Scientist-founders often believe one more experiment will prove their hypothesis. To succeed as a CEO, they must shift from scientific curiosity to ruthless capital discipline, killing unviable programs and building a team that challenges ideas, not just executes them.

Sana CEO Steve Harr actively questions whether the company's groundbreaking science can translate into a scalable, commercially viable therapy. This internal pressure focuses the team on solving not just the scientific challenges ("does it work?"), but also manufacturing ("can you scale it?") and the commercial model required for a true cure.

Unlike ventures in established biological pathways, startups tackling novel biology must first prove a specific drug product can work. The primary question isn't about the platform's potential applications but whether a single, tangible therapeutic is viable. Focusing on a broad platform too early is a mistake.

Turbine's pharma partners consistently praised the deep biological competence of its science team. This ability to engage as scientific peers, not just data scientists, built essential trust for early deals when the AI platform was still largely unvalidated.

Successful MedTech innovation starts by identifying a pressing, real-world clinical problem and then developing a solution. This 'problem-first' approach is more effective than creating a technology and searching for an application, a common pitfall for founders with academic backgrounds.

While patient outcomes are the ultimate goal, the immediate user of a biotech AI tool is the drug discovery scientist. Turbine's CEO clarifies that success hinges on solving their immediate problems and limitations with existing tools like lab models and animal experiments.

Cyberstarts' founder learned from his first startup, which invented CAPTCHA, that a great technology doesn't guarantee a business. He now advocates for reversing the process: find a painful market problem first, identify paying customers, and then build the solution for them.

The fundamental purpose of any biotech company is to leverage a novel technology or insight that increases the probability of clinical trial success. This reframes the mission away from just "cool science" to having a core thesis for beating the industry's dismal odds of getting a drug to market.

CEO Ron Cooper likens a biotech startup to a fire needing three elements in sync: science (the log), people (the spark), and money (oxygen). An imbalance, such as science outpacing funding, will destroy value by forcing compromised decisions.