I'm confused whether you want more people to do "boring" things, or whether you want VCs to fund those things, or whether you just want to goad your readers into sending you more interesting examples of interesting "boring" stuff you didn't mention in your post. I guess I'll take the last approach.
For example, genbank, Uniprot, and PubMed exist. These databases are a core part of biology infrastructure, have been for a long time, and are arguably "boring". I hope they keep at it! There are many more I could have named here too.
There are independent non-profits like AddGene, ATCC, and Cultivarium (they might not be non-profit, not sure) that are doing "boring" things that add a tremendous amount of value to the biology enterprise.
Even when it comes to venture-backed "boring" stuff, there's a lot that's been going on that you didn't mention. Benchling and Dotmatics exist; they are biology and/or biochemistry software companies at their core. Transcriptic/Strateos, Emerald Cloud Labs also exist. Some of these are venture-backed. Elegen, who you didn't mention, is one example of someone doing interesting things with DNA synthesis, as is Twist, who you did. There are even instrumentation startups like Nicoya (an SPR device company) that have been finding success. Are they "boring"?
Lastly, as someone who has worked with a fari number of CROs over the years, I agree with only some of how you characterize the typical interaction. Startup overhead with a CRO is in general high, but after negotiations are completed, and agreements are signed, CRO quality varies widely; many (not all of course) are excellent. And if you want a more defined, software API-like interface to CROs, many people are already working on that. I mentioned Transcriptic/Strateos and ECL; Ginkgo's recent business model shift is arguably turning it into a CRO.
The firms I mentioned here are just a few examples that popped into my head; I'm sure I'm missing many many other "boring" things that are already happening, if only you know where to look.
Bravo - this was a brilliant and educational piece.
Regarding NEB, I too am floored by the high level of innovation coming from the group.
Recently, they released an improved DNase that maintains activity even in the presence of high salts. The consequence of this is producing mRNA from a plasmid template is much easier.
Moreover, the scientists out of that org are wonderfully accommodating and patient when it comes to explaining the underlying science of their protocols.
Great article! Definitely see the need for “boring biotech,” but many of these are going to have (justifiably) hard VC theses and therefore are going to have a hard time getting the financing right. Some fields, like synthetic biology/industrial biotechnology, also have virtually no CROs, which drive their R&D costs even higher (as the demand is going to be more in biopharma).
What about all the international CROs and outsourcing models? If cost is the fundamental driver both to stand one up and to keep COGS low there is a world of talent ex-US and ex-EU. The growth curves and GenScript and WuXi would suggest they are onto something…
One thought is that of 2 possible motivations, 1) intellectual curiosity or 2) the satisfaction of building a company / making money, people who mostly have #1 will either stay in academia or found the "exciting sounding" kind of startup, and people who mostly have #2 will simply not do biology in the first place, and found Stripe, etc, instead. So to get the kind of "boring biotech" you need people with a 50-50 mix of #1 and #2, which maybe these observations imply is actually rarer than either "mostly #1" or "mostly #2".
Another completely unrelated thought is maybe we are just talking about ascertainment bias--there might be plenty of people trying to re-make CROs (or related) but by definition this is less noticeable and therefore seems less common.
I think the only area getting funding are software and hardware bio companies, which are still fundamentally software companies, with fat margins, scaling opportunities, and scant need for funding.
They don't need to carry the weight of a wet lab, or the constant obligations of a service business.
Services, like software agencies and consultancies are a tough business. CROs doubly so, dealing with a double header of fickle biology and fickle clients.
As an engineering undergraduate who would like to work in biotechnology, I am struggling immensely to decide precisely what I want to do.
Would I like to work in pure wet lab after earning a graduate degree. Or do the kind of engineering-driven supportive work described in this article?
I doubt that I have the kind of intellectual curiosity, motivation, and risk-taking tendency required to pursue ground-breaking biology work. This article is encouraging in that it confirms that I could have a meaningful place in biotechnology, even if it means pursuing the kind of work I that I wouldn’t traditionally think is ‘important’, or, more accurately, ego filling and socially validating.
