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 part one, Örn traced his path from Icelandic music and chemistry to the mentors who shaped his approach to practical applied science. If you missed it, check out part one. Now we move into Merck where networking and a three-month visa detour and a willingness to leave a secure role lead him into startup formation, hiring, patents, and an exit.
Jon Chee - 00:00:59: Whenever I think about, like, these kind of, like, early opportunities in the very early part of when I was, like, job hunting or just, like, trying to, like, scratch up business. I was like, it's I'm just gonna, like, pull myself up on my with my bootstraps. I'm gonna do it on my own. Like, it's just gonna be I don't like doing, like, networking or and I don't I'm like, I'm more introverted and shy than I might seem. But, really, it's all about the people. Like, yeah. No matter how smart, clever you are, like, you people work with people. And even in science, that it really is driven by relationships. And I love that. Just like yeah. Like, really, you just never know. Was that friend of yours in the same wasn't in the same lab, like, a different lab?
Örn Almarsson - 00:01:39: He was actually a former post doc at Santa Barbara who had moved on and got a job at Merck, and he would come and visit. And there was that kinda connection, but I was starting to recognize already the importance of networking. You know? Just meet people, reach out to people if you find them interesting, and, you know, don't be afraid of it because I think a lot of people, especially introverted or sort of, you know, buried, you ask them to think about reaching out, and they go, well, that's very first of all, that's not a comfortable thing. Second of all, people will make assumptions that this person's gotta be really busy. You know? They're not gonna wanna respond to me.
But, actually, a lot of people will. And even if they don't have time for you, they'll say, hey. That's great. Nice to hear from you. Why don't you talk to so and so? And it just ends up being a win-win. So I'm actually an extrovert initially, but I find myself getting more introverted over time just at age. But it's still so important. Wherever you are in that scale, you gotta reach out. Especially, it's nice to reach out if you don't need something. You're just curious. And then it just grows a trusting relationship sometimes, but don't just reach out when you need it. Like, oh, I need a job now. Now let me network, or I need to answer this question. Now I'm gonna reach out. You gotta build that over time thoughtfully.
Jon Chee - 00:02:54: I totally agree. And I think, like, if you just, like, lead with exactly what you're saying, leading with, like, curiosity. And also just, like, too, the way I always liked it in my head is just, like, do what you do when you're just trying to make a friend, really. It's really it's, like, it's no different. You're just, like, let me learn about you and what are you into, and then I'll share about what I'm into. These, ultimately, I think, even in the business context, the best relationships are just, like, kind of underpinned with this. You're friends. We just happen to do business together.
Örn Almarsson - 00:03:20: Yeah. I mean but I think there's another thing in here, which is that networks that are static are not interesting, and they sort of start atrophying. So you need to keep the network growing, evolving, and that's the way the network gets more and more useful. So I had a person once resign from a job at a company. This is probably twenty years ago, and I don't remember exactly who or where. But the memorable thing is the person said, I was so afraid to tell you that I was about to resign. I said, you know what? It's not personal. This is your decision. I respect it. And by the way, the network just got more interesting.
Jon Chee - 00:03:57: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Örn Almarsson - 00:03:59: The person was very relieved as I called. I'm glad to see it that way because it wasn't personal.
Jon Chee - 00:04:04: Yeah. That's massive. And I think, you know, when it comes to, like, these ecosystems of, like, innovation, you talk about, like, these networks that are just, like, evolving. I always think about that, like, even in, like, a startup venture. It's just like, it may work out. It may not. But there's always another chapter after that, and you can continue to work on cool stuff and just keep it going. And then that's how you start to get this ecosystem of innovation.
Örn Almarsson - 00:04:26: That's interesting. I'm interested in that. Need to draw that parallel because I'm a big believer in the fact that everything you do, whether it works or you just learn from it, it didn't quite work, you know, but you're learning. Sometimes that learning comes back later to really benefit you in a way that you could not have or seen at the time. I think that's the real impetus or a real reason to be always learning.
Jon Chee - 00:04:48: Oh, always. And, like, I know it's very prevalent in the Bay Area, but this kind of startup ecosystem in the United States is very like, failing is not actually failing. And I think in other regions outside the United States, sometimes, like, failing is failing. Like, you don't get another shot, or it's, like, something that you carry with you within, like it's kind of a a scarlet letter for whatever you tried and some didn't work. And, one, that type of culture is really hard to foster because it's, like, deeply ingrained. Like, you'd have to, like, just change the psyche of, like, groups of people, which is, like, very difficult.
