MFN: What type of work do you do at the Massachusetts Life Science Center (MLSC)?
I am a Senior Investment Associate on the Industry Strategy & Investment team led by Dr. Carla Reimold at the MLSC. I collect information about all of the projects that our team has funded and analyze the metrics to identify impact, as well as gaps, in the ecosystem. We invest in life sciences sectors such as data science research, women’s health fields, novel therapeutics delivery, biomanufacturing, etc. We frequently co-invest with different partners and stakeholders, and all of them produce a lot of metrics. My role is to collect those metrics, allocate funding, and try to analyze the impact points because as a quasi-state agency, we want to show the impact on the community and patients’ lives. I identify those impact points, analyze the performance of our projects, and decide on how our investments are progressing within the ecosystem. We are currently collecting progress reports from more than 100 projects.
My second responsibility is managing the sponsorship of accelerator programs/ pitch competitions hosted by organizations such as Lever, M2D2, and Nucleate. For example, at Nucleate, entrepreneurs and graduate students come together to form life sciences ventures and then pitch their ideas at the end of the program. My responsibility is to manage those partnerships. I perform diligence on the finalists in the pitch competition, participate in the judging, and ultimately allocate funding to the winner(s) to help kick-start their venture and track their success.
The MLSC has invested millions of dollars in infrastructure—from core facilities to incubator space, and state-of-the-art equipment to support the life sciences ecosystem in Massachusetts. Our team created a unique searchable database, the Research Equipment Database (R.E.D.), for startups, research institutions, and all other key stakeholders of Massachusetts to search, find, and access MLSC-funded equipment that are all made publicly available through our investments.
I maintain this database, which is particularly valuable to the research community as entrepreneurs can often need help accessing expensive research equipment to advance their discoveries and technologies. Having a public resource like this is extremely valuable for them to continue to advance their innovations. We have close to 400 pieces of MLSC-funded equipment listed in the database available on a fee-for-service basis at non-profit institutions around the state.
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center serves a lot of different stakeholders- from STEM education to college internships, to incentives for large pharma/MedTech, but the overall goal can be summarized as promoting life sciences at all levels and growing Massachusetts’ leadership position in the field. We develop and track the progress of funding programs to ensure they’re on the right path and aligned with the future needs of this vibrant and ever-changing ecosystem.
MFN: With over 100 active projects each year, how are you able to effectively track all of the progress?
The Center consists of 25 people. We have a lot of internal experts who are quite helpful and with whom I partner closely. The Program Managers manage the operational aspects of these programs and I support them in tracking project progress. We also continuously iterate the questions being asked of the awardees and have spent a considerable amount of effort automating the process.
MFN: How do you analyze the impact of a program? What challenges have you come across?
When we talk about life sciences, these are not instant impact points, right? We can expect some initial results in 1-2 years, but drug development processes can take up to 10-20 years before hitting the market. Showing the direct impact of our investments is not as easy as one might think given the lengthy timeline. However, we try to identify metrics that indicate that these projects are outperforming their peers. We also survey past applicants and awardees to ensure we are developing programs that meet the ecosystem’s needs.
For our funding programs that target non-profit research organizations and academic medical centers, we track similar outcomes to those collected by comparable funding agencies like the National Institutes of Health; such as follow-on funding, publications, intellectual property, etc. and try to establish quantitative KPIs. If these projects start to produce these metrics, then we can start to analyze the progress that may eventually impact the ecosystem.
With active projects, we collect reports every six months. During the application process, we identify subject matter experts to serve on review panels to analyze the large amount of information available. The awarded projects usually run for about two years but, we collect progress reports for up to five years to track long-term performance.
MFN: What is the most important part about tracking projects?
It boils down to the fact that sometimes you need to take a step back and look at whether there is a gap in the actual ecosystem, such as women’s health, where there is an incredible need for funding. It’s a field that has been ignored for decades and therefore does not attract a lot of funding at the federal or private level. Tracking projects in a field like this is all about building one-on-one interactions with entrepreneurs and understanding why they’re pursuing a project. We must be taking into account the societal impact, rather than just focusing on the outcome metrics. I think it’s also really important to know your stakeholders, who to talk to, and who the key opinion leaders are while establishing the KPIs for every program.
MFN: What led you to this type of work?
I came here to the United States from Germany, to begin my Ph.D. I worked for a venture capitalist as an analyst for a year during my master’s in Germany, and I tried to establish my own startup during my college years. I had a lot of interaction and interest in entrepreneurship in life sciences.
I want to create an impact. I wanted to interact with more people and see what opportunities there were. I wanted to make the thing that I’m working on in the lab valuable for the community. As you’re getting your Ph.D. you’re so focused on publishing, that I felt like I was not living my life to the best of my abilities and decided to take a leave of absence.
I came across this job at the MLSC which piqued my interest because I wanted to see as many scientific advancements as I could and it allowed me to have that level of communication with inventors and entrepreneurs. I feel more satisfied with my life now. Returning to my Ph.D. is always an option for me. I am a scientist and I always think scientifically, but being a part of a great community and helping hundreds of scientists/entrepreneurs is extremely rewarding.
