The Biotech Startups Podcast

🧬 Science Is Twenty Percent of the Problem | James Evans Rerelease (2/3)

Paul Matsudaira took a job in Singapore, and James Evans did not wake up one morning craving entrepreneurship. He left MIT's Whitehead Institute, bounced through venture-

🧬 Kickflips and Bacterial Pellets Built a Founder | James Evans Rerelease (1/3)

James Evans calls himself a late starter. Childhood in the UK was skateboarding and video games, not science kits. His dad was an engineer and his mom was a nurse, which

🧬 Almost $100 Million. No Venture. | Steve Visco Rerelease (3/3)

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.

🧬 “We're Going to Burn Your Company to the Ground” | Steve Visco Rerelease (2/3)

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 offer

🧬 He Chose Santa Barbara Over Icebergs | Steve Visco Rerelease (1/3)

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

If It's Getting More Complex, You're Going the Wrong Way | Scott Chetham (4/4)

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 R

The Clinical Trial Bottleneck Is Not Discovery | Scott Chetham (3/4)

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 osteopor

Knowledge Is Now a Commodity | Scott Chetham (2/4)

The conversation then turns to scaling teams through uncertainty. Scott shares how company growth creates organizational whiplash, why founders often underestimate the ne

The Hard Part Starts After the Demo | Scott Chetham (1/4)

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

Letting Go Is a Leadership Skill | Leslie Loveless (4/4)

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 delegatio

The Employee Number Five Leap That Built a Relationship Business | Leslie Loveless (3/4)

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

Winning President's Club with Zero Sales Experience | Leslie Loveless (2/4)

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 in

How Teaching High School Prepares You to Run a Company | Leslie Loveless (1/4)

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

The Catalyst Mindset Behind a Lean Biotech | Örn Almarsson (4/4)

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 del

The Delivery Problem Behind Moderna's Breakthrough | Örn Almarsson (3/4)

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

Leaving Merck to Build a Biotech From Scratch | Örn Almarsson (2/4)

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 Phar

How a Guitarist Became a Drug Delivery Pioneer | Örn Almarsson (1/4)

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 chemis

Don't Build Your Own Cathedral: The Hidden Cost of Lab Space | Philip Borden (4/4)

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 ex

The Biotech Deal That Became a Leadership Crisis | Philip Borden (3/4)

Philip Borden describes leaving Frazier Healthcare Partners for Harvard Business School, where the case method broadened his perspective beyond healthcare and investing.

Cold Calling Your Way Into Venture Capital | Philip Borden (2/4)

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,