Örn Almarsson - 00:05:24: That's a fair point. I haven't worked in Europe. I'm not that familiar with how that works except that I think it's much more risk averse in certain ways, and biotech in Europe has had much more challenge. You know? Really growing, but certain really good exceptions. You know? But the thing is that, you know, what drew me, I think, initially to the US, and I really want us to stay this way, is that entrepreneurial spirit, belief, and then the, you know, willingness to fail forward and not give up. And it's fundamentally more of a meritocracy anyway. I mean, you know, I did not wanna go to graduate school in place like Germany. I had friends who went there, and it was all very super hierarchical. And I'm not a hierarchical thinker so much. I mean, I think it's important not to constrain yourself that way. It works for some, but I'm not saying it never works, but it doesn't work for me.
Jon Chee - 00:06:17: For sure. Absolutely. And I guess that that's a good dovetail and, I guess, question for you. Like, you've now found yourself at Merck, very large organization. What was that like? Did you have, like, a culture shock, like, landing, like, your on your first day? Or were you, like, I'm in my element? Like, I I know I didn't navigate something as large as Merck. Talk a little bit about the early days.
Örn Almarsson - 00:06:38: Yeah. Actually, it's it's so interesting that I mean, I got this job, and I was working in the lab in West Point, Pennsylvania, which is near Philadelphia. And it was, you know, I the first week I was there, I couldn't believe I was getting paid for this stuff because it was so it they're so rich and excite you know? It was challenging work, but I was trained for it. I was learning quickly, working with great people. The timelines were tough, but we were really, I think, a very strong R&D machine at Merck in those days and still are, I think, but I just it's perceived it that way. It was interesting, though, that after my first week, I got called into the HR. Yeah. And I didn't know what's going on. It turns out my visa paperwork was screwed up. So they said, unfortunately, you are an illegal alien in the US now.
Jon Chee - 00:07:27: Oh, no.
Örn Almarsson - 00:07:28: And so I was sent home to wait in my apartment for instruction, and I go home and said to my wife, I don't know what's happening. I don't know if I have a job. You know? Yeah. Yeah. But what happened was they had a laboratory in the UK in North of London that was a development lab. They sent my big boss there, Colin Gardner, who I'll talk about later, he says, you can go to England. We've ascertained you can work there. So just go there and work, and then, you know, we'll get the paperwork ready, and you'll go to the US embassy in London, and you'll be able to return.
And it took three months to do that. In those three months, I didn't know how long it was gonna take, but it ended up taking about three months. And I was in England for three months, the summer of '95, and it was great. It would have been absolutely phenomenal if I didn't have a family because I had to worry about them. But they went to Iceland and Yeah.
Jon Chee - 00:08:20: Yeah. Yeah.
Örn Almarsson - 00:08:21: Spent the summer there. But it was good because it continued that excitement for me. I was really learning a lot, but I also got another kind of angle. I was working in a slightly different group on a different kind of problem, and that gave me some depth already. And then I came back to I I did wanna go back. They asked me if I wanted to stay, and I said, well, that's kind of you, but I'm set up in the US. And I went back, and it really took off from there. I had a very wonderful six years at Merck, actually, and I wasn't planning on leaving Merck. I'll tell you more about that.
Jon Chee - 00:08:54: Interesting. When you were there, what was, like, the R&D culture like?
Örn Almarsson - 00:08:58: Very choosy, very rigorous, but fast paced, and not very hierarchical. So there was a guy in charge of all of the R&D labs at the time. His name is Ed Scolnick. Scolnick was a revered and feared man. To many, it seemed like he never slept. Right? If you send him an email, he would respond at 02:30 AM. You know? And he was tough, and he was very demanding, and he would call anyone. So for example, my the boss I mentioned, Rajan, he was on his way to pick up his daughter from day care one day at 05:30, and there's a phone his desk phone rings. We had those, and he goes, uh, what assholes call me now? It was Ed Scolnick.
Jon Chee - 00:09:38: Oh.
