The biotech startup world has changed a ton in the last 7 years. However, the biotech startup world is a completely different one than the tech startup world,

The biotech startup world has changed a ton in the last 7 years. However, the biotech startup world is a completely different one than the tech startup world, and the tech press doesn't really talk much about biotech startups that aren't AI/ML related or funded by traditional tech VCs. $17B was invested in biopharma startups in 2018 [0]. Less than 10% of that came from traditional "tech" VCs. Most of these companies are traditional drug development companies pursuing new ways to treat cancer, rare disease, autoimmune disease and neurodegenerative disease. If you're interested in learning more about these companies, i maintain a database of recently funded biotech startups with some stats on what type of companies get funded [6] 10 years ago, a biotech startup was basically an external R&D program for big pharma. If there was an asset or area of biology that was interesting but too risky for pharma, a VC would start a company to develop that asset until the big risks were taken out, and then big pharma would buy the company. The VC would hire big pharma managers and scientists to run the program, which makes sense as it is basically a carve out of a big pharma program Today, startups are much more ambitious. They are developing powerful platforms that can support real companies, not just flipping assets to pharma. They are increasingly exploring new types of drugs: gene therapy, cell therapy, microbiome therapy, synthetic biology platforms. Pharma has no expertise in these areas, so some startups could build very valuable independent companies here. Many startups are now commercializing products on their own, which was unheard of 10 years ago. Some of these companies are working on amazing science. There is so much exciting stuff happening in biology and bioengineering. The tech press focuses more on stuff like AI/ML, which is definitely interesting, but IMO that stuff is probably like the fourth or fifth coolest thing happening in biotech right now. When you read about AI/ML in traditional biotech press, most of the articles are about why it won't work. People are much more excited about other stuff If you are interested in learning more about the biotech startup world, you can check out Endpoints News [1], FierceBiotech [2], and STAT [3]. These are some of the more popular startup news sources in biotech I wrote a few articles about the "old" biotech startup model [4] and how that model is changing and will change in the future [5] if you're interested in more on what's changing now in biotech [0] https://www.baybridgebio.com/1h2019_report https://www.baybridgebio.com/1h2019_report [1] https://endpts.com/ https://endpts.com/ [2] https://www.fiercebiotech.com/ https://www.fiercebiotech.com/ [3] https://www.statnews.com/ https://www.statnews.com/ [4] https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/young_founders_2.html https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/young_founders_2.html [5] https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/young_founders_3.html https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/young_founders_3.html [6] https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/recently_funded_biotech_startups.html https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/recently_funded_biotech_st...