Episode 22

From AI to IP with Bruce Wu, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Deep Cell

In this episode, we chatted with Bruce Wu, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Deep Cell, a biotech pioneering new methods in single-cell analysis by combining innovations in microfluidics, optics, and AI. Bruce's diverse background in engineering and law has led him to his current role, where he continues to combine his love for helping others, solving puzzles, and building innovative companies.

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Transcript
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I have to say, I was so excited to talk to Bruce, and it

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did not disappoint. We talked about all kinds

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of things, including AI. You could almost see him switching

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hats. He was like, OK, I'm going to put on my chief people officer

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hat, and now I'm going to put on my chief legal hat, and now my IP hat, and

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Bruce is a super interesting person. He has a wealth of

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experience. He is currently the chief legal officer and corporate secretary

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at Deep Cell, but he has held a variety of positions with

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a variety of companies and just a really interesting guy to talk to.

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So I think people are really going to like this episode. Bruce, thank you so

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Awesome. Well, as always, our first question is, what did you want

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Yeah, I spent a lot of my time trying to figure it out rather than what

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I want to be, but what I like to do. And so with

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all the activities that I sort of try, attempted, I sort

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of came to a conclusion that I like to kind of

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ask, they all grab at two things, right? One is that I like to help

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people. I, for some reason, I found even

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at seven years of age, that people have a tendency to

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come and wanting to talk to me. They want to just talk

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to me, ask for suggestion or just for me to listen. And

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so I found that to be fascinating. And then if there's anything I can do to help people, even

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just cousins, neighbors, and I don't know, parents, I

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love doing that. And then the other one is I like to build things, events.

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So there are a lot of broken watches. be put

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together or sometimes they're together, but sometimes they're not. But

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what I also enjoy doing, I find myself liking to do, is to

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find some sort of pattern out of chaos. And

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so you could be putting things together in a new way or the

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same way, but I just enjoy that. And so now that I

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am a chief legal officer at the license company, And

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along this way, I have tried, again, dabble,

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I've dabbled in engineering. I have dabbled in business development, of

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course, legal, HR. And I

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would like to think that I still have kept a little bit of that

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It sounds like it. That is really very insightful as

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a seven-year-old because I definitely was running around in my backyard pretending

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to be a horse. So I'm really impressed

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by, you know, how you went about that career exploration and

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just staying true to yourself. You have a really interesting

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background. We talk a lot about career paths, both here on the

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podcast and we work with a lot of job seekers, just guiding

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them and thinking about what is possible. Your career

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path is really cool. And so I wonder if you could walk us through

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the adult part of the career path, you know, from school

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to where you are now, because you have a number of degrees and it's just really

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Yeah, I started my academic

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career thinking I was going to be a professor. I've

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enjoyed the academia portion of it. I like to do research, I like

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to find new things, learn new things. But shortly

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after I started my graduate school at MIT, I

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realized that I enjoy providing

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advice as I end up just by coincidence as

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an advice columnist at MIT Newspaper. And I found

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myself enjoying that a lot more than the

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lab itself. And that's

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also where I started to realize that there is that human element that

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I really, really liked. And again, if anything, that reminds me of

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the seven-year-old Bruce, right? They wanted to work with people together,

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but at the same time, still being able to build things and

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use the science aspect of it. And

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then so that's when I started to pivot to a more

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legal career. And so

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from that, that has been sort of my trajectory. And at the same time, I

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never really lost sight of trying to try

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different things, right? And then along the way, I picked up, as

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I mentioned earlier, there's the business development aspect of HR

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and others. And so rather than thinking that those

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are sort of discrete milestones, I sort of see them as just, I

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happen to be at the right time with

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the right people at the right place who are willing

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to invest in this person,

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me, and explore a potential new venture together.

