The venture capital industry has long operated on a transactional model: evaluate the science, assess the team, write the check, and monitor progress through quarterly board meetings. This approach may work for software startups, but it fundamentally misaligns with biotechnology development realities. The path from laboratory breakthrough to FDA-approved therapy involves navigating regulatory mazes, recruiting specialized talent, and building relationships across interconnected scientific communities—challenges that capital alone cannot solve.
Leen Kawas, Managing General Partner at Propel Bio Partners and former CEO who led a historic $400 million initial public offering, advocates for a fundamentally different model. Her approach centres on creating comprehensive support ecosystems that treat relationship-building and strategic guidance as equally important to capital deployment. This philosophy recognizes a critical truth: sustainable biotech success depends not just on funding milestones, but on building networks and expertise that can navigate inevitable obstacles between promising science and patient impact.
The hidden challenge: Scientists as reluctant networkers
The biotechnology industry faces a fundamental paradox. The most innovative companies often emerge from brilliant scientists who have spent years focused intensively on research problems, developing deep technical expertise but limited business networks. When these researchers transition into entrepreneurship, they encounter challenges their scientific training never addressed.
“One thing about scientists, if a scientist is willing to take the leap and start a company, whether they want to be the CEO or other role in the company, one big component in a successful business is networking,” Leen Kawas explains. This networking imperative extends far beyond traditional fundraising activities, encompassing team recruitment, advisory board development, strategic partnerships, and regulatory guidance.
Successful biotech networking requires building relationships across diverse professional communities. A single therapeutic program might require connections with academic researchers, clinical investigators, regulatory consultants, manufacturing specialists, and commercial partners. Each community operates with different norms and priorities that can feel foreign to research-focused founders.
Kawas emphasizes that scientists must transform themselves into “self-made extroverts” by identifying appropriate venues such as conferences and industry events where meaningful connections can be established. However, this networking must be strategic rather than superficial, focusing on building genuine relationships that provide mutual value over extended timeframes.
The misconception that networking exists primarily for fundraising represents one of the most limiting beliefs among biotech entrepreneurs. “There’s this misconception that you need to really focus on networking with investors with the sole goal of raising capital,” Kawas notes. “But you network to expand your team, to find specialized talent that can help you with the next, more complex steps of your business.”
Advisory boards as strategic infrastructure
Early-stage advisory board development represents one of the most underutilized strategies for biotech success, yet provides entrepreneurs with access to expertise that would be prohibitively expensive to hire as full-time employees. “Building an advisory board very early on is very important,” Kawas emphasizes, recognizing that these relationships can provide crucial guidance during critical decision points.
Effective biotech advisory boards serve multiple strategic functions beyond traditional oversight roles. They provide specialized expertise in regulatory strategy, clinical development, manufacturing scale-up, and commercial planning. Advisory board members also serve as bridges to broader industry networks, facilitating introductions to potential partners, customers, key opinion leaders, and additional investors.
The composition of these boards requires careful consideration of the company’s development trajectory. Early-stage companies typically benefit from advisors with deep technical expertise in relevant therapeutic areas, regulatory experience with similar product classes, and clinical development capabilities. As companies mature, advisory boards often expand to include commercial expertise, manufacturing knowledge, and strategic business development experience.
Advisory board interactions provide entrepreneurs with opportunities to practice articulating their value propositions and receiving feedback from experienced industry professionals. These discussions help refine business strategies while building relationships that may prove valuable throughout the company’s development trajectory.
The key to successful advisory board development lies in starting these relationships before immediate needs become critical. This proactive approach allows entrepreneurs to build relationships gradually while demonstrating their commitment to seeking guidance.
Transforming investor relationships beyond capital
One of Leen Kawas’s most counterintuitive insights involves reimagining relationships with potential investors, particularly those who ultimately decide not to provide funding. Rather than viewing failed fundraising conversations as dead ends, she advocates for transforming these interactions into ongoing advisory relationships.
“I would even go and talk to investors with the mindset of asking for advice first, with the ultimate potential of convincing them to invest in your business,” Kawas explains. This approach recognizes that experienced biotech investors have accumulated significant expertise through exposure to multiple companies and market dynamics.
“Investors have the luxury of being exposed to so many ideas, so many companies, so they build experienced by proxy, and they have a very healthy network,” she notes. Even when investors choose not to fund a particular company, they often possess valuable insights about market positioning, competitive landscape analysis, and strategic priorities that can help entrepreneurs refine their approaches.
This advice-first strategy serves multiple purposes beyond immediate guidance. It helps build long-term relationships that may prove valuable in future funding rounds when companies have addressed earlier concerns or achieved key milestones. Investors who have followed a company’s progress often become advocates for success, even without formal investment relationships.
The approach also provides entrepreneurs with opportunities to demonstrate their ability to incorporate feedback and execute on recommendations. Companies that show measurable progress on investor suggestions often find that those same investors become more receptive to future funding discussions or strategic introductions.
Successful implementation requires genuine receptivity to feedback and systematic follow-up on suggestions and introductions. Entrepreneurs who view investor conversations as learning opportunities rather than just funding pitches often develop stronger networks and more refined business strategies.
Creating self-reinforcing innovation networks
The ultimate goal of comprehensive entrepreneur support extends beyond individual company success to building sustainable innovation ecosystems that can support multiple generations of biotech entrepreneurs. This ecosystem approach recognizes that biotechnology innovation is inherently collaborative, requiring partnerships across scientific disciplines, regulatory expertise, and commercial capabilities.
At Propel Bio Partners, this philosophy translates into intentional efforts to connect portfolio companies with each other and with broader industry networks. Companies facing similar regulatory challenges share insights, while those with complementary expertise explore strategic partnerships that might not emerge in traditional investor relationships.
The sustainability of these support systems depends on creating mutual value for all participants. Successful entrepreneurs who become advisors gain exposure to emerging technologies and potential investment opportunities. Investors benefit from enhanced deal flow and portfolio company synergies. Service providers build their networks through exposure to multiple innovative companies.
This network effect becomes particularly powerful when it extends across therapeutic areas and development stages. Early-stage companies benefit from learning about challenges they haven’t yet encountered, while later-stage companies gain insights into emerging scientific approaches that might inform future development programs.
Building sustainable success
Looking ahead, the biotechnology companies most likely to succeed will be those that most effectively leverage comprehensive support ecosystems rather than relying solely on traditional capital relationships. As Leen Kawas’s approach at Propel Bio Partners demonstrates, the integration of strategic guidance, networking facilitation, and relationship building with capital deployment creates sustainable competitive advantages that benefit entrepreneurs, investors, and patients alike.
For entrepreneurs entering biotechnology, the message is clear: seek investors and advisors who offer comprehensive support ecosystems rather than transactional funding relationships. The difference between these approaches often determines whether promising scientific innovations successfully navigate the complex journey from laboratory discovery to patient impact.
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