"You could personally become extraordinarily rich by doing the boring stuff!"
This might be part of the disconnect -- I suspect many founders leading biotechs aren't motivated by this (myself included). If I wasn't running our company, I'd probably be running an academic lab for the same low salary.
"You could personally have a massive impact on science by doing the boring stuff!"
I'm also not sure this is true. Stripe doesn't have a massive impact on any individual. They improve things at the margins. Same could be said for CROs, better ELNs or lab infrastructure.
This post gave me so many things to ideate on. Thanks, Abhishaike and Eryney. As a doctoral candidate pursuing preclinical drug discovery at IIT Delhi, you've opened my eyes to the possibilities in the ‘boring’. I'd rejected some of these ‘boring’ ideas before due to the lack of intellectual stimulation. This post has changed my perspective a bit.
I've ‘dreamed’ about making a quadrillion dollar company [LOL] for a long time. You've made some good arguments to disparage this dream.
Any suggestions for someone who has setup bulk RNASeq analysis pipelines (~3 years of experience) in academic settings and would like to democratize sequencing technologies for the Indian populace?
Thanks for reading -- glad you enjoyed it! I know basically nothing about the current state of the Indian biotech scene, but if you are confident in your skills, you can imagine setting up scRNASeq service for local biotech or academic centers. Typically academics will try to do this on their own with Github packages, but if your service is very good, and things are relative cheap, it's possible you capture some % of those academics who couldn't be bothered and convert biotech companies near you. Good luck to you in whatever you do!
One of the big mantras of startups (as promulgated by YC) is that you should get to market quickly and talk to users and iterate quickly. This tactic leads to the creation of "boring" companies because you find out that the market needs boring things and you really need revenue because funding is always uncertain and you do the boring thing and prmise yourself you'll do the exciting thing later, which may or may not be true
I don't know whether an equivalent could exist for bio, since it's downstream of things like generally being capital light and fast, but I think a YC equivalent for bio that gave out small checks and pushed people to make sure they got revenue could have the impact of creating more boring companies.
Thanks for writing this piece. You hit on something important.
One culprit you didn’t touch on which I’m curious what you think about is the practice of contracting in the industry. Historically, the demand from biotech has outpaced the available outsourced service supply which has led to the power dynamics being in the hand of CROs. I have seen it in the form of such contractual practices as expecting high % payment upfront and payments based on progress rather than performance such that a CRO can fail to deliver as expected and not only are their costs covered, but they make a profit as well. Since demand is greater than supply there is little incentive to change. My hunch is that unless this is addressed (power dynamic and performance based contracting) we won’t see much change.
ig you touched on this, but it is worth emphasizing pointing out that biotech companies are run by PhDs and tech companies are run by comparative infants. Stripe guy was probably 21 when he started stripe. Zuckerberg was also 21. Setting aside low imagination VCs, would YOU fund a 21 year old to do even a “boring science” company? i probably wouldn’t, but maybe this makes me part of the problem
won't say that you are part of the problem necessarily, but I view it a little differently. if a 21 year old MIT dropout approached a VC with an idea to solve gene therapy, with their only experience having come from maybe a couple summers or semesters of lab work, this would be an obviously bad pitch and certainly doomed for failure. however, if a 21 year old dropout who spent those semesters in the lab working on being the cloning person for a 20 person lab makes the assessment that this could be done without a human in the loop, and moreover could be done at a greater scale than what a human or a bunch of (underpaid) humans can offer, then I think that would be a reasonable bet of success.
it's really about scope. bio tends to have a culture way more oriented around making the next Facebook and less about making everyday B2B SaaS-like products that you or I don't even interact with or maybe even know about. that's my read, anyway!
