Cancer Startups: Surviving in Entrepreneurship While Fighting Tumors

Summary

 
 
 

Panelists:

  • Stacy Blain - Co-Founder, CSO and acting CEO - Concarlo Therapeutics

    • Did her PhD at Columbia and postdoc at MSK

    • Stayed in academia for more than 20+ years

    • Founded Concarlo therapeutics in 2016 

  • Tarek Ali Zaki - Co-Founder and CEO - Oncoprecision

    • Founded Ando– a B2B last-mile deliveries company in 2017

    • Bachelors in Entrepreneurship from Babson College

  • Gastón Soria - Co-founder and CSO - Oncoprecision

    • PhD at University of Buenos Aires

    • Did his postdoc at Institut Curie

    • Became a group leader and stayed for 10 years at the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET) in Argentina 

    • Started Oncoprecision in 2020

  • Rayees Rahman - Co-Founder and CEO - Harmonic Discovery

    • PhD at Mount Sinai and finished it within 4 years 

    • Expert in machine learning and deep learning

 

Words of advice

  • 1. Look for opportunities everywhere. Dr. Blain started her venture in part as a result of the NIH advising it was a good idea and working with her. Dr. Blain’s entrance into entrepreneurship portrays an untraditional way for founding a company which few, if any, attendees knew was possible.

 

  • 2. Conduct science in a startup in a product driven way. Dr. Soria mentioned he had to teach the scientific team to change the mindset of his scientists to be less curious, following what those individual finds interesting, but rather product driven. This is very helpful to understand the expectations you must give to those you hire as a scientific founder in order for your company to be successful.

 

  • 3. Treat your co-founder like you are married to them. Tarek and Dr. Soria shared many hilarious stories about their growth as a partnership as they co-founded Oncoprecison. They have unique ringtones for each other and are always in constant communication. Find someone who challenges you and has expertise in another area, such as finances, marketing, etc. if you are a scientific founder.

 

  • 4. You may need to embellish your product. Getting attention from the public and investors is necessary to survive, which is not easy. Although science should never be fraudulent, it could be beneficial to portray your product as the most important, influential invention of the time.