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November 9, 2021 7 mins

After graduating from the University of South Dakota, Sue Lancaster jumped into the local biotech community to help bring a variety of products to market, which has included technologies from two faculty at South Dakota State University. Learn more about her career journey and other fun details on this intermission!      

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Aaron Harmon (00:00):
Welcome to Inside Out quality intermissions, where
we give you a closer look at thepeople who make this podcast
possible and short features oflocal professionals in the
biotech industry. Welcome toInside Out quality
intermissions. Here today withus is Sue Lancaster. She is the
VP of Corporate Development andstrategy for South Dakota

(00:21):
innovation partners. And I'vebeen able to talk her into being
on this show. Thanks for havingme. My podcast debut. Nice,
cool. It is a very fun process.
I'm excited. So tell us what youdo for a career.

Sue Lancaster (00:34):
So simply put, I commercialized research to a
scale that solves globalchallenges. more complex than
that. I identify probably moreso as an entrepreneur. But I
work at South Dakota innovationpartners, which is an early
stage investment capital groupthat is also a startup
management company. My entirecareer has been built around two

(00:56):
portfolio companies where Ispend all my time and have spent
all my time med gene Labs, whichis the state's first USDA
licensed vaccine facility and aleader in the new field of
prescription vaccines, andPrairie AquaTech, which is a
precision fermentation companyusing a proprietary process to
make high quality plant basedingredients.

Aaron Harmon (01:17):
And do you remember on episode one of
season one for this podcast, wehad Prairie AquaTech on the
show?

Sue Lancaster (01:25):
That's right, Stephanie. Good.

Aaron Harmon (01:28):
It was a lot of fun.

Sue Lancaster (01:29):
She's great.

Aaron Harmon (01:29):
Definitely. I still remember that. Where did
you go to college?

Sue Lancaster (01:33):
I went to the University of South Dakota, both
for my undergraduate and mygraduate degree, biomedical
engineering.

Aaron Harmon (01:39):
Very nice. How did you end up where you are now,
like after graduate school,

Sue Lancaster (01:43):
that's a little bit of a long story. But I went
to a local biotech conferencewhen I was finishing my graduate
degree. And there was apresentation by a managing
director Mark Lukey, of SouthDakota innovation partners about
research commercialization. Andwe got connected because he has
a finance and investment bankingbackground. And he needed

(02:06):
someone that had a technicalbackground to start evaluating
these ideas coming out ofuniversities. And so he gave me
a phone call. And I decided,sure, I'd intern while I
finished my master's thesis. Andonce I finished that I was
offered a position and Ithought, you know, maybe I'll go
to Boston Scientific, orMedtronic, do something out of

(02:29):
larger medical device company.
But my dad said, theseopportunities don't come around
all the time. So I decided totake a risk. So a little bit of
risk and a little bit ofserendipity.

Aaron Harmon (02:40):
It's very exciting to see both pre Aqua tech and
merging both of the faculty fromthe from South Coast University
that are involved with theirwere in the program back when I
was in graduate school at SDSU.
And so it's been so fun watchingthem go from these university
faculty to people developingbusinesses that are employers in
South Dakota and really gettheir products out there.

Sue Lancaster (03:01):
Now appreciate that. It's it's been quite a
journey, and it is really coolto see things come to life.

Aaron Harmon (03:06):
If you could be any animal, what would it be?
Oh,

Sue Lancaster (03:10):
my daughter would want me to say a jaguar. So I'll
say a jaguar.

Aaron Harmon (03:14):
Do you use emojis in email?

Sue Lancaster (03:16):
No. I'll put in text. I rarely use an emoji.
Yes, I

Aaron Harmon (03:21):
think evokes an emoji.

Sue Lancaster (03:23):
I typically not.
It's just one of those things Ido not do. So this

Aaron Harmon (03:27):
has to be like, like a career development thing?
I guess. So. Like, at least alittle smiley face now and then
I'll work

Sue Lancaster (03:35):
on it. I'll take that as an action item.

Aaron Harmon (03:39):
Do you name your cars? Yeah, I believe you share
the name of your car with us.

Sue Lancaster (03:47):
It's kind of a family. Or deal. My daughter is
named my car, the silver puppyand our other color red hot.

Aaron Harmon (03:58):
I like it. Car naming is fun. It is for sure.
What have been one of yourcareer highlights up to now.

Sue Lancaster (04:05):
I would say my career highlight would be it's
really cool to take somethingthat was an idea on a piece of
paper. And say that you havethis mission of commercializing
something that is going toimpact on a global scale and to
look back over 10 years andthink that's pretty cool. We've
been able to do that. I meanpart on that's, that's the
highlight of my career.

Aaron Harmon (04:27):
That was really neat to see. There's something
special about seeing product outin the world that you helped
create.

Sue Lancaster (04:32):
Absolutely, and all the details it takes to just
to get that there you know, assimple as a product may be or as
more complex as it might be.
It's just to get it intosomebody's hands and have an
impact. It's pretty cool.

Aaron Harmon (04:43):
If you could choose a superpower, what would
you pick? Mind reader how wouldyou define quality?

Sue Lancaster (04:53):
Quality is meeting my expectations and
exceeding my customersexpectations.

Aaron Harmon (04:59):
Do you think like The mind reading thing was like
be problematic, like a mall,like you're walking around, you
just see all this stuff.

Sue Lancaster (05:05):
It'd be a lot of noise. I mean, there'd have to
be a filter. Totally.

Aaron Harmon (05:08):
Okay. We're coming up to the holidays. Is there a
favorite holiday that you have?
I love Thanksgiving. You haveany traditions around
Thanksgiving,

Sue Lancaster (05:16):
we go out to a family farm. And it's just a lot
of food and a lot of enjoyingthe outdoors going for family,
walk, hike, etc. That thatdefinitely be my favorite and I
love fall.

Aaron Harmon (05:29):
I I like fall to write definitely one of my
favorites. What do you wantlisteners to know about the
South Dakota biotech community?

Sue Lancaster (05:37):
I think it's important for listeners to know
that the community in biotech isgrowing. And it also wants you
whether you're a student or abusiness or someone in biotech,
they want you to be successful.
And there's a lot of growingbusinesses to create
opportunities for the nextgeneration. But there's also a
lot of programs to help peoplethat maybe aren't as in tune
with what's going on in biotechto educate themselves and also

(05:59):
be part of that community.

Aaron Harmon (06:03):
So if I understand where things are correctly,
yeah, very Aqua tech is sellingproducts globally. Yes. You
started your education in SouthDakota, an opportunity right now
in your career, and in thatprocess, been able to help take
products made in our state anddistributed globally? Yes, 100%.
That's a really neat thing tosee over a very short career. I

(06:25):
thought it's not like you're 60years old or anything? Not

Sue Lancaster (06:28):
yet. Not yet.
Anyway, I hope you keep doingmore of it. Well,

Aaron Harmon (06:32):
thank you for being on the podcast.

Sue Lancaster (06:34):
Thanks for having me.

Aaron Harmon (06:35):
And stay tuned for the next episode of Inside Out
quality. We hope you enjoyedthis episode. This is brought to
you thanks to South Dakotabiotech Association. If you have
a story you'd like us to exploreand share, let us know by
visiting www. SD bio.org. Also,if you live in the Sioux Falls
area, check out quit a localQuality Assurance Professionals

(06:55):
Network. You can find out moreabout COBIT by clicking on the
link on our website too. Thanksfor listening
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