Is writing a Substack sufficiently boring?
i am gods most boring soldier
I'm confused whether you want more people to do "boring" things, or whether you want VCs to fund those things, or whether you just want to goad your readers into sending you more interesting examples of interesting "boring" stuff you didn't mention in your post. I guess I'll take the last approach.
For example, genbank, Uniprot, and PubMed exist. These databases are a core part of biology infrastructure, have been for a long time, and are arguably "boring". I hope they keep at it! There are many more I could have named here too.
There are independent non-profits like AddGene, ATCC, and Cultivarium (they might not be non-profit, not sure) that are doing "boring" things that add a tremendous amount of value to the biology enterprise.
Even when it comes to venture-backed "boring" stuff, there's a lot that's been going on that you didn't mention. Benchling and Dotmatics exist; they are biology and/or biochemistry software companies at their core. Transcriptic/Strateos, Emerald Cloud Labs also exist. Some of these are venture-backed. Elegen, who you didn't mention, is one example of someone doing interesting things with DNA synthesis, as is Twist, who you did. There are even instrumentation startups like Nicoya (an SPR device company) that have been finding success. Are they "boring"?
Lastly, as someone who has worked with a fari number of CROs over the years, I agree with only some of how you characterize the typical interaction. Startup overhead with a CRO is in general high, but after negotiations are completed, and agreements are signed, CRO quality varies widely; many (not all of course) are excellent. And if you want a more defined, software API-like interface to CROs, many people are already working on that. I mentioned Transcriptic/Strateos and ECL; Ginkgo's recent business model shift is arguably turning it into a CRO.
The firms I mentioned here are just a few examples that popped into my head; I'm sure I'm missing many many other "boring" things that are already happening, if only you know where to look.
Bravo - this was a brilliant and educational piece.
Regarding NEB, I too am floored by the high level of innovation coming from the group.
Recently, they released an improved DNase that maintains activity even in the presence of high salts. The consequence of this is producing mRNA from a plasmid template is much easier.
Moreover, the scientists out of that org are wonderfully accommodating and patient when it comes to explaining the underlying science of their protocols.
Great article! Definitely see the need for “boring biotech,” but many of these are going to have (justifiably) hard VC theses and therefore are going to have a hard time getting the financing right. Some fields, like synthetic biology/industrial biotechnology, also have virtually no CROs, which drive their R&D costs even higher (as the demand is going to be more in biopharma).
What about all the international CROs and outsourcing models? If cost is the fundamental driver both to stand one up and to keep COGS low there is a world of talent ex-US and ex-EU. The growth curves and GenScript and WuXi would suggest they are onto something…
One thought is that of 2 possible motivations, 1) intellectual curiosity or 2) the satisfaction of building a company / making money, people who mostly have #1 will either stay in academia or found the "exciting sounding" kind of startup, and people who mostly have #2 will simply not do biology in the first place, and found Stripe, etc, instead. So to get the kind of "boring biotech" you need people with a 50-50 mix of #1 and #2, which maybe these observations imply is actually rarer than either "mostly #1" or "mostly #2".
Another completely unrelated thought is maybe we are just talking about ascertainment bias--there might be plenty of people trying to re-make CROs (or related) but by definition this is less noticeable and therefore seems less common.
I think the only area getting funding are software and hardware bio companies, which are still fundamentally software companies, with fat margins, scaling opportunities, and scant need for funding.
They don't need to carry the weight of a wet lab, or the constant obligations of a service business.
Services, like software agencies and consultancies are a tough business. CROs doubly so, dealing with a double header of fickle biology and fickle clients.
Automating animal research is pretty boring: https://oldenlabs.com/
Definitely in line with the thinking of the right type of boring :)
As an engineering undergraduate who would like to work in biotechnology, I am struggling immensely to decide precisely what I want to do.
Would I like to work in pure wet lab after earning a graduate degree. Or do the kind of engineering-driven supportive work described in this article?
