“Startups” in
today’s day and age can provide two important deliverables to the society: -
· Employment
· Innovation
and possible disruption in the domain they are active in
No doubt Governments
across the world and more specifically here in India are trying to support
start-ups. However, for entrepreneurs, it is a long winding road that they need
to traverse to see light at the end of the tunnel. Not all ideas can be
commercialized immediately especially if it is highly technical and demand lot
of testing and “proof of concept” studies.
Even after successfully
achieving that comes the challenge of proper marketing and positioning of the
product. All of these take time and therefore it is imperative that all
stake-holders in the “startup” including employees and investors hold tight and
pursue with perseverance.
Image courtesy -
Cushmancreative
Startups in the
life science domain have their own challenges apart from the regular ones. The “bench
to bedside” concept which the domain especially pharma and biotech works on
relies heavily on research. Now, this type of research primarily is based on
pre-clinical and then clinical studies. We all know how long it takes for a particular
concept to cross all the stages till it reaches the end user. Therefore,
patience is an inbuilt asset for the startups that are in this domain. Many
startups in US and Europe start working on spinoffs from interesting leads that
come out in a laboratory and many lucky ones get funded as well. However, this
concept in India needs some time to catch up as investors are vary into putting
money so early without any credible road to return of investment. Also, I feel if
there are “success” stories in the life science space that come out of India
then many investors will get enthused about funding this domain.
Having said that,
not all life science startups need wait for the discoveries to take a credible shape.
Many companies in the microbiome space for example like Viome (US), Ubiome (US), Day two (Israel) and Leucine Rich Bio (India)
are already trying to bring the fruits of research faster to the end user. Of
course, research is always “work in
progress” and especially in life science new discoveries and theories
can append to the existing knowledge however accelerating adoption is also key
in making paradigm shifts in the domain.
Hence, it is very
important to build an ecosystem where the startups can provide the necessary
impetus to the society and all stake holders need to hold tight till the end
result is achieved!
