still treats writing as a leadership skill, because too many scientists cannot explain why their work matters. A high-school rock band got him used to being watched. That comfort later showed up in grant pitches.

His father started as an auto mechanic, then taught at a vocational high school while earning degrees on nights and weekends. The deal at home was two comic books for every classic novel. At UMass, Steve stayed pre-med until a professor pulled him into real chemistry on a valley about to be flooded for a reservoir. He published as an undergrad, then walked away from medicine. Brown taught him electrochemistry on metal carbonyls, not batteries. A postdoc in Newfoundland came with a ferry and a warning about icebergs. He took Santa Barbara instead.

John Kennedy's lab was already poking at solid-state batteries in the early 1980s. Work from 1982 still sits under what PolyPlus Battery Company does now. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab felt like Bell Labs when Steve arrived, until the political question hit: why do taxpayers need these labs? Training scientists was not enough. Labs stood up tech transfer offices. Steve's group became the second company launched out of Berkeley Lab after a Wall Street Journal reporter, who wanted three lines, gave him a quarter page instead.

Key Topics Covered:

• Childhood science, vaccines, and a home microscope
• Literature versus the lab, and why scientists need to write
• Lead guitar and learning an audience
• A father who earned degrees on weekends
• UMass research on a flooded valley
• Walking away from pre-med
• Brown, metal carbonyls, and electrochemistry
• Newfoundland icebergs versus Santa Barbara
• John Kennedy and solid-state batteries before the boom
• Why national labs built tech transfer offices
• The second company out of Berkeley Lab
• A Wall Street Journal call that started a company

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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep288

Find our guest, Steve Visco, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-j-visco-2910b57

Website: https://polyplus.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:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Tech transfer and spinning out

What is technology transfer: https://www.excedr.com/blog/what-is-tech-transfer

How to spin out of academia into a startup: https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-to-spin-out-of-academia-and-into-a-startup

Patent licensing

How patent licensing works: https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-patent-licensing-works

Angel funding

How to raise money from angel investors: https://www.excedr.com/resources/angel-funding-and-angel-investors

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

University of Massachusetts Amherst: https://www.umass.edu/

Brown University: https://www.brown.edu/

UC Santa Barbara: https://www.ucsb.edu/

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: https://www.lbl.gov/

The Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:32 Vaccine Pioneers at Age Eight

03:06 Pond Water, Amoebas, and Being Ahead of School

03:55 Literature, Vocabulary, and Scientists Who Can't Write

05:05 Lead Guitar and Getting Used to an Audience

06:14 A Father Who Earned His Degree on Weekends

07:02 Two Comic Books for Every Classic Novel

08:33 UMass Research on a Flooded Valley

09:04 Walking Away from Pre-Med

10:01 Brown, Metal Carbonyls, and Electrochemistry

11:59 Icebergs Versus Santa Barbara

15:20 John Kennedy and Solid-State Batteries

20:59 Why National Labs Built Tech Transfer Offices

27:24 A Wall Street Journal Call That Started a Company

33:36 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.

Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. Learn more at https://www.excedr.com/partners.

“If things are getting more complex, you're going in the wrong direction.”

Scott Chetham explains why he left Google and Verily to tackle the unglamorous planning work that slows clinical development. He recounts sketching the company in Costa Rica, raising a pre-napkin-stage round with Polaris, finding an early customer, and adapting when COVID-19 disrupted pharma economics.

He also traces Faro's evolution from a scenario-planning calculator into a broader platform for protocol review, data transformation, automation, and research support. The conversation covers regulated AI, the limits of historical data and trial simulation, customer trust, founder stamina, enterprise transformation, and the shift from pushing a market to being pulled by it. Scott closes with the advice that has stayed with him: fight complexity everywhere.

Key Topics Covered:

• Leaving Google and Verily to solve clinical development's planning bottleneck
• Building a company from a Costa Rica planning retreat
• Raising a pre-napkin-stage venture round with Polaris
• Finding early customers during COVID-19 disruption
• The realities of second-time founding and balancing family life
• Referral-driven enterprise sales in a trust-sensitive industry
• Faro's evolution from a clinical trial cost calculator to an automation platform
• Knowledge graphs, data transformation, and constrained LLM workflows
• Automating protocol review and electronic data capture programming
• Why pre-2019 clinical data may mislead modern trial design
• The limits of replacing clinical trials with simulations
• Transforming large pharma organizations under pressure
• Moving from pushing automation to responding to customer demand
• Founder leverage, sustainable pace, and organizational scale
• Why increasing complexity is a warning sign

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4

TBSP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcast

TBSP website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep287

Find our guest, Scott Chetham, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-chetham-2949001

Website: https://farohealth.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:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Faro Health: https://farohealth.com/

Polaris: https://www.polaris.vc/

Verily: https://verily.com/

Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/

ClinicalTrials.gov: https://clinicaltrials.gov/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Google: https://www.google.com/

Verily: https://verily.com/

Polaris: https://www.polaris.vc/

Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/

Merck: https://www.merck.com/

Meta: https://about.meta.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:44 Leaving Google and Verily

02:50 A Company Sketched in Costa Rica

03:28 COVID Disrupts the Early Market

04:39 The Older Founder Advantage

05:44 Trust, Referrals, and Scaling

10:21 From Fancy Calculator to Platform

12:52 Regulated AI Needs Guardrails

14:45 Why the Ecosystem Must Work Together

17:29 When More Data Makes Things Worse

18:44 The Limits of Trial Simulation

24:40 Transforming Pharma Before Costs Break It

27:30 From Pushing to Being Pulled

37:20 Fight Complexity Everywhere

39:16 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.

Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. Learn more at https://www.excedr.com/partners.

“Our problem is the clinical funnel to shove things through this 12 year development cycle and the amount of capital it takes.”

Clinical development is not a simple scale game. Scott explains why large pharmaceutical companies can behave like highly optimized development machines, while smaller biotechs absorb the full cost of delays, amendments, interim analyses, and underused teams.

