April 28, 2025 • 40 mins
Joel Palathinkal engages with Mary Wheeler, exploring her career journey and the founding of BioRock Ventures. They discuss investing in serious diseases and the significance of in-person interactions in the business realm. Mary shares insights into the investment criteria and evaluation of drug efficacy in the biopharma sector. The conversation highlights identifying successful biopharma founders and startups, along with the impact of simulation and modeling on innovation. They delve into the relevance of a PhD in venture capital and offer traits and advice for biopharma founders and venture managers. The episode concludes with effective fundraising strategies and closing thoughts.
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Episode Transcript
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That's why it takes as long as it does, thereare many ways to make it better, faster,
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cheaper that I look at with open arms.
But ultimately, we're investing in cures forserious disease, and I'm not going to give
somebody dying of cancer a fake pill.
Right?
We we need to be sure that it's really workingand that it's safe.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
(00:30):
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
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Alright.
So really excited about the guest today on mypodcast.
I'm here with Mary Wheeler.
She's the founder and managing director andgeneral partner at BioRock Ventures.
You know, Mary spent quite a bit of time atJohnson and Johnson, you know, the innovation
center focusing on new venture partnerships andtransactions.
She's a Kaufman fellow.
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And, you know, now she's building BioRockVentures, you know, so BioRock Ventures is a VC
fund investing in seed stage biopharmastartups, you know, focusing on seed size
investments into private life science companiesdevelop novel FDA regulated therapeutic drugs.
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So Mary, welcome to the show and excited to,you know, just learn more about you and go
deeper on this, this sector.
Thanks, Joel.
I'm so excited to talk about this.
Yeah.
Me too.
And I I enjoyed meeting you in person.
You know, I think that's maybe something we cantalk about as well.
Just kind of like the difference from like, youknow, zoom and virtual and phone calls to
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finally like, you know, the joyful moment ofjust kind of, you know, in person.
But before we do all of that, why don't yougive your version of who you are?
What did you kind of study early in your careerand, you know, how did you get to where you
are?
And then from there, maybe we can pivot off ofthat and talk about other stuff.
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Yeah, absolutely.
So, and I, yeah, I love to talk about thevirtual world versus the real world.
Let's make sure we come back to that topic.
It actually ties into how we built BioRockVentures as well.
Lots of ways to answer that prompt, so thankyou for that open prompt.
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I started out thinking I wanted to be, and Ifeel like I sort of still am, a scientist.
And so I did do a PhD.
It was in a cool area called cognitive neuroscience.
Facts, expertise, those are some of the valuesthat have driven me really learning about the
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truth in any context.
And I think that carries me through to today asI do due diligence on investments that we're
looking at BioRock.
I did not ultimately want to stay in academia.
I have talked to a couple other people who haveconsidered that jump, so anybody wants to reach
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out to me about that, I'm happy to talk.
I've talked to probably over 100 people at thispoint about that.
So I did go get an MBA, a little bit to erasethe PhD, so that I could move directly into a
startup.
So I was part of the founding team of astartup.
Then I went to a medium sized public company inNew York City.
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And then, yes, you mentioned Johnson andJohnson.
Big huge corp, all biopharma, all doing M and Aand licensing, externally facing partnering,
search eval negotiation kind of function, whichit turns out is the same skill set that you
need for investing.
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That's what I was told along the way when Iasked after I found out about this cool job
called being in venture capital, how do I getthis job?
How can I do more of this?
Was in biopharma.
You need to understand the regulatory pathway,how people make decisions in our industry,
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which is very financially modeled.
You put in a lot of very specific details aboutproduct development.
But across tiny startup, medium sized publiccompany, and big co, the assessment is almost
exactly the same, And it is also the same overon the VC side.
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So after I was at J and J, I did at J and Jfund I started a program to fund some
companies, and we can talk about that a bit.
But it was a bit of a gap that I saw across mycareer, and I followed one of those and then a
handful of others out of it, and did a lot ofadvisory step in CBO before being an angel
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investor to build a track record and thenfounding BIROC Ventures in 2019.
And now we're on Fund two.
That's great.
Well, why don't we start with just kind of thetopic that we talked about in terms of
community, you know?
So tell me the origin story of startingBioRock.
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Maybe share some advice on how to maybe meetyour first LPs when you're building a firm.
And then I'm assuming based on your vintage,there were some time where some of that
happened during COVID.
So I think that's where it's very important tokind of talk about virtual and then converting
that to the difference with in person.
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So
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I mean, the basic origin story of BIROCVentures is there is a gap, and it is getting
bigger in the independent the funding ofindependent small ventures in sort of
innovation around novel medicines.
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There are a lot of, very deep pocketed, verylarge four funds this quarter, announced
$3,000,000,000 funds each, four times$3,000,000,000 just this quarter.
In our specific space of biopharma, it is anabsolutely massive space.
I have nothing but the deepest respect forthose funds that are large.
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They take more scientific risks than we do, butthey increasingly just cannot write what is
actually a seed size check, and theyincreasingly do not write checks for founders
who are independent.
Instead, they, for many good reasons, basicallyneed to start their own companies and own them.
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But I think you probably have a variety ofinvestors and entrepreneurs on your podcast who
are more on the tech side.
In biopharma, there just is not an ecosystemfor funding these independent innovators, these
garage innovators, if you will.
I saw that when I was in New York City in amedium sized public company saying no to these
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founders and saying come back when you havemade step A and B of your product development,
And it just took them years and years ofapplying for grants because there was just no
funding mechanism for them.
This was over a decade ago and it has continuedinto J and J, so I started it there as well.
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When I stepped away from J and J, I workedvirtually with a large number of companies, and
this was well before the pandemic.
By the phone, all the newer, the older videotech, I worked with groups through the
pandemic.
We talked about who were based in countries,including China, where they had different
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shutdown rules.
So that was very interesting to see peopleinside of their meeting rooms altogether, I'm
isolated talking to them over Zoom in thatcase, etcetera.
So I have always been a proponent of and a fanof the virtual enabler, but there's nothing
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like in person to really get to know somebodyfor a variety of purposes, including investing.
So give me I've got an example of what reallycould be noticed in person.
Do you have an example of something that youwould definitely see in person that you can't
see virtually?
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Well, people move through space.
I actually am an athlete another layer of who Iam.
You can't really get a feel for someone.
Right now, I'm sitting in a chair.
You can only see the top of me and only thefront of me.
But when you're talking to someone and they'recommunicating, they're communicating with their
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whole body.
See people use evidence.
I mean, that's an obvious one.
I just think people are different.
A lot of what we do is, and go back to what Isaid at the beginning, It's very data oriented.
It's very fact based.
We gotta go check stuff.
Did the FDA really say what they say?
We gotta go read it.
Gotta read the meeting minutes before we'revetted.
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We gotta go read the data, the raw data, notthe summary of it.
That stuff you can do from anywhere.
So there's a lot of what we can do that'svirtual, and that's why I'm a fan of it.
To the extent that you need to know what kindof interaction and communication style someone
has, we all know different people interactdifferently through different mediums, through
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the phone.
I I have, you know, different generations in myown personal life, my family.
You know, I have people who just like pickingup the phone is just so difficult and
stressful, Right?
They're teens and tweens.
And I have other people who are like, why isthis person texting me?
