Elizabeth Iorns, co-founder and CEO of Science Exchange and a cancer biologist, discusses the findings of academic replication projects.
Opinion
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…”
Insight
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 …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Iorns: Scientific experiments often have 10x price differences for equivalent results
“So for example I was seeing literally 10 times price differences for an equivalent experiment because people really just didn't have access to what should it actually cost. And we see that still on Science Exchange today is that when people go and look for mul…”
Insight
Iorns: Biotech spinouts rely too much on figurehead principal investigators for funding
“I think that's still very difficult for scientists, particularly PhD and postdoc scientists, so they actually make the discoveries in these labs, so they're the ones doing the work but a lot of the time for them to actually be the ones to be the founder of the…”
Opinion
Iorns: Scientific founders should not prioritize finding a business co-founder
“No, I don't think that should be a goal. I think I actually do have a business co-founder, so you would probably be mad that I say that, but, and he's great, and I literally couldn't have built Science Exchange without him, but not because of his business back…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Iorns: Future biotech will rely heavily on direct consumer payments
“I believe that the future will definitely involve a strong component of user pays, so I think the products that are developed will have to be in indications that the patients are actually willing to pay for”