The conversation then moves to the decisions that determine whether a trial succeeds: what to measure, whom to enroll, and when to measure it. Scott uses Amgen's osteoporosis strategy to show how a focused endpoint and staged market entry can outperform an attempt to capture everything at once.

Scott also breaks down adaptive trials, global trial planning, patient consent, and the role of AI in compressing months of research into rapid scenario analysis. Automation can map the landscape, but judgment remains essential when the biology is new and the stakes are high.

Key Topics Covered:

• Nonlinear clinical development economics
• Why large pharmaceutical companies gain efficiency from fixed development infrastructure
• The cost burden of amendments, interim analyses, and idle clinical teams
• The division of labor between biotech discovery and pharmaceutical development
• mRNA manufacturing and Moderna's personalized vaccine production model
• Clinical endpoints as a strategic and competitive differentiator
• Amgen's staged osteoporosis strategy
• Adaptive trials and preplanned endpoint changes
• Clinical trial failure rates and increasing biological complexity
• Why clinical development, rather than molecule discovery, constrains the drug pipeline
• The human realities of patient consent and family trust
• Using AI and machine learning for protocol research and scenario modeling
• Global trial sequencing, country selection, cost, and enrollment optimization

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4

TBSP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcast

TBSP website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep286

Find our guest, Scott Chetham, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-chetham-2949001

Website: https://farohealth.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:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

ClinicalTrials.gov: https://clinicaltrials.gov/

Amgen: https://www.amgen.com/

Merck: https://www.merck.com/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Merck: https://www.merck.com/

Amgen: https://www.amgen.com/

Google: https://www.google.com/

Verily: https://verily.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:47 Why Clinical Economics Are Nonlinear

01:51 The Pharmaceutical Development Machine

04:29 What Makes Moderna Scalable

07:13 The Endpoint Is the Differentiator

08:07 How Amgen Beat the Broader Strategy

09:10 Where Human Judgment Still Wins

10:41 Why Clinical Trials Fail

11:53 The Bottleneck Is the Clinical Funnel

12:35 The Parts of Trials AI Cannot Automate

14:43 Adaptive Trials and Planned Pivots

16:19 Automating the Research Behind Trial Design

21:56 Why Domain Expertise Still Matters

26:03 Optimizing Global Trial Scenarios

29:09 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.

Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. Learn more at https://www.excedr.com/partners.

“Knowledge is now a commodity, and it's your ability to ask the right question and the right next question that is really where the value is.”

Scott Chetham explains why he left academia, how applied physics and industry-sponsored research prepared him for commercial healthcare, and what he learned leading technology and commercialization at ImpediMed. He discusses lymphedema detection, body composition monitoring, early GLP-1 research, and the long path from clinical measurement to drug development.

The conversation then turns to scaling teams through uncertainty. Scott shares how company growth creates organizational whiplash, why founders often underestimate the need for change management, and how leaders can stay close to what employees and customers are actually experiencing.

Scott also describes the shift from software and AI as coding problems to problems of product judgment, prioritization, alignment, and quality assurance. He outlines how better automation could cut roughly half the internal work involved in clinical development, while explaining why rigorous verification and human decision-making remain essential.

Key Topics Covered:

• Leaving academia for direct impact in healthcare
• Applied physics, biomedical engineering, and industry-sponsored research
• How asking the right scientific question shapes clinical development
• ImpedMed's lymphedema detection technology
• Body composition monitoring in obesity and drug research
• Early GLP-1 clinical research and pharmaceutical partnerships
• The progression from diagnostic devices to clinical development software
• Change management inside fast-growing healthcare companies
• Founder comfort with uncertainty, pivots, and execution
• Keeping leadership connected to employees as teams scale
• AI-driven shifts in product development and engineering bottlenecks
• Front-loading quality assurance for regulated workflows
• Reducing clinical development time, labor, and cost

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4

TBSP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcast

TBSP website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep285

Find our guest, Scott Chetham, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-chetham-2949001

Website: https://farohealth.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:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

ImpediMed: https://impedimed.com/

Novo Nordisk: https://www.novonordisk.com/

ClinicalTrials.gov: https://clinicaltrials.gov/

Google X: https://x.company/

Verily: https://verily.com/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

ImpediMed: https://impedimed.com/

Novo Nordisk: https://www.novonordisk.com/

Novartis: https://www.novartis.com/

Versant Ventures: https://www.versantventures.com/

Google: https://www.google.com/

Google X: https://x.company/

Verily: https://verily.com/

DeepMind: https://deepmind.google/

Meta: https://about.meta.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:36 Why Scott Left Academia

03:42 Applied Physics in Clinical Research

04:52 The Value of Asking Better Questions

04:56 From Research to Industry

07:17 Scaling Through Change Management

09:30 The Whiplash of Company Growth

13:20 Staying Close to the Front Line

15:46 ImpedMed's Clinical Applications

19:14 Following the Clinical Research Thread

20:25 How Google Changed the Thesis

24:00 The New Prioritization Problem

27:24 Why QA Must Come First

30:46 The Economics of Faster Development

32:46 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.

Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. Learn more at https://www.excedr.com/partners.

“Two-thirds of our work is QA. It's not the development anymore. It's how do you ensure it's doing what you think it's doing and that it will keep doing it, it won't drift.”

Scott Chetham traces the influences that shaped his path into life sciences, from growing up on Australia's Gold Coast and watching his parents build careers through work and education to studying the intersection of engineering and medicine. He shares how a combined degree, early exposure to hospitals, and an unusual appetite for difficult problems pushed him toward biomedical research.

The conversation then moves into the rapid evolution of cardiac electrophysiology, including early catheter mapping, implantable devices, and clinical trial work at St. Andrews War Memorial Hospital. Scott and Jon also examine a problem that has become central to deploying AI in regulated fields: polished outputs can still be wrong, models can drift, and rigorous QA, source grounding, and human judgment are not optional.

