Why Biotechs Fail—and How to Survive Market Crashes | Aaron Edwards (Part 2/4)

Intro - 00:00:06: Welcome to The Biotech Startups Podcast by Excedr. Join us as we speak with first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, and experienced investors about the challenges and triumphs of running a biotech startup, from pre-seed to IPO, with your host, Jon Chee. In our last episode, Aaron Edwards shared what it was like growing up in Kentucky, how a public STEM academy helped expand his horizons, and why he ultimately stepped away from the traditional path toward medicine. If you missed it, be sure to listen to part one. In part two, Aaron picks up the story in Boston, where a cold email lands him in an immunology lab, working on mRNA vaccine research long before it became a household term, and sparks a new sense of direction. He also dives into the culture shift from academia to industry, how curiosity became a leadership superpower, and why knowing what doesn't fit can be just as powerful as finding what does.  

Jon - 00:01:17: Talk a little bit about your time at BU. I've only lived in the Bay Area my whole life. Like, born in Berkeley, and I'm like now in San Francisco. That's like as far as I've gone. What's Boston like? Especially coming from somewhere that, you know, sounds like a kind of on different ends of the spectrum.  

Aaron - 00:01:34: Yeah. I mean, Kentucky is not in a stereotypical way, but think about the Kentucky Derby. You just have really gorgeous rolling hills of grass. There's a lot of aesthetically pleasing buildings and architecture. It's structured and well-kept. Boston is beautiful in a lot of ways, but it's a city. It is an international city that has a lot of international things, not just people that I was exposed to the first time. I also got exposure to some problems of larger cities and public health issues, especially in the BU Medical Campus. It's no secret what the struggles that that area has faced. And that was a culture shock for me. Again, not in a bad way. It is just really transitioning from the sort of sheltered life in a good way to being exposed not to New York, and, you know, just sort of like a larger, larger city and things on a massive scale, but starting to learn what it's actually like in the city, what it's like to take a bus.

Jon - 00:02:36: Yeah.  

Aaron - 00:02:36: I had no idea what any of that was like. And so it was really important for me. We lived at the time in some new medical student housing. So I was really close to campus, had a lot of really great friends that, you know, we lived in these dorms together going to and from class. A lot of type A's that were still wanting to go to medical school, but also a lot of people that were really engaged in science. And so the school part was important, but maybe not as important actually as what it opened the door to my, the research experience I had here. So that had a larger impact because I, you could sort of reach out and go in any direction. Some people that wanted to go clinical might do clinical research as their thesis. I knew I wanted to do something in a wet lab. I just knew there was something here in Boston that was going to appeal to me. And I did a cold call to this lab, Galit Alter's lab at Ragon, the Ragon Institute. Technically it was her sort of secondhand in command, Todd Suscovich. And the Ragon is an HIV Vaccine Institute in Tech Square. They just opened a really gorgeous new building. And that was a, the institute is associated with Harvard, MGH and MIT. And while most of the work is immunology and around the sort of vaccine concepts, I had the opportunity to go on what I thought was the coolest thing since sliced bread, was a DARPA project. That was a really great example of what DARPA grants and projects are supposed to do, is put all this money into, programs across the country that eventually would hopefully help some sort of technology move forward. And that was mRNA vaccines. So my claim to fame, if you'll let me be, was getting a taste at what eventually translated into something that saved the world during COVID. And that was my first touch, and I'll pause for a second, but that was my first experience with what I call sexy science.  

Jon - 00:04:36: Oh, yeah.  

Aaron - 00:04:38: It's the term that stuck to me today of I wanted and I knew I wanted to work on what now I call sexy science forever because it's exciting. I want to be excited by what I do. And I want to be excited to tell people what I do. And not saying that what you could call non-sexy science is not exciting. I'm not saying that. But what I think is sexy science. And for me, it was doing this mRNA vaccine work, working with the Defense Department, and thinking how I might translate something maybe to a super cool soldier concept, but really get distilled also on a grander scale to save the world by vaccinating people from COVID.  

Jon - 00:05:21: Super rad. And I love how this started off with a cold email. I think people underestimate, how effective just elbow grease, showing up, giving a call, sending an email. Can like, it can get you a really long way and open incredible doors.  

