Shekhar Mitra - InnoPreneur & P&G - Part 2

Intro - 00:00:01:

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, we spoke with Shekhar Mitra about his upbringing, what it was like growing up in a joint family, and the values it instilled in him. We also discussed his journey through academia, the groundbreaking research that he conducted tackling complex biological systems at prestigious institutions such as IIT and Columbia, and his lab experience in New York City. If you missed it, be sure to go back and give part one a listen. In part two, we continue our conversation with Shekhar, discussing his move from academia to Procter & Gamble, navigating the challenges, failures and successes along the way. We'll also hear more about his time at Columbia and Yale, collaborating with top-notch physicists and his experience working with the FDA.

Jon - 00:01:17:

I know also after your time at Columbia, you ended up at Yale with the Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Shekhar - 00:01:24:

Yeah. I mean, Professor Borson was absolutely enamored with what I was doing. He was a physicist who was doing laser and atomic molecular understanding. And here I come with intricate biological system and get to understand why some of these learnings. You know, he not only nominated me for, the Hammett Award, which is the highest award for PhDs in the sciences at Columbia, which I happened to get thanks to his nomination. I got that. He also said, hey, you know, you ought to take your knowledge now and go on to have your own grant. I said, how does that happen? You know, I was not even a U.S. Citizen, right? You know, government grants, not easy to get, you know. He says, well, there are some very prestigious fellowships that are given by foundations for top-notch people who've demonstrated skill sets, et cetera. And he rattled off a few names, and he said, apply for all of them. I said, you know, what are the chances? I mean, you know, 10 people, you know, most of them, you know, there's a committee of Nobel laureates to judge it. My work wasn't of that kind of caliber. And he said, well, no. It's new, it's novel. I mean, they may see your path and your development path and they'll certainly give you your application. So he actually wrote the records to two or three such agencies. These are independent grants given to people to go to whatever institution you choose with not a supervisor or professor, but somebody who would be a sponsor in that institution. Because you have your independent money to do the research. You can even hire people to help you. Very prestigious. And so I got the Jane Coffin Childs Fellow, I chose Yale, and again, I chose Professor Don Prothero, another National Academy member. Very different from Richard Bush and Marx. You know, more of the people should get to know me because he is doing some phenomenal research. And again, he was one of those doing all kinds of physical measurements using lasers. To study intricate biological systems. You know, at that time, he was definitely one of those who could have gotten a Nobel Prize. He did not, but of course, he became a National Academy member. And I was the first one, my proposal to Jane Coffin Childs to do this was in collaboration with him. When Professor Boston was gonna recommend me, I said, you know, I'm gonna choose this, Professor Don Crothers. Yale to collaborate. And I went to visit him several times and I learned what kind of capabilities he has, you know. And there he had some very phenomenal laser systems that could study intricate biological systems. And the proposal I had was to see how genes were folded. You know, there are a thousand miles worth of genes folded in a piece of our cells, you know. So my proposal was that using an anti-cancer drug called donomycin, which goes into the cell's genes and opens it up and stops replication. So that's how you kill the tumors. So I was going to use that anti-cancer drug, donomycin. Open up the folding of the jeans. Shine laser light to understand exactly what the angle, how is this thousand mile thing? You know, tucked away in this little hist around this whole ribosome, the histone, you know? And that was my study. That was going to be my study. Again, first, I got the help of the top laser physicists and chemists of the world at Yale in his lab. And they're top-notch. They're with the defense system. They're directors of U.S. Government defense, even to this day, because they're studying plumes from enemy.

Jon - 00:05:51:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shekhar - 00:05:53:

They cannot even talk to you about what-

Jon - 00:05:55:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, confidential, confidential, yeah. Right.

Shekhar - 00:05:58:

They were the experts in the lab on lasers. I took there, I collaborated with them, and I created this whole hypothesis to study by unfolding the genes that are so tightly knitted and study the exact angle, exact structure of how this was done. And that resulted in a paper, which is probably one of the most prestigious journals, as you know, called Nature. So if you go in and see the paper on folding of jeans using laser light spectroscopy, that is the first ever done.

Jon - 00:06:36:

Badass.

Shekhar - 00:06:38:

Yeah, and you know, from then, I mean, when you do that kind of work, right? You know, of course, Yale helped me get my visa to stay in this country, right? Because it wasn't done through advertising normal route is you advertise for a position and if nobody applies and you're the best. Mine was done with six or seven top-notch professors saying, this man is valuable. So I got my visa.