Key Topics Covered:

• Growing up on Australia's Gold Coast
• Lessons from early work at SeaWorld
• The influence of Scott's parents and their path into higher education
• Biology, functional anatomy, computers, and the decision to pursue healthcare
• The value and limits of a highly regimented boarding-school education
• AI-generated misinformation in venture research and company diligence
• Why human interviews still matter in an AI-saturated research process
• Guardrails, source-of-truth data, and degradation across repeated AI generations
• Scott's combined engineering and medical training
• Early neural-network research for cardiac signal interpretation
• Cardiac electrophysiology, pacemakers, ICDs, and catheter ablation
• The transition from open-chest procedures to closed-chest 3D cardiac mapping
• Why AI deployment requires extensive QA, model monitoring, and human judgment

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1679591994

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSL162R2s0zOwU5913Zv4

TBSP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiotechstartupspodcast

TBSP website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep284

Find our guest, Scott Chetham, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-chetham-2949001

Website: https://farohealth.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:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Stanford Medicine: https://med.stanford.edu/

Google Model Cards: https://modelcards.withgoogle.com/about

Medtronic: https://www.medtronic.com/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

SeaWorld: https://seaworld.com/

KPMG: https://kpmg.com/

Google: https://www.google.com/

Stanford University: https://www.stanford.edu/

Medtronic: https://www.medtronic.com/

Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:38 Growing Up on the Gold Coast

03:05 The SeaWorld Production Line

04:02 A Family Built Around Education

07:18 Biology, Computers, and Healthcare

08:24 Learning to Lead Outside the Classroom

10:51 When AI Gets the Story Wrong

14:49 Guardrails Against Model Drift

16:27 Bridging Engineering and Medicine

18:24 Neural Networks Before the Boom

19:11 Inside the Cardiac Cath Lab

19:48 From Clinical Work to Research

24:58 The Revolution in Cardiac Mapping

29:43 Why QA Is the Real AI Work

33:47 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.

Excedr helps life science companies get the lab equipment they need through flexible 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 can overthink all the bad stuff, why can't you overthink all the good stuff?”

As Slone Partners grew beyond its original five-person team, Leslie Loveless had to confront one of the hardest parts of leadership: letting go. She talks about delegation, resisting the urge to rewrite everyone else's work, and learning that a different approach can still be the right approach.

Leslie also explains how Slone protects culture by listening for what different people need. The firm's culture ambassador helps turn that feedback into action, while Leslie reflects on when leaders should solve a problem, when they should simply listen, and why some issues need time to breathe.

Looking ahead, Leslie sees growing demand across medtech, healthtech, AI, and machine learning. She discusses the limits of recruiting from the same blue-chip companies, the realities of relocation and family decisions, the tension between remote and on-site work, and the people who helped her build the firm.

Key Topics Covered:

• Delegation and the difficulty of letting go as a company grows
• Accepting different communication and work styles
• Listening before jumping into problem-solving mode
• Using a culture ambassador to gather and act on employee feedback
• Building executive team leadership inside a growing search firm
• AI and machine learning hiring demand in medtech and healthtech
• Why technology can improve executive search without replacing human intuition
• Expanding candidate searches beyond blue-chip companies and primary biotech markets
• Relocation, family considerations, and executive hiring decisions
• Balancing remote, hybrid, and on-site work models
• The value of documenting institutional knowledge in distributed organizations
• Gratitude toward family, employees, and long-term clients

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep283

Find our guest, Leslie Loveless, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslieloveless1

Slone Partners: https://slonepartners.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
OkKyojin: https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Slone Partners: https://slonepartners.com/

Faro Health: https://farohealth.com/

NVIDIA: https://www.nvidia.com/

Purdue University: https://www.purdue.edu/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Purdue University: https://www.purdue.edu/

Faro Health: https://farohealth.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:53 The Hard Part of Growing Beyond Five People

02:43 Learning When to Speak Up

03:25 Different Ways of Doing the Work

04:09 A Type A Leader Learns to Slow Down

04:36 People Need Different Things

05:07 The Culture Ambassador Role

07:39 When Listening Beats Problem Solving

09:43 Giving Problems Time to Breathe

12:32 Slone's Next Growth Areas

12:55 Creating an Executive Team Mindset

13:58 Technology, Efficiency, and Human Intuition

17:33 The NBA Draft Mentality in AI Recruiting

19:16 Looking Beyond the Usual Biotech Markets

24:19 Remote Work, Relocation, and Role Fit

33:53 Overthinking the Good Stuff

35:38 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.

Excedr helps life science companies get the lab equipment they need through flexible 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

“People are our clients. People are our product, and connecting them is what we do.”

Leslie Loveless joined Slone Partners after a major personal transition, leaving a large healthcare company to become employee number five at a small recruiting firm. She hadn't worked in recruiting before, and at the time, she didn't fully appreciate how big the leap would be.

Leslie revisits the firm's early startup days, when meetings ran through improvised conference calls and the team relied on paper, notebooks, and spreadsheets. She also explains how Slone expanded beyond laboratory and diagnostics recruiting into biotech, research tools, pharma services, healthtech, digital health, and academic medicine.

At the center of that growth is a relationship-driven approach to search. Leslie discusses investor and portfolio-company relationships, the importance of long-tenured teams, the difference between an experienced candidate and the right fit, and why attitude matters when the work is inherently unpredictable.

