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Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

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Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#11

Post by foobarqux »

stochastician wrote: post #7
untilHellbanned wrote: post #2

As a biologist with over a decade of experience in areas relevant to these startups, I appreciate the movement into biotech, but I'm unimpressed with the actual products. While everyone might poo-poo academia, it would take little effort to find 100s of projects at universities across the world that are better versions of these projects. As much as YC dominates software applications, they are woefully inferior in bio…

I want to take issue with "it would take little effort to find 100s of projects at universities across the world that are better versions of these projects", both as a trained biologist (neurobiology), current postdoc, and former entrepreneur. I share your intuition, I really do. I even said similar things in grad school (and still do, sometimes). But the reality is that: 1. These are not supposed to be projects, the…

If these biotech and hard-science startups fail, backed by the best startup accelerator on earth, then the effect will be a hard-science investment winter. So there is more at stake than you let on.

Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#12

Post by dluan »

comrade1 wrote: post #9

There's a big difference between the 5 - 15 years and billions of dollars to product in biotech/pharma, and the few at most years and relatively cheap amount of money for the payoff in software. And if you think there are shortcuts like uber and airbnb, there are not. Even 23 and me, a pretty innocuous idea, is essentially a failure.

That's a pretty large and unfair statement, and I'd like to know how you are measuring failure.

23andme has created an affordable market for personal genomics, single-handedly forced modernization in regulation and policy, built a mineable database of live genome data that is helping researchers find cures, and amassed nearly 1M paying customers.

I'd love for you to say that just because they aren't yet profitable means that they are a failure.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/23andme-to-use-genetic-database-...

Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#13

Post by paul »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #2

As a biologist with over a decade of experience in areas relevant to these startups, I appreciate the movement into biotech, but I'm unimpressed with the actual products. While everyone might poo-poo academia, it would take little effort to find 100s of projects at universities across the world that are better versions of these projects. As much as YC dominates software applications, they are woefully inferior in bio…

Care to give a few specific examples? Also, these are companies, not "projects" -- it's important to understand the difference.

Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#14

Post by dominotw »

dluan wrote: post #12
comrade1 wrote: post #9

There's a big difference between the 5 - 15 years and billions of dollars to product in biotech/pharma, and the few at most years and relatively cheap amount of money for the payoff in software. And if you think there are shortcuts like uber and airbnb, there are not. Even 23 and me, a pretty innocuous idea, is essentially a failure.

That's a pretty large and unfair statement, and I'd like to know how you are measuring failure. 23andme has created an affordable market for personal genomics, single-handedly forced modernization in regulation and policy, built a mineable database of live genome data that is helping researchers find cures, and amassed nearly 1M paying customers. I'd love for you to say that just because they aren't yet profitable me…

I paid a fortune to get 23andme when it first came out and have gotten all the subsequent paid updates also.

So far its mere entertainment for me, nothing more.

Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#15

Post by comrade1 »

dluan wrote: post #12
comrade1 wrote: post #9

There's a big difference between the 5 - 15 years and billions of dollars to product in biotech/pharma, and the few at most years and relatively cheap amount of money for the payoff in software. And if you think there are shortcuts like uber and airbnb, there are not. Even 23 and me, a pretty innocuous idea, is essentially a failure.

That's a pretty large and unfair statement, and I'd like to know how you are measuring failure. 23andme has created an affordable market for personal genomics, single-handedly forced modernization in regulation and policy, built a mineable database of live genome data that is helping researchers find cures, and amassed nearly 1M paying customers. I'd love for you to say that just because they aren't yet profitable me…

They are not profitable and they are not able to fulfill their original mission due to FDA regulations.

Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#16

Post by sama »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #2

As a biologist with over a decade of experience in areas relevant to these startups, I appreciate the movement into biotech, but I'm unimpressed with the actual products. While everyone might poo-poo academia, it would take little effort to find 100s of projects at universities across the world that are better versions of these projects. As much as YC dominates software applications, they are woefully inferior in bio…

The difference between companies and projects is huge. We look for companies.

Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#17

Post by srunni »

sama wrote: post #16
untilHellbanned wrote: post #2

As a biologist with over a decade of experience in areas relevant to these startups, I appreciate the movement into biotech, but I'm unimpressed with the actual products. While everyone might poo-poo academia, it would take little effort to find 100s of projects at universities across the world that are better versions of these projects. As much as YC dominates software applications, they are woefully inferior in bio…

The difference between companies and projects is huge. We look for companies.

Those projects are turned into companies if they have translational value: https://www.bio.org/media/press-release/report-shows-academi...

Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#18

Post by coherentpony »

dluan wrote: post #12
comrade1 wrote: post #9

There's a big difference between the 5 - 15 years and billions of dollars to product in biotech/pharma, and the few at most years and relatively cheap amount of money for the payoff in software. And if you think there are shortcuts like uber and airbnb, there are not. Even 23 and me, a pretty innocuous idea, is essentially a failure.

That's a pretty large and unfair statement, and I'd like to know how you are measuring failure. 23andme has created an affordable market for personal genomics, single-handedly forced modernization in regulation and policy, built a mineable database of live genome data that is helping researchers find cures, and amassed nearly 1M paying customers. I'd love for you to say that just because they aren't yet profitable me…

> 23andme has created an affordable market for personal genomics

Fair.

> single-handedly forced modernization in regulation and policy

Personal DNA kits were not pioneered by 23andme. The NHS in the UK sends out personal kits to test for colon cancer. One rather smart child, Jack Andraka [1], devised a personal kit to test for pancreatic cancer. And regulation in FDA policy is constantly shifting and changing. A notable such shift is due to a club set up by Ron Woodroof in 1988 [2].

23andme may have helped push science further, but single-handedly? Hardly. Science and discovery is a collaborative effort. They couldn't have done it without shoulders to stand on.

> built a mineable database of human genome data that is helping researchers find cures

The Human Genome project is a mineable database of chemical base pairs the make up human DNA. This has been an enabling technology used by researchers for drug and disease discovery since 1987 [3].

> and amassed nearly 1M paying customers.

The article you link to claims the number is closer to 850,000. A claim of 1M implies a relative error of 17.6%.

> I'd love for you to say that just because they aren't profitable means that they are a failure.

I agree that non-profitability does not imply failure.

May I ask what your affiliation with 23andme is?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Andraka#Research_and_exper...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Woodroof

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project#History

Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#19

Post by tikhonj »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #2

As a biologist with over a decade of experience in areas relevant to these startups, I appreciate the movement into biotech, but I'm unimpressed with the actual products. While everyone might poo-poo academia, it would take little effort to find 100s of projects at universities across the world that are better versions of these projects. As much as YC dominates software applications, they are woefully inferior in bio…

I actually agree. Exactly the same is true for most software coming out of YC. But that's not bad at all: the point of YC is not to do cutting-edge research—although a few companies do—but to execute and take a product to market. It's a vital part of an idea's development, but at a later stage than academic research.

University projects are incredibly valuable, but only the rare exception produces something commercially viable much less supported and marketed enough to be relevant to consumers. Even in CS, an academic field with disproportionately strong industry ties, projects like this a rare exception (see how venerated Spark is); it's even rarer in other fields.

This is a different sort of work than raw R&D, but it's still difficult and relevant—just in a different way. I completely sympathize with not being interested in it, but that says more about you (and often me) than it does about YC.

If anything, the role YC plays is actually more important in biotech than in software because creating, deploying, marketing and supporting a software project is an easier problem with more existing support outside of YC. Software takes less resources, has less risks and has more buy-in from funding sources and other parts of the community than biotech. (At least, and especially, in SV.)

But, unless you're excited by an accessible version of something specific, none of this is going to be particularly relevant to you. Not only is this perfectly fine, but it bodes remembering for people in the startup community who tend to get so enamored with and immersed in what they're doing that they forget that it is not universal.

Re: Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015

#20

Post by bkolko »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #2

As a biologist with over a decade of experience in areas relevant to these startups, I appreciate the movement into biotech, but I'm unimpressed with the actual products. While everyone might poo-poo academia, it would take little effort to find 100s of projects at universities across the world that are better versions of these projects. As much as YC dominates software applications, they are woefully inferior in bio…

I'm a YC founder (current batch; Shift Labs) and also a tenured full professor at an R1 university. I've got a pretty good view from both sides of this fence. I've spent over 20 years as a faculty member at research universities, produced PhD students, raised millions in grant money, written dozens of articles, yadda yadda yadda.

Universities are really great for many things. They are even really great at commercializing some kinds of technologies. But they are not great for all things, even all things related to bio or tech transfer. Sometimes crazy bets are the only way breakthroughs happen, and generally academia cultivates incremental more than transformational.

I started my company because I wanted to make affordable medical devices. The incentive systems for both med device companies and university commercialization offices are almost completely misaligned with building a business model that works for affordable medical devices.

So I went the entrepreneurial route.

Being in academic research is not the same thing as building a company. They're not the same skill sets, or even the same language. Lots of academics become technical advisers to startups built around their research. That's not the same thing as building a company. YC is about building a company.

I wrote about being a med device company in YC here: http://bit.ly/1LlmZjk, but I think really what I was writing about was being a researcher learning to build a startup.

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