I doubt that I have the kind of intellectual curiosity, motivation, and risk-taking tendency required to pursue ground-breaking biology work. This article is encouraging in that it confirms that I could have a meaningful place in biotechnology, even if it means pursuing the kind of work I that I wouldn’t traditionally think is ‘important’, or, more accurately, ego filling and socially validating.
"You could personally become extraordinarily rich by doing the boring stuff!"
This might be part of the disconnect -- I suspect many founders leading biotechs aren't motivated by this (myself included). If I wasn't running our company, I'd probably be running an academic lab for the same low salary.
"You could personally have a massive impact on science by doing the boring stuff!"
I'm also not sure this is true. Stripe doesn't have a massive impact on any individual. They improve things at the margins. Same could be said for CROs, better ELNs or lab infrastructure.
This post gave me so many things to ideate on. Thanks, Abhishaike and Eryney. As a doctoral candidate pursuing preclinical drug discovery at IIT Delhi, you've opened my eyes to the possibilities in the ‘boring’. I'd rejected some of these ‘boring’ ideas before due to the lack of intellectual stimulation. This post has changed my perspective a bit.
I've ‘dreamed’ about making a quadrillion dollar company [LOL] for a long time. You've made some good arguments to disparage this dream.
Any suggestions for someone who has setup bulk RNASeq analysis pipelines (~3 years of experience) in academic settings and would like to democratize sequencing technologies for the Indian populace?
Thanks for reading -- glad you enjoyed it! I know basically nothing about the current state of the Indian biotech scene, but if you are confident in your skills, you can imagine setting up scRNASeq service for local biotech or academic centers. Typically academics will try to do this on their own with Github packages, but if your service is very good, and things are relative cheap, it's possible you capture some % of those academics who couldn't be bothered and convert biotech companies near you. Good luck to you in whatever you do!
One of the big mantras of startups (as promulgated by YC) is that you should get to market quickly and talk to users and iterate quickly. This tactic leads to the creation of "boring" companies because you find out that the market needs boring things and you really need revenue because funding is always uncertain and you do the boring thing and prmise yourself you'll do the exciting thing later, which may or may not be true
I don't know whether an equivalent could exist for bio, since it's downstream of things like generally being capital light and fast, but I think a YC equivalent for bio that gave out small checks and pushed people to make sure they got revenue could have the impact of creating more boring companies.
Thanks for writing this piece. You hit on something important.
One culprit you didn’t touch on which I’m curious what you think about is the practice of contracting in the industry. Historically, the demand from biotech has outpaced the available outsourced service supply which has led to the power dynamics being in the hand of CROs. I have seen it in the form of such contractual practices as expecting high % payment upfront and payments based on progress rather than performance such that a CRO can fail to deliver as expected and not only are their costs covered, but they make a profit as well. Since demand is greater than supply there is little incentive to change. My hunch is that unless this is addressed (power dynamic and performance based contracting) we won’t see much change.
ig you touched on this, but it is worth emphasizing pointing out that biotech companies are run by PhDs and tech companies are run by comparative infants. Stripe guy was probably 21 when he started stripe. Zuckerberg was also 21. Setting aside low imagination VCs, would YOU fund a 21 year old to do even a “boring science” company? i probably wouldn’t, but maybe this makes me part of the problem
won't say that you are part of the problem necessarily, but I view it a little differently. if a 21 year old MIT dropout approached a VC with an idea to solve gene therapy, with their only experience having come from maybe a couple summers or semesters of lab work, this would be an obviously bad pitch and certainly doomed for failure. however, if a 21 year old dropout who spent those semesters in the lab working on being the cloning person for a 20 person lab makes the assessment that this could be done without a human in the loop, and moreover could be done at a greater scale than what a human or a bunch of (underpaid) humans can offer, then I think that would be a reasonable bet of success.
it's really about scope. bio tends to have a culture way more oriented around making the next Facebook and less about making everyday B2B SaaS-like products that you or I don't even interact with or maybe even know about. that's my read, anyway!