Aaron - 00:05:40: And I had no idea. I knew that it was, I'm a Kentucky boy. I was like, there's no way someone's going to email me back from this Harvard, MGH, MIT place. And what do you know? I mean, it wasn't the only email I was sent, right? But what do you know? Somebody saw the email and I don't know what was in it. But I had a meeting and, you know, later that week, they offered me the role. And I got to choose what project I did. It was just sick. It was, it was like a. Such a great opportunity and I'm thankful for it. And that cold email concept goes into fundraising as well. It's maybe not the most efficient. If you're thinking about your time, maybe you should be spending it somewhere else, but it doesn't mean people don't see that email. It's just unlikely. So if you're going to send these cold emails, make them memorable. If you're going to reach out to somebody on LinkedIn, say something exciting or, you know, and don't, but don't also read into it, you don't get a reply. It's just, maybe you do, and it could change the trajectory of your life.  

Jon - 00:06:42: And even if you like exactly what you said, like, even if you don't get a response, oftentimes they see it, which is, you just don't know. You just, you just don't know. It's hard to measure, right? It's hard to measure, you know, it sounds like that role was like really pivotal, right? That's the craziest part is that you just never know. You just never know. So it's kind of like, shoot your shot, like shoot your shot.  

Aaron - 00:07:04: A hundred percent. A hundred percent.  

Jon - 00:07:06: Tastefully, tastefully, like do it, don't, you know, don't be an ass. Like that's not what you, but like do it tastefully. And I think. You'll be surprised with the kind of results and outcomes that you might get. And something that you said too is just like, I think like for me, you know, sexy is in the eye of the beholder. Right. And it's like. For me, people are like, when I talk about what I do, I'm just like equipment leasing. They're like, that's incredibly boring. But I was like, but it's sexy to me. Like, you know.  

Aaron - 00:07:36: So true. Yeah.  

Jon - 00:07:37: You got to just find that thing that's for you. Like, you got to. Because shit is hard. Like, life's not easy. It helps when you're excited about the thing that you're doing, whatever it may be, that you can weather a storm. And these hard problems require this level of like. If you just throw in the towel as soon as like some sort of setback comes up. You know, the problem's not going to be solved. And like, you got to be able to run through walls. And like, I love that you found that excitement.  

Aaron - 00:08:07: And I knew something was there. Now looking back, I can distinctly recall people telling me certain things that now are useful. I said, oh, they were right about that. It's just like when your parents tell you things, whatever, mom, I don't know. But whatever. There were these themes of, dude, find something you're passionate about. And then you get the trope of like, you know, someone going and majoring in art and their parents are like, you're never going to get a job. But you're passionate in art. I think it's a mix of both. You find your passion, but always know you're heading in the direction, some sort of direction. And I use this North Star analogy. You know, bear with me, but they say it a lot at HBS. It's not about planning. I was a hyper planner. Now, if I look back and say things I would encourage people maybe to do less of is to do what I did. I was doing it out of defense. I was really hyper planning. Because I tell you what, if I was not the golden child, I didn't know what people would do and people found out I was gay. And that's come into some benefit. But really thinking about when you look at my resume, I didn't know exactly at the time that was going to land these internship roles during undergrad. I didn't know where that was going to lead. But it eventually starts to snowball. You have to start somewhere. Maybe you have to start your first job developing Western blots for two entire summers, having no idea where that's going to lead. But it might lead somewhere. So really think, don't overestimate what your first role can do for you, even if it might not be where you want to in long term. So I tell people all the time, it's this North Star. You might not have it developed. You might not know where that is. But you're finding what that North Star is. So it's what school and education and your first experiences are. And then over time, you go, oh. Well, if this is a Big Dipper, this is some other constellation, I actually want to go in this direction, but don't know exactly what star I'm following. And then you hone in longer and longer, and you can change if you want. It is really key to not think that you also have to hyper overcompensate and have this role be the thing that's going to lead you to medical school and be a doctor. Just know that you're doing things you like. Know that there might be a purpose to that role. But don't stress so much about it. I really wish I didn't stress so much about it.  

Jon - 00:10:31: Yeah, I was the same way. Like my father is like a super hyper planner. And so it kind of like rubbed off on me. But I think, and look, I'm saying sometimes planning is good, but kind of like you got to be kind of flexible in the plan. Is that kind of like elasticity that's important? Because what's that Mike Tyson is like, everyone's got to plan until you get punched in the face. Right?  

