Sep 13, 2017 · 40m · y-combinator
Elizabeth Iorns on Biotech Companies in YC · Y Combinator
0:00 / 0:00
▶ Watch on YouTube →
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this Y Combinator podcast interview, cancer biologist and entrepreneur Elizabeth Iorns discusses how YC supports biotech startups, demystifies the transition from academia to entrepreneurship, and shares insights on emerging scientific frontiers like CRISPR and anti-aging research.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The partners as informed peer 1.3 Guest teaching 5.0 Guest disagreement 0.5 The partners pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is the partners, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 6:35 Pushing back against the antisocial scientist stereotype
Elizabeth strongly rejects the common assumption that scientists lack business and communication skills, defending their presentation and grant-writing capabilities.
Hardest push from the partners ▶ 35:45 Labeling early longevity research as snake oilCraig challenges the commercial validity of life extension and parabiosis research by flatly characterizing the current state of the field as snake oil.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 7:35 Step-by-step breakdown of drug de-riskingAfter Craig admits he does not understand what de-risking means, Elizabeth comprehensively details biological mechanisms, disease models, and preclinical toxicology.
The partners hold their own ▶ 37:33 Calculating the true duration of the fasting windowCraig accurately recalculates Elizabeth's described fasting protocol from dinner through the next day's breakfast as 36 hours rather than 24 hours.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The partners as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The partners pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Why Biotech Startups Should Apply to Y Combinator | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Craig opens with a standard question about why biotech companies should join Y Combinator. Elizabeth explains the advantages of crossover funding, access to AI tech, and early fundraising expertise. | |
| What Biotechs Accomplish During the Three-Month YC Program | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Craig asks what biotechs realistically achieve in a three-month timeframe. Elizabeth clarifies that companies focus on defining go-to-market strategies and outsourcing critical path experiments rather than long-term lab work. | |
| Why Biotech Startups Don't Necessarily Need Business Co-Founders | 1 | 5 | 3 | 0 | Craig asks if biotech startups require non-technical business co-founders. Elizabeth firmly rejects the stereotype that scientists lack business acumen, highlighting their existing presentation and grant-writing experience. | |
| Understanding Technology De-Risking and the Translational Research Gap | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Craig openly admits he does not understand what de-risking means in biotech. Elizabeth gives an in-depth breakdown of preclinical milestones, animal models, and the translational research gap. | |
| Transitioning from Academic PhD Programs to Commercial Entrepreneurship | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Craig brings up US vs UK PhD durations, prompting Elizabeth to explain the academic postdoc surplus ('postdocalypse') and why turning academic research into commercial spinouts is increasingly accepted. | |
| Navigating Intellectual Property Ownership and University Tech Transfer | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Craig asks about biotech intellectual property ownership. Elizabeth educates him on how university tech transfer offices retain IP rights and the commercial licensing hurdles founders must navigate. | |
| Post-YC Biotech Fundraising and Venture Capital Models | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Craig expresses surprise that Silicon Valley tech funds invest in biotechs. Elizabeth contrasts traditional incubator-led biotech venture models with founder-led startups funded by Silicon Valley VCs. | |
| Overcoming Misconceptions in Academic Entrepreneurship | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Craig brings up the misconception among academics that venture capital is a debt loan. Elizabeth elaborates on the lack of startup literacy in academia and how YC provides structural guidance. | |
| Promising Innovations in Cancer Biology, AI, and Clinical Trial Design | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Craig asks about cutting-edge developments in scientific literature. Elizabeth outlines machine learning for preclinical drug toxicity predictions and innovations in clinical endpoint testing. | |
| The Game-Changing Potential and Applications of CRISPR | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Craig asks where CRISPR will find early adoption. Elizabeth contrasts her PhD research using imprecise RNAi screens with modern CRISPR knockouts and transient RNA editing. | |
| Evaluating Anti-Aging Science and Longevity Research | 2 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Craig inquires about longevity hype, cheekily calling young-blood therapies 'snake oil.' Elizabeth provides scientific context on endpoints, primate calorie restriction contradictions, and parabiosis reproducibility. | |
| Personal Biohacking Habits, Fasting, and Personalized Nutrition | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Craig asks about personal biohacking habits and corrects Elizabeth's timeline calculation of her fast to 36 hours. Elizabeth explains evolutionary logic behind personalized metabolic response to diet. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Iorns: YC biotech companies had raised over $200M by 2017
“There has actually been over two hundred million dollars of capital raised for these companies already.”