They need to schedule a meeting and come meetme in person and shake my hand.
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Right?
So we have that range in where I sit.
You really need to understand that person andhow they will receive and comprehend
information and emotion.
Everybody's different that way.
One thing I do remember is you did tell me thatI'm the same in person than I am in virtual.
Happy to hear that.
One thing that I did notice in person that youcan, you know, it's very difficult to see on
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Zoom is like, you just go to dinner withsomebody, like just observing how they treat
the waitress or waiter, you know, or just kindof seeing how they treat other people.
Sometimes you just can't, there's no way unlessyou're doing like a virtual lunch or something
like that, but just how they interact withother people, you know, there's just different
cues or just different situations where youjust can't mirror that, you know?
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Yeah.
Or their flexibility reaction to unexpectedthings that happen, which happens a lot if
you're an entrepreneur.
How do you handle that?
No judgment, but there are a variety of ways tohandle that.
It's useful information to know as somebodystriving at an investor role to be a helper at
that door and guiding if you don't understandhow someone is handling something.
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Can you unpack biopharma and therapeutics justa bit deeper?
So I guess when you classify kind of in yourinvestment process as you're kind of sourcing
and screening deals, what's some of thecriteria that you're looking for to kind of be
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a good fit specifically classified as biopharmaor therapeutics?
Yeah, I mean, I think there's kind of a coupleof ways to unpack that question, and I would
love to talk about any of those.
So at the top level, would say, first of all,there's a handful of myths that I hear from a
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lot of folks who are looking at participatingin the biopharma innovation ecosystem.
So whether you're a potential LP or anentrepreneur or an investor, maybe a fund of
funds, the myths at the top level.
One, venture capital is not investing incompanies all the way to product being sold.
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Almost always, and I mean 95 plus percent ofthe time, the exit for a venture capital fund,
big or small, I mentioned those huge corps butalso tiny buyer rock, is an M and A into a
knowledgeable player.
Know, Pfizer, J and J, Lilly, etc.
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There isn't information asymmetry in the publicmarkets.
There is a huge amount of necessarilyconfidential information that you need to be
able to review to truly understand the progressof the product.
So the public markets just are not able tounderstand that detail during the period before
you get something into the market.
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So number one, the venture capitalists get outby an M and A.
Whether the company went public first or not,that is our exit.
It also, number two, does not take forever.
On average, it takes three to five years fromfirst check to exit.
Three to five years.
So clearly we are not staying in it for thetwenty plus years it takes from beginning to
end to develop a product.
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We're coming in somewhat towards the beginningand getting out way before the end.
Specifically, on average, about half of thecompanies are exiting it before they've even
been in a person.
So before they've gotten into clinical trials,and roughly the other half, depending on the
year, are getting out, still being acquiredwhen they're in phase one or approaching phase
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two.
So that's, I think, a key piece to keep in mindin terms of venture investing.
Otherwise, unpacking it in a differentdirection, like, What do I mean by biopharma?
These are companies that are developing novelmedicines.
So usually they're going to have a patentaround their product filed.
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Doesn't mean that it was yet granted, thattakes a while.
And then from there, the business model isreally straightforward.
So it's really about execution and knowing howto follow.
The entire mechanism of developing a novelmedicine is designed to prove that it really
does what they want to say it does.
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Call it efficacy.
And is it safe?
And it's a really important mechanism torespect and participate in fully.
And so I certainly want to underline theimportance of groups like the FDA to keeping us
all safe and not buying junk that doesn't work.
That's why it takes as long as it does, thereare many ways to make it better, faster,
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cheaper that I look at with open arms, butultimately we're investing in cures for serious
disease, and I'm not gonna give somebody dyingof cancer a fake pill.
We need to be sure that it's really working andthat it's safe.
So, you know what I mean?
This is pretty provocative, but I mean, youknow, years ago, obviously the Sackler family,
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you know, kind of the whole opioid crisis.
You know, I feel like there was definitely alot of corruption.
A lot of people probably there was probablycross pollination with the regulators being
possibly like advisors to like the corporatesand stuff.
Do you feel like there's been a lot of change,to kind of prevent that to kind of just have
better, like you said, efficacy and just kindof have better regulation so that, you know,
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although a drug gets passed, it doesn't createworse issues where people are now suffering
from addiction.
I guess have there been kind of a lot morechecks and balances in place to kind of have
better you know, qualifying criteria to makesure drugs are serving the better purpose?
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I think what you might be alluding to is themisuse of of products, which is outside of so
first of all, we don't invest.
Right?
I just mentioned that venture capital investsbefore it hits the market.
Yeah.
Right?
But also, what you're alluding to was not Soit's a little hard for me to comment on it in
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context to where I sit.
So taking my hat off and commenting personallyis the only thing I can do here.
And that's an overreach on my part.
But if you're talking about people gettingaddicted to opioids, that is really a sort of
post market, how is this being prescribed?
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I guess it could go back to the label piece,meaning what do you put on there that directs
people, meaning doctors.
Corruption in terms of I'm not really sure whatyou're alluding to nor can comment on it.
I can just generally say that you do absolutelyneed experienced people in the FDA and you get
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the experience by working in a company.
It doesn't have to be a big company, right?
And there's hundreds and hundreds and hundredsof biopharma companies.
So I'm not really sure what to say to thatquestion.
Oh, sure.
Addiction is terrible.
I actually worked in startup right out ofschool.
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It was very hard to figure out how to whenever,in any case, you're trying to measure to prove
that something is not going to happen, whateverthat might be.
It's actually really hard if you think abouthow you would design the experiment to prove,
which is what the criteria is if you're tryingto get something to prove that you have
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prevented something.
Yeah.
Which is a whole other cool topic as well, likepreventative medicine, you know, absolutely
important.
Practically, it's always gonna be easier, or ithas at least been until somebody figures out
some new math and there is some new math, toshow that you have cured something.
So you've stopped your disease versus sayyou've prevented something that might happen in
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one in a hundred.
So addiction is really a huge problem, veryimportant to me personally.
I just don't know that I can comment on it as aventure capital person, with that hat on or
with respect to the FDA.
Some of what you're seeing, as you said, is alittle bit provocative because it's not
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specific enough that I could really comment onit.
Yeah.
No, that's fair.
I and you make a good point.
You know, you're you're the the stage that youplay in is much earlier, and I'm distant from
the industry.
Right?
So I mean, what I'm speaking to is about likethe documentaries that I've seen and I think
you're right.
I think some of the marketing from what Iremember from, you know, kinda, you know,
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learning a little bit about what happened, was,there was definitely some marketing that, that
advertised that it was, not as addictive thanit really was.
And I think that's what caused some of theissues to my knowledge.
But anyways, can go back to super early stage.
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What, you know, in the stage that you'replaying in, what are some of the early signals
that you've seen in founders that have beensuccessful, especially in this stage?
You know, are there certain milestones thatthey've hit?
I'm assuming in the stage that you play in, youknow, it's, it's probably quite, you know, and
I'm gonna let you fill the blanks here, but I'massuming it's quite capital intensive and
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there's a lot of research that they're relyingon, but maybe kind of going a little deeper.
And this could be also helpful for LPs thatare, that are also, you know, direct investors
in terms of like how they can, you know, learnabout this sector a little more and kind of the
opportunities in this sector.
