LITE BIOTECH
Why this course?
This introductory session on biotech is meant for high school students, with the goal of providing them a high quality and comprehensive overview of the biotech world. It is delivered through the lens of a founder/operator and will give an inside view of what goes into starting and building a biotech company.
It is meant to help shape the thinking of students from the perspective of developing their career in biotech. What kind of skills should they develop? Who should they be spending time with and learning from? What are the most exciting aspects of the different roles? How can you best leverage the Boston ecosystem? The goal as always for these sessions is to expand the mental models, so that any new information the students come across can be rightly judged and incorporated.
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We will start with a quick summary of the drug discovery and development process and understand the basics of biotech.
We will then examine how one sources opportunities to license or form a biotech company, and what steps are involved in conducing due diligence on an opportunity. We will then use the following questions to shape the rest of the day.
What is involved in licensing the intellectual property related to the technology and opportunity, and under what terms?
How does one build a team for a biotech company? What are the different types of roles? How do you split ownership at the time of company formation? How does the capitalization table evolve over the lifetime of a biotech company?
How does one raise money for a biotech company? How much at each stage and towards what purpose? And from what type of investors?
What happens once you raise capital? What are preclinical and clinical development stages? How long does each of these take?
How important is it to understand and incorporate commercialization strategy in the early stages of forming a biotech?
What are the exit strategies in biotech? How do you engineer an acquisition? Who are the acquirers, what do they buy, for how much and why?
We will also aim to understand the following topics:
.What different roles can you play in a biotech company? How do you build expertise towards getting into these roles, and what is exciting about each of the roles? How is life like, how is compensation and what are the career prospects? What is life like for a biotech founder? What does a CEO do on a daily basis? What should you do now to build a career in biotech?What makes Boston one of the best biotech ecosystems?
What are some of the adjacent areas - like MedTech and Big Pharma? What are the differences in expertise, career opportunities, investment criteria, risk/rewards, outcomes and impact between biotech when compared to MedTech and Big Pharma?
How does a career in the world of biotech investment look like? What are the different type of roles - LP/GP, Venture associate, etc? How does one build expertise to be in these jobs, what does life look like on a daily basis? How will this space and roles change with advent of AI?
Can you build expertise in other areas - like medicine, finance, engineering, and then enter the world of biotech? How? What will and could be your edge?
THIS COURSE IS OPEN TO A GROUP OF TEN STUDENTS ONLY. THE DATE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE, AND WILL BE FINALIZED AFTER DISCUSSION WITH THE PARTICIPANTS.
About Suman:
Suman Lal is the founder of Technology Innovation Studio (TINS), a physical space in Kendall Square that brings together business leaders, scientists, serial entrepreneurs, investors, industry experts, corporate innovation teams, and policy experts to explore and apply tools, methods, and models in innovation. Suman is a Senior Advisor to the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), which operates innovation campuses and labs across the US, Europe, and Asia. In his previous role, he worked closely with the CIC leadership team to advise diverse stakeholders in cities and regions around the world on building innovation infrastructure and ecosystems. He is also a Senior Advisor to the Venture Cafe Global Institute (VCGI), which operates Venture Cafe gatherings in 15 cities, often described as the heartbeat of several innovation districts. He is currently an Industry Advisor in Healthcare and Medicine at MIT Sloan School of Management. Suman has deep experience in technology commercialization: making independent inventions, licensing intellectual property from major research institutions (Columbia University, Mayo Clinic, US Department of Defense, Cornell University, Mt Sinai School of Medicine) to form NewCos, and operating venture studios where he took interim CEO roles at portfolio companies. He is currently working on 3 biotech projects, involving Karolinska University and Yale University. Suman has an MD in clinical medicine, an MSc in human genetics and did his PhD in precision medicine & clinical pharmacology. He also received his MBA from MIT as a Sloan Fellow, focusing on innovation and global leadership.