Iorns: YC Biotechs Advance Market Understanding Rather Than Lab Experiments
“So they may not make, you know, a really significant advancement in terms of the experimental work, but they certainly will make a significant advancement in terms of understanding the market and understanding what steps are required To get to the market in a …”
Iorns: YC Biotechs Get Rapid Results by Outsourcing Lab Studies
“So if they can outsource those experiments, then they'll often be able to get results quickly, and we have had a lot of success with that with our biotech companies where they've actually worked with external companies that are already up and running to do, fo…”
Iorns: Biotech Startups Face Tech Risk Rather Than Market Demand Uncertainty
“I think one of the interesting differences between biotech companies and sort of software, just tech companies is that the actual market, there's not really that, that question. Like if you're a biotech company and you're going to cure Alzheimer's disease, the…”
Iorns: Biotech Startups Do Not Need Business Co-Founders
“People have this Kind of illusion that they're, like, antisocial or, like, they don't understand business, and I just, like, completely disagree with that. I think scientists have to be very articulate. They frequently present in front of large audiences. They…”
Iorns: Early drug discovery phase suffers from industry-wide underinvestment
“Particularly the earliest phase of discovery, that is an area where there's significant underinvestment just generally in the industry.”
Iorns: Pharma companies source innovation primarily by buying clinical-stage biotechs
“The pharma companies are desperate for buying in innovation, and so they're really looking for companies to get to that initial proof of concept in a human, in human studies. So that, that's really where a lot of their innovation is coming from, is biotechs th…”
Iorns: Postdocs face a severe shortage of academic faculty jobs
“And there's this pretty well-known phenomenon called the postdocalypse that Ethan Pilstein came up with, which is this concept that there's so many postdocs now and no jobs for them. So there's just nowhere for them to go in terms of staying as An assistant pr…”
Iorns: All marketed drugs require commercial industry to reach patients
“Because the reality is, you know, all innovations that come to market are through industry. So, you know, you don't see drugs on the market that came from academia. They were all, many of them discovered in the earliest phases, the basic research was done in a…”
Iorns: Internal Incubation Model by Traditional Biotech VCs Is Highly Successful
“That's very effective. I mean, that's like Third Rock, Atlas Polaris flagship. Like that's all of those big funds take that strategy and it's very successful. They have created a lot of, you know, the most well-funded and recognized companies that you probably…”
Iorns: Backing Only Repeat Founders Excludes Academic Scientists with Domain Knowledge
“If you just fund like the same people over and over again, Then yes, they'll be like really efficient. They'll understand what it takes to do this, but you'll also miss out on all of the other innovative, different thinkers who are out there who actually made …”
Iorns: Early-career academia carries huge risk due to lack of job certainty
“There's a huge degree of risk of staying in academia when you're at that stage in your career because there's no job certainty. So you're definitely like, what's going to be my next job? I don't know, I could be a postdoc forever.”
Iorns: AI predicting preclinical efficacy and toxicity is highly promising
“For me, the applied area, that's probably one of the more interesting areas, is looking at things like the application of artificial intelligence in the biological sector, so there's some pretty interesting work that's occurring around how to be better at pred…”
Iorns: Clinical trials are shifting toward testing efficacy endpoints in Phase 1
“Historically people would do, you know, phase one, which is basically just like a dose escalation study where you're just looking for toxicity. And then you would do a much larger study afterwards where you're looking for efficacy, and so that's really time co…”
Iorns: RNA Editing Will Face Lower Regulatory Barriers than CRISPR DNA Editing
“So I think there you'll see less of a regulation barrier because you're not editing the actual genetic code. You're just editing the end product.”
Iorns: Human longevity trials are impractical without secondary biomarker endpoints
“If you do that invention, you do that intervention in humans, you're going to have to wait A really long time to know whether it actually worked, and so that clinical study is very difficult if you don't have a secondary endpoint that you can measure.”
Iorns: Calorie restriction preclinical lifespan data in animals is contradictory
“There's actually, like, a lot of controversy there because there is mixed effects that you see in different models. So, for example, in some strains of rodents, if you do calorie restriction, it actually decreases their lifespan, and there's two primate studie…”
Iorns: Specific circulating factors driving young blood rejuvenation remain unreproduced
“What hasn't been very successful is trying to figure out what causes the effect. So when people have tried to analyze the blood of young mice and old mice and say, what is the growth factor or the hormone or what is it that's causing this? There's been controv…”
Iorns: Diet research shows strong responses only in small subgroups
“All of the research that's been done on diet and dietary interventions, if you actually look at the clinical data, it suggests that
There's a subgroup of people that respond to that dietary intervention very well, but the vast majority don't really at all, and…”
Iorns: Evolutionary diversity explains why individual dietary responses vary
“It would make sense to me that there's actually,
You know, different responses as individual people, because if you think evolutionary about how to have a diverse population of people, you would never want to be, everybody responds the same way to certain food…”