Yeah.
I think you wanna have so BioRock has a bitmore of a business case lens.
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Mhmm.
There are also funds that are just veryinterested in your science.
So I'm gonna tell you what I think from aBioRock lens, but I wanna, of course, say that
there are also many great venture funds andpathways for those who have some new biology,
where they've discovered something about thehuman body that may ultimately result in a
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completely new approach.
I would point to groups like Moderna, who cameup with a different way, different substance
entirely and flagship pioneering was part offunding that.
We are talking more about products.
So for the groups that we invest in, we want toknow that they have experience, it can mean a
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variety of functions, but understanding how todevelop a drug ideally at the stage that they
want to get funding for.
So if they have something that hasn't been inthe clinic yet, that the leadership has had
experience working in a more establishedcompany can be small, can be big in that same
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step because there are very similar steps everysingle time you do it.
And that's because if you don't do it in a waythat actually is likely to be successful, it's
very likely a waste of money.
You need to have a clear product in mind and aclear patient group.
So who are you treating and why will yourproduct be different?
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Then you need to have a clear plan for howyou're going to show that your product is going
to be different and better for those.
So I think those are key elements for a lot ofstartups, and they seem really obvious.
But I think that in our space, you will oftenhear people getting really excited about what I
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would think of as the science or the vision andthe mission, and then it's just not going back
down to those basics.
So I think that's what-
So in software there's like an MVP, right?
There's like some type of prototype or likejust an early version of the app.
So what is the actual product prototype?
Is it like a pill?
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Is it like research on some type of, you know,clinical trial, like small pilot, or is it a
formula or could it be all of the above?
I guess what's kind of like the traction thatyou'd like to see on the product side?
Yeah.
And the traction is going to be data.
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Instead of the data being users, if it's a B2Cor selling to consumer, they're not doing that.
And so that kind of thing, there is no directanalogy, and that's one thing that I think
really trips up people who aren't uncomfortablestepping, but there's still data.
Is the data coming
from some of the who tells you that you cannotsee this and you'll just have to wait, don't
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invest with them.
Yeah, sure.
There is data and you need to see the data.
And is the data from the studies?
The data could be from any sort of range.
They could be petri dish data, it just depends.
It depends very much on the specificapplication.
It could be from people, and then you say,Look, we have this data in people in a
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different disease, but look, it tells ussomething about this other disease and how we
would use this agent.
Those would be things that are being taken fromone use to another, or it could be completely
novel.
And we already know.
Again, we like to see a BIROC that there is anexample out there that's further ahead.
So in combination, they have their own uniquething, but then this other thing that's further
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ahead is working and it works kind of the sameway.
They call it the mechanism of action.
Right?
So you target in the biological pathway, andyou've got an example that's already working on
that pathway, and then theirs is better in someway.
Like, sticks better or it finds its targetfaster.
Right?
There are so many different variations on thattheme.
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Just like in software, it's like, you know, wewere just talking about different ways to to
project plan, and there's so many differentproject planners out there.
You know, one of them is gonna win, and yougotta look at how is it actually better and
really check that.
Sure.
And then do you see simulation ever helpingwith maybe predicting how the data could
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evolve?
So like you got some initial data from thePetri dish, but there's like a small sample,
right?
So do you think in the future or currently,some of these startups could use some type of,
you know, algos or some simulations to kind ofsay, hey, you know what?
Like, if we potentially had a bigger sample,this is kind of what it could look like.
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And you're talking to someone that, you know,did modeling and simulation.
So I was just curious.
Yeah.
I mean, my PhD, which is cognitiveneuroscience, we use neural networks.
I think it's really important for everybody tounderstand that biopharma as an industry has,
for over fifty years, been the most quickadopter to any kind of simulation.
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The entire development process is a simulation.
It becomes increasingly more complicated andincreasingly more specific the organism that is
actually going to receive the benefit, all theway to the actual patients that are currently
suffering from a specific disease.
But it is all a simulation of various sorts.
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Now, point that out at the top level because Ithink people don't realize how quickly our
industry is open to that, especiallypreclinical before you get into people.
We will always use all the things to helppredict and de risk.
Predict and de risk.
That is all we are doing.
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At the end of the day, before you put somethinginto a human being, we still do not have enough
information about human biology, and probablywill not in at least my lifetime, to completely
skip putting it into people.
And so, always.
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We're always using all kinds of different waysto model and simulate.
Hopefully, there used to be a debate onrational drug design, is what they used to call
what really is now being called AI.
There's so many different words for the samething over the decades now that I've seen this,
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and there was always this debate, is itrational drug design or is it high throughput
screening?
So anybody using biotech will remember thoseterms.
It's just wet biology versus computers.
There's no versus.
It's all of the above all of the time.
We need it all, especially at the beginningstages for sure.
So I was fortunate to have completed my PhD aswell, and it was kind of a lonely road for me.
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I didn't have like a support group.
So I always get excited when I meet someoneelse that has a PhD because I'd love to kinda
hear, like, your journey, and, you know, maybesomething that you learned.
For me, it was it was years ago.
And there's things that I learned and, youknow, I can talk about, you know, some of the
things that I picked up, but like maybe justtalk to us about that experience, you know,
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doing the PhD, you know, I mean, I'm assumingthere was like a qualifying exam defending the
dissertation.
Maybe it's been a while since you reflected onthis, but talk to us about just the experience
of getting a PhD.
Maybe if someone was interested in doing it,what you would advise them on, all that good
stuff.
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Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people will askme if they're college students, should I get an
advanced degree?
I mean, number one, you should do it if you areinterested in spending four to seven years
diving deep into a topic, right?
And I am so glad I had that time to do that.
I did choose to complete my PhD in four years,but a lot of people it takes longer to get that
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done, and so you need to really love it, right?
And It's a trite comment at the top level, butit is so important.
I would say I've also literally just last weeksat next to somebody who is still in academia
but wants to get out, who's been in it forseveral decades.
I also talk to a lot of people who are atvarious stages of their whether it's a PhD or
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an MD or both, and they are very useful degreesin biopharma, pretty much essential for better
or worse.
I think what it does teach you is thatscientific lens and that patient impact lens
that is really essential to making gooddecisions and what you invest your time and
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resources in our space.
And so it's kind of, in one sense, asuperficial stamp, but another, below that, you
have critical thinking.
You have learned critical thinking, especiallyif you've done a PhD.
And The life of a PhD is a whole other podcast,and each department is different.
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I have many, many comments about ways that wecan make the life of a PhD better in The United
States, which is my only real lens here, whichis where I did mine.
Think that the absolute power at the top cancreate some difficult incentives and very
difficult scenarios for some individuals, and Ithink we need to scrutinize that.
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The life of an academic is a whole other Iactually just connected.
I saw one of my friends from my PhD was on thefront page of the Wall Street Journal last
week.
So, of course, I reached out to that person andreminisce a little bit about career pathways.
The life of academic is something that you'llwanna talk to academics about.
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Ultimately, you are a teacher, and you are agrant writer.
What was going on in your mind as you werethinking about the PhD in terms of your career
path?
Did you immediately know you wanted to be aventure capitalist?
Did you think about being a professor?
Did you think about just working at a largeinstitutional health care company as a medical
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director?