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Yeah, how did you actually get into the biotech space? Because

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Yeah, so I actually, my initial research

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was actually on nanotechnology by physicists. And then it

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was sort of, but I finished, once I finished my master's degree, I

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decided to do something a little different. So I, for my PhD, I

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went into medical engineering. And so that was

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my first foray into a more bio area. And

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it just happens. And again, when I was in a law firm, I

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worked with clients in all types of spaces. I've worked with high tech

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companies, semiconductors, emerging technologies, and biotech. And

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it just somehow the biotech sort

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of end up just stuck, right? And be it sort of the mentality, personality,

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or just opportunity themselves. And I just ended up working

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That makes sense to me because as somebody who likes to do

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a variety of things myself, biotech is

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nothing if it's not variety, right? There are so many

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interesting technologies coming through and it's fast paced

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and for better or worse, we do move around with

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different companies because it's a bit volatile. But

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for the right personality, that means a lot of fun experiences. So

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Well, and I think it was Lynn Walder, who we spoke to on the podcast a

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few weeks ago, who said the thing with biotech is even when you try to

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get out, you always get sucked back in. So it's

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like once it sinks its claws into you, you're just working in biotech. That's

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And just to your point too, biotech is so broad, right? AI

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is biotech. The company I'm right now at,

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they try to marry AI engineering and biology all

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together. So it's as broad as you want it to

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Can you tell us a little bit about that? Let's dive into that topic because your

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DeepCell is the company where I'm at right now. It's

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using AI to image or understand

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better the cell morphological features

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so that we can better understand the different properties of cells. And

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with the hope that maybe it will provide

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better indications or information that

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might lead to treatments and all that cool stuff down

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And you're wearing a few hats there. Do you want to tell us about the couple

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Yeah. So I joined as a chief legal officer and

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the corporate secretary of Deep Cell. And recently I also became

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the interim head of people. And this is

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not actually my, not my first time being the head of people, but

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the interim head of people role at Deep Cell was fairly

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Can you take us through a little bit of what a day in the life looks

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like in your job, wearing all these hats and working with this cool

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tech? What do you do when you wake up? And what does your day look like?

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So my, my, I was going to say my every

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day is different, but I don't, I think my every hour is different. And

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then the joke I've turned into is, it's just being, I'm pretty

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much an octopus, right? I just got off a call. I could be having one

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call about IP. Um, and the next call

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I'll be talking about, uh, retention and the next time will be

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diversity. And the next time would be back to potential contracts.

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So it's exciting, it's

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chaotic, but at the same time, it allows

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me to look at the company even more holistically than

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That's a legit hat you're wearing, head of people. So we, you

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know, we work with some very small companies and a head of people

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might be overseeing, you know, 10 people. And that,

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you know, that's pretty early to bring in a head of people, but we've seen it before. But

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a hundred, that's a job. That's a lot of people to care

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How do you, I mean, if you don't mind me asking, I

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feel like, you know, everyone, maybe not to the extent that you

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do, but people are switching gears constantly, but that can be so

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exhausting and draining. So do you find that energizing or

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do you do something for yourself that kind of like resets when

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like at the end of the day, you're like, well, I was in 76 meetings and I literally

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I think my answer is a little bit of both, right? I will say I

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am an introvert, so I recharge by having

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a long time to decompress and then to be able

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to think through things. But at the same time, and

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back to my earlier comment, I just enjoy fighting

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that thread in a pool of chaos, and

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they thread that into different needles and thread it into

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something that makes sense. So to me, HR and

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legal are not necessarily independent because to me they are actually intertwined.

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Right. How do you make sure that people are empowered to

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do what they do so that, for example, the company can

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have the IP generated by the people because those are

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the assets. And how do you protect this IP that you generate? Because

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I have noticed that, you know, at companies about that size, it

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seems like many times the offices for the

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head of legal and head of people are very close by in proximity

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because there's a lot. There's a lot of exchange there, you

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know, to your point. So I want to think a

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little bit about the strategy role that you're playing as well. So

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in a growing biotech, I would break these

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out into two different questions, but let's just keep them together. What

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are the main strategies that you're thinking through on a daily basis so

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that you can help the company grow? Whether that's legal people,

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you know, what are the things that you find most enjoyable and impactful

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I see myself as a strategist. I spend a lot of my time trying

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to preempt what the outcome could be in

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a way that makes sense, right? And a lot of my GC

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friends, they are trained to sort

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of put out fires, right? Litigation ensues or

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transaction happens, then they turn into a

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more reactive, and there's nothing wrong with it, just different

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models, different business, a way of doing things. But

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I spend a lot of my time trying to craft a strategy in

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a way that if something unexpected happens,

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it's not an entire surprise. For example, we look

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at potential problems on the road for IP. We

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look at potential employment issues because of the new law that came out. Or

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the AI thing that just, you know, everything is sort of I'm

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not trying to find an answer to everything. I

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think it's important to know that because the moment I

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say I know everything is the moment I don't think I

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know everything or anything. So if I spend all of my time to

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understand what the problems are and can be and

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find a way to proactively mitigate the potential

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consequences of it. And by doing that, then I

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look at, back to your second part of the question, what empowers me, right?

