How to build a biomedical technology startup
My interview with Dr. Ali Khademhosseini on biomedical innovation, cultivated lab-grown meat, and the future of personalized medicine.
Welcome to this week’s edition of Vitamin Z, a newsletter about health and wellness with 3,000+ subscribers. If you are new, you can join here.
I had a conversation this week with Dr. Ali Khademhosseini, CEO of Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation. Dr. Khademhosseini is a world-renowned tissue engineer and former MIT and Harvard professor with over 70 major national and international awards. He is a founder of Obsidio (medical technology, acquired by Boston Scientific) and Omeat (cultivated meat, VC funded startup).
Dr. Khademhosseini shared his insights on biomedical technology, how to commercialize lab research, and the most exciting areas of biomedical innovation. He also shared career tips for people getting started in the field.
Here are some highlights from our conversation.
DZ: What’s your background, and why did you decide to go into biomedical research and engineering?
AK: I did my undergrad in chemical engineering at University of Toronto. Doing undergraduate research, I did a project in micro-encapsulation of pancreatic cells to treat diabetes by protecting cells from the immune system.
It seemed incredible to use engineering to solve medical problems, combining materials and biology. I got really excited about it.
After undergrad I did a masters in bioengineering at University of Toronto, then went to MIT for my PhD in bioengineering. Then I joined the faculty at Harvard in 2005. It was amazing to use science and come up with ideas and make real impact.
DZ: You’ve been successful at bridging academia and industry with several startups. What’s your process for identifying areas of biomedical research that can turn into successful businesses?
AK: I was in Bob Langer’s lab at MIT. He’s a big academic entrepreneur. That had a dramatic influence on the way I think and how I measure impact.
It starts with the problem and how big that problem is.
If you solve that problem, who’s gonna care? I’ve done it through trial and error. Sometimes the biomedical problem is relevant to some people, but there’s not really a business there, because the market isn’t big enough for anyone to invest in. You need to figure out what’s worth my time and other people’s time.
The team is super important. I’ve done the same companies through two different teams. One ends up being successful, the other doesn’t. The people you work with can make a big difference.
DZ: What are the biggest challenges in going from idea to research and development, commercialization and bringing a product to market?
AK: The first step is coming up with the right idea, getting it off the ground, getting it funded and validated. Doing that in an academic environment with so many competing interests can be a challenge.
Trying to get it out of the lab, the first step—that’s a huge valley of death.
Then you need to get a team together, raise initial funding, make a pitch deck. It requires a skill set and expertise that you need to develop. What is fundable doesn’t always match what comes out of the lab. You need to bridge the two.
Developing teams, products, getting regulatory approval—each stage is a completely different skill set. Often it’s difficult to be prepared for each. You need to go through it and learn the hard way.
DZ: You were a founder of Obsidio, a startup that developed medical technology for therapeutic embolization and was recently acquired by Boston Scientific. How did you come up with that invention?
AK: It started with me talking to a clinician about their problems blocking blood vessels when there’s internal bleeding, or filling out aneurysms. I was working with material science at the time. I thought some of the materials we were working with could have applications for that. That started a multi-year process, working in the lab, doing a lot of experiments.
Having a clinician involved was instrumental. He could do experiments in large animal models like pigs to show these materials could be used in animals that have similar blood vessel structures as humans. Because of these successes, we decided to form a company.
We brought in an external entrepreneur who was perfect for this. He took it the rest of the way, helped get it through regulatory and fundraising. It was a great experience because we learned the whole process from beginning to end.
DZ: Your latest commercial venture, Omeat, is an early-stage startup that seeks to grow real meat from animal cells that is “every bit as delicious” as conventional meat products without the environmental consequences of industrial agriculture. Can you share your vision for this company and its current progress?
AK: The vision is to make cultivated meat in a much more sustainable and animal friendly way. I got excited about this space when I learned about tissues with animal agriculture. I thought, how do we do something about it? My background in tissue engineering and stem cells became really important for this.
I realized we can use the same principles from making tissues for transplantation to making meat outside of animals. We came up with ideas for processes that are much cheaper for regulatory applications and that allowed us to go through this process and make advances in cultivated meat.
We started the company, raised seed and series A rounds, and now we’re looking to raise a series B.
In the short term, we’re focused on getting our first set of products, which is cultivated ground beef, out to market, and be able to make it at prices similar to store prices for meat today. We need to get it through regulatory, get distribution, and get people to like it and buy it.
The long-term vision is to take anything that comes from animals now—meat, milk, leather—and be able to make it outside the animal.
It’s a huge market. Meat is a trillion-dollar market. Animal-derived products is a multi-trillion dollar market.
DZ: Where do you see the greatest biomedical technology opportunities in the next 5 years?
AK: There are lots of opportunities in using mRNA, CRISPR gene editing, combining it with the stuff we do. Making drug delivery processes, nanoparticles for directing these molecules to different places in the body. There are lots of opportunities beyond standard drug development, which has focused on identifying small molecules.
Biologically active things can do a lot more in the body. The challenge is, how do we deliver it to the right places? It requires a lot of engineering.
I’m bullish on the concept of personalized medicine, being able to combine organ-on-a-chip applications, taking cells and tissue from a person, looking at disease models for a person, and seeing how different therapeutics affect them.
I’m excited about microneedle patches that are smart and can respond to what the patient requires, e.g. they can deliver insulin as needed in a painless way, or patches that can be used to monitor what the body does in real time. Instead of needing to take blood samples, we can use patches that monitor different biomarkers. Like wearable glucose sensors.
Scientifically we’re getting close to making this a reality. The microneedle approach we’re developing doesn’t require the kind of sample prep that Theranos did. You don’t need to separate albumin from biomarkers. So it makes the analysis much easier.
DZ: What advice do you give to people who want to get into biomedical research and engineering?
AK: Get exposure to lots of different areas initially. Once you get that broad experience, you’ll have a much better idea of what you’re interested in pursuing. Once you find that, it’s easier. If you’re passionate about things and following your interests, it’s easier to work harder and become more efficient and accomplish more.
Working with good people is important. If you don’t know exactly what the good things are to go after, you need to find good people to work with.
Find something that will push things forward significantly. Use the 10x rule (10 times better than existing) vs. the 10 percent better rule. How big is the problem, how big are things you’re developing vs. standard processes.
Think of everything as a long-term thing. Be able to take risks and fail, learn and improve.
For more information on Dr. Khademhosseini’s work, you can see his website at the Terasaki Institute here.
Startup founders: If you’re building a biotech or health tech startup, feel free to reach out—I’m always happy to provide feedback on business plans and make introductions when I can.
Thank you for reading this week’s edition of Vitamin Z.
Until next time,
By Daniel Zahler
Hi there and thanks for reading. If you stumble on my newsletter, you will notice that I write about health and wellness, and ways to optimize cognitive, physical and emotional health. I work with the world’s leading healthcare and life sciences companies to develop innovative new solutions to improve health globally. I was trained as a research scientist at Harvard, and I serve as a GLG council member where I advise global business leaders on healthcare innovation.
Enjoyed your reading experience?
Follow me on Twitter.
Hit reply with your feedback and ideas :)
Share this post with others.