Jon - 00:07:05:

That's amazing. And that's a lot of pressure too, right? It's like, obviously, before the visa being granted, you're like, I have a lot on the line. So like-

Shekhar - 00:07:13:

I need a lot on the line. You know, I was getting paid for, you know, the grant was for three years. I was getting paid. My lab assistants are getting paid from the grant given by this foundation, Jane Coffin Childs Fellow. And, you know, you are a fellow at Yale, which means everyone, all the big professors knew you, you know, you occasionally come and talk to audiences in the medical school because you're doing very interesting, relevant research. And then, you know, from there, the whole idea was that I would. Get one of the very few sought after professor positions as an assistant professor somewhere, which I did. I interviewed many places. I did not get the Berkeley assistant professor position. I interviewed, it was hard to get an interview there, by the way, but I got Indiana University Bloomington. I got Rutgers. In fact, there were only half a dozen positions every year for molecular biologists or biophysical chemists to become assistant professors. So the competition was like 10,000 applicants, right? Three or four positions. So I got two positions and I was about to become an assistant professor when my entire course for my life changed. And I can tell you about it whenever you want to hear.

Jon - 00:08:43:

Yeah. And I'm very excited to hear about that because, and the one thing that really stood out to me about your experience at Yale and is about, it almost feels like there was like a multidisciplinary. Collaboration. Like you're talking about the laser people over there and we're over here in kind of like bio land and then merging the two different groups and doing excellent work, despite coming from very disparate backgrounds. One's like on that end, your site's on this end. So that's, I love hearing that because I think. For innovation, is it critically important to bring together very diverse perspectives? Because it's so easy to just like, I guess the saying is, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Versus if someone else brings a different tool to the kind of conversation, then you start thinking a little bit more orthogonally and a little bit more out of the box. I mean, you know, opening up the DNA and then shining lasers like, hey, laser people, like, is ready to go. That's very cool in my mind.

Shekhar - 00:09:49:

I just want to mention to you that there are two extremely important lessons I've learned when it comes to innovation and some breakthroughs. Number one is that the best innovation and problem solving comes with diverse teams. Diverse teams in terms of not only training and their expertise, but also diversity of thought and how they grew up. And if you can harness that diversity of thinking, creativity, and expertise, the best problem solving and innovation happens. The second thing I've learned is that these are the most important innovations that touch consumers or customers or academics and learning. Come at the crossroads of expertise, you know. Physical sciences, laser lights, and biological systems. Those are the most important. You know, innovations that are breakthroughs often happen at these crossroads. You know, so there are, there's a human, you know, there's an expertise and human element of diversity and you have the job of a good leader in any circumstance is how to make this an inclusive environment. To honor people with empathy and have them contribute. So that everyone feels like they are doing some of this. So if you look at, you know, even the nature paper, there are many, many people who contributed small or big, but they weren't named. The paper, which is a highly prestigious thing for everyone, and they deserve to be acknowledged.

Jon - 00:11:34:

Absolutely. And I'm excited to dive into the next kind of part of the journey. And I think all the listeners will be very, very excited to hear too. But just the one thing I was thinking about my lab experience was at Berkeley, there was This was a long time ago, but... There was the x-ray crystallography folks who were trying to figure out protein structures. And then we, on our side, we had a little bit of like computational biology. And they kind of battled. The crystallography folks were like, we need to see it physically. We have to with our eyes. And then on our side, it's like, why don't we just do the computational?

Shekhar - 00:12:11:

Computation. I can tell you what-

Jon - 00:12:13:

What it's going to look like.

Shekhar - 00:12:14:

Three-dimensional folding or something.

Jon - 00:12:16:

Yeah. On our side, we're like, we don't need the lattice. We'll just run it. But the thing is, there's a place and time for both.

Shekhar - 00:12:25:

Both. Correct.

Jon - 00:12:26:

It doesn't have to be zero-sum. It doesn't have to be a winner-loser in this. It's a different tool for a different circumstance. And it's okay. We don't have to be better than each other. It's like, these are just different tools. But to get back on the, you know, right now, you're considering being a professor. You were about to be an academic. How did you end up at Procter & Gamble?