Aaron - 00:10:57: Yes. Yeah. Yes.  

Jon - 00:10:58: Right. That's exactly that. And it's all trial and error at the end of the day. It doesn't sound glamorous, but it really is. And like exactly, we said earlier about knowing what you don't want is like really important. It's kind of like your control group. You're like.  

Aaron - 00:11:12: Yeah. Well, to go back to the sexy science experience at the Regency, I am so thankful for this. Galit, listening to this, thank you. One more thing on sexy science and the lesson learned. She was also the first scientist. She was the PI at the lab that was like a politician in the best way and maybe somewhat the best ways, but you would listen to her speak about science and everyone in the crowd was in awe. It felt like listening to a superstar give a speech about science and she was just such a good storyteller and the way she captivated audiences. It's an example of someone needs to be the storyteller and the ideator and sometimes needing to balance to have the executioner, which was her right-hand man, which is Todd, who was technically my boss during my time in my master's. It was a great experience for me. I had a lot of thoughts about what I would do next and I am thankful for the short period I was there because it also exposed me to this sort of, I don't want to say darker side, but maybe some of the negatives around, at the time, this academic system that was really centered where everyone's career was focused on the paper and the tenure position and you had no idea what was out there. And so I'd come to Boston to search for what was out there and I found a really great piece of something that was there and could have led maybe to a PhD and beyond. And then there was still this barrier, and it's much better now, but of no one would talk about industry. Nobody would talk about industry because it was selling your soul to the devil so you could pay for your groceries. It wasn't the labs, that was a systemic sort of cultural problem at the time. It's getting much better now as sort of the information spread is there. But just keeping that in mind, it's like on paper, and I tell you about all these cool experiences, but no, it was really important for me too that there were things that I absolutely did not want to do. And I was seeing people that were trying to get that tenure position and hadn't had any exposure to what I thought was the real world. You stay on these paths, especially in science, whether it's medicine or your PhD, and you never have a time to look up. You never look up. And then when you look up, you're 35, you've done two postdocs, and then you're like, what do I do? And I think that was such important learning for me to say, okay. Let's like continue my search a little bit longer. And then that's what led now then to my really, really significant roles then at Bluebird and Beam.

Jon - 00:13:48: Interesting to hear that in Cambridge, you had that kind of like academic separation of church and state because you guys have an incredible business school. And you would imagine there was a bit more cohesiveness or at least like, you know, rather it being so binary of like zero and one. And I like for Berkeley, it was definitely that it was definitely like finger like cross stay away business. This is not pure science. Like, what are we doing here? But I don't know. I think it was just like life is a gradient. Like it doesn't have to be we don't have to live a binary kind of like outcome or like kind of circumstances here. Like and look, there's definitely science that needs to stay pure science. Like I get it. Not everything has to be business oriented, but it's like. Again, it's just like there is no one right way to do it. 

Aaron - 00:14:44: One thing you said on these assumptions, I also assumed, at anything that had these big names attached to it. Again, it's not pointing fingers. It's not just this one institution. They're not perfect. And you might think somebody is looking out for the business and the finances and how we're funding this and how we're doing that. And of course, surely all these biotechs are interfacing with business people and the business people understand the science. No. It's not a fault of their own, but is a strong motivator when I do look back and why I actually went back to HBS for this biotech program of I thought things could be done differently, maybe. Or I wanted to understand why was this disconnect here? At this institute, you had doctors. You had people wanting to go to medical school. You really funded academic labs. And you had a lot of collaborations with pharma. But there was still so much disconnect. And I wanted to understand more. The theme of being curious as a kid continued. And I asked the questions that people did not want to be asked. And that was a really good thing. And it's continuing. You know, it hasn't always steered me in maybe the right direction with everybody. But continuing to ask questions and not assuming someone else is doing a job. You know, and that can go all the way up to the top where now as a leader, I think I shouldn't assume that something is happening. I shouldn't assume that everything is great. And that, lets me continue to ask the questions and hopefully ask the right ones eventually to continue to grow. I think that that is a real world shock. The more you learn, almost you can either be more skeptical or you can be optimistic because you've been exposed to more. And I think everyone should keep that in mind of, you know, if you see this sort of systemic issue or you see a problem somewhere, maybe that's a great space to specialize or kind of go back and learn more of. And that was my motivator to go back to school.  

