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Nov 22, 2021

7 min read

10/10 Professor Series — Part 9: Balancing Academia & Entrepreneurship

BIOS: Nucleus of Life Science Innovation 🚀

Alix Ventures: Supporting Early Stage Life Science Startups Engineering Biology to Drive Radical Advances in Human Health

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AWS Healthcare & Life Sciences Startups Team provides dedicated resources, expertise, and credits to help healthcare and life sciences startups of all stages excel and grow. We work alongside industry partners and strategics (including accelerators, investors, enterprises), match AWS/Amazon capabilities to the needs of startups, and help them build for scale, overcome technical and regulatory challenges, and accelerate time to market by opening doors and creating opportunities. To learn more about any of these amazing resources including how to access $25K in credits through our partnership with BIOS community.

Overview

BIOS 10/10 series brings together unique perspectives from thought leaders in Life Sciences. In this series, we’ll feature 10 guest opinions across 10 topics areas pertinent to Life Science Entrepreneurship. We have a lot to learn from each other and hope that by sharing viewpoints from leading experts, we may all come to our own insights faster.

In this edition of BIOS 10/10, we are honored to feature world leading professors, cutting edge Life Science researchers, and prolific academic entrepreneurs. Collectively this group possesses 350+ years of academic experience, holds 2,250+ patents, has been cited 900K+ times, cumulative H-Index of 1,300+, & started 100+ companies: including a few of the 21st centuries’ most impactful in Moderna & Illumina.

Bob Langer, David Schaffer, Jeff Karp, David Mooney, Don Ingber, Pamela Silver, David Walt, Dino Di Carlo, Mike Snyder, Kevin Healy

We asked our guests:

“What advice would you give to professors in balancing founding a company and continuing to pursue academic research?”

“Work really, really hard! Also, become really efficient and organized with your time to squeeze every last extra second out of your day.”

David Schaffer — Professor @ UC Berkeley

“Focus on what you are most excited about — and frequently write out on paper your priorities in life — never lose sight of the most important priority of supporting your children and being there for them with 100% of your attention available”

Jeff Karp — Professor @ Harvard

“Recognize that starting companies requires significant time and effort over a relatively long period of time and this time will come from either the time you usually dedicate to your academic research or your time outside of the university. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about things you don’t understand, recognizing you need to figure out what balance of academic versus company time and effort is right for you. Realize that what is right for you may change over time — for example, when my children were young I decided to not engage in startup activity, but I had more time to dedicate to this later in my career.”

David Mooney — Professor @ Harvard / Core Faculty @ Wyss Institute

“Good luck! No really, the key is to find great investors who help you identify and recruit great leadership who you can trust, and then get out of their way. But stay close enough involved to be sure they fully appreciate the strengths/weaknesses of the technology, as well as the opportunities you see in the field. If possible, get a BOD seat.”

Don Ingber — Professor @ Harvard / Founding Director & Core Faculty @ Wyss Institute

“Decide how engaged you want to be. Know what your University rules are with regard to any role you might have in the NewCo — some Universities prohibit holding positions but allow SAB participation. Know that it is OK to hand off your ideas etc to investors if you don’t want to be that engaged (you will still benefit). Or if you want to be very hands on — consider taking a leave of absence for 1–2 years. You may decide at the end of that time that you want to stick with the NewCo and leave your academic position. Make sure you follow the U rules about percent time that you can spend on outside activities”

Pamela Silver — Professor @ Harvard Medical School / Core Faculty @ Wyss Institute

“Establish bright lines. You need to make a decision about spinning out the discovery/invention or continuing to work on it in your lab. If you aren’t willing to give it up, you shouldn’t found a company yet.”

David Walt — Professor @ Harvard Medical School / Core Faculty @ Wyss Institute

“I always put academic research 1st. But if you have spare time ,companies can greatly amplify the impact of your research and it can be a great job opportunity for students who have participated in that research.”

Bob Langer — Institute Professor @ MIT

“I reject that there is a trade-off between performing well academically and founding a company. The inputs from the founding will inevitably enrich your research and hone the directions for you and your students to be the most impactful. The key is to not try to control the founded company like you control your lab. That level of control demands much more of your time as you are the final arbiter, and both your lab and the company will suffer.”

Dino Di Carlo — Professor @ UCLA

“Assuming you love the thrill of discovery as I do, being an academic comes first. Spinning off things you want to commercialize comes second.”

Mike Snyder — Professor @ Stanford

“The priority must be academic research and if the breakthroughs are there, then entrepreneurship should follow. Take advantage of the university’s rules on the time allowed for outside activities and focus your effort during weekends and evenings.”

Kevin Healy — Professor @ UC Berkeley

  • Learn More: The Healy Lab
  • Companies Founded: 4 startups — Including: Valitor, BioEngineered Materials, Inc., Cardiomimetics, Organos.
  • BIOS Frontier Science Episode: Coming Soon
AWS Healthcare & Life Sciences Startups Team provides dedicated resources, expertise, and credits to help healthcare and life sciences startups of all stages excel and grow. We work alongside industry partners and strategics (including accelerators, investors, enterprises), match AWS/Amazon capabilities to the needs of startups, and help them build for scale, overcome technical and regulatory challenges, and accelerate time to market by opening doors and creating opportunities. To learn more about any of these amazing resources including how to access $25K in credits through our partnership with BIOS community.

📣 If you enjoyed this post please clap 👏 & comment 💬 to let us know

❤️ Thanks Andrew Yashar for your help in putting this together :)

Alix Ventures, by way of BIOS Community, is providing this content for general information purposes only. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Alix Ventures, BIOS Community, or its affiliates. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by Alix Ventures employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of Alix Ventures, BIOS Community, affiliates, and content sponsors.

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