Örn Almarsson - 00:09:39: And he says, how is that? It was about an HIV drug that was very, very important at the time, Crixivan. And he says, how what's the status on this aspect that you're working on? He had to give a report for five minutes. He said, yeah. I'm glad I picked up that phone.
Jon Chee - 00:09:53: Yeah. Yes.
Örn Almarsson - 00:09:54: But that's just how nonhierarchical was, which made for an interesting dynamic. Because if Ed Scolnick in the other opposite scenario, I'd call the VP to talk to a director to talk to this, that would've taken longer, but it would've been the way a lot of hierarchical companies work. But it didn't work for him, and that meant that everybody had to be on their toes. And people differ on the sort of wisdom of doing this, but it was the way the Merck culture was, and it drove a hard bargain, but extremely good results and fast results.
Jon Chee - 00:10:28: I think something you said earlier that I also agree with is just, like, there are, like, very hierarchical organizations that also thrive. It's a different style. For me, stylistically, like, I still get in the weeds. I won't necessarily, like, micromanage, but, like, I sweat the details. My philosophy just is just like, if you don't understand how the thing works, how can you, like, oversee it? Like Yeah. You don't need to be, like, steering it. You're just like, I gotta know what's going on here. It's hard to oversee anything that you don't understand.
Örn Almarsson - 00:10:58: Absolutely. I think there are obviously settings where hierarchy is absolutely important, and armies and things like that. And when it's very well prescribed what's happening, you know, I think R&D is a little challenging this way because it has to move quickly in response to emergent information. And trying to do that through hierarchies is extremely hard.
Jon Chee - 00:11:20: It kinda reminds me of, like, you playing music, honestly. It's kind of like I would imagine is you're kind of, like, on your toes. You're kind of, like, freestyling. Like
Örn Almarsson - 00:11:28: Yeah. Improvising and playing off someone.
Jon Chee - 00:11:31: Yeah. I'm gonna imagine at Merck, was it crazy, like, interdisciplinary where, like, tons of groups are, like, disparate groups have to come together and make it work?
Örn Almarsson - 00:11:40: That's the other thing. I'm glad you brought that up because that's what really excited me about working there. You were doing a thing, but it was part of a bigger tapestry of work that had to come together. And that meant that you need to understand what's going adjacent to you and even further distal to you and speak the language, I guess, of the people you're working with. I'll give you an example. Like, if I'm working on a formulation that has to give a certain bio readout, I need to talk to the people who are gonna do the bio readout and understand what's important to them and why they're doing the right things they're doing, because then I can tell the story. I can also make better decisions from my end in the future as I learn through them. So it's like being a a diplomat.
Jon Chee - 00:12:23: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Örn Almarsson - 00:12:25: Yeah. United Nations.
Jon Chee - 00:12:26: When I think about folks who are, like, domain experts, also everyone thinks their domain is, like, super important or, like, the most important. So it's kind of like a there's a little bit of, like, ego sometimes. You're just like, no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. My thing is more it's like, how do you reconcile that?
Örn Almarsson - 00:12:46: Yeah. But in the end, it's all important. It has to come together. Yeah.
Jon Chee - 00:12:49: Exactly. And when you were, like, learning the ropes, was Merck a place where you can just, like, tap a shoulder and just be like, hey. You know, exactly. He said, tell me about formulation science. Like, I mean, that's so cool. I'm so jealous of that because, like, I've only done Excedr. So
Örn Almarsson - 00:13:03: Great job, by the way. Important offering to the community.
Jon Chee - 00:13:07: Thank you. And I'm always, like, envious, though, of, like, when you're when you go to somewhere like that, like, where they're, like, just, like, probably down the hall. Just like, oh, that person's, like, the best at this thing.
Örn Almarsson - 00:13:17: That was definitely the Merck I knew. Okay. People would be busy. They would tell you that, and you could see that. But if you ask a good question and it was coming from a place of genuine curiosity for making something work, you would get people coming to your side. I'm thinking of one of the senior toxicologists in West Point. I was working on a project with, as a cancer candidate that went to phase two, and I worked on that. And I was just curious, like, how do you actually study such a complex thing? Actually, it was a fairly toxic drug to begin with as a peptide conjugate of a cytotoxic drug. So it was almost a little bit like a progenitor of the ADCs, you know, the antibody. And so this guy, Kevin, he was so wonderful. I mean, he said, come to my office. I'll share some things with you, and that was a huge benefit. It's like being in a university of Merck, but you had to take the initiative, and then you had to find ways to not interrupt in a big way. So be targeted with your question. Yeah.
