Small Teams, Big Ideas: Early Stage Biotech Innovation

Early-stage biotech is tough: Founders juggle science, strategy, and fund-raising with limited people and resources. But, don’t lose hope! That is the advice of Thanos Tsagkadouras of Galino Labs and Ray Collis of Growth Pitstop.

Key Themes from the Conversation

1. Challenges of Early-Stage Biotech

• People & Roles: Hard to find and hire the “right people” early on. Founders wear many hats—scientific, commercial, operational.
• Work & Collaboration: Teams often struggle with “doing the right work” and “working together in the right way” due to overlapping roles and lack of processes.
• Resources: Funding and other resources are limited, forcing innovation but slowing progress.
• Rewards & Results: Motivation comes from small wins—experiment success, investor contact, hitting milestones.
• Time & Place: Market conditions make timing tough, but founders must make their environment work.

2. Mindset and Execution

• Focus on flexible planning, daily progress, and mental resilience.
• Scientists can learn strategy—don’t fear commercial aspects; build a foundation plan early.
• Emphasize execution over waiting for the “perfect time.”

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Comparison to Big Pharma (Using Super Projects Benchmarking Data)

• Big Pharma scores better on people, roles, and results, but worse on collaboration, rewards, and resourcing.
• Complexity is universal—even well-funded pharma struggles with the full “Nine Rights” of productivity.
• The average R&D productivity score is 65; the potential improvement is 35%.
  • This equates to several hours per team member per week—a big opportunity.

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Takeaways for Early-Stage Innovators

• Start with who and what you have—optimize what’s in your control.
• Break down strategy into manageable actions—funding, milestones, commercialization.
• Use data and frameworks (like the 9 Rights of R&D Productivity) to identify specific gaps and boost performance. You can find it here.
• Recognize that complexity doesn’t go away with scale—strategy and execution discipline remain essential at every stage.

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Call to Action

• Use the free R&D-P Productivity Calculator to benchmark and assess your team.
• Reach out if you would like to talk to us about productivity or the issue of resource efficiency

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Sources:

• Conversation between Ray Collis of Growth Pitstop and Thanos Tsagkadouras of Galino Labs (Webinar transcript).
• Internal benchmarking data from Super Projects in Pharma