Key Topics Covered:

• Leaving a large healthcare company to join a five-person recruiting firm
• Adopting Leslie's daughter during her first year at Slone Partners
• Evaluating whether candidates can thrive in startup environments
• Slone Partners' expansion beyond laboratory and diagnostics recruiting
• Executive search relationships with venture capital and private equity investors
• Hiring across biotech, genomics, research tools, pharma services, and healthtech
• The changing role of diagnostics, liquid biopsy, prognostics, and early detection
• Why long team tenure can compound relationships and industry knowledge
• Reading candidate motivations, behavior, and company fit beyond the resume
• Why attitude and resilience matter in a people-centered business

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep282

Find our guest, Leslie Loveless, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslieloveless1

Slone Partners: https://slonepartners.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
OkKyojin: https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Slone Partners: https://slonepartners.com/

Labcorp: https://www.labcorp.com/

Quest Diagnostics: https://www.questdiagnostics.com/

NVIDIA: https://www.nvidia.com/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

LabCorp: https://www.labcorp.com/

NVIDIA: https://www.nvidia.com/

Jensen Huang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jensen_Huang

Purdue University: https://www.purdue.edu/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:39 The Promotion That Coincided With Adoption

02:16 A Phone Call, Then a New Baby

02:36 Reconnecting With Adam

03:01 Becoming Employee Number Five

03:33 A Leap She Didn't Fully Understand

07:17 Hardcore Startup Mode

07:44 Who Can Really Thrive at a Startup?

08:49 Why Leslie Still Uses Notebooks

11:31 When the Original Market Changes

11:54 Building Around Investor Relationships

12:32 The Expanding Life Sciences Footprint

14:22 How Consolidation Reshaped Diagnostics

15:23 Growing One Connection at a Time

17:03 People Are the Product

19:52 The Difference Between Experience and Fit

32:03 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.

Excedr helps life science companies get the lab equipment they need through flexible 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 one looks at a teacher's resume and thinks they can go sell.”

Leslie Loveless leaves the classroom for pharmaceutical sales in 1999, a coveted industry at the time. She describes the culture shock of moving from a school building into a territory-based role, where her days meant driving between providers, managing her own schedule, and learning to sell one-to-one.

The transition wasn't easy on paper. Recruiters and hiring managers saw that Leslie lacked sales experience, but they missed the skills she had built teaching: public speaking, preparation, performance, and the ability to hold an audience's attention. At Takeda, those skills helped her win President's Club in both of her first two years.

Leslie then explains how a call from Adam Slone led her to Quest Diagnostics, where she moved quickly from individual sales into national sales training. The selling motion was completely different: hospital and laboratory deals required service, economic value, and buy-in from medical, operational, procurement, and financial stakeholders.

Key Topics Covered:

• Translating classroom teaching skills into pharmaceutical sales
• Pharmaceutical sales training and role-playing
• Takeda and the importance of partner reps
• Winning President's Club without prior sales experience
• Why scientific founders need commercial awareness
• Working backward from market adoption and investor sentiment
• Moving from provider sales to hospital and health system sales
• Enterprise sales in laboratory medicine
• Stakeholder alignment across procurement, finance, lab services, and clinical leadership
• Service quality, turnaround time, and specimen reliability
• Economic value propositions in healthcare sales

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep281

Find our guest, Leslie Loveless, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslieloveless1

Slone Partners: https://slonepartners.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
OkKyojin: https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Takeda: https://www.takeda.com/

Quest Diagnostics: https://www.questdiagnostics.com/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Takeda: https://www.takeda.com/

Quest Diagnostics: https://www.questdiagnostics.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:37 Choosing Pharmaceutical Sales

02:38 The Teacher Resume Problem

02:54 Two Weeks Of Training In Chicago

04:04 Learning The Territory

04:27 Freedom Outside The Classroom

05:07 Public Speaking As A Sales Skill

05:53 Selling One To One

08:47 Two Presidents Club Wins

08:54 The Value Of Orthogonal Experience

10:16 Connecting Science To The Market

13:12 Adam Slone's First Call

14:50 Joining Quest Diagnostics

15:25 An Unexpected Training Role

18:05 Selling Into Health Systems

20:39 Service And Economics Win Enterprise Deals

26:22 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.

Excedr helps life science companies get the lab equipment they need through flexible 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 need to really be in tune with what's being heard and received and understood.”

Leslie Loveless starts at the beginning: growing up in a close-knit Indiana family, watching her father build a career as a pharmacist, and learning early that education mattered even if the eventual career path was left up to her.

She explains how high school shifted her interests from mathematics to English, grammar, and writing, then describes the college experience that deepened her love of literature, stories, and critical thinking. A full scholarship close to home shaped her university decision, even as she sometimes wondered what it might have been like to leave Indiana.

Leslie also takes us inside her years teaching ninth, tenth, and eleventh graders while earning a master's degree at Butler University. Managing crowded classrooms, mixing current events with drier material, and keeping students engaged taught her a leadership skill she still relies on: read the room, then adapt.

Key Topics Covered:

• Leslie Loveless's Indiana upbringing and close-knit family
• The influence of her father's career as a pharmacist
• Why Leslie shifted from mathematics to English in high school
• Grammar, writing, and sentence structure as a bridge between analytical and humanistic thinking
• Choosing a nearby university with a full scholarship
• Studying literature, interpretation, and critical thinking
• Earning a master's degree in English at Butler University
• Teaching ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade English
• Balancing classroom teaching, graduate school, grading, and coaching
• Keeping teenagers engaged through varied lesson formats and current events
• Reading the room as a transferable leadership skill
• Why teaching began to feel too structured and all-consuming
• The freedom and financial considerations behind a possible career change

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep280

Find our guest, Leslie Loveless, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslieloveless1

Slone Partners: https://slonepartners.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
OkKyojin: https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Butler University English: https://www.butler.edu/academics/college-of-liberal-arts-sciences/english/

Purdue University College of Pharmacy: https://pharmacy.purdue.edu/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Purdue University: https://www.purdue.edu/

Butler University: https://www.butler.edu/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:59 Growing Up in Indiana

03:27 A Close-Knit Family

05:02 The Pharmacist Influence

05:46 Lessons From Her Parents

07:10 When Math Stopped Clicking

07:41 Falling for Grammar and Writing

11:42 Choosing a University Close to Home

15:26 Discovering Literature

16:02 A Future in Education

16:18 Teaching While Earning a Master's

19:18 Inside the High School Classroom

20:32 The Reality of Teaching

20:52 Keeping Teenagers Engaged

24:40 Reading the Room

27:04 Considering a Change

33:25 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 I can sum up my reason to be on this Earth, it's to be a catalyst.”

