"StartUp” but hold tight

“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!