For scientific founders, moving from academia into a biotech startup means turning personal expertise into organizational capability.

In this episode of The Emerging Biotech Leader, Kim Kushner is joined by Samir Ounzain, co-founder and CEO of HAYA Therapeutics, to look at how the founder's role changes as the science becomes a company and the team grows around it.

One of the biggest changes for Samir was moving from the more open-ended nature of academic research to a much more deliverable-oriented way of working. In a biotech, the science ultimately has to become a product. That quickly takes you beyond any one person's expertise. The founder who is used to being an executor has to become a facilitator and enabler, bringing together the expertise needed to move the work forward.

Taking a scientific idea from research into a company requires conviction. You have to believe enough in the idea to build a company around it, without becoming so attached to it that you stop listening to what the evidence is telling you. HAYA itself grew from questioning established assumptions about biology, including the idea that much of the non-protein-coding genome was simply “junk.” The lesson carries beyond the science. Conviction still needs to respond to what the evidence tells you.

As the company grows, the CEO can't be involved in every decision. People need enough context to understand what they're working toward and enough autonomy to make decisions where the information actually sits. The idea is “context over control” and building a team that is “highly aligned but loosely coupled.”

In biotech, perfection is unrealistic. What you can build is an organization that learns quickly and keeps moving.

Listen to the full episode for the full conversation.