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Entrepreneurship
More than 60% of incoming HMS graduate students are interested in jobs outside of academia. However, the key elements that determine which technologies become the basis of new biotech companies or which programs in pharmaceutical companies are advanced to product development and which programs are discontinued are not part of the classical academic training. We established a process to teach Integrative thinking, teamwork, presentation, and business skills to students as they gain practical experience in “due diligence” that determines whether and how a discovery or technology is commercialized.
For the past seven years, I have been a mentor to the GSAS Harvard Biotechnology Club’s Incubator. Together with successful biotechnology entrepreneur and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Fred Mermelstein, and technology specialist Dr. Robert Distel, we teach Harvard Medical School students and postdocs the skills required for evaluating technologies and developing a plan for their translation. Specifically, we lead the Incubator in due diligence and biotechnology development exercises using real-world examples of technologies with therapeutic potential discovered in an academic setting. This extremely popular course has helped hundreds of students focus and direct their research to more practical applications and opened their minds to career opportunities beyond traditional academic and industrial science jobs.
In 2020, the Incubator formed a partnership with the Harvard Innovation Labs, giving Incubator participants a truly entrepreneurial experience as they work with Harvard startups in the i-labs. This new connection helps participants in the program make the jump from helping with company formation to running their own start-up in the i-labs space, which alumni of the program have frequently gone on to do. In 2021, alumni of the program, Dr. Yijie Ma and Dr. Kelly Girskis, will rejoin the Incubator as advisors to the expanded program, bringing business expertise and their own experiences in the Incubator back to the students.
The due diligence process we developed in the Incubator became the basis of Biotechnology from Idea to Market, a textbook co-edited by Dr. Mermelstein and me, available through Countway Library and Amazon and the Parenteral Drug Association. Dr. Mermelstein’s chapter entitled First Principles of R&D – the role of Due Diligence details the three central considerations: unmet medical need, intellectual property, and reimbursement that determine which technologies are commercialized as a new biotech company or big pharma program. A new Biotech Club program based on this book is in development and will be advertised in Fall 2021. This course will cover the basics of biotech commercialization and will be available to students and post-docs everywhere.
Several Novina Lab technologies have been the subject of the Incubator’s process, which helped position these technologies to make them more attractive to Venture Capitalists and Venture Philanthropists. Two companies were recently spun out of Novina Lab technologies. Dynamic Cell Therapies is a CAR T cell company operating in the Harvard Pagliuca Life Labs, the Harvard University Incubator Space in Allston, MA. NextRNA Therapeutics is a newly-formed company that can identify and drug disease-causing RNA-protein interactions.
Many former Novina Lab members work in or consult for start-up companies that have their origins in Novina Lab projects. Current and former members describe a deep sense of personal and professional satisfaction working on a technology while in the Novina Lab and then developing those technologies into therapies that can help patients.
For the past seven years, I have been a mentor to the GSAS Harvard Biotechnology Club’s Incubator. Together with successful biotechnology entrepreneur and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Fred Mermelstein, and technology specialist Dr. Robert Distel, we teach Harvard Medical School students and postdocs the skills required for evaluating technologies and developing a plan for their translation. Specifically, we lead the Incubator in due diligence and biotechnology development exercises using real-world examples of technologies with therapeutic potential discovered in an academic setting. This extremely popular course has helped hundreds of students focus and direct their research to more practical applications and opened their minds to career opportunities beyond traditional academic and industrial science jobs.
In 2020, the Incubator formed a partnership with the Harvard Innovation Labs, giving Incubator participants a truly entrepreneurial experience as they work with Harvard startups in the i-labs. This new connection helps participants in the program make the jump from helping with company formation to running their own start-up in the i-labs space, which alumni of the program have frequently gone on to do. In 2021, alumni of the program, Dr. Yijie Ma and Dr. Kelly Girskis, will rejoin the Incubator as advisors to the expanded program, bringing business expertise and their own experiences in the Incubator back to the students.
The due diligence process we developed in the Incubator became the basis of Biotechnology from Idea to Market, a textbook co-edited by Dr. Mermelstein and me, available through Countway Library and Amazon and the Parenteral Drug Association. Dr. Mermelstein’s chapter entitled First Principles of R&D – the role of Due Diligence details the three central considerations: unmet medical need, intellectual property, and reimbursement that determine which technologies are commercialized as a new biotech company or big pharma program. A new Biotech Club program based on this book is in development and will be advertised in Fall 2021. This course will cover the basics of biotech commercialization and will be available to students and post-docs everywhere.
Several Novina Lab technologies have been the subject of the Incubator’s process, which helped position these technologies to make them more attractive to Venture Capitalists and Venture Philanthropists. Two companies were recently spun out of Novina Lab technologies. Dynamic Cell Therapies is a CAR T cell company operating in the Harvard Pagliuca Life Labs, the Harvard University Incubator Space in Allston, MA. NextRNA Therapeutics is a newly-formed company that can identify and drug disease-causing RNA-protein interactions.
Many former Novina Lab members work in or consult for start-up companies that have their origins in Novina Lab projects. Current and former members describe a deep sense of personal and professional satisfaction working on a technology while in the Novina Lab and then developing those technologies into therapies that can help patients.