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And so I, I find it the most energizing, um,

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to be able to work with the people. Um,

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I, I enjoy working with scientists, um, that sort of go back to

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my, my IP route, but I also enjoy working with.

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people on the non-IP portion, right? Talking about inclusion, talking

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about how to make a place more empowering

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for all kinds of employees. It touches

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on the humanity portion of my interests. So

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I like to weave them together, because I

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I like the way you describe that. I also like to look

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for things that could go wrong and have a plan for it. But

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I just call myself a negative optimist. I hope that it all works

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That's exactly a point well made. One of the things that I have tried to

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do so that, you know, lawyers have a reputation, right?

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Part of no. One of the things I try to do so that I don't become

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a part of no is I say I'm a part of maybe. Right.

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And so the way I do it is to say here are the risks. However,

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here are the things we can do in view of the risk. Now we

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have a menu in front of us to pick, rather than, no, no, no, no,

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no, no, no, no, no. And that also allows

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me to work with the other teams. For example, at the exact choosing

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level, at the different functional groups, or even down to the

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most junior of folks. Now we know the

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different risks. How do we then sit together and

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craft a strategy that people can actually

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Yeah, I think risk mitigation is such a fascinating thing. And it's

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kind of fun, right? Because if you're looking ahead and it's a risk down the

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line, it gives you more room to play. And you also do put parameters in

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I am the one, though, who is running ahead full speed. And Allison's

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like, have you considered X,

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Y, Z. It's really helpful to have somebody on the team who is maybe a

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little more, I'm the classic entrepreneur who's like,

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Right. And you talk about empowering and the energizing part. One

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of the part I, what makes, what drives a

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lot of the exercise I said, despite what I said, that being the

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part of it may be, is I surround people, like surround

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myself with people who are very different than I am. And

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that's intentional. I very often hire people who

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are very different than I am just so that I can get a

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new perspective, right? And so while I'm doing what I'm doing,

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my approach is this, I want to make sure there are other people checking

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to make sure I am not putting myself in a bubble and lose sight

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of what I don't know, what I don't know, right? And so that has been

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empowering. It's sometimes uncomfortable because people

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are different than you are. I intentionally put myself in an uncomfortable situation,

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but the idea is so that I can grow, the team can

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And you do a decent amount of work within the

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DEI realm as well in your company. So I

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think that getting comfortable with that diversity, that

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really, once you are comfortable, that makes the

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whole company better. And I wonder what

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your perspective is on helping people to push through that and sort

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of setting the stage for creating that diversity, those

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different perspectives within the company and helping people to overcome maybe their discomfort,

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Yeah, so I would say of the D, E, and

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I, I actually focus a lot on the I.

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It's not to say the other two are not important, but of the three, I like to focus

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a lot of my efforts on the I, the inclusion part. And

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as a gross analogy, the diversity will increase numbers,

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it will change representation. The equity might actually bring

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people in, but it's the inclusion piece that

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makes people stay. And so how do I do it

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so that people feel they're included? And included to me

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doesn't mean, okay, you have a party, I invite you. It's that I

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want you to feel like you're part of the dance. You don't

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get a ticket and that's it. You are part of the party to

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dance with me. And so to me, that is

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my, that's all of my efforts on that piece of

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the D&I, or I like to call it ID really, I'd

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reverse the order. But that also means that people

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come from all kinds of backgrounds, right? And people have different

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levels of comfort, they view the world differently. So

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very often we need to calibrate not to lose ourselves.

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I would like to be true. I think it's important that we are true

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to ourselves. But how do we do that so other people can

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also be true to themselves? I think that that has been a

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lot of work that needs to be done, right? And how do you do it

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so that people feel they're listened to, they're seen?

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At the same time, more importantly, they are empower to

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contribute. Because being seen is one thing, but feeling like they

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can be part of that community, to be included, and

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do something together as a team, that is

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What have you seen work in companies, you know, when they're really trying

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to focus on the inclusion piece? Are there actionable things

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that you've implemented or you've seen companies implement that you think if

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other organizations were to know and do the same, it would actually

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Um, so I will, I will speak from my own experience, right?