Jon - 00:16:39: Absolutely. It sounds like, you know, from this experience, you wanted to continue to broaden your horizon outside of just the academic setting. Is this kind of what brought you to Novartis? Was that your first kind of like proper industry?  

Aaron - 00:16:53: Yep, 100%. I can better articulate it now, of course. But I knew that there were these industry academic collaborations. Like I knew we were sending samples to some companies and vice versa. But I didn't, I wasn't in some of those rooms, so I didn't see all the interactions. And the same umbrella program that I was a part of on this DARPA grant was right next door at Novartis vaccines. At the time was when Novartis had a vaccines unit. They were also working on the self-amplifying mRNA vaccine that I think GSK still is doing some work on. And GSK had already announced the acquisition, which led to some turnover. It was probably the best word, which gave me a great opportunity. There was a role. And I got my first job in the industry. I think a lot of people talk about that can be the hardest thing to do is like the first step into whatever echelon or tier you might want to get into is, going from academia to biotech, where industry, what does it look like? And for me, it was being able to go still work on some similar concepts, but getting to see now, instead of making an academic paper or making something in a cell line and seeing what happens, I got to see how a drug could be developed one way. I got to see, I was in a sort of the molecular biology group working on these self-amplifying mRNA vaccines, but I got to see the whole workflow all the way down to in vivo studies and how it could be encompassed within a larger pharma unit. All the vaccines sort of always felt like stepchild because vaccines wasn't the moneymaker, but it was great because people were really close. And that finally allowed me to take the blinders off, my academic blinders off and say, oh. I can now understand what I believe to be where academia excels. Which I think is ideation for sure, and setting the stage for translational work. I'm absolutely not saying, especially in the CAR-T space, that academics cannot take things to the clinic. But there are advantages in spaces where industry and large infrastructures just should be operating and you shouldn't try to compete. Now, where that boundary is definitely changes by context. But I was shocked, you know, because in academia, even in these well-funded labs, everyone thinks they're doing the only thing in the world. And they think they have this comprehensive data set. And maybe you do. Going to industry, you're like, wow, this is what a lot of money can buy.  

Jon - 00:19:28: Yeah.  

Aaron - 00:19:30: Not that it's all efficiently used all the time, but you're seeing the scale of science that can really happen. And now the power. Not only the scale of science, but then going back, you can see where startups can excel. Like there's just really getting that exposure. And a lot of people don't know, one, how to transition over. You can actually be working on something that is closer to patience than ever before. And it's okay. And there are companies that are doing great work to help humans. It doesn't have to be one or the other. It was a great first experience for me. I wanted to get my feet wet. And then eventually what led to my job less than a year later, when they moved everyone to Rockport, Maryland, I stayed in Boston and went to Bluebird.  

Jon - 00:20:14: Very cool. I've never worked at a large pharma, but like you talked about academia, large pharma and startups. And I guess you alluded to it. They're like, this is what like big bags of cash and big infrastructure. Like, well, I guess, what would you say are like the pros and the cons of a large organization?  

Aaron - 00:20:33: The pros are that there are groups set up to do a pretty narrow task. Not in a bad way, but like there's a group that does just this. And so you can send your material to this group that runs whatever analysis you need and get it back. And you don't have to do it. Versus in academia, it is just you, maybe someone else with limited resources trying to do something. So you learn how to be cash efficient, et cetera, but sometimes you just need it done. You just need someone to analyze the sample and move on. You also have, you have the grander scale of seeing how it might fit into a pipeline. You have the infrastructure to know how it's helping patients because there are people doing all these different activities to make sure you know how it relates in the grand scheme of things. But I think with larger companies, it's inevitable. What people always colloquially call it the red tape is very apparent. It can look different at every company. I don't think it might be like this anymore, but it's my first exposure to like career paths. So if you didn't have a PhD, there was, you went over here and no matter what, you could never go over here. Never. Some larger, more conservative companies still are like that today. And there were meetings specifically for the PhD. People because they were the ones leading groups. So once again, you're seeing sort of hierarchy in science. You also see how long things can take. Like some things can be really quick. So you get things done. They file all these patents. You go through that whole administrative process. You also see how long decisions can take. And that is really important. I'll keep going back to this as we talk about different company experiences. Startups always get asked, aren't you afraid that a pharma company is going to come in and do what you're doing? And say, no, maybe. I mean, I would say that there's always a possibility, but there is a nimbleness to smaller companies. Being able to pivot, look at the data and change quick that larger companies just cannot do. You can be more efficient than others, but you cannot move like a startup can. And there's a reason why these large companies, and they admit it in a bad way, they admit a lot of their pipeline comes from external innovation. Because, someone is innovating right here, and they can bring it into the pipeline because maybe they are not best suited for that creation or innovation stage. Not always, but I think that's a really great example. It's not one size fits all. And a large company cannot do everything. And a small company actually has a lot of power to do certain things if they know what they're doing.  