Jon Chee - 00:14:19: I love your description of it, like the University of Merck. That's that feeling. I don't wanna take finals exams in, like, midterms or any I'm not excited by that stuff, but, like, I do miss being on campus where just, like, the whole like, it's people are all doing their own thing. All of them are exceptional, and it's just like a place of learning. And not to say that, like, Excedr isn't that, but it's not a university. And, like, Merck obviously does a lot of stuff, a lot of expertise. I love that they kind of, like, fostered that. You did six years there. Sounds like a gig that you can probably just, like, spend your whole career and never get bored. For you, it was just like, what made you decide to find the next gig?
Örn Almarsson - 00:15:00: Well, that was actually a totally serendipitous thing. So in the summer of 2000, I was sent to MIT to do some recruiting, and I went with another fellow chemical engineer from my department, and I went up there. And the idea was spend a day with material science and chemical engineering and talk to the students and talk to some faculty and just tell them what we're looking for. And it was really about just drumming up interests so that there might be recruiting prospects coming out of there, maybe some collaborations, potentially, with the department. And this was a very fun day, a long day, and, you know, I thought it was time most fun. Then I considered myself a good recruiter. I had already, you know, recruited a number of people to Merck.
I came back, and I was finishing my trip report, and I got a call from a guy, a professor called Michael Cima. And he's a material science professor and a long time innovator and developer of companies and so on. And he had cofounded a company with Bob Langer, famous MIT Institute professor, chemical engineer. He had mentioned the name of the company once during the day, and I thought nothing of it. Just got a name and described a little bit. But then he called me and he said, hey. You know, we're thinking about hiring someone like you to lead up this part. So I took a trip up because one thing for me was, like, I did feel like I wanted to work in a smaller, more of a start up. You know, I was respecting and loving what I was learning, but I really thought of myself as maybe being able to contribute in a very germinal stage, incubation stage.
So I went up, met this group, and it was really cool. They were thinking of it. But there was a lot of it was we're building it, and we're trying to, you know, operate it as we build it. And it turned out Michael was kinda looking for someone to step into a role that he was already kind of doing, but he he had time for it and wasn't planning on it anyway. So I took that job, and I'm resigning from Merck all of a sudden. And I convinced my wife to move back to this area, which she wasn't so sure about. She was loving life in the Philadelphia area, and I had to really work on her. But fortunately, that worked out. But what happened was I resigned from Merck, and people came to me and said something you were saying earlier, like, woah. Were you crazy? You know, you could spend your career here and be very successful. And I said, that's very kind of you to say, but it's not. Like, the gut is not telling you that. And then they'd say, and I can't even find a website. Like, well, we're very new.
Jon Chee - 00:17:27: Yeah. And
Örn Almarsson - 00:17:28: And they just did not understand how I could do such a thing. But the kicker in the story is that three months after I left to go to this company, Transform Pharmaceuticals, the big boss, Colin Gardner, from the worldwide pharmaceutical head of R&D, retired from Merck and joined as the CSO of Transform. So I said, if it's good enough for Colin, it's good enough for me.
Jon Chee - 00:17:52: Yeah. Yes. I love that. I love that. So many directions I wanna go. And I guess in the first one, something that you said, like, it took a little bit of work to get your wife on board with this. Because, like, there's, like, obviously a career shift. Ultimately, startups are perilous no matter what. How did you convince your wife and your two children that I'm like, this is the way?
Örn Almarsson - 00:18:14: Yeah. The kids were younger. I mean, my oldest one was nine at this point, and they were very portable, shall we say. But my wife was more concerned, though, that, you know, they kinda come and fit in here. But she was also thinking we'd already thinking about finding a bigger place because we were in a smaller place in Pennsylvania, and we just had our third, so we have three kids. So she said, well, if we can get something bigger up there, I mean, I'm willing to consider it. So I had to sweat that.
Jon Chee - 00:18:41: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Örn Almarsson - 00:18:42: But it all worked out, thankfully, long story short. Now she wouldn't live anywhere else, so we're happy now.
