Building Biotech Businesses - Introduction to This Masterclass

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Please make sure you download the workbook for this masterclass before beginning the lessons.
Immerse yourself in the wisdom of accomplished entrepreneurs who have conquered global markets out of Switzerland. The first masterclass, Building Biotech Businesses, is useful for anyone in biotech or life sciences, for students and entrepreneurs already active in these fields, and anyone with an interest in building a successful biotech company. The host of this masterclass is Ulf Grawunder, a highly successful biotech entrepreneur.
“I never regretted my switch from academia to business. Just do it, otherwise you will never know if your idea could have changed the world.”
Ulf Grawunder has co-founded several biotech companies including NBE-Therapeutics, a Swiss company developing antibody-drug conjugates for cancer treatment. As CEO, Ulf sold NBE-Therapeutics to Boehringer Ingelheim for $1.4 billion in 2021. His previous company 4-Antibody was acquired by U.S.-based Agenus for $50 million in 2014. In 2017, he co-founded T-CURX, a company that develops novel cell therapies for cancer treatments. Ulf serves on various boards of non-profit and for-profit life-science organizations and is vice-president and board member of the Swiss Biotech Association.
A biochemist by training with a PhD from the Basel Institute for Immunology, Ulf worked at Washington University School of Medicine (USA), the University of Southern California (USA) and the Basel Institute for Immunology. He also holds a Diploma of Technology Entrepreneurship from the University St. Gallen (HSG) and teaches an advanced program in BioEntrepreneurship at the Universita della Svizzera Italiana (USI).
This masterclass builds on Ulf’s experience building and selling several biotech businesses out of Switzerland. It is useful for anyone studying Life Sciences, entrepreneurs already active in the Life Sciences, and anyone with an interest in building a biotech company. Ulf shares his personal insights and learnings along his entrepreneurial journey in the following areas:
- Making the jump from academia to entrepreneurship
- The ins and outs of founding the first biotech startup from his research project
- Motivation and purpose that keep him going as an entrepreneur
- Mindsets and skills he finds useful in entrepreneurship
- Finance and fundraising in his biotech startups
- How he approaches innovation, R&D, and prototyping
- How production and distribution works in biotech
- How biotech entrepreneurs can market themselves and how to network
- Putting a price on an innovation in the biotech sector
- How to manage and motivate the team
- … and many more learnings along the way of building three successful companies
There is also a bonus chapter with a live coaching session, where Ulf coaches the startup NXI Therapeutics about questions of fund raising, organizational structure, and finding the right team members to grow the business.
“What I appreciate about being an entrepreneur is that everything goes much faster. The feedback, the reward, everything is much more immediate than what you experience in academic research.”
Your participation:
Throughout Ulf’s masterclass, the workbook asks you to think about your own biotech venture or business. As a result, you will walk away from each chapter with actionable items for your own business that you can tackle right away. Of course, there is no right or wrong in these end of chapter questions. They are there to reflect and help you consolidate the learnings.
Before we get started, a few more words from Ulf:
“If you have discovered an innovation that could be useful commercially, I can only encourage you to make that step from academic research to putting this into the marketplace. Simply for one reason: If you don’t do it, you might always think back later in ten or twenty years, what could have come out of this development and this innovation if I had turned this into a company.”
Welcome to Building Biotech Businesses with Ulf Grawunder!
This masterclass is made possible with the support of the Gebert-Rüf Stiftung.
Concept and production: 8GR8 Films | Manuel Stagars 2024.