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That's, that's my way of saying this is not a guidebook because I think it depends, it

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depends on that demographic of the company. It depends on the industry of the

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company. But what I found to be helpful, um,

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is that the, the team that the senior leadership

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team, um, she strived for transparency, accountability,

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and more importantly, vulnerability. And so it's

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important, I think, for the employees to see

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that the efforts to

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create a more inclusive environment doesn't just come

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from one person or some lip service that you

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give out as a brochure or some training you do once a

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year. It's that it should all come all

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the way from the top to all the way to the bottom. And I

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mean, they shouldn't even be about it. It should be just an entire company should be

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an effort for everyone to be involved. And that also means

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if there is a challenge, right? So maybe there's something that hasn't

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been done well. The team should actually

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confront it, right? I believe that one way

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to work together, to build that trust, to

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build that intimacy is actually by solving hard problems together.

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Not to avoid them together, but to actually confront them and then

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deal with it heads on. And that's how I feel

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in my experience, people starting to trust each

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other. And once you have that trust, people feel safer

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to potentially speak out, right? And to potentially make

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mistakes. And that's when you actually handle

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and work together as one. Because otherwise you have a bunch

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of sort of discrete point people working on

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different things, but they never are bound together by some sort

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That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That's really impactful. Can

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we switch gears and talk about legal matters? I'm

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so curious about where you see the future of

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IP going with all of the rapid changes

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that we're seeing. Is there anything that you are just fascinated

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I, well, yeah, the answer is definitely yes. I'm fascinated by

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quite a few things. And again, just a few months ago, I never

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heard of JotGPT. I don't think anybody knows what JotGPT is, but and

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look at, look at where we are now. Right. And I think one of the

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things I find fascinating and one of the reasons I

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am where I am in both a company perspective

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or the legal career I'm in is actually to learn the

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technology. at the very beginning stage, right?

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And that's actually by design where

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IP comes from. You learn it before it's publicly available. You learn it before

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it's well known. I think there's going to be a

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lot of unknowns. And it's not going to be a

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linear growth. It's going to be an explanation because And once

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we open the door to taking AI as one example, I

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would not be surprised that all of a sudden AI can be used for multiple,

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multiple things that had never even been contemplated before. Now,

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that also means, now putting my lawyer's hat

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back on, The technology

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is going to be ahead of the time or before the

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legal paradigm catch up. So before the courts

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can act, before Congress can act, we're going to have a lot

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of challenges as a result of exciting

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development in science and technology that we need to confront,

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right? And how do we protect privacy? How do we protect You

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know, even bias, you know, our AI, should

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AI be treated as people? I mean, there are a lot of things that are not

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yet resolved legally, but it has to

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Within your space particularly, we're talking about

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imaging, right? And so using your technology to

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be able to survey vast quantities of

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images and to find the pattern so that we can identify

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disease tissues faster and that sort of thing. Are there any

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thoughts to the ramifications of that patient confidentiality and

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where will those datasets come from and all of those things? Because, you

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know, we we're still in the midst of, for instance, the HeLa cell

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legal issues. And so I'm just curious, are we

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going to see that again in 50 years with people's

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I think that problem has never gone away. The

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reason is sort of on the surface, less

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heard of is because of the legal paradigm that was created. Right.

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And then that's my way of saying, because the problem never went

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away. Anytime there is a scientific advancement,

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that will probably be brought back in front and center. Right.

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And so how do you, how do we. advance

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the science of our kind, humankind, so that we benefit everybody

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without compromising at the same time the people being part

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of the experiments. That is

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going to be challenging, right? And that's another part

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of that also is there is right now no cohesive framework,

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Europe act this way, US act that way, even in the United

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States, this country, different states act different ways. So until

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there is a more cohesive framework, and I would, I remain hopeful

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that sometime soon, this will happen. But until

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then, it's going to be quite a bit of back to the, my

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earlier comment about how do you preemptively and

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proactively think about the possible consequences before

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Karina's question was so intelligent and like so far reaching

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and consequential. Mine is very in the moment. Do

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you allow employees to use ChatGTP at DeepCell or

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is that like, no, don't be funneling our information into

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Well, that's going to be a work in progress. But for now, we

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are not prohibiting child GPT. And

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to be realistic, this is the engineering part of me, right? It's

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impossible to prohibit. So rather than prohibiting, we've

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been focused on how do we do it so

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Yeah, it's a lot to think of right now. I agree. We're seeing

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schools are prohibiting it. Oh, okay.

