One of the things I’m most excited about when building Telescope is interviewing dynamic STEM entrepreneurs who live to reshape the status quo. Today, we get to kick things off with Ingo Chakravarty, a leader in the healthcare system who will never stop inspiring me with everything he does.
Ingo is the VP/GM Rapid Diagnostics Solution at Thermo Fisher Scientific, an almost $200B company, where he is tackling clinical problems in the medical diagnostic industry and working to build better lives for patients and families.
Most recently, he lead as President and CEO at Mesa Biotech, where his team developed the Accula System, with aims to provide a rapid and more accessible PCR-based infectious disease detection system. This February, the company was acquired by Thermo Fisher for up to $550M, where the technology is continuing to scale up at an extremely fast speed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I reached out to Ingo a few months back, eager to learn more about novel forms of SARS-CoV-2 testing. After talking to him for the first time about the company and the Accula System, I could tell he was filled with entrepreneurial energy and a passion to improve the lives of others in any way possible. Every time I get a chance to chat with Ingo, I’m left in shock with the amount I get to take away, which is why I invited him in for an interview. I just knew he had incredible life advice and stories to bring to the table.
The conversation below delves into his past journeys and how he landed where he is today. It also discusses the future goals of Thermo Fisher, risk taking, & leadership, among many other things. Enjoy!
Above everything, why did you decide to become an international healthcare entrepreneur, both at Mesa Biotech and now at Thermo Fisher Scientific?
I didn’t have a plan, so it’s not that I can brag and say I knew what I was going to do. I have met many people who always had a clear understanding of what it was they wanted to do and why. I wasn’t one of them.
Later, I was fortunate to come across people who gave opportunities to me. At a certain point I developed a passion for patient care and technologies that can improve outcomes. Imagine the impact you have on others. Research shows that when people are at the end of their life’s and are ask, “what would you have wished to have done more in your life?” two things are mentioned most often; one, having spent more time with family, and second, having had more impact in life. What drove me as an entrepreneur and as a member of society, is “how I could have impact on other people’s lives.” And if those are patients, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s not only the patients you impact, but also the families that are caring for that patient.
I’ve spent more than half of my career in oncology and when you meet a patient who has cancer and you meet the family who cares for that patient, the impact you can have on others becomes clear — this is what drives me the most. Knowing that what I do and what my team does touches lives and having the hope to make lives better is what gives me energy.
The coronavirus has opened huge opportunities in the economy to commercialize and provide POC COVID-19 diagnostics. What is Thermo Fisher Scientific looking to target next with rapid diagnostics after the pandemic has completely settled down?
What makes our technology special is that it’s RT-PCR that provides results and sensitivity comparable to central lab RT-PCR systems. Our focus right now is in infectious diseases testing, where RT-PCR is the gold standard for testing. In addition to our upper respiratory tests, we consider Sexual Transmitted Infections (STI’s) and Gastrointestinal (GI) track infections next. Testing is decentralizing and turnaround time is getting faster, a perfect fit for our technology platform.
The driving factor for providers such as hospitals and clinics as well as for payers (insurances) is to improve outcome at the same cost or if possible, at a lower cost. As an example, if you think back to when you were younger, and you would have a sore throat and fever, your parents might decide to take you to an urgent care facility and get a test done for strep and get antibiotics prescribed. Typically, that would cost the healthcare system about $1,600. Imagine if you could do the testing at home, and your healthcare provider engages with you via telemedicine? Within one or two hours you would be diagnosed, and your medication would be delivered to your home. Not only would this be more convenient for you and quicker, but it would likely also cost less.
There must have been a lot of initial doubt around the fact that you have managed to take one of the world’s most complex diagnostic processes and shrink it into the size of a handheld cartridge while maintaining the same accuracy. Seeing that there is such huge success today when the product was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific, how did you eventually work to overcome this hurdle?
Pre-COVID, we already had two 510(k) and we got our third 510(k) for our Step A assay. Therefore, when companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific look at Mesa, we already has a track record for our technology. In addition, Thermo Fisher did lots of validation of our technology during due diligence. In addition, in the process of our RADx (NIH/National Institutes of Health)
grant application, our technology was again, independently validated.
Last year, we also conducted a study with the NFL (National Football League), which was published on Wall Street Journal that showed us testing in several NFL clubs over a ten day period. 917 tests were conducted, with 27 positives and 890 negatives — we had 100% concordance when tested against the comparator which was the Roche Cobas RT-PCR assay. This was what eventually helped folks to see how strong the technology was and how we overcame that hurdle.
What was the most important risk you took in your life that led you to where you are today?
I thought about this question quite a bit. I have a belief and that’s that humans are really not quite good at assessing risk in general. I surf as a hobby and I get often asked whether I’m afraid of sharks, but the same person may be driving down the highway at 65mph, texting on their cell phone. That’s much riskier than being in the water.
So, in my case, I think an impactful decision that was very hard to make was when I was having a career in Europe. I grew up in Germany, I had a great job and was successful, I was married, and we had our first daughter who was just two years old. At the time, I worked at Ventana Medical Systems, whose headquarter was in Tucson Arizona and I was offered a job there.
Taking your family and unrooting everything that you have built over years and relocating from Germany to the USA was a big step. Taking risk and facing an ambiguous future that you don’t know what it holds was probably the biggest decision that I made at the time, and overcoming that fear and doubt. But when I look back, I realized it was the most important decision that I made in my personal and my professional life.
And to be willing to do that, you have to start believing in yourself and to learn to live with ambiguity, with things you just can’t control. From a growth standpoint in my career, and as a person, it was the best decision ever, but I know it wasn’t easy.
I know you to be a very thoughtful and successful entrepreneur. What are some key early lessons that building companies and teams has taught you? What would you tell yourself if you were to go back in time and speak with yourself before you came along this path?
I thought about this one a bit too, and two thoughts came to my mind. The first one was that what I believe is the core of successful people who want to lead is that you have to treat other people right. If you think first about yourself, then secondly others, I don’t think anyone can be a good leader and be successful.
The second thought in the sense of what I would tell my 18 year old self is to find your passion. I believe when you find your passion, you become really good in what you are doing. I often ask this question to people when I interview them as well and the number one answer folks give me is “trust yourself.” That’s typically a common. We all have self-doubts, including
you and me, so we struggle the same. But I just wanted to add something else which was to find your passion, and do whatever you can to pursue it.
How would you describe your leadership style and who do you still look up to today?
I believe in a servant leadership style, that means to me that I have the interest of other people in mind first.
The most important leader that I worked for and from whom I learned the most, is Chris Glesson, he was the CEO of Ventana Medical Systems. He unfortunately passed away a few years ago, but he’s for me and many others still a great inspiration. At one point in my career I thought, of those amazing leaders which I met (roughly three) that stood out from the masses, what did they have in common? And what I realized was that they all have a sincere interest in other people’s well being, and Chris is my hero in that sense.
As one final question, what is a book, video, quote, movie, or anything else that you would like to leave our readers with today that is one you still think about and influences you today?
This one’s from my coach George, and he said, “Most people are playing not to lose, just a few choose to play to win,” and that stuck with me since then. What high performance teams have in common is that they are playing to win, rather than positioning themselves to not lose. Sounds trivial but it makes a big difference in your willingness to take risk and to go for the big goals.
Note: This interview was edited for clarity only.