Shekhar - 00:12:49:

Absolutely amazing, weird, I mean, circumstances. You know, this is what tells you not everything is in your control in life, right? And this is the positive side of it, which is that... Because I was a Jane Coffin Fellow on Yale campus and fellows were, you know, networked and knew and the professors knew. All the way up to the level of president. At that time, it was President Giamatti, famous man who became baseball commissioner at one time. But he was a classic literature professor. He was the president at Yale. And one of the presidents from Procter & Gamble Company happened to be at the Yale campus recruiting. For people because he was the ex-Yale. And Procter & Gamble has this thing of recruiting the top people from top campuses and then nurturing them, bring them into bigger and bigger leadership positions. That's Procter & Gamble's model even to this day. Get them at the bench and let them rise up or let them go sideways and become experts, whatever. And, you know, I happened to meet him and the group that came with him to recruit. And one of them said, why don't you come and give a seminar on what you do? This quite happens to be a breakthrough kind of sounds like to come and give a seminar. So I got invited to give a seminar. At P&G headquarters, which is in Cincinnati here. Okay. I come and give a seminar. I meet with some top, well-known technologists and well-known managers of research, innovation organization. And they were going to take me out to dinner that night. And the next day, I was going to return back. Well, before dinner at 4.30, when everything was done, I was catching up on stuff, you know, on the phone and everything, talking to my wife. And then they say, you know, the VP and the department head, and that time titles are associate director, but nowadays they're VPs, you know, titles have changed at P&G. But, you know, the senior VP and the VP want to talk to you. And I said, gladly, you know, before dinner. And I go in there to talk to them, and they say, well, have you considered getting a position here? I said, out of the blue, you can imagine my face. I wish somebody took a picture of that. I was like, what? What kind of position? You know, like technician or something? I could never imagine that I would have, you know, I come from the academic world, you know, cannot imagine what a position means. Well, you know, a position means you start in. The bench level and we have some, you know, we're getting into prescription drugs and all kinds of things that, you know, someone with your background would be just terrific. I said, look, I have a faculty position starting in September, October, you know, full funding and all that, you know, either Indiana. And I was going to go to Indiana. And I said, well, you know, think about it, you know, think about it. And we'll call you back in a week. You know how it works, right?

Jon - 00:16:11:

Yeah, yeah.

Shekhar - 00:16:12:

And I could barely have a glass of wine over dinner. I was so nervous. I could get-

Jon - 00:16:17:

Yeah, I'd be shaking.

Shekhar - 00:16:18:

I stood around by myself having a steak, which I didn't often have. And a fancy restaurant and everything. Lots of P&G people. And I started to think, you know, I was totally, I was going back and they had a limo for me and all of that. Take me back to the airport, from the airport, a limo to drive me back to New Haven at night, all of that, you know. But it's corporate.

Jon - 00:16:43:

Yeah, yeah.

Shekhar - 00:16:44:

And they're, of course, trying to move me at that point, I'm sure. And, uh... Well, I mean, I start to think, and my father was visiting me at that time from India, and my wife. I said, this is what happened. And my father, first thing he says to me is that, You are someday going to get a Nobel Prize. You know how parents think, right?

Jon - 00:17:06:

Yeah, yeah.

Shekhar - 00:17:07:

He's an economist and a top government officer, retired government officer in India. You're going to get a Nobel Prize someday. Why are you going to go and work for a soap company? After all these years of, you know, superb life sciences research at Columbia, this and that, and Yale, and you know, he thought more highly of me than I thought of myself. So he says, you know, why are you going to do that? And my wife says, yeah, that's right. Why are you? And my wife is very much into the arts, you know, literature and all of that. And she was herself finishing her PhD. And no, come on, just forget it, you know. Well, I get the call next week and they said, do you want to come out and visit me and you once more before you make your decision to join academia? You know, of course, you can leave after two years, you know, if you don't like it. And, you know, I went for a second visit because I said, you know, the risk taking in me picked up a little bit. I said, yeah, you know, indeed. Let me see if I can hold this position for one more year at the academic position and get a feel for what's going on. And I'll tell you, Jon, what impressed me about P&G was that I saw breakthrough enzyme engineering research in 1981. And you know what they were engineering the enzyme for? These enzymes they isolated were... Picking up stains from clothes, but they would be unstable in washing machines. So they were engineering not to disrupt the ability to take away the blood stains, but to make it stable. Because enzymes will just open up, just like frying your egg.

Jon - 00:18:55:

Yeah.

Shekhar - 00:18:56:

And just...

Jon - 00:18:57:

It is the natures. The natures, completely. Yeah.