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But how, how are you prohibiting this? You know, this is where it's

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the education component. What should and shouldn't we use it

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And actually the joke, the joke actually is when someone asked to,

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to write a policy of how to not use ChargeGBT, someone

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But here's my whole thing with it. I mean, here's my soapbox. This

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is the prime opportunity to teach people how to think critically. Just

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because it spits it back out at you and the tool is there does not mean it's accurate.

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And it's like a calculator. If you understand what the

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answer roughly should be or how you got there, sometimes you

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mistype in the calculator and it gives you a crazy answer and you need to be

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able to parse that out. And so I think it's like, you know, when we talk about people

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using these tools, they just have to understand the critical components of what

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And also, you raised a very good point, right? I mean, that's again, that's a

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different way. That's my way of seeing the world is

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that One reason child GPT becomes child

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GPT is our framework and our way of

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looking at data being generated. It may

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not be healthy, right? So for example, one of the reasons

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that school kids can actually use child GPT to get away

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our assignment is those are meeting rubrics, right?

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If you were to look at this and say the assignment is

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to for you to actually provide your thinking

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process, those are not things JWT can do. Just

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like going back to a larger company environment, if what

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we are looking for is truly people generating

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new ideas, and it could be IP, it could be non-IP, but

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it's the thought process of sharing what you are generating, those

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are not replicable by JWT, or even created by JWT. And

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so I think it may be helpful for us

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as a whole, as a society, to look at what is valuable information

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Yep. I completely agree. I think it's a great tool for brainstorming. I think people

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just have to think through it and take it to the next level. Take the

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first iteration and say, okay, well that's what that's been out, but now how do I

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improve it and where does that lead me and chase the rabbits, you know?

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So kind of staying on this legal route, we

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are moving so fast. How do you keep up with that with the IP?

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whole thing about strategy is you need to preemptively think

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of what could be and might be in a practical way, right? And the reason

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is nobody has unlimited budget. And so that goes

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to what if the strategy shouldn't be just cover everything, scorch the

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earth. And so that also means I think

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it's important when we build an IP, the strategy

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should be a science-driven strategy rather than a legal-driven strategy.

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Because if the strategy is based on science, then

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you capture a technical solution rather than

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a legal-driven maneuvering, which

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can come and go based on how the courts act. right, how the laws change.

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But if a solution is a solution, that actually builds a

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lot of the foundational pieces of

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what the assets of the company can be. And that also

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allows you to be more creative, right? Rather than using legal as

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a reason of what not to do, or what

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to do, you now open yourself up to a potential, endless

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potentials, because your science will

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allow you to capture that from different angles.

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How do you find the different elements of that development, that

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technology improvement? And also, how do you do it

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to find a synergy of the different elements? Those

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are things that are independent and

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agnostic from the legal requirements as well. And

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with that, then the company can actually have an IP

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asset that match better with

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its commercial interest. And you can explain to the

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investors or the rest of the world, here's what I'm

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doing and why, rather than some arbitrary legal

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I think that when we think about people who are building a biotech in the

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very early stages, you know, obviously, They

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need to advance the science. There's IP. They have like just standard HR legal

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issues. But most people aren't bringing in like a full time

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chief legal officer. Right. But when do you think the right time to start

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incorporating that in is for a small firm? What

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do you think the tipping point is to like you need someone on site? Is it in a

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It's important to know that different companies are different, right? And

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then there are companies that are not generating as

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much IP as some of the more life sciences and biotech companies.

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So I don't, I don't want to pretend that, you know, they should be all the

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same. In fact, they should not be the same to be strategic. But

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however, for a science or, or a IP, an

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IP generating company, life sciences being one, biotech, life

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sciences and biotech, and also high tech. I, I

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would say it's probably better. to

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bring an attorney that

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is at least knowledgeable on the IP front

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as early as possible. Because very often what ends up

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happening is when they hire, when they have the

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resources, more often is when they were

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told to do it by the board, it's still a little too late, right?

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Because a lot of the founders didn't appreciate how important IP

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really is. And think about this, I would encourage us to think about this.

