From Molecule to Market: What I Learned from Building Science into Business

My path into entrepreneurship began with a molecule: a radiopharmaceutical developed in-house and approaching patent protection. I wondered, what happens from patenting to clinic? As I moved through Lab2Launch, UBC’s life sciences venture incubator, I realized just how complex and vital that translation process truly is.

The Myth of a Linear Path

When I first entered the program, I assumed success in clinical trials would naturally lead to rapid adoption. I’ve since come to understand that a strong clinical outcome is only one part of the puzzle. Commercialization requires a layered strategy: regulatory approval, reimbursement, scale-up manufacturing, practitioner training, supply chain logistics, licensing, and more. That realization led me to pursue formal training in regulatory science, to better understand how decisions are made beyond the lab, and who they ultimately serve.

Through conversations with key stakeholders and interviews with industry experts, I revised my initial business case multiple times to ensure market alignment. What began as a scientific proposal evolved into a practical, patient-informed, and system-aware strategy for product development.

Learning to Think Beyond the Molecule

One of the most important lessons I learned through this process is that scientific innovation alone isn’t enough. Success in radiopharmaceuticals, or any ‘hard tech’ venture, depends on aligning science with infrastructure, policy, and people.

I came to appreciate how vital it is to build in-house expertise that spans not just chemistry and biology, but also regulatory science, animal care, GMP manufacturing, QA/QC, clinical trial management, intellectual property strategy, patient advocacy, and so on. Learning to navigate this ecosystem gave me a deeper appreciation of how ventures survive due to skillful management of technical excellence, integration and foresight.

This was also where my regulatory science training became invaluable: especially in understanding how clinical trial phases are designed, how pharmaceuticals are priced and reimbursed, and how agencies evaluate evidence long before a therapy reaches the bedside. I’ve written more about this on my Regulatory Science page, where I link to curated resources for scientists interested in regulatory careers.

CHEM540A and the Entrepreneurial Lens

To expand my thinking further, I enrolled in Entrepreneurship in Chemistry (UBC CHEM540A 2025), a course on science-driven entrepreneurship. While some of the material reinforced earlier learning, I found the finance and accounting content particularly useful in shaping my understanding of venture readiness. More than anything, the course gave me language and structure for evaluating opportunities, and introduced me to new collaborators in radiopharmaceutical development from across North America.

A Molecular View of Entrepreneurship

What’s stayed with me most is a shift in metaphor. In science, we talk about atoms and macromolecules: local effects scaling to systemic function. Entrepreneurship is similar. A venture doesn’t succeed because of any one element, but because each part supports and amplifies the others. Finance informs feasibility. Regulatory science informs process design. Chemistry informs good manufacturing practices. The sum, when aligned, becomes far more than its parts.

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