Shekhar - 00:19:01:

P&G was thinking ahead. They're doing enzyme engineering with some collaborators. I said, you know what? This is amazing. That, you know, a soap company, which my father was talking about.

Jon - 00:19:14:

Just a soap company. Just a soap company.

Shekhar - 00:19:17:

A toothpaste company.

Jon - 00:19:18:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shekhar - 00:19:21:

They choose stuff. So I said, what kind of projects are you going to give me if I ever were to join? Of course, the money was much more. That was not the interest. What am I going to do? He said, we don't know as yet. When you come, we'll figure it out because we are buying a pharmaceutical company that has Pepto-Bismol and Metamucil and all of that. And we are doing osteoporosis bone research. And P&G had found a lot of stuff in their oral care and other areas, feminine care, that could result in some curing of some tremendous diseases like osteoporosis. Benji came up with the first osteoporosis drug called Actonel. The pharma division got sold, but that's brand selling and buying, right? The point is the research wing of P&G. Was immersed in some breakthrough stuff. And with that, I went, so cool. And I've not changed my mind since then. So I've worked there 29 plus years, you know. And it's the coolest company that people recognize for branding and marketing. But what drives that company is innovation and breakthrough innovation. That's so rad.

Jon - 00:20:32:

I think when I was in the lab, I... I have plenty of colleagues who are in academia and have very amazing kind of research that they're doing. But I love hearing kind of the application, seeing it in a household product that for everyday use, which is like awesome to see. It has like this multiplier effect that you're touching on a lot of lives.

Shekhar - 00:20:57:

You don't realize how intricate. Designing for household products and consumers. The safety standards have to be much higher. But it has to do amazing noticeable benefits for the consumer to hook onto that product and keep on buying. And saying, this is the best. This is the best. I'm not going to change brands. That's what P&G excels in. 12 fundamental breakthrough noticeable innovation. And I happen to be in the healthcare wing and the oral care wing and in a pharmaceutical area, but everywhere I've crossed P&G, you know, all the brands are good.

Jon - 00:21:39:

And you mentioned something that's really interesting to me about how P&G is known for like the marketing and branding. But I think the science and the product are inextricably tied to the brand and marketing. Like, I think sometimes people think you can have a subpar product and do great marketing and it'll somehow a miracle will occur and you'll...

Shekhar - 00:22:02:

It's not lasting.

Jon - 00:22:03:

Not lasting. There's trust. There's like a trust factor. If someone like, to use the example of your laundry, if you do a load of laundry and it comes out dirty, you've probably lost a customer forever.

Shekhar - 00:22:16:

Ever. Yes.

Jon - 00:22:18:

They're like not going to trust you. Yeah. And so it sounds like this opportunity-

Shekhar - 00:22:25:

I'm taking the position.

Jon - 00:22:26:

I'm taking it. I'm taking the position. Okay.

Shekhar - 00:22:28:

I'm taking the risk.

Jon - 00:22:29:

Yeah, you're taking the risk.

Shekhar - 00:22:30:

Unfamiliar territory. Unfamiliar territory, right?

Jon - 00:22:33:

Yeah.

Shekhar - 00:22:34:

I've lived in the academic world and research through different stages. Now, corporation, what does it mean? I don't know. They couldn't even tell me which category I was going to work in. Here's a salary, here's a stock, here's a this, that's it.

Jon - 00:22:50:

So tell me about that experience. And that must have been... You know, you're going again to another end of the spectrum. How was that experience as you were at Yale, you knew the academic world, and now you're going into a Fortune 50 and you're finding your way. I'm sure you had to figure out what products you'll be working on, what research you'll be doing. How did you navigate that?

Shekhar - 00:23:13:

It was like landing up in JFK, on a fun day. You know, not being able to explain what I wanted to eat because the American language is totally different. My accent was different. And, you know, I didn't know. I had little money in my pocket going to Columbia, dorm to live. It was like that experience, right, at P&G, right? Even though by that time I was in this country for, you know. Many, many years, 10 years, almost enough. Yeah, it was very interesting. You know, it was like, okay, develop a proposal on my first project was really periodontal disease, bleeding gums. And we had... The best molecules called chlorhexidine. Which P&G, you know, it was a known molecule for periodontal disease cure, but it had to go through FDA, to get approved. And FDA had seen all that efficacy data on humans and clearly phenomenal efficacy data that dentists and periodontists could benefit from. But it left stain after four weeks of usage on the teeth. So FDA was like, I don't know what the stain is all about. It's a sieve. It could be unsafe, what's forming on your teeth. Yes, your bleeding gums are cured. But the teeth are left brown and black, you know? What is this? So my first proposal was to find out what this composition of the stain was, and to prove to FDA that. You know, it wasn't unsafe. It was some kind of staining that was happening. But most importantly, if you understood... At the basic level what the stain was, perhaps you could get rid of the stain. Because overcoming a challenge in a product like this leads to business opportunity. Source, right? So that's kind of the world of a breakthrough company like P&G that has brands, that creates brands. We don't want brands to have effects. We want brands to work noticeably differentiated versus anybody else. Don't want brands to have safety issues. But everything is tied to the business. So the first thing that you process as a scientist on the bench is... Setting up a proposal to understand this, to not only get through FDA to be able to market it, but to understand it on a fundamental level to see if you can get rid of it. That would create huge opportunity for me, that was my first project. And it was a challenging environment to work in. P&G headquarters being in Cincinnati in the 80s, early 80s, when I joined, 83, 84. hardly any even Asians. You know?

Jon - 00:26:17:

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. I can imagine.

Shekhar - 00:26:20:

But a lot of great support from top-notch thinkers in the science area as well as management. But everything was like process-driven internally, right? Proposals had to go through many, many layers before money was found to do my work. But then... I could quickly get collaborators who were laser specialists, because I had studied intricate biological systems with the help of all kinds of physical tools, lasers, MRI. And I had all these people who were experts in that area that P&G had that wanted to collaborate with me to understand what this team was all about. So I could get everyone together very quickly. But then going through the process, reporting every seven days to your department head what progress was being made. For the resources that I will spend. That was a huge difference. I came from a free world. I could do anything I pleased. Jane Coffin Childs paid for it.

Jon - 00:27:25:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shekhar - 00:27:26:

I don't know who paid for NIH, National Institutes of Health, paid to buy Professor Burson for all the lasers or whatever, MRI machines. Here, everything, even the MRI machine usage, time usage of people, personnel were documented how much others use it. And lo and behold, that was a project that is the most, we understood exactly what the stain was. It wasn't anything toxic. It was just iron getting from saliva with chlorhexidine to form on the teeth. And that's not bad. So FDA, we solved the problem with FDA, giving them peace of mind that there's nothing that is bad on the mouth. And I thought I had also the second part of the project to solve this deal. I went in and did some work. With, you know, big old dogs that had stained and found out that I could get rid of a particular type of that kind of stain with chlorhexidine. But when we came to the clinic to do it on humans, we tried the same experiment, we had a safe product. We did it on the beagle dogs and then came to humans. While the beagle dogs, I could resolve the stain in humans, I lost the efficacy of the product. And the stain was gone. So there was no one-to-one correlation between the bigger dog tooth model and the human body. To this day, nobody has been able to solve that. So I still keep looking for the needle in that haystack. Because anybody who solves that gets rid of that stain, but leaves the efficacy of chlorhexidine intact. Is going to make it big with that brand. That brand is called Veridex. It's been sold by another company because P&G sold it. And partly because it's still the standard of care for periodontal disease. And after post-periodontal surgery, that's what's given to make sure that you get rid of all the bacteria, et cetera. But it still stays. So it's not a regular usage every day. It could have been a regular usage product for you and me. The best way to manage your oral kick, but it is not because of stints. So I thought I would lose my job because I had promised. Based on the dog studies that this was going to happen. And when the results came back, it was a real downer. But, you know, this is where a big company driven by values and good leaders matter. I got a second life there because, my VP of R&D, there was only one VP of all of healthcare at that time. You know, now there are many, many. It's just grown larger. And he said to me, he called me in. I thought that was my big slip. You rarely saw him, you know, called me in, his secretary, his assistant called me in. I sat there and I was shaking and he said, "'So what do you think?' I said, "'JP, you know, I learned a lesson. I shouldn't have over-promised that I could get rid of the state, you know." He said, "That's okay." It's because of that you may someday get my position. And I couldn't dream of hearing that from him because P&G had many, many layers, seven layers before he got to his position. You know, but he had already said to me, to encourage me, saying, look at it differently. Is that the learning was so critical for us. Fine, we drop that for the time being, and we're gonna get you into something different. That was the message he was going to give me. It not only encouraged me to be searching for better and bigger contributions to P&G. It wasn't about firing me. Because I failed in one part of the benefit that I was promising. Of course, the FDA piece is big, you know, understanding the mechanism of state. So you understood that I had contributions here. But the failure part of the contributions. Were recognized equally well. For me to move on to a bigger role. Within the organization.