I guess what were some of the ideas that youhad maybe during your PhD or even earlier?
I had thought I was going into academia.
I just wanted to spend my life.
So you wanted to be like a tenured professor?
Oh, sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And so I think if someone had said to me whatyou will be as a teacher and a grant writer,
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and you will be focused on one very, veryspecific area, I did quickly realize two years
in that this was actually too narrow for myparticular.
Yeah.
And that's no disrespect for those who havechosen to do that.
It's just something you would just wanna know,and maybe you learn it as you go, which was my
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experience that actually, no.
I I wanted to do something that was way morebroad.
Right?
Venture capital, you get to look deeplybriefly, into a lot of things and then go back
out and do something else deeply.
And I love that, but you don't have thatopportunity in academia.
So for me, was really simply where is my bestuse case, and it wasn't it wasn't being a
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professor.
Yeah.
Well, if you think about it, right, when you doyour dissertation, it has to be an original
idea that hasn't been approached before.
And usually when you do your qualifying exam,there needs to be a lot of data, There's data
collection.
So that doesn't sound too dissimilar to whatyou're doing now, right?
You're looking at potential health carecompanies and opportunities that, you know,
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biopharma opportunities that have that initialdata.
So I felt like, I feel like there's a parallelthere with the novel discoveries and then kind
of using that data to validate it, validate itenough to actually write a C check?
(33:18):
Yep.
That's the skill set I was saying that youreally need to have sort of tables in some
fashion to be a decision maker in our spacebecause you need to be able to quickly
understand.
As far as generating the data, that was verydifferent.
I'm sure, as a PhD, that you also spend a lotof time late at, like, two in the morning
(33:43):
trying to, like, finagle duct tape togethersomething on a low budget, literally.
Mhmm.
That piece of sort of being on the front linesis is less part of my life now.
It's much more about judgment and decisionmaking and less about execution.
And then, I mean, the skill set that I had todevelop too in my doctor was like the
(34:05):
statistical skills.
So there needs to be, obviously, some type ofstatistical significance for it to be deemed
viable, at least when I was doing my So thatwas kind of difficult too because you have to
prove with some type of measurement that it isimportant enough to pursue, which I thought was
quite difficult, which is probably not the caseas much now, you know, but I I'd like to kind
(34:32):
of switch gears a little bit to the founder.
So we talked about the product, the novelty ofthe solution to maybe an opportunity or a
problem, but, you know, tell me a little moreabout some of the characteristics of the
founder that you've seen as a common patternfor success.
Yeah.
And these are gonna sound the same as what youprobably have had other venture capital folks
(34:57):
who invest seed ish.
Sure.
Yeah.
Having grit, being able to break through walls.
Right?
Those are kind of the common questions.
Yeah.
But but what else?
What's what's what else is kind of unique towhen you when you pick them?
We we talked about in person interactions.
Right?
What are some of the other attributes outsideof the the common, you know, outputs that I
(35:21):
hear from everybody?
Yeah.
Well, I think it is actually surprising to alot of people that biopharma folks, they think
of us as a bunch of scientists in a lab, thatis absolutely not what's happening, that we are
the same at that spot, which is we needfounders who have grit, who really believe in
(35:44):
what they're doing, and are coachable,flexible.
Some things that are slightly different, andthat depends on your fund, we are not looking
for team builders.
We do not have as a metric how many people haveyou hired.
You're like, what's your growth?
Almost the opposite.
(36:04):
We do not want to fund you hiring a ton ofpeople too early.
Instead, we really want you to focus on productdevelopment.
So at the end of the day, a lot of the peoplethat we're investing in do go back to what you
were pointing out, is they're
going
to be away from that vision and mission andsort of the rainbow kind of slides, and you're
(36:29):
going to see a lot more sort of 25 slides withdense, dense data that they're able to share
under a non confidential disclosure.
So they've got like, here's the data, here'sstatistically significant, here's the error
bars.
So there's going to be a lot more of that.
But otherwise, what we're looking for in termsof in
(36:49):
terms of
founder, is really the same.
At the seed stage, it's really hard.
It's really hard.
You gotta kind of keep it going in alldifferent eating a lot of plates, etcetera.
So I know we got a few minutes left.
I wanna touch on just being an emerging managerand what advice you'd give to emerging managers
(37:10):
that wanna build something.
Because congrats to you, Mary, on all thatyou've built, all that you've accomplished.
What you know, you let's say you got a littlebig, you know, a little brother or a little
sister kind of following you looking to kind ofbe your mentee or just kind of learn from you
and say, look, I want to launch a fund one day.
What what's maybe one or two pieces of, adviceyou'd give to them, to kinda just get get to
(37:34):
their first close or at least just come up withsome type of, strategy that differentiates?
Yeah.
I think there's a couple of just basictactical.
This has been a very difficult recentfundraising environment for a lot of emerging
managers just because we can talk about that ifthere's time.
(37:58):
Some people talk about a first close, buteverybody in the know, all of the other
emerging managers that I've talked to who arenot, you know, famous and already in the
mainstream slash a spin out from an establishedfund, just close.
To be in business, just close and invest.
(38:19):
Invest close.
Right?
Do not overthink it.
Again, that goes back to we are all seedfounders when we are emerging managers,
especially when you're doing your proof ofconcept fund, your fund zero, your fund one,
whatever you want to call it.
You're going to be going to your high net worthfolks and some of the family offices.
You can be strategic about your later stagefunds and follow the more typical guidelines,
(38:44):
but you have to just be a scrappy entrepreneurwhen you're first starting.
You're doing your fund for a reason.
You likely see a clear gap, So, make sure thatpeople can understand why you exist or do your
best.
For those groups that are just not getting whatyou're doing, just keep going, Just move on,
(39:06):
and you can come back to them later when youfigure out a better way to connect.
One other person pulled me aside early eightyears ago and was like, Okay, just keep in mind
that it is a numbers game.
I'm like, oh, yeah.
Numbers game.
What are you talking about?
So they're like, no.
No.
Listen.
You're gonna need to meet with a thousandpeople to get one check.
(39:30):
Run your numbers.
What are you gonna raise and how many peopleyou need to meet with and find introductions to
n of those people.
Sure.
And that
is literally what I've seen.
I've seen the same thing, with many of thesuper early managers.
You know, it's a volume game, and I would sayit's the same thing with any business, you
know, I mean, if you're doing B2B SaaS, there'sa close rate, right?
(39:53):
So you you're at a 25 to 30% close rate basedon how many calls you take.
So, there's a lot of parallels when it comes toto fundraising.
But anyways, Mary, this was amazing.
Thanks so much for unpacking, you know, all ofthe knowledge that you have.
I know I learned a lot, selfishly, this is,beneficial to me, but also beneficial to the
(40:14):
community.
So thanks at all that you're doing.
And look, you're you're backing companies thatare changing the world.
So thanks for doing that too, appreciate it.
Thank you.
And I'd love to talk to anybody who wants totalk more.
So hopefully we can connect.
Absolutely.
I'll share your contact info.
Thank you.
That's why it takes as long as it does, thereare many ways to make it better, faster,
(00:05):
cheaper that I look at with open arms.
But ultimately, we're investing in cures forserious disease, and I'm not going to give
somebody dying of cancer a fake pill.
