Nucleate Launches Second Entrepreneurial Scientist Playbook on Operationalizing Your Therapeutics Spinout
Nucleate, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering tomorrow’s biotech leaders by educating today’s academic trainees, is delighted to announce the release of their second Entrepreneurial Scientist Playbook, “Operationalizing Your Therapeutics Spinout.” This effort, driven by Nucleate’s Research Initiative, received generous support from Schmidt Futures. The Playbook’s content was developed with invaluable contributions from Alexandria LaunchLabs and Curie.Bio, whose partnership, alongside insights from extensive expert interviews, were instrumental in its creation. As with all Nucleate initiatives, this playbook is free and publicly available.
Nucleate is thrilled to offer open-access resources to the community through its Research Initiative, a global effort that provides context and understanding to the complex landscape of biotech education. In line with Schmidt Futures’ mission to support exceptional people working to solve hard problems in science and society, Nucleate aims to support the next generation of life science talent from academic labs worldwide to tackle the world’s pressing biomedical and ecological challenges.
“Nucleate’s Entrepreneurial Scientist Playbooks fill essential knowledge gaps for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows transitioning from academic research to successful companies,” said Sammi Sison, Co-President and Founding EVP of the Research Initiative at Nucleate. “I am thrilled to launch our second playbook, “Operationalizing Your Therapeutics Spinout”, which addresses strategies to support translating academic research into spinout companies, a highly underserved area for life science founders. I am incredibly proud to provide this resource as an open-source resource for the community.”
The “Operationalizing Your Therapeutics Spinout” playbook explores the process of operationalizing a therapeutic spinout as entrepreneurial scientists translate their research out of academia and into their own companies, from founding the company all the way to moving into independent lab space. To gather information for the playbook, a duo of fellows — Collin Spencer and Samson Mataraso — conducted interviews with leading startup founders, operators, and venture capitalists in biotech. They synthesized their expert interviews and existing resources to create a practical guide for early-stage founders, covering essential operational strategies ranging from therapeutics business models to organizational management.
“Academic founders often struggle with the transition from an academic lab to an incorporated entity with independent lab space. As academic trainees, we receive little training in the business basics and strategies needed for company creation, and there are few consolidated, publicly available resources. Our goal is to equip academic founders with the essentials of therapeutics company creation and actionable advice for their early-stage venture journey,” said Collin Spencer, the Operations Playbook Co-Lead Author and Mount Sinai PhD candidate.
“We hope this resource will be invaluable to founders facing common operational challenges as they spin out their companies. We are profoundly grateful for the support from Schmidt Futures, our content partners Alexandria LaunchLabs and Curie.Bio, and the experts we interviewed, who have been instrumental in developing this open-access resource,” said Samson Mataraso, the Operations Playbook Co-Lead Author and Stanford PhD candidate.
The full Operationalizing Your Therapeutics Spinout Playbook can be accessed on Nucleate’s website here.
Read more about the Nucleate Entrepreneurial Scientist Playbooks here.
Questions about Nucleate’s Playbooks can be directed to research@nucleate.org.
About Nucleate
Nucleate is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering the next generation of biotech leaders. With chapters spanning 38 geographic regions and participation from over 280 academic institutions, Nucleate sparks new intellectual communities and embeds emerging talent within a global biotech community. Through open-access educational programming, Nucleate helps democratize biotech innovation — removing barriers and helping founders concentrate on building transformational technologies.
Nucleate’s programs are made possible thanks to our generous HQ sponsors: Eli Lilly and Company (Platinum), Genentech (Platinum), Pillar VC (Platinum), Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Platinum), BlueYard Capital (Platinum), MilliporeSigma (Platinum), Biocom California (Silver), Breakout Ventures (Silver), Schrödinger (Silver), Cromatic (Silver), Sanofi (Silver), PHCbi (Silver), Molecule (Silver), Schmidt Futures (Philanthropic), Lyda Hill Philanthropies (Philanthropic).
Visit www.nucleate.org for more information, and email contact@nucleate.org if you want to get involved with our programming.
About Schmidt Futures
Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt that bets early on exceptional people making the world better. They knit talent into networks, bet on the most promising ideas through diverse forms of competition and support, and equip people to scale through partners and modern tools. To realize this vision, Schmidt Futures uses a broad set of tools — including gifts, grants, other capital structures, and startup activity — for charitable, educational, and commercial efforts with a public purpose.
About Alexandria LaunchLabs
Alexandria LaunchLabs, created by the pioneer of mission-critical Labspace® real estate, is the premier life science startup platform purpose-built to accelerate the growth of transformative early-stage companies, empowering the advancement of groundbreaking discoveries within Alexandria’s thriving life science ecosystems in New York City, Cambridge, Research Triangle, Seattle and Stanford Research Park. Alexandria LaunchLabs is unmatched in equipping early-stage life science companies with dedicated laboratory/office space and core equipment, vital operational services, curated introductions to our preeminent network, access to capital through Alexandria Venture Investments and the Alexandria Seed Capital Platform and expert support from our best-in-class teams — all developed to provide our curated community of member companies with a scalable path for growth.
About Curie.Bio
Curie.Bio redefines venture capital in biotech by helping founders launch therapeutics companies through a unique combination of drug discovery support and seed investment. Their team of world-class experts works closely with founders to choose therapeutic targets, set milestones, design experimental plans, and select vendors, providing hands-on support throughout the early-stage venture journey. This approach ensures significant progress on lead programs while maintaining capital efficiency, resulting in better terms for Series A and Series B funding. With a proven track record of bringing over 150 drugs to the clinic and founding biotech companies valued at over $30 billion, Curie.Bio aims to unlock innovation by creating more founders and supporting scientists with groundbreaking ideas.
