The Ethics of Failure: Biotech’s Uncomfortable Bedfellow Failure is biotech’s least glamorous partner. It doesn’t show up in glossy investor decks or Nobel Prize speeches, but it’s there, lurking behind every pipeline and press release. For an industry that thrives on audacity—curing diseases, rewriting DNA,

Modern corporate life has evolved into a peculiar form of theatre: every actor dressed in Uniqlo smart casual, each line rehearsed via Slack, and every scene scored by a PowerPoint deck that ends with a slide titled Next Steps (which are never taken). And at the heart of this performance

The word investor has become unmoored. It used to mean something specific: a person or institution deploying capital with an expectation of financial return, ideally after having read at least one document longer than a pitch deck. Today, it means anyone who once wrote a €10k check into a pre-

To outsiders, the CEO title glows with a sort of untouchable glamour. Power. Prestige. The final say. To founders, it’s usually shorthand for: chief stress receptacle. It may look like the top of the pyramid, but it often feels like a bunker. You are the last line of defense

Biotech, more than most sectors, runs not just on capital—but on belief. And where belief goes, myths follow. Wrapped in jargon, PowerPoint gloss, and the occasional cameo from a Nobel laureate, the fundraising process in biotech has become less a rational exchange and more a high-stakes morality play.

One of the oddest things about biotech investing is how often everyone agrees. We agree on the hot areas. We agree on the problem statements. We agree that AI is important, that neuro is hard, that oncology is hot, and that “platforms” are more scalable than “one-trick ponies.” And

The myth of the one big exit is a seductive one. It is the fairytale biotech tells itself over and over: that success is a singular event, a sudden upward arc, a euphoric liquidity moment that transforms your life and validates your existence. The IPO bell rings, the champagne flows,

Patient advocacy. It sounds noble, doesn’t it? Empowering individuals to shape the medicines they desperately need, bringing the human side to drug development, and building bridges between lab coats and living rooms. Yet, for many biotech startups, it feels more like an awkward blind date: full of potential but

Biotech and insurance rarely appear in the same sentence unless one is covering the other. One traffics in breakthroughs and billion-dollar valuations. The other concerns itself with probabilities, premiums, and the statistically inevitable demise of us all. Yet, it might be time for biotech to stop aspiring to become

There is a moment in every biotech startup’s lifecycle where the champagne has been corked, the deck has been revised, and the last round has closed. The press release is out. The milestone has been hit. And then—utter silence. No new data for 12 months. No major inflection