Right?
We we need to be sure that it's really workingand that it's safe.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
(00:30):
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
(00:50):
Alright.
So really excited about the guest today on mypodcast.
I'm here with Mary Wheeler.
She's the founder and managing director andgeneral partner at BioRock Ventures.
You know, Mary spent quite a bit of time atJohnson and Johnson, you know, the innovation
center focusing on new venture partnerships andtransactions.
She's a Kaufman fellow.
(01:12):
And, you know, now she's building BioRockVentures, you know, so BioRock Ventures is a VC
fund investing in seed stage biopharmastartups, you know, focusing on seed size
investments into private life science companiesdevelop novel FDA regulated therapeutic drugs.
(01:32):
So Mary, welcome to the show and excited to,you know, just learn more about you and go
deeper on this, this sector.
Thanks, Joel.
I'm so excited to talk about this.
Yeah.
Me too.
And I I enjoyed meeting you in person.
You know, I think that's maybe something we cantalk about as well.
Just kind of like the difference from like, youknow, zoom and virtual and phone calls to
(01:56):
finally like, you know, the joyful moment ofjust kind of, you know, in person.
But before we do all of that, why don't yougive your version of who you are?
What did you kind of study early in your careerand, you know, how did you get to where you
are?
And then from there, maybe we can pivot off ofthat and talk about other stuff.
(02:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, and I, yeah, I love to talk about thevirtual world versus the real world.
Let's make sure we come back to that topic.
It actually ties into how we built BioRockVentures as well.
Lots of ways to answer that prompt, so thankyou for that open prompt.
(02:41):
I started out thinking I wanted to be, and Ifeel like I sort of still am, a scientist.
And so I did do a PhD.
It was in a cool area called cognitive neuroscience.
Facts, expertise, those are some of the valuesthat have driven me really learning about the
(03:03):
truth in any context.
And I think that carries me through to today asI do due diligence on investments that we're
looking at BioRock.
I did not ultimately want to stay in academia.
I have talked to a couple other people who haveconsidered that jump, so anybody wants to reach
(03:24):
out to me about that, I'm happy to talk.
I've talked to probably over 100 people at thispoint about that.
So I did go get an MBA, a little bit to erasethe PhD, so that I could move directly into a
startup.
So I was part of the founding team of astartup.
Then I went to a medium sized public company inNew York City.
(03:46):
And then, yes, you mentioned Johnson andJohnson.
Big huge corp, all biopharma, all doing M and Aand licensing, externally facing partnering,
search eval negotiation kind of function, whichit turns out is the same skill set that you
need for investing.
(04:06):
That's what I was told along the way when Iasked after I found out about this cool job
called being in venture capital, how do I getthis job?
How can I do more of this?
Was in biopharma.
You need to understand the regulatory pathway,how people make decisions in our industry,
(04:30):
which is very financially modeled.
You put in a lot of very specific details aboutproduct development.
But across tiny startup, medium sized publiccompany, and big co, the assessment is almost
exactly the same, And it is also the same overon the VC side.
(04:51):
So after I was at J and J, I did at J and Jfund I started a program to fund some
companies, and we can talk about that a bit.
But it was a bit of a gap that I saw across mycareer, and I followed one of those and then a
handful of others out of it, and did a lot ofadvisory step in CBO before being an angel
(05:15):
investor to build a track record and thenfounding BIROC Ventures in 2019.
And now we're on Fund two.
That's great.
Well, why don't we start with just kind of thetopic that we talked about in terms of
community, you know?
So tell me the origin story of startingBioRock.
(05:37):
Maybe share some advice on how to maybe meetyour first LPs when you're building a firm.
And then I'm assuming based on your vintage,there were some time where some of that
happened during COVID.
So I think that's where it's very important tokind of talk about virtual and then converting
that to the difference with in person.
(05:57):
So
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I mean, the basic origin story of BIROCVentures is there is a gap, and it is getting
bigger in the independent the funding ofindependent small ventures in sort of
innovation around novel medicines.
(06:18):
There are a lot of, very deep pocketed, verylarge four funds this quarter, announced
$3,000,000,000 funds each, four times$3,000,000,000 just this quarter.
In our specific space of biopharma, it is anabsolutely massive space.
I have nothing but the deepest respect forthose funds that are large.
(06:42):
They take more scientific risks than we do, butthey increasingly just cannot write what is
actually a seed size check, and theyincreasingly do not write checks for founders
who are independent.
Instead, they, for many good reasons, basicallyneed to start their own companies and own them.
(07:03):
But I think you probably have a variety ofinvestors and entrepreneurs on your podcast who
are more on the tech side.
In biopharma, there just is not an ecosystemfor funding these independent innovators, these
garage innovators, if you will.
I saw that when I was in New York City in amedium sized public company saying no to these
(07:28):
founders and saying come back when you havemade step A and B of your product development,
And it just took them years and years ofapplying for grants because there was just no
funding mechanism for them.
This was over a decade ago and it has continuedinto J and J, so I started it there as well.
(07:50):
When I stepped away from J and J, I workedvirtually with a large number of companies, and
this was well before the pandemic.
By the phone, all the newer, the older videotech, I worked with groups through the
pandemic.
We talked about who were based in countries,including China, where they had different
(08:14):
shutdown rules.
So that was very interesting to see peopleinside of their meeting rooms altogether, I'm
isolated talking to them over Zoom in thatcase, etcetera.
So I have always been a proponent of and a fanof the virtual enabler, but there's nothing
(08:35):
like in person to really get to know somebodyfor a variety of purposes, including investing.
So give me I've got an example of what reallycould be noticed in person.
Do you have an example of something that youwould definitely see in person that you can't
see virtually?
(08:55):
Well, people move through space.
I actually am an athlete another layer of who Iam.
You can't really get a feel for someone.
Right now, I'm sitting in a chair.
You can only see the top of me and only thefront of me.
But when you're talking to someone and they'recommunicating, they're communicating with their
(09:17):
whole body.
See people use evidence.
I mean, that's an obvious one.
I just think people are different.
A lot of what we do is, and go back to what Isaid at the beginning, It's very data oriented.
It's very fact based.
We gotta go check stuff.
Did the FDA really say what they say?
We gotta go read it.
Gotta read the meeting minutes before we'revetted.
(09:39):
We gotta go read the data, the raw data, notthe summary of it.
That stuff you can do from anywhere.
So there's a lot of what we can do that'svirtual, and that's why I'm a fan of it.
To the extent that you need to know what kindof interaction and communication style someone
has, we all know different people interactdifferently through different mediums, through
(10:00):
the phone.
I I have, you know, different generations in myown personal life, my family.
You know, I have people who just like pickingup the phone is just so difficult and
stressful, Right?
They're teens and tweens.
And I have other people who are like, why isthis person texting me?
They need to schedule a meeting and come meetme in person and shake my hand.
(10:22):
Right?
So we have that range in where I sit.
You really need to understand that person andhow they will receive and comprehend
information and emotion.
Everybody's different that way.
One thing I do remember is you did tell me thatI'm the same in person than I am in virtual.
Happy to hear that.
One thing that I did notice in person that youcan, you know, it's very difficult to see on
(10:48):
Zoom is like, you just go to dinner withsomebody, like just observing how they treat
the waitress or waiter, you know, or just kindof seeing how they treat other people.