Jon - 00:23:19: I love that. I think there's pros and cons to it all. And it's exactly, there's no one way to do it. But especially in the life sciences, it's like a big team effort. Like one massive, like I remember when I was just starting Excedr, and it's almost like 15 years ago. It was right when large pharma was starting to rely more on startups for their kind of innovative technology. But then that model works. Like it actually works because it's kind of like organizational design.  

Aaron - 00:23:52: Yeah.  

Jon - 00:23:53: Before we hit record, I was talking about how like the partnership that we've been working on took many years. Like many years. And because it was a very large organization, and the pace in which technology needs to move, sometimes that like time is of the essence. So they just figured out, they're just like, all right, let's leave the nimble work to the nimble teams and let them do their thing. And we'll focus on like big, big, like super big projects that require massive capital and massive infrastructure.

Aaron - 00:24:23: They should. They should be doing, right? Like we are not trying to think that we could have taken Keytruda into a thousand clinical trials, right? Like that's not what we're doing here.  

Jon - 00:24:33: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  

Aaron - 00:24:33: What you said is also there's a continuum on the experimentation with these models and not AI models, models of organization, where now you're seeing some examples of maybe not, say, just taking the product. But there's always lessons learned about integrations of people and products, where now companies can be subsidiaries of larger farming, where they buy them, give them that sort of the comfort of the mothership and the resources provided, give them the insight, almost like it's an accelerator lab for a company. You get to do what you're doing. Stay nimble. You keep the people, which keeps the science moving. That is always hard. Companies thought they could just buy things and it was just going to be easy to, this is industry-wide, not just biotech, it's every field. And I think what biotech's really done well right now is now transition, not just to maybe doing early stage innovation through buying a product. Eli does a good job. They have a subsidiary here that they can focus on, AAV gene therapy for hearing loss. And they've had great success. And over time, maybe they'll absorb more and more into the company, but it's like a staged approach. So you can take that innovation, keep it going, keep it moving forward, and keep slowly feeding in some of the really larger good things that a company can provide. And maybe eventually it comes in. But, you know, I think it's great to see companies try different things out. And that's what you're now seeing of how do you continue making sure that large companies and large infrastructure can do it. They need to be doing best because they are set up to do it. Where can early stage people innovate? And it's not just drug discovery. It's every stage. You can start thinking about how maybe your stuff can eventually filter into a larger company. It's great to see. And I think as you're right, really, overall, things are changing so fast. So there's an opportunity always to improve upon what's being done and know that pharma is just not going to come in and take what you're doing tomorrow.

Jon - 00:26:37: Yeah. And an example that's outside of the life sciences of like a big company staying nimble via kind of this method is kind of like Microsoft and OpenAI. 

Aaron - 00:26:48: Yeah.  

Jon - 00:26:51: Like, big investors in OpenAI, give them all the compute that they need to do their thing, but letting them kind of do their thing. And look, I'm no expert in AI, you know, I'm like, and they're doing to have their own kind of organizational structure kind of things that they're working through right now. But I've always been curious. And I think it was a conversation with Neela Patel, like a while back, just talking about how, when is it the right time to integrate the company, like fully integrate the company, or let them just continue running as like an autonomous, wholly owned subsidiary. And like, for me, I think about it, I'm like, you made the acquisition obviously because of the technology, but also because of the team and their culture and the way they do things. I think you kind of get rid of the secret sauce. When you kind of like try that, it's kind of like an organ implant. 