Jon - 00:31:43:

It's amazing. And honestly, it's like. The first saying that kind of comes to mind is that there are worse things than ambition. And you were being ambitious. You're like.

Shekhar - 00:31:54:

Yeah.

Jon - 00:31:54:

And you gave it your all. And it just so happens. It just so happens it didn't translate between animal model to human model. But still, like even to this day, you're like, if this can be solved, this will unlock incredible value.

Shekhar - 00:32:09:

Still a big idea.

Jon - 00:32:11:

Massive. And I love to hear because I've never worked at P&G, but I have a great respect for P&G and everything that I know from as an outsider. But to hear that from the inside, that someone. And it's easy for leaders to have kind of a more short-term mindset where it's like, well, that didn't work out. So actually, you're getting cut now. But giving you another shot.

Shekhar - 00:32:32:

Another shot, encouraging me to take some risks and learn and contribute. You know, and that, Jon, you know, that led to a series of assignments where I got some of the hardest assignments. I'll tell you, one of them resulted in a Nobel Prize for Barry Marshall. I was on the first ulcer project with Bismuth to show that recalcitrant ulcers, ulcers that recur continuously, are associated with a bacteria called Helicobacter pylori, Helicobacter pylori. Now the treatment is triple therapy with bismuth, meprozole, and tetracycline. But bismuth, we got into it and we were pioneers at P&G because of Pepto-Bismol. We showed triple therapy works for people who are getting recurring ulcers, right? It wasn't just due to stress that you get ulcers. Bacteria has a cost. So Barry Marshall, who is now a Nobel laureate, Australian professor, he was my key collaborator. I have papers with him, I have patents with him. I started the whole clinical investigation for PNC on that. We got triple therapy developed. Of course, we sold that also as part of pharma going. That led me to Aleve, which was one of the top consumer products today because it's the most potent anti-inflammatory you can get in the market. We took syntax's prescription product, naproxen, and we made a sodium salt of it. Which went fast. Into your bloodstream to relieve you of migraine pain, headache, menstrual cramps, et cetera, joints. It's probably one of the top products. We had to go through FDA to make it over the counter. So I led that whole effort. Another very risky project, joint collaboration. Crest-Whitestrips, in our old kit. My team led it, okay? That was like, the inspiration came from women who were sitting there paying $1,500 to get laser whited because they wanted to look beautiful on the, you know, front teeth, right? We deliver there at $35. With a technique that goes and puts peroxide into these bubbles, you put the strip on, you know, in seven days, your stain is gone. Not the $1200, right? So series after series after series examples, where then, the four set of risk-taking I did at P&G. Once he got recognized, you know, I got more and more responsibilities, bigger and bigger challenges that led to some failures like I had in the initial, where I thought I was getting fired. Failures along the way, but some huge impact to consumers and for the prescription world. So, you know, it was a series of series of successes, but behind those were risk-taking, failures. Being close to the edge. And being supported by good mentors along the way. You can't just do it all by yourself. Being supported by multifunctional teams that brought expertise from regulatory FDA understanding, clinicians who worked with me on the ulcer project, on the pain inflammation project, on the skincare project, you know, or Olay, and that, that kind of multifunctional team, the support I got was the result of lots of real-life products that have made a big difference in small but meaningful ways to consume muscle patients' lives.

Jon - 00:36:32:

That's amazing to hear because I think sometimes large organizations can, and it doesn't help with Wall Street pressure, like that we need results now. And that, I think, is kind of what gets people to be even more risk averse. You're not taking big swings anymore. And perhaps JP's conversation with you would have been different if he had succumbed to the kind of short-term mindset. And honestly, if I were, I'm trying to put myself in your shoes, it's like, you've been given the permission slip to take the risk because we know that this is how we're going to move the needle here. And we're not just trying to be incremental at P&G. We're trying to actually unlock true value. I think also what I'm hearing and kind of I'm piecing together in my head is that that was the start of like, one, it's giving permission to fail and supporting it. And also it probably built up a resilience for you. Like you're like, we're going to take big swings. I'm not going to let any failure stop me. And I know you mentioned like it kind of felt lucky, but it's kind of like it feels like manufactured luck. Because if the conversation went the other way, you would have been not lucky, right? But so it's kind of this thing where you took it into your own hands. And it's almost felt like, I don't know, maybe this is overly simplistic observation, it was almost like venture capital inside P&G.

