
Applying tech frameworks to biotech: key differences - apsec112
https://www.celinehh.com/tech-vs-biotech
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IntFee588
Overall, this is a fantastic article that touches on a lot of the issues in
the biotech.

Laypeople hear the term "biotech" and think of bionics, but most firms operate
doing wet-lab work or synthesizing reagents/kits. The academic influence slows
everything down and there is active discouragement of "outside the box"
thinking. Consumer products are an afterthought for most firms.

I think the industry is capable of great things... eventually. But that
success will come from a) an area with a much looser regulatory environment
than the US, b) a team with a multidisciplinary background (most academics are
too narrowly specialized to reliably see the "big picture" that is required to
make commercially viable products) and c) a team with funding that far exceeds
the current dollar figures we see for some start-ups.

Mass spec and NGS are technologies that have become drastically cheaper in
recent years and could be consumer ready soon. It's just a matter of being the
first person with the funding and desire to bring them to the mass market.

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dekhn
It remains unclear what, exactly, NGS would do to justify its cost (even if it
drove to nearly free). It's been sold as a health panacaea for decades and has
proven to not be that, repeatedly. Some gene tests are useful but it's clear
that most disease phenotypes require much deepeer analysis than we are
currently able to apply.

~~~
IntFee588
In general I agree, genetic and even epigenetic testing tends to identify
problems at a point where gene therapy is no longer an option, so why bother?
But if you can take tissue samples, we're getting to the point were we can
detect cancers from SVs and fusions fairly easily. It'd be a easy sale to sell
blood tests for leukemia, for example. That alone won't justify the cost, but
we're making progress.

~~~
dekhn
None of those require NGS, though- they can all be implemented using far
cheaper methods.

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dnautics
> This is in part due to the conservatism of the industry and in part because
> extensive scientific training is generally necessary to have enough
> biological insight to correctly identify an opportunity.

I don't think younger practitioners have a problem identifying opportunities
in biotech. They have a problem identifying _difficulties_ in biotech. It's
pervasive that young founders think everything is easy, or have an
understanding that misses "one key detail".

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bitwize
Indeed. Theranos happened not because Elizabeth Holmes wasn't smart, or
because she initially set out to deceive people -- she just thought she had a
world-changing idea and all that was missing was the implementation, and her
strategy for getting from here to there was "fake it till you make it".

Which kinda works much of the time in software -- trowel on enough JavaScript
frameworks, polyfills, and glue code and eventually you will have something
that resembles your vision (though it runs like a pig). But Theranos ran
headlong into physical problems that the biotech industry hadn't found clean
answers for yet (and may never find) -- and its leader had vision and
ambition, but not the knowledge or experience to see the pitfalls.

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arcticfox
This reminds me of the recent Phase 2 failure of UBX's UBX0101 senolytic drug.
The highly experienced team's entire strategy was built around eliminating as
much risk as possible prior to Phase 2 and yet they _still_ failed miserably.
Biotech just seems brutal, from the outside at least.

For a very interesting but pre-failure interview of UBX:
[https://peterattiamd.com/neddavid/](https://peterattiamd.com/neddavid/)

~~~
epicureanideal
Has anything changed recently, or is biotech still far less well compensated
than software, relative to years of experience and education?

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celinehh94
Hey! I’m the author. Biotech is not as well comp’ed, especially when you
compare years of experience. For context, senior (Director, VP) levels make
low to mid 200s, PhDs with work experience make mid 100s, and straight out of
grad school make 80-120s

This doesn’t take into account equity, which most bio hires have zero context
for and are easily taken advantage of when negotiating. I give equity packages
in line with tech standards, but I could have cut them by 3-5X and still been
competitive with the standard bio co.

~~~
t_serpico
unrelated, but I browsed your company website and think the idea is brilliant
(especially after reading this:
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.12737](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.12737),
which confirmed my initial speculation).

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deepnotderp
Many of these also apply for chip startups.

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davidbrennerjr
i've talked to a few biotech startups, usually a ceo or founder. the main
issues are a consensus in the startup that (1) it's easier to combine numerous
unrelated technologies that may not even run in similar environments/platforms
to solve a very specific problem, and (2) it doesn't matter their level of
skill in applying the tech to solve the very specific problem.

~~~
SQueeeeeL
Yeah, most real work using tech doesn't care about platform/environment. Which
is why things like Unix get so much usage.

These biotech people have such a higher appreciation for turning input into
valuable output then most "computer scientists" have after 20 year careers.

