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| From Scientist to Entrepreneur |
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That the path from scientist to entrepreneur rarely runs smoothly is a truism highly relevant to the status of technology in these early years of the 21st century.
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| In 1998, Ronit Sagi-Eisenberg ventured outside the "safety" of her research lab to found the biopharmaceutical company Allergene. The company focuses on developing cures for a wide spectrum of allergic diseases — from what laypersons might define as "the common allergic cold" to chronic diseases such as asthma. Allergene's novel anti-allergy and anti-inflammatory therapies are based on Sagi-Eisenberg's singular discovery of a concept to block onset of the allergic reaction at a very early stage and thereby prevent the consequential inflammatory side reactions.
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Much has been written about how to make the transition from lab to boardroom, and there are a profusion of seminars and courses on entrepreneurship specifically designed for academics looking to develop technologies outside the petri dish. Both government-sponsored and private technological incubator programs continue to provide scientists with the infrastructure, funding, and human resources to negotiate that path, assuming of course that the applications of their technology have commercial promise.
Yet how many non-scientists understand the inner push and pull of a scientist who has made the crossover but sometimes still yearns for the pure thrill of publishing the results of what grew out of that petri dish, rather than having to maintain absolute secrecy so as not to harm the future of his or her company?
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Scientist and entrepreneur Ronit Sagi-Eisenberg, a professor at the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Medicine, wears her two hats with pride and not without a little conflict, as she described during a recent lecture on the issue of entrepreneurship within an academic career. She considers this dual pull a kind of schizophrenia.
| | Defining Goals |
"The academic in me seeks universal mechanisms, where the working system is only the working model. In contrast, as an entrepreneur I am in search of the unique. The working system is also the target, in my case representing Allergene's objective." She elaborates, "The sky is the limit for an academic when engaging in research: the more complex the technologies, the better the system. Take genetic manipulations: you overexpress proteins or you suppress them, you activate them, or you truncate them. You have overactive mutants and inactive mutants — you just tell me what to do and I will do it. But the entrepreneur needs to bear in mind that it is highly unlikely that genetic therapy will serve as the medicine of choice when you suffer from a common cold."
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| Getting There |
Sagi-Eisenberg goes on to explain that "the scientist's continual desire is to move on to new challenges and new horizons; however, the entrepreneur needs to focus and concentrate on those little details such as 'Will a slight change in solubility enhance efficiency? Will it improve its stability?' To complicate matters even further, the scientist's ambition is to publish #151; as much and as quickly as possible — but the entrepreneur insists on absolute confidentiality. No papers, no articles, and not even lectures at scientific conferences."
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| Sharing Space
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Sagi-Eisenberg points out that it takes quite some time for the scientist and the entrepreneur to adjust to each other and to learn how to coexist under one roof.
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What is most important is to learn how to help each other. The scientist helps the entrepreneur to keep an open mind, provides constant updates on technological developments, and enriches the company's intellectual capital. And the entrepreneur helps the scientist remember that her work is not necessarily for the sheer satisfaction of surmounting intellectual challenges — for that, one can solve a crossword puzzle — but that her talents and abilities can and must be directed towards finding the solutions that will help create a healthier society. Gradually you realize that a successful experiment can be far more rewarding than the publication of a new article.
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| Living in Perfect Harmony
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Allergene is now three years old and the company is entering pre-clinical development trials for several anti-allergic drugs. Sagi-Eisenberg has moved far in her search for the cure and seems to be reaching a harmonious agreement with her two selves. "With the encouragement of Tamar Raz (Allergene's CEO), the rest of the Allergene team, and the support of the RAD-RAMOT Biomedical Incubator, the scientist and the entrepreneur are now almost entirely united and looking forward to helping Allergene find the cure for allergy-related illnesses," she concludes.
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| A Trendlines Postscript
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It is sometimes hard to receive respect as an entrepreneur when you come in from the lab. Investors and strategic partners are often wary of someone at the helm of a start-up with no proven record of business, marketing, or finance. According to one technological incubator director, "a scientist may have great ideas, but it's very difficult to get an investor interested." Recruiting key personnel who possess business expertise can only be good for your company, good for your investors, and good for the commercialization prospects of that great discovery.
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The Trendletter team welcomes your comments.
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