Aaron - 00:27:43: 100%. You really do. You hit the nail on the head. The magic that happens, right, just doesn't exist when you start feeling the vibe of, if you're a smaller company, you start feeling the vibe of the big pharma overlooking. But you can benefit maybe behind the scenes if things are helping you out. That's a huge example for sure of, and it changes depending on what it is. Is it a product? Is it a service? How do you integrate it? But what is certain is that integrations almost always have examples of failure because they integrated too fast, or they thought they could just like fold people into a company. It's very clear that model doesn't work.

 Jon - 00:28:26: Yeah. And I think that derives from the fact that every business has its own culture, because there's a million ways to make a million bucks. And like one culture, there's always going to be some misalignment, just a little bit, because these are not the same organizations at the end of the day. But I always like, when I think about the way, you know, well, Buffett just, you know, just announced his retirement coming up, but it's like the way he organizes kind of like a decentralized, you know, Berkshire, like you have the coffers of like Berkshire, but you, you continue to do it the way you've always done it. Like See's Candy out here continues to be See's Candy. And then GEICO continues to be GEICO, but with the financial backing of Berkshire, right. It's kind of this thing where there are examples where very large organizations just let teams run and not disrupt the magic. Whenever I see poor integrations, I'm like, could it just let them do their thing? You wanted to acquire them because of them doing their thing. 

Aaron - 00:29:29: And then they can't do it anymore. 

Jon - 00:29:30: Yeah.  

Aaron - 00:29:32: I think there's also a challenge. And again, I always go back to, there is no rule book. You are learning and what I took, not just at HBS, but life experience is about seeing what the alphabet of possibilities is. And you need to decide where that works for you and whatever decision you're trying to make. But this assumption, you know, I got to work at both Bluebird and Beam during not only a capitally efficient or capitally generous market, but also one where there was no rule book, but also where I think, there were these sort of same assumptions around you could create synergies across the board that were sometimes true and sometimes not. It's no secret. The Bluebird was a rare disease company and then had an oncology arm and then split. Because they eventually really did become separate business units. And as much as you wanted that cross-synergy, it was just clear that they needed to run better separately. And so internally, they really were for quite a long time running as separate business units and then actually became separate companies. And I think that is true, you know, how we've thought about KiraGen. Beam was the heyday of all these sort of gene editing companies, also being platforms. It's centered around sort of a singular editing technology. And that has a lot of appeal. And I think the VC infrastructure and everyone sort of enabled that to happen as a grand scale experiment again, right? There's not one model and it is not necessarily going to work every time. But what you see when you start applying a singular tech across therapeutic areas, you really need separate people doing different things. Sometimes it can apply. Like if it's Moderna with an mRNA, sort of the structure might, you might be able to have a structural person work on the mRNA across programs. When it comes to the biology of each program or how people think, that mentality, that culture is very different between a RT company, an HSC company, an in vivo delivery company, because they all just have different backgrounds. You're a chemist working on delivery tech. You're doing this. I think it's a- It was a great experiment and still to this day is functioning in its own way. But every company has had to narrow their focus and decide what their story is going to be. And for us, again, it's going back to this theme around not wanting to create companies within companies or micro labs within company. How can you think about one theme that might have different ways of taking action on that, but having some unifying theme? For us, it was multiplex edited cell therapies applied to oncology, probably solid tumors mostly, but really sticking there because people can understand it. Instead of applying it and having to force people to learn over and over again about a new disease space to become experts at. Again, we're in a different phase. It's like the models of pharma taking in and creating these subsidiaries we're talking about. Now startups are thinking, even if we have a singular tech, do we become a platform company and do across the board? Or a great example, and I'll pause because I'm going on a tangent here. Verve therapeutics was a really great example for us to say, oh, they started out maybe not with a singular tech, but a singular concept that now has therapeutic span across cardiovascular indications. And that is their unifying theme. And it's just great to see that over time, there are ebbs and flows and cycles. And there's a lot of history to learn from how other companies tried and succeeded or failed, or maybe came in between different ways to run a company.  

