"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!

Jobs in the Life science Industry in India – It is a mirage

India is a country where academic excellence is given a priority from the very childhood. Parents encourage children sometimes even going to the extent of coaxing them to leave other activities and focus on ‘studies’ to get into good colleges and get a good degree (read engineering/medicine). People who follow their passion for science then go on to complete higher education degrees (PhD, PostDoc) in the hope that their ‘youth’ spent in the labs would guarantee them good job opportunity in the future. However, that is not the case now as many genuinely talented, knowledgeable and deserving candidates are running helter skelter to cling on to whatever comes their way thereby even sacrificing or ‘adapting’ to the newer ‘job’ requirements. 

Consider this, an engineering graduate gets into a job in the fertile age of around 22-23, whereas a Life science PhD holder gets into an active meaningful job only after the age of 30 and thereafter the real struggle begins. Although, the Indian Life science industry has evolved off late but in reality they have not helped the life science job seekers. There are very few Government sponsored jobs and mostly the industry caters to the demand. There was once a time when Biotechnology used to be compared with the Information technology in terms of the revenue generation scope and job creation. Alas, the biotechnology sector has fallen way back. It would be futile to expect all research driven opportunities coming their way for the PhDs but the ancillary positions which require scientific acumen should be promoted. Many PhDs have good communication and have good business skills, they should be considered for positions that require such skills rather than only looking for people with MBAs. 

There is a case for the Human resource (HR) departments to also gear up with these eventualities. Many a times HR people are not trained to look for talent but they only go with matching the key words required for the job with the candidate’s CV! This is a narrow way to approach the talent hunt and in my opinion this needs to be overhauled. 

We would need to find out solution to this mess otherwise not many people will take up science or pursue research in the future.

The mantra is……………..Innovation!

I believe there would be a general agreement on the fact that companies in today’s world need to innovate to survive. However, the conundrum is how much of the company’s revenue (small/medium enterprises) or initial funds (as for start-ups) be focused on the research activity? 

Let us take examples of two types of business models (we would only consider biotech/life science industry). First is the ‘service’ model where the companies provide technological services for fee. These might range from providing protein purification services to next generation sequencing. The companies rely on their expertise and promote their cause by trying to give the best services. Since many of the companies utilize an already known technology they focus on giving their clients the best technological support and in due course would expect good ‘word of mouth’ publicity for the company to promote its services. The better companies which survive for the longest duration however are also focused on improving the ‘in –use’ technologies to sharpen their service portfolio. This is crucial as the subtle improvements can bring in new clients and can also cater better to the existing client base. One general question can be since these companies utilize instruments or reagents from established players (Illumina, Agilent etc.) why should the service provider invest money to innovate? Surely the instrument manufacturers are doing their bit and the service providers can acquire the technology from them! So why not completely focus on marketing and spend little on ‘in-house’ research? Well, research does not always mean big ticket breakthroughs! Even subtle changes for example, in the protocol of a particular assay can bring in great benefits both in terms of economic advantage as well as technological advancement. Second is that newer methods can provide a valuable feedback to the instrument manufacturers and therefore the possibility of partnership increases. This gives a huge fillip to the ‘brand value’ of the service provider. Hence one cannot completely shut innovation even in service based business models. 

                                   Image courtesy - The creative Scientist

Let us now look at the ‘product’ based business model (again in the realms of life science industry). I guess there is no denying the fact that for product based life science organizations ranging from companies delivering ‘bioinformatics suite’ to companies selling enzymes, innovation has to take the primary seat. Newer and better products are the keys to survival!

But having known these facts how many SMEs (Small medium enterprises) really focus on innovation? Many companies think that money spent on R&D is not worth it especially in the life science sector as there is a long incubation period and higher failure rates. But then investing in research is like buying insurance. Not only the companies need to invest but invest in the right idea and people to continue surviving in this fast paced era!