Moderna's rapid COVID-19 response was years in the making. Örn Almarsson explains how quiet work in mRNA manufacturing, lipid nanoparticles, bioinformatics, and vaccine development created the capabilities needed when the moment arrived.

He then turns to company building at Axelyf: in vivo cell reprogramming for solid tumors, modular lipid nanoparticles, AI-informed discovery, external partners, and a deliberately lean operating model. The conversation closes with the mentors, expectations, and leadership philosophy shaping his next chapter.

Key Topics Covered:

• Moderna's preparation for COVID-19
• Personalized cancer vaccines
• In vivo cell reprogramming
• CAR T for solid tumors
• Lipid nanoparticle delivery
• AI-informed drug development
• Capital-efficient company building
• Virtual biotech operations
• CDMO and CRO partnerships
• Hepatocellular cancer
• Mentorship and leadership
• Catalyst mindset

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep279

Find our guest, Örn Almarsson, at these links:

Website: https://www.axelyf.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orn-almarsson

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, OkKyojin:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

National Cancer Institute: CAR T-cell therapy: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/research/car-t-cells

BioNTech: https://www.biontech.com/

Pfizer: https://www.pfizer.com/

NCBI Molecular Biology reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21054/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Moderna: https://www.modernatx.com/

BioNTech: https://www.biontech.com/

Pfizer: https://www.pfizer.com/

Merck: https://www.merck.com/

Transform Pharmaceuticals: https://www.transformpharma.com/

Alkermes: https://www.alkermes.com/

Lyndra Therapeutics: https://www.lyndra.com/

Johnson & Johnson: https://www.jnj.com/

Copel Farm and Biotech: https://www.copel.co/

University of Iceland: https://english.hi.is/

UC Santa Barbara: https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/

MIT: https://www.mit.edu/

Slone Partners: https://www.slonepartners.com/

Quest Diagnostics: https://www.questdiagnostics.com/

AmeriPath: https://www.ameripath.com/

Timestamps:

00:06 Intro

01:17 Moderna's Overnight Success Was Years in the Making

01:28 The Capabilities Behind Moderna's Rapid Response

01:52 From Prototype Vaccines to Personalized Cancer Vaccines

02:45 Why Moderna and BioNTech Were Ready

04:46 Leaving Moderna for the Next Challenge

06:16 Axelyf's In Vivo Cell Reprogramming Strategy

07:49 Building a Modular Lipid and Cargo Toolkit

08:09 Targeting Difficult Cancers and Faster Development

10:06 Staying Small, Virtual, and Capital Efficient

10:26 Using AI to Improve Lipid Nanoparticle Models

12:22 Choosing Specialized Partners Over One-Stop Shops

13:05 External Collaborations and the Path to the Clinic

20:12 Mentors, Growth, and the Catalyst Philosophy

23:06 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've gotta get in the house without the alarms going off.”

Örn Almarsson compares therapeutic mRNA delivery to a covert package drop: the payload has to reach the right room, release its contents, and leave without triggering the immune system.

He looks back at Johnson & Johnson, Alkermes, and the relationships that shaped his next move. A referral from Bob Langer led him to Moderna, where he joined a small team working through one of biotech's hardest engineering problems.

The conversation covers layoffs, company transformation, patent cliffs, biotech's feast-and-famine cycles, modified mRNA, and the effort required to scale production from tiny academic batches to grams and kilograms.

Key Topics Covered:

• Johnson & Johnson's acquisition-driven model
• Organic and inorganic growth
• Alkermes company transformation
• Leadership through layoffs and change
• ARISTADA and long-acting injectables
• Biotech volatility and patent cliffs
• Regulatory exclusivity and biosimilars
• Asset-focused biotech investing
• Moderna's early delivery team
• Therapeutic mRNA delivery
• mRNA manufacturing scale-up
• Modified mRNA and immune response

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep278

Find our guest, Örn Almarsson, at these links:

Website: https://www.axelyf.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orn-almarsson

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, OkKyojin:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Nobel Prize: discoveries concerning mRNA vaccines: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/

Alkermes: https://www.alkermes.com/

Johnson & Johnson: https://www.jnj.com/

NCBI Molecular Biology reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21054/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Johnson & Johnson: https://www.jnj.com/

Merck: https://www.merck.com/

MIT: https://www.mit.edu/

Eli Lilly: https://www.lilly.com

Alkermes: https://www.alkermes.com/

Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu/

Moderna: https://www.modernatx.com/

Flagship Pioneering: https://www.flagshippioneering.com/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/

UPS: https://www.ups.com/

Timestamps:

00:06 Intro

01:28 Johnson & Johnson's Acquisition-Driven Model

02:25 Organic Growth, Acquisitions, and Commercialization

04:20 Why Pharma's Growth Strategy Keeps Changing

05:05 Leaving Johnson & Johnson for Alkermes

07:45 Transforming Alkermes Through a Hard Reset

10:03 ARISTADA and the Case for Embracing Change

10:38 Biotech's Volatility and Patent Cliffs

14:26 Regulatory Exclusivity and Biosimilars

16:00 The Shift Toward Asset-Focused Biotech

17:16 The Call That Led to Moderna

20:35 The Delivery Challenge for Therapeutic mRNA

22:48 Scaling mRNA From Micrograms to Kilograms

25:29 Modified mRNA and the Future of RNA Medicine

27:47 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 gotta build that over time thoughtfully.”

Örn Almarsson explains why thoughtful networking matters, especially when you don't need anything right away. He also reflects on evolving professional networks, learning from failure, and the entrepreneurial culture that drew him to the United States.

At Merck, a three-month visa detour exposed Örn to another laboratory and reinforced the value of adaptability. He then describes leaving a secure role for Transform Pharmaceuticals, building a small team and collaborative culture, developing new formulation technologies, and helping create the patents and assets that led to a Johnson & Johnson acquisition.

