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YC Bio

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC Bio

#21

Post by DoreenMichele »

Color me skeptical. I have a form of cystic fibrosis. I have gotten myself mostly well when that is not supposed to be possible. I was a homemaker for a long time. Eating right and germ control are a very large part of what I do and it isn't rocket science, as they say.

I also can see no means to turn it into a business model or income stream, nor even get anyone interested in benefiting from what I know for free. It isn't the magic bullet people are looking for. A spartan life, eating better and lots of walking is not an answer people want. It also isn't an answer that investors will fund.

Meanwhile, hey, lung transplants and $300k/year new drugs for CF are all the rage. That makes headlines and apparently makes money.

A business model for healthcare seems to produce Frankensteinian outcomes. Things that are actually health promoting, like having a full-time parent to care for the kids and primary breadwinner, eating right, exercise etc are boring and don't make VCs rich. They are actually quite challenging to promote at all.

I wish I saw it differently.

Re: YC Bio

#22

Post by aaavl2821 »

roymurdock wrote: post #3

Looks like a great opportunity from YC and a field I wish I knew more about - especially implantable tech and wetware/biohacking. In the embedded/IoT industry, the majority of medical device innovation is centered around home monitoring/care for older patients in nursing homes, or for preventative/medicine. Can anyone with experience in the bio/chem/pharma startup world point to good resources where we can get up to…

I wrote a blog about this earlier in the week. The focus is on the opportunity in biopharma generally but i touch on some of the key technologies of the last 15 years or so

Short answer: there is a "perfect storm" of innovation right now in bio. Tech from the 2000s genomic bubble is entering the mature phase of the hype cycle and ushering in a new era of potential curative therapy (gene therapy, cell therapy, personalized medicine). Avexis, a company treating a devastating neurological disease affecting infants using gene therapy, is ky favorite example to this

There is also the more widely hyped tech, AI, wearables, synthetic bio, etc, with massive potential, but these techs haven't had much impact on patients yet

Post here: http://newbio.tech/blog.html

Re: YC Bio

#23

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

icelancer wrote: post #17
psychometry wrote: post #15

Why focus on age-related disease when massive racial and economic disparities still prevent a large proportion of the population from even reaching an advanced age?

"Why work on this burning city when this earthquake-ridden city is in shambles!" a) There's no obligation to work on earthquake-ridden cities over any other issue. b) Mythical Man Month problem; firefighters might be good at extinguishing flame but not repairing earthquake issues, and there's only so many civil engineers to go around. c) Your comment is proof that no good deed goes unpunished.

d) YC is fantastic and produces results, but a startup accelerator probably doesn't have a viable pathway to reduce economic disparities. Those will probably need to be addressed through political means.

Re: YC Bio

#24

Post by jonlucc »

timrpeterson wrote: post #14
asimpletune wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just move! It’s great here!

I have ample lab space and the team to execute here in St. Louis. Also, I have a family. YC's "move to the bay area" requirement makes sense for software startups, but less so for bio (at least for most of the good ideas).

As a fellow midwesterner, I agree. It might make sense if the requirement was to move to a bio-rich region (such as San Diego or Boston), but the bay doesn't seem like the place to be for a lab.

Re: YC Bio

#25

Post by aaavl2821 »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #5

Has YC had successful Biology startups with real exits? Just curious I couldn't find any.

Biopharma startups are about as different from tech startups as you can get. The traditional tech incubator approach doesn't really work for biopharma. It can work for some life sci stuff but not pure biopharma (which is where most of the opportunity is)

That said, they said they've learned some lessons and they are providing more capital, and I'm sure if any organization can fix the biopharma seed exosystem it's them

The most important thing for them will be to get the right group of mentors. If you go off on the wrong scientific direction at the start of the company, it's much harder to salvage things with a pivot, so you need good eyes on all details of your experiments before you deploy capital

Re: YC Bio

#26

Post by bpicolo »

psychometry wrote: post #15

Why focus on age-related disease when massive racial and economic disparities still prevent a large proportion of the population from even reaching an advanced age?

Not only would I not fault them if they hadn't tried anything along the lines, but they've been doing a UBI pilot for ages.

Re: YC Bio

#27

Post by snowmaker »

timrpeterson wrote: post #9

Do you have to move to the Bay Area? I'm a professor at WashU and am interested, but I live in St. Louis.

You don't. You have to travel here to participate in events that take place in the bay area, but you don't have to move here. Founders with labs set up elsewhere have sometimes participated by traveling back and forth.

Re: YC Bio

#28

Post by forgotpwagain »

kamens wrote: post #10

The more investment and talent going into taking control of our biology and reducing disease, the better. If using your tech skills to help battle disease in an ambitious way is interesting and you wanna learn about a new, quiet startup (top-tier funders, world-class bio folks already on board for you to partner with, rare advisors from tech/bio/pharma), ping me: kamens@gmail.com We're hiring a couple more for our ea…

Just to add a single word -- I think it is very important that investments be well-targeted. And almost all of the time, this means listening to the scientists involved to get a realistic picture of where the domain experts think the field is going and how to best support efforts that are likely to be successful.

Sometimes, we have some promising leads on disease that we can begin to chase down. Most of the time, however, we have no idea where to begin, and so a shotgun basic science approach may ultimately be more fruitful. Every subfield is different and difficult to master, which is why it is so important to engage with the people who actually do the work.

I know the tone of this sounds like I'm beating a dead horse. I'm sorry.

Re: YC Bio

#29

Post by feistypharit »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

Color me skeptical. I have a form of cystic fibrosis. I have gotten myself mostly well when that is not supposed to be possible. I was a homemaker for a long time. Eating right and germ control are a very large part of what I do and it isn't rocket science, as they say. I also can see no means to turn it into a business model or income stream, nor even get anyone interested in benefiting from what I know for free. It…

Don't, you're mostly right. The model is broken. I think the US is in a giant bubble right now, in 100 years will be like most of Europe is today. That is...better.

Re: YC Bio

#30

Post by timrpeterson »

jonlucc wrote: post #24
timrpeterson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have ample lab space and the team to execute here in St. Louis. Also, I have a family. YC's "move to the bay area" requirement makes sense for software startups, but less so for bio (at least for most of the good ideas).

As a fellow midwesterner, I agree. It might make sense if the requirement was to move to a bio-rich region (such as San Diego or Boston), but the bay doesn't seem like the place to be for a lab.

Most people who will be qualified will already have lab space wherever they are.
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