Jon - 00:33:20: Absolutely. And I think, you know, looking back on like 2020, 2021, it was kind of like this. Of like Cambrian Explosion of like, modalities and approaches. And I think about it kind of like, back to like, when there was like the telecom boom, like the telecom boom- There was like, just like helicopter money, just like getting dropped everywhere. And sometimes people will say that like, you know, there's nothing good that comes from the bubble, from a bubble. But like, if you think about like telecom boom, like the fiber optics has now been laid down for the modern, like how we now are embracing the internet, like without it, without that boom, we wouldn't have had this infrastructure. So I always think about when things start to get like, kind of like really, as you described, generous. Not everything will continue to... To live beyond that in that form. But there are definitely things that we continue to have to this day that now inform the next go. It's the first go that you talked about. It's like a broad experiment. And then trial and error. Now we're like, all right, round two, how do we do better this time? And obviously there's a digestion period that you kind of have to go through, which is painful, but what doesn't kill you ultimately makes you stronger.  

Aaron - 00:34:37: Yeah. And it's not just the company making these decisions, right? It's a whole- Say context a lot, but it's the market. The interest rates were low. So people that were giving out the money could get money for free. So they were giving it out. It was low risk for them. And so these companies had access to capital and they were doing what they thought was the best thing to do. Or when people were asking for money, there's a little bit less diligence that was happening. So sure, now people look at the time of Bluebird and say, man, they spent all this money. And now the final iteration of the company got sold for 30 million or something. It's not that the final company is what you should measure success from. There are so many Bluebird that have gone on to do great stuff because they learned in what we saw at Bluebird. You could not see when markets are the way they are today. When you get to see all the science happening, yeah, sure, people make mistakes. I would do things differently if I had the chance now knowing what I know now, but they didn't either. And you need to know that it's not great to go through these markets now, but this is a cycle. It's a contraction. It is healthy. I hate to say it is healthy to contract. And companies that come out of this contraction intact are going to have a lot of processes in place that make them better long-term.  

Jon - 00:35:59: Spot on. You don't get process power without working on the process.  

Aaron - 00:36:06: Yeah. And sometimes there is, like you're saying, the old adage of throwing spaghetti at a wall, see what sticks. Sometimes it's going to work. And sometimes it's going to lead to really great innovations that you didn't expect. And it definitely happened at Bluebird and at Beam. Now, the spaghetti is thrown against the wall and there's no more spaghetti.  

Jon - 00:36:25: Yep.  

Aaron - 00:36:26: So, you know, and it's good. It is good to say, oh, now we actually have to think about our budget. We have to prove, especially if you're in a modality in a space that has typically and traditionally spent a lot of capital. We have to prove ourselves every step of the way of how we're being more capital efficient and we can move things forward because that's part of our story. We did X, Y, Z in the past, and we want to do things differently because we've learned from really great experiences in our past.  

Jon - 00:36:54: Absolutely. And I think about when the constraints come, that's like you're talking about like the contraction. Again, before like we hit record, we're talking about there's like the constraints make you think outside of the box. Like, truly. And the level of operational discipline that it instills, it just makes you a super warrior when it's no longer a contraction and it goes back, you start to feel that swell again. And the key is to just like maintain that discipline during the swell. I almost liken it to like, so now I'm going to make an anime reference, like, like Dragon Ball Z or like, you know, or you're just like, if you watch Naruto and, you know, Lee was like, had the weights on, like when you're in these constraints of a kind of a more bearish market, you're almost like running a business with a weight vest on.  

Aaron - 00:37:45: Absolutely. So I went back to school, so we can talk more about the time there, but going back at HBS, you then learn the mechanics, the basics and say, when you have a term sheet or when you have all these things, what would you do? And that is great to learn, but that is one environment where you have multiple term sheets to choose from, or you, you have all the blue chip investors that are just at your door wanting to invest when that's not the case. That's again, why I say that experience and exposure to case studies, to the real world gives you just the ability to know what your options are, because we started this company and those same options I learned about in school and that the same companies that are now successful today had different options than were available to us. And we have had to be creative. We didn't have a choice. We had to know what the cost is as a pre-seed company of what our entire clinical trial would be for first human readout, because that's an expectation of companies now. It is great and it's prepared us, but no one could have expected it. And I think we, exactly as you're saying, you know, hopefully when the market start riding itself in a different way and we've proven ourselves with more data that we can continue to be at least efficient in some ways. And we've put some processes in place that are not red tape, but are making people think about the science they do to make sure that we don't get in the situations now where actually too much money can be a bad thing afterwards. People hate this. Sorry for all the people that are cringing. It can be great for innovation. I will always, always be thankful for the stuff that I saw at both of these companies when we just, as an employee, didn't really have to think as much about the cost of things, which are so enabling and freeing as an employee, as a scientist. At the same time, if you've hired these big teams, you've had access to capital, and then all of a sudden that capital flow is not coming. The contraction is broad. That's why you're seeing all these workforce reductions. It's not that people aren't great that they brought on. People, team, and science are expensive. And you've created a space and process flows that can't be sustained in every market environment.  