Key Topics Covered:

• Thoughtful networking
• Professional relationships
• Learning from failure
• Entrepreneurial culture
• Merck R&D
• Visa challenges
• Interdisciplinary collaboration
• Startup formation
• Hiring and company culture
• Pharmaceutical materials discovery
• Patents and licensing
• Johnson & Johnson acquisition

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep277

Find our guest, Örn Almarsson, at these links:

Website: https://www.axelyf.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orn-almarsson

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, OkKyojin:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Merck: https://www.merck.com/

Johnson & Johnson: https://www.jnj.com/

MIT: https://www.mit.edu/

Excedr partner network: https://www.excedr.com/partners

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Merck: https://www.merck.com/

Transform Pharmaceuticals: https://www.transformpharma.com/

Johnson & Johnson: https://www.jnj.com/

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: https://www.mit.edu/

Timestamps:

00:06 Intro

02:10 Networking Through Curiosity

03:46 Growing A Living Network

04:54 Learning From Failure

06:05 Entrepreneurial Risk And Meritocracy

07:01 The Merck Visa Detour

09:21 Merck's Fast R&D Culture

12:08 Working Across Disciplines

13:48 The University Of Merck

15:20 Leaving A Secure Role

19:42 Building Transform

21:53 Experience Before Startup Leadership

23:40 Transform's Mission And Culture

26:42 Patents, Licensing, And Exit

29:49 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

“Perfect is the enemy of good. How do we get there?”

Örn Almarsson traces the early experiences that shaped his approach to science, from growing up in Iceland and Denmark to playing electric guitar and discovering a deeper curiosity about chemistry.

He describes his first research opportunity at the University of Iceland, an early industry project in Copenhagen, and the mentors who pushed him toward bioorganic chemistry. The conversation follows his move to UC Santa Barbara, his work with Tom Bruice and Alex Klibanov, and the networking connection that led to Merck.

Key Topics Covered:

• Growing up in Iceland and Denmark
• Electric guitar and playing in bands
• The influence of family in pharmaceuticals
• Studying chemistry at the University of Iceland
• First research experience with lipids
• Haraldsson as an early mentor
• Early exposure to industry
• Practical and applied science
• Choosing graduate school in the United States
• Bioorganic chemistry at UC Santa Barbara
• Mentorship and solving overlooked problems
• Networking and finding a role at Merck

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep276

Find our guest, Örn Almarsson, at these links:

Website: https://www.axelyf.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orn-almarsson

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, OkKyojin:

https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

NCBI Molecular Biology reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21054/

UC Santa Barbara Department of Chemistry: https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/

MIT Department of Chemistry: https://chemistry.mit.edu/

University of Iceland: https://english.hi.is/

Merck: https://www.merck.com/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

University of Iceland: https://english.hi.is/

Novo: https://www.novonordisk.com/

Novozymes: https://www.novonesis.com/

UC Santa Barbara: https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/

MIT: https://www.mit.edu/

Merck: https://www.merck.com/

Transform Pharmaceuticals: https://www.transformpharma.com/

Alkermes: https://www.alkermes.com/

Lyndra Therapeutics: https://www.lyndra.com/

Moderna: https://www.modernatx.com/

Johnson & Johnson: https://www.jnj.com/

Berklee School of Music: https://www.berklee.edu/

UChicago: https://www.uchicago.edu/

Timestamps:

00:06 Intro

03:06 Growing Up in Iceland and Denmark

05:05 Electric Guitar, Bands, and the Pull of Science

08:40 A Family Connection to Pharmaceuticals

09:33 Choosing Chemistry at the University of Iceland

11:06 Haraldsson and the First Lipid Research Experience

12:40 An Early Introduction to Industry

14:03 Why Practical Science Mattered

14:46 Finding a Graduate Program in the United States

16:11 Tom Bruice and the Foundations of Bioorganic Chemistry

18:13 Inside a Demanding Chemistry Lab

19:38 Music, Visibility, and Academic Witness Protection

21:12 From Santa Barbara to an MIT Postdoc

22:53 Networking, Mentorship, and the Path to Merck

24:37 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.

“Don't build your own cathedral.”

After more than two decades in healthcare investing, Philip Borden decided to become an operator. He explains how a conversation with longtime friend Jeff Behrens led him to Labshares and why the shared lab model immediately resonated with his experience watching biotech companies struggle with infrastructure.

Philip breaks down the hidden costs of traditional lab leases, from equipment maintenance and utilities to medical waste, freezer alarms, and unused square footage. He explains how flexible space can help emerging companies stay focused on milestones while preserving critical capital.

The conversation closes with lessons from Labshares' first day under new ownership, including the loss of a major customer, the evolution of the company's value proposition, and the importance of transparent relationships with vendors. Philip also reflects on resilience, family, and the advice from his father to dream big.

Key Topics Covered:

• Becoming a Biotech Operator
• The Acquisition of Labshares
• Shared Lab Space
• Capital Efficiency
• Total Cost of Lab Ownership
• The Cathedral Problem
• Flexible Contracts
• Founder and Vendor Relationships
• Search Funds and Private Equity
• Resilience Through Biotech Cycles

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep275

Find our guest, Philip Borden, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipborden

Website: https://www.labshares.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:

Labshares: https://www.labshares.com/

LabCentral: https://labcentral.org/

UW CoMotion: https://comotion.uw.edu/

Pacific Lake Partners: https://www.pacificlake.com/

Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu/

Duke University: https://www.duke.edu/

Excedr Partner Network: https://www.excedr.com/partners

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Riverside Partners: https://www.riversidepartners.com