Shekhar - 00:38:06:

Yes, absolutely. That was one thing I do want to stress that. P&G, huge company with so many brands, so many people, so many layers, right? But within that, I could convince or influence leadership each time to say, White Strips, take it out of the P&L day-to-day because the development. Aleve, take it out of the profit loss picture day-to-day because that's a breakthrough. You know, H. Pylori. Olay Regenerist, which is a game changer for regenerating cells. Even to this day, it's clinically the most superior product you can get, right? And it came from consumer inspiration with technology infusion. And putting those two together, taking time to do that, you know, all of them required me and my team's ability not only to, you know, overcome challenges on a daily basis, but also for me to be able to hold hands. With the P&L, the owners, to say, hey, you know, how do I do this kind of innovation away from the mainstream of day-to-day profit loss? Now, as I went on to the executive committee of the Global Leadership Council, you know, obviously, as I became senior vice president, obviously, I had to pay attention to that. Often give back some of the budget for very breakthrough stuff, but keeping a balance, not give everything that was long-term back, right? Keeping a balance of short-term, mid-term, always have your pipeline filled with something really breakthrough every two years on these brands, right? But also to be mindful that I'm responsible now for the company's good showing with wealth shift, right? So having that understanding as I went up the ranks was very, very critical to me. And, you know. Learning to take that kind of risk, knowing when to cut it off, knowing that there's a sweet spot between things to make it successful or to let it go. All of that is now going into the venture world for me. I really believe that the reason I can contribute and people want me to sit on some of these breakthrough ventures that I'm on. Is because of the board level, I can bring that kind of knowledge, right? And that I think is very satisfying for me to pass down some of this learning to the next generation, to the next

Jon - 00:40:42:

generation. I love hearing that too. And also the other thing that kind of occurred to me is that, so you have this conversation with JP and you're also learning business on the fly. And also, I know you said it very casually, but you're like. Yeah, I had to work with the FDA. That's like a whole, we're learning regulatory. I'm going to guess Yale didn't teach you about the regulatory component.

Shekhar - 00:41:06:

No, no, no. It was, you know, periodontal disease. It was H. Pylori ulcers. It was Aleve getting Aleve Prilosec, which is also a drug over the counter on the market. How to work with FDA as the customer. A.G. Lafley was a very illustrious CEO of P&G, said, consumer is boss. That was our vision, our goal. Every day we lived, consumer. Are we providing noticeability? Are we providing an experience? Are we providing breakthrough innovation? And communicating effectively to the consumer what this brand benefit is all about. So consumer is boss. That was our mantra, right? As I lived through the P&G life and I went to the GLC, I was very inspired by A.G.'s comments on that. I mean, our characterization of what our mission was. And Jon Pepper had the same. People are our assets and the brand innovation is our goal. All the CEOs of P&G had that as a mission. And the current one, Jon Moeller has said, is doing the same. But I learned that my real boss during those times where, Aleve and Prilosec. And Metamucil Cholesterol Lowering claims. Was the FDA. The real boss was the FDA. Because, you know, if you look at it, you know, it's very clear what their goal is, right? They want to be able to help bring products to market that have benefits to a patient or consumer. But at the same time, safety. They're safeguarding our safety. They're safeguarding our interests as consumers and patients, right? So I can see their position. But if you do that on the extreme side, you stifle risk-taking and some innovation. So there's a balance. And the job of a leader like me, working those brands and the innovation with the teams, is to handle not only internally within. P&G and, you know, the P&L owners, that it's worth spending the money to go through this, because the idea of a leave or a palisade is big, or metamethylcholesterol is big, but also to handhold in a way. FDA with data and clinicals and safety work. To say The benefits far outweigh the risks in this situation. There's nothing called zero risk in any product anyway. But if you are, you know, in all transparency and honestness, looking at data in an objective way and collecting the right data. Say, here are the benefits and here are the risks, but the benefits fall out near the risks. You've scored a success for humanity. You've got something important that they can rely on. And that was my job. It was dual, internal and external. And external also to the consumer. Ultimately, as P&G taught us all. We are responsible to the boss, the consumer. But in the process, we've got to get through to work with the FDA government.