Jon Chee - 00:18:48: It was perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was gonna say, like, the start up journey is also one that your significant others are embarking on too. And my wife, Chloe, she did not choose it. Right? But she's along for the ride, and it's always, like, I I when folks are embarking on that journey, just do realize that it is it's not just you.
Örn Almarsson - 00:19:07: It's teamwork.
Jon Chee - 00:19:08: It's teamwork. Big time. They're unsung heroes when it comes to it. Absolutely. Because, like, it's so hard. And so okay. So you've resigned from Merck. You're now at Transform. Was that culture shock? I'm sure, like, being at the ground floor of a early stage venture vastly different than Merck.
Örn Almarsson - 00:19:24: Yeah. It was fewer of us and more self reliance. You really had to just work extremely hard, and it was more of a a blank slate. We are building technology to do high throughput materials discovery, including crystallization, which was a big thing back in the day, and it still kinda is. But I was interested in doing that work at Merck, but I was told I had some equipment to do a basic level workflow. But I was told that's not a Merck project to build that capability. You get up just find someone to do that, but you know? And I understood that logically, and that was something that I respected.
However, it was something in me that said, well, I'd like to have my cake and eat it too. Do that, and they integrate my pharmaceutical experience, which was starting to be, you know, reasonable. I mean, I think some places like Merck, you learn very quickly. It feels like sometimes dog years. And I was lucky too that I had multiple projects going on at Merck at the same time, and one of them ended up being an original NDA that was submitted in right before I left. And then it got first cycle approval a year later, and I was so grateful for that experience because, you know, working on an NDA doesn't happen to all you know, especially if you're close to the discovery or the earlier stage of development. So that was a unbelievably useful experience.
Jon Chee - 00:20:46: Holy moly. Yeah. I was gonna say, as I'm, like, hearing your journey, it's like a lot of folks wanna just go straight into company formation, like, right out of grad school, but it seems like getting a NDA, that's awesome experience that you can they can carry with you, like, forever. There's a startup culture at least out here on this side of the coast where it's just like I swear there are, like, high schoolers now who, like, starting companies. Like, I was like, I don't know. I was, like, skateboarding, like, when I was in high school. I was, like, starting a company. Like, I was, like, think that if you have an opportunity to learn on someone else's dime and get an experience like that and then maybe go into the ring and start up land and just, like, bring all those skills with you, like, why wouldn't you? That's, like, such a a blessing.
Örn Almarsson - 00:21:34: I think it's helped me a lot, and I know a lot of the people in a similar situation as me who spent considerably even more time in a place like Merck and then go into start ups. And I tend to agree with you. It brings a certain level of perspective and experience that isn't possible to get if you work only in the start up. But then, you know, it works also the other way for some. And for the best ones, they want to learn from people like me, and then it just becomes a pact. Like, can we, you know, accelerate one another? You know? You teach me about start up culture. I'll teach you about drug development or something. You know?
But, yeah, I think it's important. I do think it's tricky sometimes. I see people coming out of grad school and going state to be, like, CSO of a company. You know? Well, you're very particular to that technology because presumably you know it inside and out near the world's expert. But what happens in start ups, as you probably know, and many people say this, that there's always a change. There's something that happens that causes you either external, internal, or a combination you have to pivot. And to do the pivot, you gotta have some reference points.
Jon Chee - 00:22:43: Yep.
Örn Almarsson - 00:22:43: Right? Yep. And some background experience and mentors to fall back on. And so that's the watch out that I would put in doing that. Sometimes I'll say take it a little slow, but it's not what I actually mean. I just mean build on make it a build.
Jon Chee - 00:22:58: Absolutely. And so at Transform, talk a little bit about the early team there, what you guys sought to do. What was, like, Transform's, like, mission in North Star?
Örn Almarsson - 00:23:09: Transform was founded, like I said, by Michael Cima and Bob Langer, who believe that the nature of pharmaceutical materials discovery and development was lacking in terms of both throughput and analytical capability to, for example, generate new crystal forms or formulations to solve very difficult formulation problems. And so we were, for, at the time, thinking, for example, about very difficult to deliver drugs like taxol and coming up with way better and more safe formulations from that, but you had to screen a lot to get there. And so that was the thesis, and we built some great systems there and a great culture. I really miss that culture.