Sometimes you just can't, there's no way unlessyou're doing like a virtual lunch or something
like that, but just how they interact withother people, you know, there's just different
cues or just different situations where youjust can't mirror that, you know?
(11:12):
Yeah.
Or their flexibility reaction to unexpectedthings that happen, which happens a lot if
you're an entrepreneur.
How do you handle that?
No judgment, but there are a variety of ways tohandle that.
It's useful information to know as somebodystriving at an investor role to be a helper at
that door and guiding if you don't understandhow someone is handling something.
(11:40):
Can you unpack biopharma and therapeutics justa bit deeper?
So I guess when you classify kind of in yourinvestment process as you're kind of sourcing
and screening deals, what's some of thecriteria that you're looking for to kind of be
(12:00):
a good fit specifically classified as biopharmaor therapeutics?
Yeah, I mean, I think there's kind of a coupleof ways to unpack that question, and I would
love to talk about any of those.
So at the top level, would say, first of all,there's a handful of myths that I hear from a
(12:20):
lot of folks who are looking at participatingin the biopharma innovation ecosystem.
So whether you're a potential LP or anentrepreneur or an investor, maybe a fund of
funds, the myths at the top level.
One, venture capital is not investing incompanies all the way to product being sold.
(12:44):
Almost always, and I mean 95 plus percent ofthe time, the exit for a venture capital fund,
big or small, I mentioned those huge corps butalso tiny buyer rock, is an M and A into a
knowledgeable player.
Know, Pfizer, J and J, Lilly, etc.
(13:08):
There isn't information asymmetry in the publicmarkets.
There is a huge amount of necessarilyconfidential information that you need to be
able to review to truly understand the progressof the product.
So the public markets just are not able tounderstand that detail during the period before
you get something into the market.
(13:28):
So number one, the venture capitalists get outby an M and A.
Whether the company went public first or not,that is our exit.
It also, number two, does not take forever.
On average, it takes three to five years fromfirst check to exit.
Three to five years.
So clearly we are not staying in it for thetwenty plus years it takes from beginning to
end to develop a product.
(13:49):
We're coming in somewhat towards the beginningand getting out way before the end.
Specifically, on average, about half of thecompanies are exiting it before they've even
been in a person.
So before they've gotten into clinical trials,and roughly the other half, depending on the
year, are getting out, still being acquiredwhen they're in phase one or approaching phase
(14:09):
two.
So that's, I think, a key piece to keep in mindin terms of venture investing.
Otherwise, unpacking it in a differentdirection, like, What do I mean by biopharma?
These are companies that are developing novelmedicines.
So usually they're going to have a patentaround their product filed.
(14:31):
Doesn't mean that it was yet granted, thattakes a while.
And then from there, the business model isreally straightforward.
So it's really about execution and knowing howto follow.
The entire mechanism of developing a novelmedicine is designed to prove that it really
does what they want to say it does.
(14:51):
Call it efficacy.
And is it safe?
And it's a really important mechanism torespect and participate in fully.
And so I certainly want to underline theimportance of groups like the FDA to keeping us
all safe and not buying junk that doesn't work.
That's why it takes as long as it does, thereare many ways to make it better, faster,
(15:15):
cheaper that I look at with open arms, butultimately we're investing in cures for serious
disease, and I'm not gonna give somebody dyingof cancer a fake pill.
We need to be sure that it's really working andthat it's safe.
So, you know what I mean?
This is pretty provocative, but I mean, youknow, years ago, obviously the Sackler family,
(15:38):
you know, kind of the whole opioid crisis.
You know, I feel like there was definitely alot of corruption.
A lot of people probably there was probablycross pollination with the regulators being
possibly like advisors to like the corporatesand stuff.
Do you feel like there's been a lot of change,to kind of prevent that to kind of just have
better, like you said, efficacy and just kindof have better regulation so that, you know,
(16:02):
although a drug gets passed, it doesn't createworse issues where people are now suffering
from addiction.
I guess have there been kind of a lot morechecks and balances in place to kind of have
better you know, qualifying criteria to makesure drugs are serving the better purpose?
(16:24):
I think what you might be alluding to is themisuse of of products, which is outside of so
first of all, we don't invest.
Right?
I just mentioned that venture capital investsbefore it hits the market.
Yeah.
Right?
But also, what you're alluding to was not Soit's a little hard for me to comment on it in
(16:48):
context to where I sit.
So taking my hat off and commenting personallyis the only thing I can do here.
And that's an overreach on my part.
But if you're talking about people gettingaddicted to opioids, that is really a sort of
post market, how is this being prescribed?
(17:11):
I guess it could go back to the label piece,meaning what do you put on there that directs
people, meaning doctors.
Corruption in terms of I'm not really sure whatyou're alluding to nor can comment on it.
I can just generally say that you do absolutelyneed experienced people in the FDA and you get
(17:37):
the experience by working in a company.
It doesn't have to be a big company, right?
And there's hundreds and hundreds and hundredsof biopharma companies.
So I'm not really sure what to say to thatquestion.
Oh, sure.
Addiction is terrible.
I actually worked in startup right out ofschool.
(18:00):
It was very hard to figure out how to whenever,in any case, you're trying to measure to prove
that something is not going to happen, whateverthat might be.
It's actually really hard if you think abouthow you would design the experiment to prove,
which is what the criteria is if you're tryingto get something to prove that you have
(18:22):
prevented something.
Yeah.
Which is a whole other cool topic as well, likepreventative medicine, you know, absolutely
important.
Practically, it's always gonna be easier, or ithas at least been until somebody figures out
some new math and there is some new math, toshow that you have cured something.
So you've stopped your disease versus sayyou've prevented something that might happen in
(18:46):
one in a hundred.
So addiction is really a huge problem, veryimportant to me personally.
I just don't know that I can comment on it as aventure capital person, with that hat on or
with respect to the FDA.
Some of what you're seeing, as you said, is alittle bit provocative because it's not
(19:08):
specific enough that I could really comment onit.
Yeah.
No, that's fair.
I and you make a good point.
You know, you're you're the the stage that youplay in is much earlier, and I'm distant from
the industry.
Right?
So I mean, what I'm speaking to is about likethe documentaries that I've seen and I think
you're right.
I think some of the marketing from what Iremember from, you know, kinda, you know,
(19:31):
learning a little bit about what happened, was,there was definitely some marketing that, that
advertised that it was, not as addictive thanit really was.
And I think that's what caused some of theissues to my knowledge.
But anyways, can go back to super early stage.
(19:51):
What, you know, in the stage that you'replaying in, what are some of the early signals
that you've seen in founders that have beensuccessful, especially in this stage?
You know, are there certain milestones thatthey've hit?
I'm assuming in the stage that you play in, youknow, it's, it's probably quite, you know, and
I'm gonna let you fill the blanks here, but I'massuming it's quite capital intensive and
(20:15):
there's a lot of research that they're relyingon, but maybe kind of going a little deeper.
And this could be also helpful for LPs thatare, that are also, you know, direct investors
in terms of like how they can, you know, learnabout this sector a little more and kind of the
opportunities in this sector.
Yeah.
I think you wanna have so BioRock has a bitmore of a business case lens.
(20:38):
Mhmm.
