How can you encourage innovation in your biotech startup?

Through my experience multi disciplinary teams and teams from diverse backgrounds bring their own perspective see problems that others don't due to lived experience or direct problems with family members or their communities that others havent had the exposure too. This exposure brings light new problems and new solutions. I have seen teams work together for 3 months and come up with several solutions. Biotech in the early days is all about exploration and experimentation but as you grow the key is to maintain that culture.

Unfortunately that just doesn't happen a lot. Homogeneous panels of career folk don't really want a fly in the ointment, grist in the mill type character in my opinion. Why trouble yourselves by someone who would make you look intellectually lightweight, if your patterns of behaviour and pathways of learning and CPD indicate content with the status quo. Mediocre but steady and unchallenging is favoured by many would be my observation here.

In my experience, strong fundamental education of the candidates is the most important component. I've seen many teams suffer from scientifically incompetent management. It discourages young professionals from speaking up, pitching ideas, and experimenting. Diversity is great, as soon as everyone knows what they are talking about.

Many biotech startups have been established by teams with a strong scientific background, but often lack expertise in areas such as marketing, management, finance, administration, and even entrepreneurship. Therefore, when developing skills for biotech startup teams, it is essential to provide them with knowledge in these areas as well. This will enable the team to bridge the gap between their products and the market, understand where the market opportunities lie, identify their target customers, efficiently utilize resources for optimal results, manage their budgets effectively, promote their products, and handle customer relationships.

Develop training programs specifically tailored to the unique needs and goals of your team. Include topics relevant to current biotech trends, emerging technologies, and essential soft skills like critical thinking and problem-solving. Pair team members with experienced mentors within or outside the organization. Mentorship can provide guidance, career development insights, and valuable networking opportunities. Give team members autonomy in managing certain projects. This empowerment can boost their confidence and willingness to innovate and take calculated risks. Cultivate an environment where feedback is welcomed and valued. Regular check-ins and open discussions about ongoing projects can foster creative risk-taking.

I find that Innovation and particularly business Strategy are poorly taught, if at all, in UK Universities. Not being able to assess Market opportunities, product fit and assess a wide range of possibilities holds back a lot of 'high knowledge' startups in my opinion. Speaking in a way that the Investment community understands and can relate to would open up significantly more funding opportunities too...allowing multi disciplinary teams to be recruited and nurtured and potentially providing a moat, in terms of time as much as anything else, for new ideas to fully developed and explored.

It is excruciatingly hard for scientists to bridge their training gap in business and people management. But when they do, it makes them great leaders: they understand the subject matter and the team building. So, it would be very nice if you put business development people with scientists together, so they exchange skills and knowledge.

Innovation can have a handsome payoff when successful, but it is very risky. Leaders need to find ways to reward not just when their team succeeds, but also when they fail (which will be the norm, not the exception). The problem can be summed up by this statement: "the bonus I get for success is not worth losing my job over failure." How can this be overcome? This ultimately needs to be set at the top. CEOs have to motivate their VPs and Directors appropriately to take measured risks. There are many ideas on the how, and it's up to the C-suite to figure this out in partnership with other leaders in their company. This is rare, but it glorious when it works!

To fund and reward innovation can be done in many ways. In the early days it is the life blood of the innovation but as you grow R&D can be replicated by similar R&D heavy institutions or corporates such as a university or Pharma company structure. Create an R&D devision that looks to develop on top of the existing technology or the capability benefit of collaborating with another existing startup for mutual benefit both validating your technology and providing extra functionality, insight or capabilities to your existing service or product and in some instances creating a whole new product through the collaboration. This can show benefit as a new product, license opportunities, new distribution channels or a new customer base.

Prizes are interesting. A lesser known fact is that Jonny Ive, one of the great drivers of modern Innovation at Apple and a significant landmark for social mobility having being educated in the (educationally) unfashionable UK towns and cities of Chingford, Stafford and Newcastle, first made the business connections that resulted in him being on the Board of Apple for over a decade, through winning early career Design competitions. One of these provided a bursary to visit the US for the first time and the seeds were sown (***** Kearney's biography of Ive) The design of the iconic red Post Box and Longitude were breakthroughs made through open Competitions. Universities too have often benefited from sponsored seats of learning - research.

Just like with the planes that returned from the raid: you should be looking for what could have gone wrong in addition to what went right. The fundamentals: Transparency and Trust. Incentives are worth nothing without trust. Be very clear in words and on paper(!) what rewards people will get for their projects ahead of time. I had so many experiences where young scientists got screwed over or stopped innovating because they felt excluded. Be a better boss, give forward, and make the team feel the ownership of the company/project, so they own the risks, successes, and failures.

Innovation involves creating synergies, working with team members, and learning from each other. It involves capturing signals, testing concepts, and providing a safe environment for experimentation. This approach fosters mutual understanding, encourages experimentation, and encourages the exploration of possible futures in a risk-free context.

This process could be catalyzed by the "bridge" people - specialists who have expertise in two or more fields. They are rare, but they exist. And when they land in between the teams, they become an interlink, and networking and insights pour out faster and faster. So, one way to do it is to become the interlink - step into the gap between the areas, and learn both fields. If it is not you, then who?

This approach has a dichotomy: many of your "temporary" solutions will stay for many iterations and can become a standard. So, choose wisely what goes into the prototype. Sometimes, going too lean or agile comes at a cost in later stages.

Many of the points above resonate. My two cents... Encouraging innovation in your biotech startup requires fostering motivation among team members. All innovation matters, regardless of its specific function, as long as it contributes to the overarching cause of advancing science and ultimately improving patient outcomes. By creating a supportive environment, setting clear goals, and valuing creative thinking, you can empower your team to innovate more, and push the needle. It all comes down to empowerment.