Galen Partners: https://www.galen-partners.com

Frazier Healthcare Partners: https://www.frazierhealthcare.com

LabCentral: https://labcentral.org

UW CoMotion: https://comotion.uw.edu

Pacific Lake Partners: https://www.pacificlake.com

Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu

Duke University: https://www.duke.edu

Wells Fargo: https://www.wellsfargo.com

JPMorgan: https://www.jpmorgan.com

Moderna: https://www.modernatx.com

Lyndra Therapeutics: https://www.lyndra.com

Jeff Behrens: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffbehrens

Paul Graham: https://www.paulgraham.com

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:43 The Post-2008 Crash and Changing LP Base

03:16 Riverside, Galen, and the Impact of COVID

04:25 How Jeff Behrens Started Labshares

05:19 Why Labshares Resonated with Philip

07:55 Let Scientists Focus on Science

10:01 The Total Cost of Owning Lab Space

11:54 From Incubators to Flexible Lab Space

16:12 Capital Efficiency in a Boom and Bust Industry

17:00 The Cathedral Problem and Staying Alive

25:22 Flexibility, Communication, and Trust

27:33 The Search Fund Partnership

28:41 A Brutal Welcome on Day One

29:38 Refining the Value Proposition and Scaling

41:00 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.

“Sometimes like it is not a straight line, man. You know, that things can go in wildly unexpected directions.”

Philip Borden describes leaving Frazier Healthcare Partners for Harvard Business School, where the case method broadened his perspective beyond healthcare and investing. He explains why he returned to healthcare investing after graduation.

At Riverside Partners, Philip moved from venture into private equity, focusing on control investments in profitable, founder-owned healthcare businesses. He discusses why the model fit his personality better than venture's power-law dynamics and high failure rate.

Philip also revisits BioAgilytix, his first fully solo deal, where a founder conflict forced an unexpected leadership transition shortly after the investment. He shares lessons on crisis management, vulnerability, team trust, fundraising from LPs, and investing through the 2008 to 2009 downturn.

Key Topics Covered:

• Harvard Business School
• The Case Method
• Healthcare Investing
• Transition From Venture to Private Equity
• Control Investments
• Founder-Owned Businesses
• Riverside Partners
• BioAgilytix
• Leadership Transitions
• Limited Partner Fundraising

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep274

Find our guest, Philip Borden, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipborden

Website: https://www.labshares.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:

Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu/

Duke University: https://www.duke.edu/

BioAgilytix: https://www.bioagilytix.com/

GSK: https://www.gsk.com/

JPMorgan: https://www.jpmorgan.com/

Yale University: https://www.yale.edu/

Excedr Partner Network: https://www.excedr.com/partners

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Frazier Healthcare Partners: https://www.frazierhealthcare.com

Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu

MIT Sloan: https://mitsloan.mit.edu

Oxford Bioscience Partners: https://www.oxfordbioscience.com

Riverside Partners: https://www.riversidepartners.com

GSK: https://www.gsk.com

BioAgilytix: https://www.bioagilytix.com

JPMorgan: https://www.jpmorgan.com

Aetna Healthcare: https://www.aetna.com

DeWalt Power Tools: https://www.dewalt.com

Ducati Motorcycles: https://www.ducati.com

SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com

Yale: https://www.yale.edu

David Swensen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Swensen

Jeremy Griffin: https://www.linkedin.com

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:51 From Frazier to Harvard Business School

02:46 The Case Method and Socratic Learning

04:05 Building a Broader Business Foundation

05:38 Returning to Healthcare Investing

08:23 From Venture to Private Equity

12:37 Control Investments in Founder-Owned Businesses

14:32 Building Riverside's Healthcare Practice

15:36 Sourcing Under-the-Radar Businesses

17:37 BioAgilytix's Growth Opportunity

18:15 A Founder Conflict and Leadership Change

18:56 Navigating Crisis and Leading with Vulnerability

24:25 Raising Capital from LPs

27:22 Investing Through the 2008 to 2009 Downturn

28:44 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.

“What I could offer is I'm willing to work hard. I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to be a good contributor.”

Philip Borden explains how realizing he did not want to pursue a PhD or spend his career at the lab bench led him toward venture capital. With a molecular biology degree, limited finance experience, and a list of biotech VC firms, he picked up the phone and cold-called his way into Frazier Healthcare in Seattle.

Philip shares why personal relationships, phone calls, and in-person conversations matter more than email when building trust. He discusses selling as communication and listening, the humility required to ask for an opportunity, and the culture lessons he learned from working alongside experienced investors.

He also explains why investors owe founders timely, respectful answers, including a clear no. The conversation closes with the small customer rituals Labshares uses to honor entrepreneurs, from ribbon cuttings to creating a fun place to work.

Key Topics Covered:

• Career Exploration
• Molecular Biology
• Cold Calling
• Venture Capital
• Frazier Healthcare
• Personal Relationships
• Phone Communication
• Founder Respect
• Investor Responsiveness
• Customer Experience

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep273

Find our guest, Philip Borden, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipborden

Website: https://www.labshares.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:

Labshares About Us: https://www.labshares.com/about-us

Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu/

Duke University: https://www.duke.edu/

University of Washington: https://www.washington.edu/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Frazier Healthcare Partners: https://www.frazierhealthcare.com

Riverside Partners: https://www.riversidepartners.com

Galen Partners: https://www.galen-partners.com

Longfellow Healthcare Partners: https://www.longfellowhc.com

Duke University: https://www.duke.edu

Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com

Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com

Moderna: https://www.modernatx.com

Alan Frazier: https://www.frazierhealthcare.com

Nader Naini: https://www.frazierhealthcare.com

Patrick Herron: https://www.frazierhealthcare.com

Örn Almarsson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ornalmarsson

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:31 Choosing Not to Pursue Graduate School

03:40 Finding a Path Into Venture Capital

04:10 Cold-Calling Frazier Healthcare

04:54 Why the Phone Still Matters

06:49 Selling as Communication and Listening

08:10 Humility and the Frazier Culture

09:47 Moving to Seattle

11:57 Learning Through Partner Meetings

12:26 Screening Deals and Meeting Entrepreneurs

12:55 Respecting Founders in Vulnerable Moments

15:37 The Importance of Closing the Loop

18:30 Manufacturing Luck

19:04 Honoring Customers With Ribbon Cuttings

19:51 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.