There are also funds that are just veryinterested in your science.
So I'm gonna tell you what I think from aBioRock lens, but I wanna, of course, say that
there are also many great venture funds andpathways for those who have some new biology,
where they've discovered something about thehuman body that may ultimately result in a
(21:02):
completely new approach.
I would point to groups like Moderna, who cameup with a different way, different substance
entirely and flagship pioneering was part offunding that.
We are talking more about products.
So for the groups that we invest in, we want toknow that they have experience, it can mean a
(21:24):
variety of functions, but understanding how todevelop a drug ideally at the stage that they
want to get funding for.
So if they have something that hasn't been inthe clinic yet, that the leadership has had
experience working in a more establishedcompany can be small, can be big in that same
(21:47):
step because there are very similar steps everysingle time you do it.
And that's because if you don't do it in a waythat actually is likely to be successful, it's
very likely a waste of money.
You need to have a clear product in mind and aclear patient group.
So who are you treating and why will yourproduct be different?
(22:08):
Then you need to have a clear plan for howyou're going to show that your product is going
to be different and better for those.
So I think those are key elements for a lot ofstartups, and they seem really obvious.
But I think that in our space, you will oftenhear people getting really excited about what I
(22:32):
would think of as the science or the vision andthe mission, and then it's just not going back
down to those basics.
So I think that's what-
So in software there's like an MVP, right?
There's like some type of prototype or likejust an early version of the app.
So what is the actual product prototype?
Is it like a pill?
(22:52):
Is it like research on some type of, you know,clinical trial, like small pilot, or is it a
formula or could it be all of the above?
I guess what's kind of like the traction thatyou'd like to see on the product side?
Yeah.
And the traction is going to be data.
(23:12):
Instead of the data being users, if it's a B2Cor selling to consumer, they're not doing that.
And so that kind of thing, there is no directanalogy, and that's one thing that I think
really trips up people who aren't uncomfortablestepping, but there's still data.
Is the data coming
from some of the who tells you that you cannotsee this and you'll just have to wait, don't
(23:37):
invest with them.
Yeah, sure.
There is data and you need to see the data.
And is the data from the studies?
The data could be from any sort of range.
They could be petri dish data, it just depends.
It depends very much on the specificapplication.
It could be from people, and then you say,Look, we have this data in people in a
(24:00):
different disease, but look, it tells ussomething about this other disease and how we
would use this agent.
Those would be things that are being taken fromone use to another, or it could be completely
novel.
And we already know.
Again, we like to see a BIROC that there is anexample out there that's further ahead.
So in combination, they have their own uniquething, but then this other thing that's further
(24:24):
ahead is working and it works kind of the sameway.
They call it the mechanism of action.
Right?
So you target in the biological pathway, andyou've got an example that's already working on
that pathway, and then theirs is better in someway.
Like, sticks better or it finds its targetfaster.
Right?
There are so many different variations on thattheme.
(24:45):
Just like in software, it's like, you know, wewere just talking about different ways to to
project plan, and there's so many differentproject planners out there.
You know, one of them is gonna win, and yougotta look at how is it actually better and
really check that.
Sure.
And then do you see simulation ever helpingwith maybe predicting how the data could
(25:10):
evolve?
So like you got some initial data from thePetri dish, but there's like a small sample,
right?
So do you think in the future or currently,some of these startups could use some type of,
you know, algos or some simulations to kind ofsay, hey, you know what?
Like, if we potentially had a bigger sample,this is kind of what it could look like.
(25:31):
And you're talking to someone that, you know,did modeling and simulation.
So I was just curious.
Yeah.
I mean, my PhD, which is cognitiveneuroscience, we use neural networks.
I think it's really important for everybody tounderstand that biopharma as an industry has,
for over fifty years, been the most quickadopter to any kind of simulation.
(25:54):
The entire development process is a simulation.
It becomes increasingly more complicated andincreasingly more specific the organism that is
actually going to receive the benefit, all theway to the actual patients that are currently
suffering from a specific disease.
But it is all a simulation of various sorts.
(26:16):
Now, point that out at the top level because Ithink people don't realize how quickly our
industry is open to that, especiallypreclinical before you get into people.
We will always use all the things to helppredict and de risk.
Predict and de risk.
That is all we are doing.
(26:38):
At the end of the day, before you put somethinginto a human being, we still do not have enough
information about human biology, and probablywill not in at least my lifetime, to completely
skip putting it into people.
And so, always.
(26:59):
We're always using all kinds of different waysto model and simulate.
Hopefully, there used to be a debate onrational drug design, is what they used to call
what really is now being called AI.
There's so many different words for the samething over the decades now that I've seen this,
(27:19):
and there was always this debate, is itrational drug design or is it high throughput
screening?
So anybody using biotech will remember thoseterms.
It's just wet biology versus computers.
There's no versus.
It's all of the above all of the time.
We need it all, especially at the beginningstages for sure.
So I was fortunate to have completed my PhD aswell, and it was kind of a lonely road for me.
(27:46):
I didn't have like a support group.
So I always get excited when I meet someoneelse that has a PhD because I'd love to kinda
hear, like, your journey, and, you know, maybesomething that you learned.
For me, it was it was years ago.
And there's things that I learned and, youknow, I can talk about, you know, some of the
things that I picked up, but like maybe justtalk to us about that experience, you know,
(28:11):
doing the PhD, you know, I mean, I'm assumingthere was like a qualifying exam defending the
dissertation.
Maybe it's been a while since you reflected onthis, but talk to us about just the experience
of getting a PhD.
Maybe if someone was interested in doing it,what you would advise them on, all that good
stuff.
(28:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people will askme if they're college students, should I get an
advanced degree?
I mean, number one, you should do it if you areinterested in spending four to seven years
diving deep into a topic, right?
And I am so glad I had that time to do that.
I did choose to complete my PhD in four years,but a lot of people it takes longer to get that
(28:56):
done, and so you need to really love it, right?
And It's a trite comment at the top level, butit is so important.
I would say I've also literally just last weeksat next to somebody who is still in academia
but wants to get out, who's been in it forseveral decades.
I also talk to a lot of people who are atvarious stages of their whether it's a PhD or
(29:21):
an MD or both, and they are very useful degreesin biopharma, pretty much essential for better
or worse.
I think what it does teach you is thatscientific lens and that patient impact lens
that is really essential to making gooddecisions and what you invest your time and
(29:43):
resources in our space.
And so it's kind of, in one sense, asuperficial stamp, but another, below that, you
have critical thinking.
You have learned critical thinking, especiallyif you've done a PhD.
And The life of a PhD is a whole other podcast,and each department is different.
(30:08):
I have many, many comments about ways that wecan make the life of a PhD better in The United
States, which is my only real lens here, whichis where I did mine.
Think that the absolute power at the top cancreate some difficult incentives and very
difficult scenarios for some individuals, and Ithink we need to scrutinize that.
(30:35):
The life of an academic is a whole other Iactually just connected.
I saw one of my friends from my PhD was on thefront page of the Wall Street Journal last
week.
So, of course, I reached out to that person andreminisce a little bit about career pathways.
The life of academic is something that you'llwanna talk to academics about.
(30:58):
Ultimately, you are a teacher, and you are agrant writer.
What was going on in your mind as you werethinking about the PhD in terms of your career
path?
