BioFuture 2022 Reflections: Our Opportunity to Get Innovation to Patients Faster

In November, I had the privilege of participating in a panel, “Next Generation of Founder-Led Biotechs” at BioFuture in New York City. Sharing the stage with Dawn Bell, Milad Alucozai, Beth Hoffman, Misti Ushio, and Ashley Zehnder, was both thrilling and eye-opening.  

As co-founder of Parthenon Therapeutics and co-founder of Brighter Ventures, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing women-led entrepreneurs, this topic is deeply personal to me.  In 2021, only two percent of venture capital dollars went to women founders - and that’s pretty much stayed flat between 2016 and 2020. As current leaders across different organizations, it is on us to prioritize future founders, helping them to see themselves as founders and to hone the leadership skills they need to be successful. Traditionally a relative large number of start-ups spin out of big biopharma or VC incubators. Today, we’re seeing more and more founder-led startups emerge from a cross-collaborative ecosystem of emerging biotech, big pharma, academia, tech and finance with the goal of discovering innovative new therapies and getting those therapies to patients faster. This panel offered an important reminder of the growing success of founder-led companies, as well as the challenges we need to address in order to deliver transformational, new medicines to patients.

Following the panel, I spoke with Vice President & Publisher at  Scientific American ,  Jeremy Abbate  about my vision for the future. Below are some takeaways from our conversation and here is a link to the full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fuCQB1OmYU

What do you see as the ideal structure for industry moving forward?

There are 3 verticals of innovation in therapeutics.  You have pharma and VC-led innovation which are more de-risked and then you have founder-led companies like Parthenon.  Founder-led companies have to be really differentiated.  It is riskier, but I believe in the complementarity that all 3 models provide to our ecosystem.

Tell us about the passion of founder-led companies and how it translates into business success, especially when most [investors] are looking for legacy management teams.

Parthenon is a little bit different because from the very beginning this was a high-performing team of innovators and experienced drug developers. All of our co-founders have 25+ years of experience each.  I have 27 years of experience,  Laurent Audoly , PhD (CEO) has over 27 years experience in big pharma and biotech, C. Glenn Begley , MD, PhD (Head of Drug Discovery), has more than 40 years experience including as the former Global Head of Oncology and Hematology Research at Amgen,  G. Travis Clifton , MD is a practicing surgical oncologist and clinical trialist with over a decade of experience in oncology drug development and clinical practice experience.

We know how to take a drug from target ID to commercialization and the whole value chain of that process. In addition, we have substantial experience managing and building teams and bringing people together.  

Founder-led companies are so important because they train a new generation of scientists [and entrepreneurs].  Our employees tell us that they see the passion. They see that you are rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever is necessary to bring these new drugs to patients. That creates the whole environment, the whole culture of the company.  We’re not taking no for an answer, we’re rolling up our sleeves and doing everything it takes to get the job done. 

Do you think the biopharma industry is getting more diverse? Are there more females taking a role? 

In terms of diversity, we are making progress, but progress is still very slow.  For me it’s too slow. We see a lot more women in the C-Suite, but we are still struggling to invest in female founders.  From 2018-2020, investment in female founders was 2.2 percent.  In 2021, it fell to 2.0 percent.   This is at a time when more than 50 percent of women are graduating from universities with advanced degrees. These are smart, capable women with innovative ideas for successful businesses.  Ideas are not the issue.  

We have to change the bias and stereotypes in entrepreneurship, like who starts successful companies? Research shows that companies with women in the C-Suite and women on the Board reach exit a lot faster.   The challenge is not just gender bias.   We also need to think about age.  People think of entrepreneurs as people that drop out of university, but most successful companies are founded by people in their 40s. They have proven experience and a network.  We have to change the thinking surrounding founder-led companies.

What are you most excited about for this industry in the next 5-10 years?

I’m excited about the way we can now start new companies.  It used to be you had to build a biotech from the ground up. Now, you have incubators and shared labs like BioLabs , Alexandria, and numerous other top tier platforms to help you bring ideas from hypothesis to innovation. With all the service provider collaborations taking place, you’re removing lengthy obstacles associated with founding a company to bring new medicines to patients as quickly as possible.

So the infrastructure of a founder led company is more of a support network?  

Yes, the infrastructure is more of a support network. People are finding new creative ways to move it forward without taking VC money initially. Personally, I have found that if you have a truly differentiated value proposition and have raised some initial money, partners are eager to jump on board to collaborate in order to bring new medicines to patients fast.