“It's the relationships that have always mattered a lot more to me on selecting a partner on that front.”

Philip Borden grew up in Plymouth, Indiana, in a family shaped by agriculture. He talks about his grandparents' farms, his father's work as an agricultural lender, and the early lessons he absorbed about local businesses and long-term relationships.

At Duke, an introductory biology class sparked Borden's interest in molecular biology and the underlying causes of disease. He explains why he chose Duke, how swimming and campus life shaped the experience, and why the relationships he built there mattered as much as what he learned in the classroom.

Borden also reflects on the growing importance of communication, trust, and social judgment in a workplace increasingly influenced by AI. He closes with the independent study that took him into his family's history through Oliver Borden's journals and rural Indiana life before the Civil War.

Key Topics Covered:

• Growing Up in Rural Indiana
• Agriculture and Community Banking
• Relationships Over Transactional Deals
• Choosing Capital Partners
• Discovering Molecular Biology
• Studying Biology at Duke
• Swimming and College Life
• The Value of Personal Relationships
• AI and Social Skills
• Researching Family History

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: 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/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=the-biotech-startups-podcast-ep272

Find our guest, Philip Borden, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipborden

Website: https://www.labshares.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:

Duke Cell & Molecular Biology: https://biology.duke.edu/undergraduate/major/concentrations/cell-molecular

Molecular Biology: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21054/

Borden Family Collection: https://archives.isl.lib.in.us/repositories/2/resources/110

William Wesley Borden Papers: https://indianahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/william-wesley-borden-papers-1824-1895.pdf

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Frazier Healthcare Partners: https://www.frazierhealthcare.com

Riverside Partners: https://www.riversidepartners.com

Galen Partners: https://www.galen-partners.com

Longfellow Healthcare Partners: https://www.longfellowhc.com

Duke University: https://www.duke.edu

Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu

University of Chicago: https://www.uchicago.edu

JPMorgan: https://www.jpmorgan.com

DoorDash: https://www.doordash.com

Google: https://www.google.com

Oliver Borden: https://archives.isl.lib.in.us/repositories/2/resources/110

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

03:06 Growing Up in Plymouth, Indiana

03:24 An Agricultural Family Background

03:28 Lessons From a Local Agricultural Lender

04:32 Why Relationships Matter More Than Twenty-Five Basis Points

05:13 Capital Partners and the Cost of a Bad Fit

08:17 Discovering Molecular Biology in College

08:51 Choosing Duke University

08:58 Balancing Science, Swimming, and Fun

11:24 Why Relationships Became His Richest College Experience

11:42 AI and the Rising Value of Social Skills

14:48 Moving From Molecular Cell Biology to Family History

14:52 Oliver Borden's Journals

16:27 Rural Indiana Before the Civil War

16:34 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.

“The other half is, okay, what do you do with that? Because you just got a bunch of, you got this huge dump of uncontextualized lab data. What does it mean?”

In this part of the podcast, Nathan Clark explains how Ganymede approaches data integration and automation in life sciences. He discusses why lab instruments and workflows require customized connectors, how a developer platform can help teams adapt integrations quickly, and why moving data online is only part of the challenge.

Nathan also describes Ganymede's two-tier product approach, the role of scientific software engineers, and a consultative go-to-market strategy built around explanatory materials and custom demonstrations. He explains which biotech companies may benefit most from the platform and why data strategy becomes increasingly important as organizations grow.

The conversation looks ahead to data products, asset utilization, predictive maintenance, automated quality-control checks, and the practical value of connecting multiple laboratory systems. Nathan also shares his perspective on incremental digital transformation, building toward AI with contextualized data, the mentors who shaped his career, and why he would have taken entrepreneurial risks sooner.

Key Topics Covered:

• Custom connectors for laboratory instruments
• Data transformation and analysis workflows
• Scientific software engineers
• Ganymede's two-tier product model
• Consultative sales and custom demos
• Biotech data strategy and infrastructure
• Why data lakes can become data swamps
• Incremental automation before AI
• Asset utilization and predictive maintenance
• Automated quality-control checks

If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, subscribe and leave us a review.

Listen and subscribe to The Biotech Startups Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-biotech-startups-podcast/id1518627361

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Y4Zc8tJYq5Yxw1uH8nJ9A

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBiotechStartupsPodcast

Website: https://www.excedr.com/podcast

Find Nathan Clark at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-clark-4b850134/

Website: https://ganymede.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 music:

OkKyojin: https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

NIST Design of Experiments: https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pri/pri.htm

AWS Data Lakes and Analytics: https://aws.amazon.com/big-data/datalakes-and-analytics/

Benchling Resources: https://www.benchling.com/resources

Elemental Machines: https://elementalmachines.com/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Benchling: https://www.benchling.com/

Affirm: https://www.affirm.com/

Goldman Sachs: https://www.goldmansachs.com/

AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/

Elemental Machines: https://elementalmachines.com/

SAP: https://www.sap.com/

Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/

HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/

Ramp: https://ramp.com/

Benson, Ganymede co-founder; surname not stated

Nikki, Affirm product manager; surname not stated

Sanjay, Benchling product manager; surname not stated

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:06 Building the Technical Team

02:36 Why Lab Integrations Require Customization

04:01 Turning Raw Bioreactor Data Into Analysis

06:40 The Developer Platform and Two-Tier Product

07:07 Maintaining Fragile Integrations Quickly

08:28 Ganymede's Consultative Go-to-Market

10:33 Who Benefits Most From the Platform

14:30 Data Lakes, Context, and Data Swamps

16:14 Building Incremental Value Before AI

20:33 The Future of Data Products

24:55 Debugging Laboratory Environments

27:43 Walking Before Running With AI

29:38 Career Advice and Closing Reflections

33:37 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.