Did you immediately know you wanted to be aventure capitalist?
Did you think about being a professor?
Did you think about just working at a largeinstitutional health care company as a medical
(31:22):
director?
I guess what were some of the ideas that youhad maybe during your PhD or even earlier?
I had thought I was going into academia.
I just wanted to spend my life.
So you wanted to be like a tenured professor?
Oh, sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And so I think if someone had said to me whatyou will be as a teacher and a grant writer,
(31:45):
and you will be focused on one very, veryspecific area, I did quickly realize two years
in that this was actually too narrow for myparticular.
Yeah.
And that's no disrespect for those who havechosen to do that.
It's just something you would just wanna know,and maybe you learn it as you go, which was my
(32:07):
experience that actually, no.
I I wanted to do something that was way morebroad.
Right?
Venture capital, you get to look deeplybriefly, into a lot of things and then go back
out and do something else deeply.
And I love that, but you don't have thatopportunity in academia.
So for me, was really simply where is my bestuse case, and it wasn't it wasn't being a
(32:33):
professor.
Yeah.
Well, if you think about it, right, when you doyour dissertation, it has to be an original
idea that hasn't been approached before.
And usually when you do your qualifying exam,there needs to be a lot of data, There's data
collection.
So that doesn't sound too dissimilar to whatyou're doing now, right?
You're looking at potential health carecompanies and opportunities that, you know,
(32:57):
biopharma opportunities that have that initialdata.
So I felt like, I feel like there's a parallelthere with the novel discoveries and then kind
of using that data to validate it, validate itenough to actually write a C check?
(33:18):
Yep.
That's the skill set I was saying that youreally need to have sort of tables in some
fashion to be a decision maker in our spacebecause you need to be able to quickly
understand.
As far as generating the data, that was verydifferent.
I'm sure, as a PhD, that you also spend a lotof time late at, like, two in the morning
(33:43):
trying to, like, finagle duct tape togethersomething on a low budget, literally.
Mhmm.
That piece of sort of being on the front linesis is less part of my life now.
It's much more about judgment and decisionmaking and less about execution.
And then, I mean, the skill set that I had todevelop too in my doctor was like the
(34:05):
statistical skills.
So there needs to be, obviously, some type ofstatistical significance for it to be deemed
viable, at least when I was doing my So thatwas kind of difficult too because you have to
prove with some type of measurement that it isimportant enough to pursue, which I thought was
quite difficult, which is probably not the caseas much now, you know, but I I'd like to kind
(34:32):
of switch gears a little bit to the founder.
So we talked about the product, the novelty ofthe solution to maybe an opportunity or a
problem, but, you know, tell me a little moreabout some of the characteristics of the
founder that you've seen as a common patternfor success.
Yeah.
And these are gonna sound the same as what youprobably have had other venture capital folks
(34:57):
who invest seed ish.
Sure.
Yeah.
Having grit, being able to break through walls.
Right?
Those are kind of the common questions.
Yeah.
But but what else?
What's what's what else is kind of unique towhen you when you pick them?
We we talked about in person interactions.
Right?
What are some of the other attributes outsideof the the common, you know, outputs that I
(35:21):
hear from everybody?
Yeah.
Well, I think it is actually surprising to alot of people that biopharma folks, they think
of us as a bunch of scientists in a lab, thatis absolutely not what's happening, that we are
the same at that spot, which is we needfounders who have grit, who really believe in
(35:44):
what they're doing, and are coachable,flexible.
Some things that are slightly different, andthat depends on your fund, we are not looking
for team builders.
We do not have as a metric how many people haveyou hired.
You're like, what's your growth?
Almost the opposite.
(36:04):
We do not want to fund you hiring a ton ofpeople too early.
Instead, we really want you to focus on productdevelopment.
So at the end of the day, a lot of the peoplethat we're investing in do go back to what you
were pointing out, is they're
going
to be away from that vision and mission andsort of the rainbow kind of slides, and you're
(36:29):
going to see a lot more sort of 25 slides withdense, dense data that they're able to share
under a non confidential disclosure.
So they've got like, here's the data, here'sstatistically significant, here's the error
bars.
So there's going to be a lot more of that.
But otherwise, what we're looking for in termsof in
(36:49):
terms of
founder, is really the same.
At the seed stage, it's really hard.
It's really hard.
You gotta kind of keep it going in alldifferent eating a lot of plates, etcetera.
So I know we got a few minutes left.
I wanna touch on just being an emerging managerand what advice you'd give to emerging managers
(37:10):
that wanna build something.
Because congrats to you, Mary, on all thatyou've built, all that you've accomplished.
What you know, you let's say you got a littlebig, you know, a little brother or a little
sister kind of following you looking to kind ofbe your mentee or just kind of learn from you
and say, look, I want to launch a fund one day.
What what's maybe one or two pieces of, adviceyou'd give to them, to kinda just get get to
(37:34):
their first close or at least just come up withsome type of, strategy that differentiates?
Yeah.
I think there's a couple of just basictactical.
This has been a very difficult recentfundraising environment for a lot of emerging
managers just because we can talk about that ifthere's time.
(37:58):
Some people talk about a first close, buteverybody in the know, all of the other
emerging managers that I've talked to who arenot, you know, famous and already in the
mainstream slash a spin out from an establishedfund, just close.
To be in business, just close and invest.
(38:19):
Invest close.
Right?
Do not overthink it.
Again, that goes back to we are all seedfounders when we are emerging managers,
especially when you're doing your proof ofconcept fund, your fund zero, your fund one,
whatever you want to call it.
You're going to be going to your high net worthfolks and some of the family offices.
You can be strategic about your later stagefunds and follow the more typical guidelines,
(38:44):
but you have to just be a scrappy entrepreneurwhen you're first starting.
You're doing your fund for a reason.
You likely see a clear gap, So, make sure thatpeople can understand why you exist or do your
best.
For those groups that are just not getting whatyou're doing, just keep going, Just move on,
(39:06):
and you can come back to them later when youfigure out a better way to connect.
One other person pulled me aside early eightyears ago and was like, Okay, just keep in mind
that it is a numbers game.
I'm like, oh, yeah.
Numbers game.
What are you talking about?
So they're like, no.
No.
Listen.
You're gonna need to meet with a thousandpeople to get one check.
(39:30):
Run your numbers.
What are you gonna raise and how many peopleyou need to meet with and find introductions to
n of those people.
Sure.
And that
is literally what I've seen.
I've seen the same thing, with many of thesuper early managers.
You know, it's a volume game, and I would sayit's the same thing with any business, you
know, I mean, if you're doing B2B SaaS, there'sa close rate, right?
(39:53):
So you you're at a 25 to 30% close rate basedon how many calls you take.
So, there's a lot of parallels when it comes toto fundraising.
But anyways, Mary, this was amazing.
Thanks so much for unpacking, you know, all ofthe knowledge that you have.
I know I learned a lot, selfishly, this is,beneficial to me, but also beneficial to the
(40:14):
community.
So thanks at all that you're doing.
And look, you're you're backing companies thatare changing the world.
So thanks for doing that too, appreciate it.
Thank you.
And I'd love to talk to anybody who wants totalk more.
So hopefully we can connect.
Absolutely.
I'll share your contact info.
Thank you.
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