Building

Building Things That Help Science Move Forward

I have always been drawn to building things that do not yet exist.

Sometimes that has meant creating a physical home for early-stage biotechnology companies. Sometimes it has meant bringing public and private partners together around a new investment fund. In other cases, it has involved helping founders, researchers, investors, universities, companies, and government leaders recognize that they are working toward the same goal, even when they approach it from very different perspectives.

The common thread is a belief that excellent science is necessary, but rarely sufficient on its own.

For discoveries to become companies, medicines, technologies, and to deliver lasting public benefit, they need the right environment around them. They need space, funding, mentorship, institutional support, trusted relationships, and people who can translate between different professional worlds.

Much of my career has been devoted to creating those conditions.

Lab Launch

When I began working in the Los Angeles biotechnology community, early-stage life science companies faced a basic but serious problem: there were very few places where a young company could begin laboratory operations without raising substantial capital simply to open its doors.

Lab Launch was created to address that gap.

The idea was straightforward: provide emerging biotechnology companies with access to shared laboratory infrastructure, equipment, community, and support so that founders could focus their resources on advancing the science.

But the larger purpose went beyond providing benches and equipment. A successful biotechnology ecosystem needs places where people can meet, exchange ideas, find collaborators, recruit talent, connect with investors, and learn from others facing similar challenges. Lab Launch became part of that connective infrastructure for the growing Los Angeles life science community.

Building it required scientific understanding, entrepreneurship, real estate development, fundraising, community building, and a willingness to solve practical problems as they appeared. It also reinforced an idea that has shaped much of my subsequent work: sometimes the most important innovation is not a single technology, but the platform that allows many technologies and companies to develop.

MarsBio

The MarsBio - Los Angeles Biotech Innovation Fund grew from another gap in the regional ecosystem.

Los Angeles had (and continues to have) extraordinary scientific institutions, talented researchers, and a growing population of biotechnology entrepreneurs. What it lacked was enough locally focused early-stage capital capable of understanding and supporting companies emerging from that research base.

MarsBio was created as a unique public-private partnership Venture Fund to help address that need.

Developing the fund required bringing together investors, government, universities, entrepreneurs, and regional economic-development interests. These groups did not always use the same language or define success in the same way. The work involved finding the point at which their interests aligned: supporting promising science, creating companies, attracting investment, retaining talent, and strengthening the region’s biotechnology economy.

For me, MarsBio demonstrated the potential of public-private partnerships when they are designed around a genuinely shared objective. Public institutions can help establish the conditions for long-term growth. Private investors bring discipline, expertise, and capital. Universities generate discoveries and talent. Entrepreneurs turn opportunities into organizations.

When those elements work together, they can create something that none could build alone.

Building an Innovation Ecosystem

Individual companies matter, but they do not succeed in isolation.

They depend on networks of researchers, founders, investors, advisers, service providers, universities, hospitals, corporations, and public institutions. Strong innovation regions develop when those networks become dense enough, and trusted enough, that ideas, talent, knowledge, and capital can move between them.

My work in Southern California has included supporting founders, mentoring companies, connecting investors with emerging technologies, developing new programs, and helping strengthen relationships between universities and the wider biotechnology community.

I am particularly interested in the less visible parts of ecosystem building. A single introduction can lead to a collaboration. A shared laboratory can allow a company to begin operating months earlier. A new fund can give a promising technology the opportunity to reach its next milestone. A partnership between a university and a company can open an entirely new path for research.

These interventions may appear small when viewed individually. Together, they help determine whether innovation takes root and grows.

Sometimes the most important innovation is not a single technology, but the platform that allows many technologies and companies to develop.

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