Jon - 00:44:33:

I think about this the way, kind of a through line through it, internal, FDA, external, and then ultimately the consumer, something that connects it all. And absolutely, the data needs to be solid. It needs to be solid. However. These are all very different constituencies and probably have different communication styles. Like the way you talk to your colleagues at the bench, very different than when you go to the FDA.

Shekhar - 00:45:00:

The government, yes.

Jon - 00:45:01:

And then you have the consumer, who's also very different.

Shekhar - 00:45:06:

Totally different. You have to boil down it to a few essence to the consumer. You cannot talk about all the details of the technology and its safety and its benefits, right?

Jon - 00:45:17:

Yeah.

Shekhar - 00:45:17:

You know, they read the label, but you have to make the label. In fact, FDA made us do labor studies on Prilosec and Aleve to make sure that the consumer really did not abuse the product. We understood the label.

Jon - 00:45:32:

Yeah.

Shekhar - 00:45:32:

Right? Because these are once prescription drugs that are coming OTC. You could have, you know, you could buy it in Kroger and you could abuse, you could take lots of pills of anti-inflammatory, which will ruin your stomach. So FDA had a very critical role to play. We had to have a critical role to design the right experiments and collect the data to make sure FDA understood why we're putting that label, why we want this drug approved. Right? And then communicate that sense in a package to a consumer in a meaningful way. And not mislead the consumer, but communicate in love. To keep the consumer away from trouble also. Very, very intricate design, that was it.

Jon - 00:46:22:

Something that really stands out to me. Again, I'm just thinking about your early upbringing within your family's house. Different priorities, different personalities, different communication styles. Different positions on your cricket team. You bring it back all the way to now when you're working internal, external, communicating to the consumer. Balancing all of that and customizing the way you communicate critically important to accomplishing the mission. And I think sometimes this is something I'm appreciating more and more the longer I do this is the. Again, the science has to be solid, but you also have to effectively communicate across stakeholders and constituencies who are vastly different. And then don't even get me started on the, you also have to talk to Wall Street, who are also a very different constituency. You can't talk to them the same way you talk to your teammate at the bench. And exactly what you said, it's like, these are very formative lessons you probably internalized when you were young. And as a scientist myself, I think when I first got started, I was like, if the science is good, everything will solve itself. To a point, to a point. But you'll probably, you'll hit kind of like the ceiling or plateau and you won't. I got really frustrated. I was like, why don't they understand me? Why don't they understand the work that we're doing?

Shekhar - 00:47:50:

You have to put yourself in those shoes, different shoes, completely, to really bring holistic innovation for the benefit of the consumer and the patient. And you said, Wall Street analysts, in my role, very senior roles within P&G, I have to talk to the analysts to convince them of only regenerist and what we were doing that was regenerating the cells, why we were different, and why the clinical studies were showing that you could have amazing skin. Using this over-the-counter product that's completely safe. To bring them through what techniques are we using to really measure skin and its outcomes as a result of using Olay versus others. And so, you know, every stakeholder that you touch in this kind of brand innovation is very different expectations and different needs. And you've got to work with them, like you said. And what you said was an insight that I had not thought about, that my upbringing, you linked it back to my upbringing, how to listen with empathy from many of these customers and stakeholders, from the head of the family. All the way to your cousin in the college cricket field or whatever. How do you as a leader or a captain or whatever bring some of these people together? By listening to them. That's empathy. Giving them their ability to contribute, and then making sure that they also get enough credit for their contribution. And they see this as a team effort, not an individual scientist or individual experts. Is the synergy of the team that creates successes or failures for that matter.

Jon - 00:49:45:

Absolutely. And I think now, again, it's just like I have a heightened appreciation of that because that plateau I'm describing was actually my plateau. Where I finally felt like, I don't know what it was, but I was like, okay, I need to talk less and listen more. And not just listen performatively and you're like, your eyes are going somewhere else, but you have to actually-

Shekhar - 00:50:09:

Listen with intent.

Jon - 00:50:10:

Yeah. Don't just act like you're listening, which is, you know, oftentimes sometimes it happens a lot, unfortunately.

Outro - 00:50:20:

That's all for this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast. We hope you enjoyed our discussion with Shekhar Mitra. Tune in to part three of our conversation to learn more about his journey. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave us a review and share it with your friends. Thanks for listening. And we look forward to having you join us again on The Biotech Startups Podcast for part three of Shekhar's story. 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.