Bridging Science and Business in Healthcare Entrepreneurship
One of the most persistent challenges in healthcare and life science startups, particularly those built on university-generated technology, is crossing the so-called valley of death. This gap is often framed as a funding problem. In practice, it is more structural than financial.
The deeper issue is the lack of durable, meaningful touch points between scientists and business builders.
Universities produce an enormous volume of high-quality research. What they do not consistently produce are mechanisms that help that research translate into companies with a credible path to scale. This disconnect was the central thesis of a healthcare and life science entrepreneurship course taught by Brian Coe, a serial entrepreneur who has spent much of his career operating at the boundary between academia and company building.
The course was intentionally designed to confront this gap head-on.
Forcing the interface between science and business
The class was structured with roughly equal representation from scientists and business students. Half the room was made up of PhD candidates, post-doctoral researchers, and medical trainees. The other half came from a business background.
This was not accidental. The structure forced interaction between groups that often operate in parallel rather than together. Scientists were pushed to explain scientific work clearly and defend its real-world relevance. Business students were required to engage with the science directly rather than abstracting it away.
The discomfort this created early in the course was a feature, not a bug. It mirrored the reality of early-stage healthcare company formation, where progress depends on translation rather than specialization.
Learning to evaluate both the science case and the business case
The first half of the course focused on how to evaluate whether a technology actually works and why it matters. For business students, this meant learning how to interrogate scientific claims without becoming scientists themselves. For scientists, it meant seeing scientific work through the lens of risk, adoption, and value creation.
The midpoint of the course required teams to evaluate a recently initial public offering biotechnology company. This forced a shift from theoretical discussion to applied analysis. Teams had to assess clinical data, competitive positioning, regulatory pathways, and commercial logic in the context of a real company that had already faced public market scrutiny.
A consistent lesson emerged: strong science alone is not enough, and strong business logic cannot compensate for weak or undifferentiated science. In healthcare and life sciences, both must be present, and they must reinforce each other.
From evaluation to creation: licensing real university technology
The second half of the course moved from analysis to execution. Teams were required to identify a technology available for license from a university and rigorously evaluate its potential as the foundation for a new company.
This process was intentionally open-ended. Data was incomplete. Timelines were long. The path forward was ambiguous. Teams had to speak directly with inventors, technology transfer offices, clinicians, and domain experts to fill in gaps and test assumptions.
This was the most valuable part of the course. It made clear how much promising research exists that is simply waiting for capable, motivated people to engage with it seriously. It also made clear how quickly weak ideas fall apart when subjected to disciplined scrutiny.
Lessons from the process
Several themes emerged over the course of the work.
There is no shortage of high-quality research. Universities generate far more promising ideas than there are people willing or able to commercialize them. The constraint is not innovation, but ownership.
A viable healthcare company requires both a solid science case and a solid business case. Exceptional science without a path to value creation will not survive. Polished business plans without defensible science fail even faster.
When questions arise, the fastest way forward is often to find the person closest to the answer and ask them. This is especially true in academia. Most scientists are eager to discuss their work with someone who is genuinely curious and prepared.
Most ideas do not withstand serious evaluation. That is not a failure. It is the necessary filtering process that makes the eventual winners worth pursuing.
Personal connection to the work matters. Healthcare and life science ventures take time, and progress is often slow. Sustained engagement requires more than intellectual interest.
The people you choose to work with matter as much as the idea itself. Misalignment shows up early and compounds over time.
Many of the most durable healthcare businesses are not the most exciting on the surface. Predictable customers, clear reimbursement, and operational discipline often outperform novelty.
Analysis must eventually give way to action. Even a well-researched decision involves uncertainty. Waiting for complete certainty is a reliable way to ensure nothing gets built.
Closing reflection
What this experience reinforced is that healthcare and life science entrepreneurship is less about breakthroughs in isolation and more about translation. Progress happens when scientific rigor and business discipline meet early, often, and honestly.
Bridging that gap is not glamorous work, but it is where real value is created.
