Announcing the 2022 Founder-Led Biotech Summit

October 2, 2022

BOSTON, October 3, 2022 — Pillar VC and Petri have announced the 2022 Founder-Led Biotech Summit will take place during the week of October 31–November 4. This free, virtual event will be open to biotech founders, PhDs, scientists, investors, and leaders from anywhere in the world. 

 

“When I first entered biotech I was shocked to realize that despite the feeling of rapid scientific progress, the rate of new companies has stalled,” said Tony Kulesa, principal at Pillar VC and co-founder of Petri, in a post about the 2022 Founder-Led Biotech Summit. “The rate of company creation is stuck at  approximately 300 companies per year, in an industry where we graduate over 10,000 PhDs per year, have 80,000 research faculty, and spend tens of billions on government sponsored R&D.”

 

He added, “Our mission is to fix this. We want to see more great biotechnology companies in the world, faster. We launched the Founder-Led Biotech Summit to bring this community together to exchange ideas, support, and open up access to funding.”

 

The 2022 Founder-Led Biotech Summit will feature talks from dozens of biotech founders and leaders, including:

 

  • Emily Leproust, Co-founder and CEO, Twist Bioscience
  • Jake Becraft, Co-founder and CEO, Strand Therapeutics

  • Seemay Chou, Co-founder, CEO, and Board Member, Arcadia

  • Sri Kosuri, Co-founder and CEO, Octant Bio

  • Alec Nielsen, Founder and CEO, Asimov

  • Josh Mandel-Brehm, President and CEO, Camp4 Therapeutics

  • Jasmin Hume, Founder and CEO of Shiru

  • Kevin Parker, Co-founder and CEO Cartography 

 

Last fall, more than 1,600 people attended the inaugural Founder-Led Biotech Summit. Two-thirds of these attendees were founders or prospective founders.

 

To register for the Founder-Led Biotech Summit, visit https://founderledbio.com/.

 

About Pillar VC

Pillar VC is an early-stage venture firm co-founded by 22 CEOs who have built Boston’s most successful companies, including the leaders of Wayfair, Ginkgo Bioworks and DraftKings. Pillar is typically the first capital in for founders building next-generation pillar companies; the firm’s investments include PillPack, Desktop Metal, Algorand, Hometap, Jellyfish and Asimov, among other companies. 

 

In 2021, Pillar announced $192 million of capital for Pillar III and Pillar Select, the firm’s latest venture funds. To learn more, visit www.pillar.vc.