Founders · new episode 22 Oct 2026
The Biotech Startups Podcast
Hosted by Excedr
Biotech founders on starting a company and raising the money science needs.
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Investors named as guests in the most episode titles on The Biotech Startups Podcast.
Every episode 288 · page 1 of 10
- 288If It's Getting More Complex, You're Going the Wrong Way | Scott Chetham (4/4)22 Oct 2026 · 41 minGoogle▶Show page
About this episode
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 Rica, raising a pre-napkin-stage round with Polaris, finding an early customer, and adapting when COVID-19 disrupted pharma economics.
- 287The Clinical Trial Bottleneck Is Not Discovery | Scott Chetham (3/4)19 Oct 2026 · 31 min▶Show page
About this episode
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 osteoporosis strategy to show how a focused endpoint and staged market entry can outperform an attempt to capture everything at once.
- 286Knowledge Is Now a Commodity | Scott Chetham (2/4)15 Oct 2026 · 34 min▶Show page
About this episode
The conversation then turns to scaling teams through uncertainty. Scott shares how company growth creates organizational whiplash, why founders often underestimate the need for change management, and how leaders can stay close to what employees and customers are actually experiencing.
- 285The Hard Part Starts After the Demo | Scott Chetham (1/4)12 Oct 2026 · 35 min▶Show page
About this episode
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 and education to studying the intersection of engineering and medicine. He shares how a combined degree, early exposure to hospitals, and an unusual…
- 284Letting Go Is a Leadership Skill | Leslie Loveless (4/4)8 Oct 2026 · 37 min▶Show page
About this episode
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 delegation, resisting the urge to rewrite everyone else's work, and learning that a different approach can still be the right approach.
- 283The Employee Number Five Leap That Built a Relationship Business | Leslie Loveless (3/4)5 Oct 2026 · 33 min▶Show page
About this episode
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 hadn't worked in recruiting before, and at the time, she didn't fully appreciate how big the leap would be.
- 282Winning President's Club with Zero Sales Experience | Leslie Loveless (2/4)1 Oct 2026 · 27 min▶Show page
About this episode
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 into a territory-based role, where her days meant driving between providers, managing her own schedule, and learning to sell one to one.
- 281How Teaching High School Prepares You to Run a Company | Leslie Loveless (1/4)28 Sept 2026 · 35 min▶Show page
About this episode
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 mattered even if the eventual career path was left up to her.
- 280The Catalyst Mindset Behind a Lean Biotech | Örn Almarsson (4/4)24 Sept 2026 · 25 min▶Show page
About this episode
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 deliberately lean operating model. The conversation closes with the mentors, expectations, and leadership philosophy shaping his next chapter.
- 279The Delivery Problem Behind Moderna's Breakthrough | Örn Almarsson (3/4)21 Sept 2026 · 29 min▶Show page
About this episode
The conversation covers layoffs, company transformation, patent cliffs, biotech's feast-and-famine cycles, modified mRNA, and the effort required to scale production from tiny academic batches to grams and kilograms.
- 278Leaving Merck to Build a Biotech From Scratch | Örn Almarsson (2/4)17 Sept 2026 · 30 min▶Show page
About this episode
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 Pharmaceuticals, building a small team and collaborative culture, developing new formulation technologies, and helping create the patents and assets that…
- 277How a Guitarist Became a Drug Delivery Pioneer | Örn Almarsson (1/4)14 Sept 2026 · 26 min▶Show page
About this episode
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 chemistry. The conversation follows his move to UC Santa Barbara, his work with Tom Bruice and Alex Klibanov, and the networking connection that led to…
- 276Don't Build Your Own Cathedral: The Hidden Cost of Lab Space | Philip Borden (4/4)10 Sept 2026 · 43 minPhilip Borden▶Show page
About this episode
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 explains how flexible space can help emerging companies stay focused on milestones while preserving critical capital.
- 275The Biotech Deal That Became a Leadership Crisis | Philip Borden (3/4)7 Sept 2026 · 30 minPhilip BordenFrazier Healthcare Partners▶Show page
About this episode
Philip Borden describes leaving Frazier Healthcare Partners for Harvard Business School, where the case method broadened his perspective beyond healthcare and investing. He explains why he returned to healthcare investing after graduation.
- 274Cold Calling Your Way Into Venture Capital | Philip Borden (2/4)3 Sept 2026 · 21 minPhilip Borden▶Show page
About this episode
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, limited finance experience, and a list of biotech VC firms, he picked up the phone and cold-called his way into Frazier Healthcare in Seattle.
- 273What Rural Indiana Can Teach Biotech Founders About Trust | Philip Borden (1/4)31 Aug 2026 · 18 minPhilip Borden▶Show page
About this episode
Philip Borden grew up in Plymouth, Indiana, in a family shaped by agriculture. He talks about his grandparents' farms, his father's work as an agricultural lender, and the early lessons he absorbed about local businesses and long-term relationships.
