Why write about biotech startups?
777 words, 4 minutes reading time
TLDR: A new section of my website will be devoted to writing about biotech startups I like. First one dropping in the next few days!
Since I’ve started writing on this blog, a surprising number of early stage biotech founders have reached out to me to talk. Over a dozen at this point! All of them have been really wonderful discussions and I consider it one of the best perks of actively writing.
One thing that I’m often struck by is the discoverability problem amongst these startups. It feels like nobody is talking about them, wondering about what they’ll do next, even though the ideas for these companies often feel groundbreaking.
On the surface, this is expected. Biotech doesn’t really require popular awareness amongst the wider public to succeed. These companies are selling clinical datasets or therapeutic development platforms or scientific software, none of which are things that public awareness really helps with.
But I think this reasoning is flawed.
Potential customers aren’t omniscient, on-the-market talent won’t dig far to find interesting companies, and the creation of new markets requires some popular consensus amongst influential parties. This is as true in biology as it is in other fields, perhaps less so, but still true. I often have biotech friends telling me about something they are curious about, me saying ‘Have you looked at X startup? They are working in that area’ and being met with a confused look. This shouldn’t happen!
One way of generating this awareness is by writing.
After all, I found out about, applied to, and now work at Dyno Therapeutics because I stumbled across an Axial article written about them! Discoverability is important! A few other biotech bloggers do great work here. Axial does it (less these days), as does Century of Biology by Elliot Hershberg, but no others as far as I know.
Importantly, these articles shouldn’t serve purely as puff pieces, purely marketing what’s good about the company. Embarking on new scientific endeavors is always risky, and opening up those risks to broader discussion is valuable for all parties. For example, I’m a big fan of Corin Wagen’s — a founder of a quantum chemistry simulation startup — post about Varda, a company trying to “make drugs in space”. The thesis of the company immediately made me skeptical of the whole thing. But Corin’s breakdown of the promising chemistry they are exploiting, while also expressing his own hesitancy about the utility of that same chemistry, was a refreshing combination of ideas. And, paradoxically, also made me far more optimistic about the company!
I suspect many people in the field would have similar reactions.
While VC’s have the luxury of having the time to build conviction on what sounds like a crazy or trite idea, most scientists and engineers do not, they will make a snap judgement and move on. Gently persuading this demographic — which is filled with potential customers and employees — can have compounding returns for a burgeoning biotech startup.
This section hopes to help with this discoverability problem while also trying to remain scientifically grounded. This isn’t to say I’ll be pessimistic! In fact, each post will be from the perspective of someone who truly believes that, amongst all the companies out there, this particular one is very promising. But even the most promising companies are taking risky bets, and I want to surface their very real achievements alongside those very real bets.
Some of these startups will be very early stage, where I have talked to the founders personally. Some will be later stage, where I rely largely on publicly released information. They will all be bio-focused in some capacity, but will have widely varying focuses; some will be software focused, others wet-lab, and still others a mix. All of them, I think, have an interesting future ahead of them.
Reminder that none of what I say should be taken as investment advice and nothing I say are anyone’s opinions other than my own.
As a final note, this post should be viewed as encouragement for others. Write about scientific companies you think are fascinating! Publicity is surprisingly useful for success, and founders of these companies are often too busy to advocate for themselves, especially during the earliest stages. On a deeper note, some of the most interesting science in the world is being done at startups, and writing about them is always a useful exercise.
First post soon!