Jon - 00:40:07: Totally. And I think what the science is kind of like experiencing is just like building for resilience. I tend to wax philosophic about this topic a lot, but it's like, again, it's like train with that weight vest on. And when the market eventually turns and the weight vest has basically been taken off, you're now going to be running so much more efficiently. And it's almost like you then you go from like the S that you know, when you're like the airport and you have like the walkway, that's like during bearish markets, it's like the walkways going against you. So you're like running real hard and eventually it starts to turn the other direction. And then you're just like flying. But it's always like this, I think discipline, talk about like things being sexy or like discipline isn't quite like isn't sexy, but I think it is critically important for anyone who's operating a company. And also, I think, you know, I think there's like now an evolution to of just like biotech business models. Like I always like think about about the conversation I had a couple of years ago with Jake Glanville in his company was pretty much like half CRO, half like therapeutics. And he was generating cash flow streams to fund the pipeline. Like these things are possible. Like these things are possible. You can do like licensing deals. You can sell goods and services. He had like a clever like talent acquisition where he like created a grad program at USF to train students on what it is like to do industry work. But also simultaneously that helped him because it was industry work. So you find like these win-wins and like talk about like creativeness, right? It's like these are like, all right, we have these constraints. We need to figure out a way to make this all the math, math, right?  

Aaron - 00:41:56: Yeah. And that's this exposure, not just to these cyclical sort of market swings. But when I started asking around trying to find my North Star or who could give me insights into where I wanted to go long term, there's always this, especially as people went into business and I was asking beyond the bench onto the business side of biotechs, how you got to where you are today. I never ask for advice. So here's a, my little unconventional tip. Don't ask someone to give you advice on what you should do. Ask to learn some creative way to ask about their story because their story again is, is one piece of the puzzle or an alphabet of how they ended up where they are and you can learn and maybe take something from it, but their story will not be your story. So it's challenging for people to be like, give me advice on what? I don't know you. Like, I don't know you that well enough. You know, you and where you can go. That's what I'll say high level. But mostly there were themes and this is not just business biotech. No one could have predicted where they were five years ago today.  

Jon - 00:43:03: Yep. Nobody.  

Aaron - 00:43:03: So it's that North Star. I think that people were heading in a direction, a direction. Some happenstance maybe happened. People were open to karma coming back to them in a good way. Happenstance, really circumstances being, being open to opportunities. And two, there was this theme that I think can be done differently, but a lot of people spent time, they would go to business school. They would go to McKinsey or a consulting firm to fill in the gaps, learn how to make really great slide decks, get exposed to a ton of things. And then they go to big pharma, spend a couple of years there getting, getting to see, you see a lot across the board at big companies in some ways. And then I saw, you see this trend where they go back to startups. So then they're trying to apply what they saw at the Novartis's or advisors. And then they go into a startup company and at least know how they can apply it. That is one way to do things, but it's not the only way. And I think I was really fascinated by seeing how people took their careers, took learnings, and then how they use their experiences to do whatever job they're doing. But also know you can do it in the reverse direction.  

Aaron - 00:44:17: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast with Aaron Edwards. In part three, we explore why there's no single path to becoming a biotech founder, how therapy and humility have shaped Aaron's leadership, and why startup success today requires creativity, flexibility, and a willingness to challenge old assumptions. Aaron also shares how KiraGen is using tools like Notion and ELNs to institutionalize knowledge, operate lean, and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving field. If you're enjoying the series, follow the show, leave us a review, and share it with a friend. See you next time. The Biotech Startups Podcast is produced by Excedr. Don't want to miss an episode? Search for The Biotech Startups Podcast wherever you get your podcasts and click subscribe. Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. To learn more, visit our website, www.excedr.com. On behalf of the team here at Excedr, thanks for listening. The Biotech Startups Podcast provides general insights into the life science sector through the experiences of its guests. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from the podcast is at the user's own risk. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not the views of Excedr or sponsors. No reference to any product, service or company in the podcast is an endorsement by Excedr or its guests.