- 272🧬 Making Lab Data Actionable Through Automation | Nathan Clark Rerelease (4/4)27 Aug 2026 · 34 min▶Show page
About this episode
In this part of the podcast, Nathan Clark explains how Ganymede approaches data integration and automation in life sciences. He discusses why lab instruments and workflows require customized connectors, how a developer platform can help teams adapt integrations quickly, and why moving data online is only part of the…
- 271🧬 Why Wet-Lab Data Needs More Than ETL | Nathan Clark Rerelease (3/4)24 Aug 2026 · 30 min▶Show page
About this episode
Nathan Clark walks through his work at Benchling, where he managed the Insights business intelligence product and helped develop an early machine learning effort. He explains why operational wet-lab data is fundamentally different from omics data, and why the relationships between samples, programs, instruments,…
- 270🧬 Product Thinking, Scientific Progress, & the Work of Building | Nathan Clark Rerelease (2/4)20 Aug 2026 · 28 min▶Show page
About this episode
The conversation then turns to product management. Nathan describes the discipline as understanding why a product should exist, grounding decisions in user needs, and translating research into what a team builds. His advice for early-stage founders is direct: stop coding until they've done enough customer research to…
- 269🧬 Execution, Liquidity, & Founder Lessons | Nathan Clark Rerelease (1/4)17 Aug 2026 · 37 min▶Show page
About this episode
Nathan Clark reflects on the formative influence of his entrepreneurial father, who showed him that business and even home building are learned through research, effort, and execution rather than secret insight. Nathan also discusses his unconventional high school experience, his decision to study business and finance…
- 268🧬 AI, Mechanisms, & the Next Wave of Drug Discovery | David Li Rerelease (4/4)13 Aug 2026 · 27 min▶Show page
About this episode
David Li explains how a research question about mischaracterized drug targets became the starting point for Meliora Therapeutics. He describes how CRISPR experiments and follow-up biology challenged the accepted mechanism for cancer drugs, and how the company uses AI and machine learning to connect chemistry, biology,…
- 267🧬 De-Risking Biotech's Biggest Bets | David Li Rerelease (3/4)10 Aug 2026 · 20 min▶Show page
About this episode
In this part of the podcast, David Li, CEO and co-founder of Meliora Therapeutics, reflects on his experience helping build Everest Detection around the challenge of finding lung cancer earlier. He discusses the potential of a noninvasive, blood-based test, why lung cancer can be difficult to detect in blood, and how…
- 266🧬 Choosing Conviction Over Convention in Biotech | David Li Rerelease (2/4)6 Aug 2026 · 25 min▶Show page
About this episode
In this part of the podcast, David Li reflects on leaving finance after realizing that an investing career would not give him the tangible impact he wanted. He explains what KKR taught him about business and patient needs, then describes the team-and-market test that led him to Benchling.
- 265🧬 The Outsider Mindset Behind Successful Biotech Founders | David Li Rerelease (1/4)3 Aug 2026 · 30 minArie Belldegrun▶Show page
About this episode
In this part of the podcast, David shares how the Roy Vagelos Life Sciences and Management dual degree program at the University of Pennsylvania opened his eyes to the possibilities of combining scientific discovery with business acumen. A pivotal summer internship with Arie Belldegrun at UCLA, during which Kite Pharma…
- 264🧬 This Ex-Googler Replaced a Whole Drug R&D Team | Javier Tordable (4/4)30 Jul 2026 · 59 minGoogle▶Show page
About this episode
In this part of the podcast, Javier Tordable unpacks why he left Google to solo found Pauling AI and how its agentic platform automates computational chemistry, from docking to ADMET, collapsing months into days.
- 263🧬 From Games to Cancer Research: Why Drug Discovery Is an Economics Problem | Javier Tordable (3/4)27 Jul 2026 · 23 minGoogle▶Show page
About this episode
In this part of the podcast, Jon and Javier explore Javier's years as technical director in Google's Office of the CTO, where he worked with the world's biggest gaming companies, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Unity, helping them leverage Google Cloud technology. Javier then shares the deeply personal story of…
- 262🧬 16 Years at Google Taught Me How to Scale From 1 to 150 People | Javier Tordable (2/4)23 Jul 2026 · 29 minGoogle▶Show page
About this episode
In this part of the podcast, Javier Tordable shares his early career journey, from starting at Microsoft to spending 16 years at Google as a Staff Engineer and Technical Director. He reflects on the engineering-driven culture at Microsoft and the welcoming environment that shaped his foundation in tech.
- 261🧬 Video Games & a Whim Led Me to Microsoft | Javier Tordable (1/4)20 Jul 2026 · 26 min▶Show page
About this episode
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee sits down with Javier Tordable, founder and CEO of Pauling AI, a company building the first fully autonomous drug discovery platform that enables scientists to go from a research idea to validated drug molecules in days, not years. Named after Linus Pauling,…
- 260🧬 Crossover Investing, Gene Therapy & LP Trust | Stephanie Sirota Rerelease (3/3)16 Jul 2026 · 30 minStephanie Sirota▶Show page
About this episode
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, host Jon Chee continues his conversation with Stephanie Sirota, Partner and Head of Strategic Partnerships at RTW Investments, as she traces RTW’s evolution from a lean public-equity fund into a major life sciences platform spanning crossover investing, company…
- 259🧬 Cycles, Conviction & Royalty Capital in Biotech Investing | Stephanie Sirota Rerelease (2/3)13 Jul 2026 · 33 minStephanie SirotaLehman Brothers▶Show page
About this episode
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, host Jon Chee continues his conversation with Stephanie Sirota, Partner and Head of Strategic Partnerships at RTW Investments, as she reflects on her path from Lehman Brothers investment banking to macro hedge funds and ultimately biotech-focused investing and firm…
Who the show talks about
Firms named in its episodes, and people named in descriptions: talked about, rather than on the show.