The tone was set by people like Colin Gardner who came from Merck, had a twenty year career leading pharmaceutical warranty there, and he comes to this company. He wants the he's very intentional along with the head of HR, Barbara Carter, to generate a culture that was very collaborative, challenge one another, but support one another, and do excellent work and be good stewards. We really did that, and that was so that was the company, Transform. And the early people there, I mean, Hongming Chen, who is now a CSO, met us, and she is two wonderful colleague, another ex Merck transplant, MIT Merck blood transplant. There were several others that I worked with there, and we still miss that place. But that place was acquired by J&J in 2005, so it kind of cycled me back into big pharma for a time. Interesting.
Jon Chee - 00:24:39: And I guess, like, when you're reflecting on that startup experience, what would you say, like, are were, like, some, like, key learnings? Like, maybe some hard lessons learned as you were building the plane and also flying it.
Örn Almarsson - 00:24:51: Yeah. Every hire matters greatly, and culture matters. And so you gotta be intentional and choosy, and you gotta be ready to do whatever. I mean, things are gonna come up. It is a bit of a roller coaster because, you know, you're working on edges or, you know, you're basically going beyond what is known so often times. And that just inevitably is a it's like an expedition into the unknown. And so you gotta be you gotta be resourceful, and you gotta be tight together.
Jon Chee - 00:25:19: Yep. Absolutely. And for me, I learned that, like, mathematically too, that, like, when you're a small company, like, let's say you're, like, four people, five people, whatever, that next hire is, like, 20 to 25% of your company. Like, mathematically, like, that is the case, and they're gonna have that much impact on the company. So you better stick the landing.
Örn Almarsson - 00:25:40: Yes. It that'd be a positive impact. That's for sure.
Jon Chee - 00:25:44: Exactly. Exactly. And when there's a misalignment in that hiring, like, they need to start, like, really it just starts to come to a screeching halt in terms of, like, the pace in which you can move. Because you're always, like, kinda have to, like, double check. You gotta, like, you're second guessing, and there's, like, all this friction. And in, like, startup land, like, it's you gotta move fast. Like like, you gotta you can't have that, like, friction. It sounds like you're just, like, glued together. You guys are removing in unison. How did the acquisition from J&J come to be? Was this a thing where you're, like, had a collaboration or yeah. Talk a little bit about that.
Örn Almarsson - 00:26:21: My Axyleth cofounder, John Lucas, and I had a lot, I think, of an influence on that. This is my theory, so I'll just share it here. One of the high throughput projects we did was we were often experimenting on drug substances that other companies found, and one of them was a drug from J&J, which is a big seller in the day, and they were actively interested in it. I thought I said I had a hypothesis. I said, do this. We might improve. We actually have a new sort of way of presenting this product, formulating, and so on. And I started that project with one of the chemists in my group, Matt Peterson, and we had some early success. I was kinda surprised. It surprised me.
But and John Lucas, who was a patent attorney, he was on my side, and he was basically saying, well, this is how it might be patentable and stuff like that. And I learned a lot from him, and I'll get to him later. But the thing is, Matt was working in the lab, and my boss, Colin Gardner, who's often been mentioned now, he came in and Matt told him what he was working on, and he's like, that doesn't make any sense. Why don't you stop doing that? And then he would come to me, and I said, no. But I have a hunch here, but and he and the call just didn't understand my thinking on it. And then Matt would come to me next and say, what should I do? Big boss wants me to stop. I said, don't stop. Just keep going. Don't mind that.
But what happened was that ended up generating with John's leadership two patents that issued, which are very important patents, were important for us because J&J ended up licensing those for, I think, $10,000,000 back in 2004. And then the company was acquired in 2005. And at that point, we had other things. Obviously, we had a phase two assets and asset and Parkinson's. And so they came and acquired us. The exit was about 240,000,000 if memory serves. And so I was back in big pharma, and it was a good time. It was very educational and a different thing, but it meant much more integration and me traveling way more because J&J is so vast and all over the place.
Outro - 00:28:27: Örn's Merck years show how much can turn on in relationships, timing, and the courage to leave a good job before the next company even has a website. Next time, he steps into the tension between discovery and commercialization, then returns to lipid delivery at Moderna as the company works to scale mRNA from tiny laboratory quantities to something much larger. Enjoy the show. Leave a quick review. It genuinely helps. Catch you in part three. 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.