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Before a company commercialized a product, very

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often the only tangible asset is actually IP.

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And so if there is to be a merger and acquisition, if there's going to be whatever

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transaction, before a product is actually launched

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or sold in the market, the only thing that

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you can show, or one of the very few things you can show, really is the IP

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assets you have. And so rather than playing catch up,

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it is important, I would even say critical, particularly for

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a biotech company, to focus on the assets as early

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Could see your chief business officer hat in that one. Yep. No,

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that's really, really point well taken. That

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is critical. And I think not very many founders do think

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about that as like, I have an asset. How

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do I protect this asset? There's a lot of people who can't

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afford, you know, at an early stage to bring in a full time head

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of legal or even, you know, someone on the IP space.

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How useful is it? Is it possible to use a firm to

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leverage an external firm? And if so, when is that? not

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At the minimum, the company should focus on

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IP, right? And be, whether that is on an outside counsel, outside

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firm or internal, at the minimum, some effort should

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be made. That's what I recommend. The question of when that

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balance is tilted so that it becomes an in-house, it

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would depend on a lot of factors, right? And so

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resources being one. What I though would say

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from a sort of anecdotally, what

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has been successful for a

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license or biotech company to handle

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their IP is actually to have that transition to

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in-house as early as possible. And here's why.

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Outside councils, law firms, to no

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fault of their own, they can handle a task-oriented IP

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project. However, they are not going to have the visibility or

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even the insight into where the company wants to go.

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So the information they have is as good as whatever they

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receive. On the other hand, if you have someone strategic

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in-house, what they can bring to the table is asking,

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well, what about something else? What have we missed? Right. And

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that strategy piece is very often not able

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to capture by an outside counsel that is not on the ground day

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to day and figure out where the company may

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go or where the company can be benefited in

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That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that was sort of my assumption as

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well. But so it sounds like, you know, if you

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have to choose keeping external counsel that's

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doing like contracts and, you know, more of the regular

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legal aspects, but can that be handled

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by your IP attorney or is that not generally done? I know you wear both hats,

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but can your IP attorney usually generally

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very often different, but they're also very often

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the same, particularly in a life science company. And that's another reason

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I like to weave my legal

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strategy based on an IP-centric approach. And

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so again, this is applicable in a more life science, biotech,

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or high-tech settings where it's very uncommon

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any transaction will go through without touching IP in some

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way. even a hiring of a consultant, right,

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or collaboration. So very

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often an IP trained attorney should

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be able to at least contribute to the transactional

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pieces that legal exercise, although

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they are, they're designed to be different. But

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that's my way of saying that if

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there is to be a legal transactional exercise, IP should

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have some input into it. But whether the person can

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actually do both, that would depend on what

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Yeah, this is an area I have very little experience other than, yeah,

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we get contracts signed. But we

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have not had to deal directly with IP because that's just not our

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area. Other than if a candidate comes in, you know, attached to a patent, we have

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In a situation, unless it's an IP focus, typically companies

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like to have people who are focused on the more

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For anyone listening who is like, wow, what a cool career. I mean, I

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think it would be very difficult to replicate your career path. It is very

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interesting and it is just diverse. It is fascinating. But

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if someone was like, wow, I really think that like being the chief legal officer

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or, you know, any of these interim roles you had or chief business officer, like

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I guess in general, what advice do you have to someone who's, you

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know, maybe early stage career, maybe they're still figuring it out, but

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I actually get asked that question quite a bit. I

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do a lot of mentoring. And so that's actually one of the

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most common questions I get asked. So my recommendation

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is this. I think it's important to

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find your North Star values. Because that

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is going to be what helps you weather the storms, if there is one.

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That is going to be what helps you find your interests and understand what

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you don't like. So find your North Star values

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as early as possible, appreciating that value can

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change. but in the actions can change and

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you should be willing to embrace that change because that's how

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you evolve. But find that value as early as possible and

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at the same time be intellectually curious, right? And to say,

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look, there might be things I don't know. But let's find

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out, right? Don't stop there. Don't stop at there's something I don't know.

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OK, too bad. But find out, make an effort to find

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out, be vulnerable and say, I'm going to show up. I'm

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going to give it a try. And if it doesn't work, then let's be resilient

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and come back again or do something else. Know what you like, be

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true to yourself and then give it a try and just

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I think that's great life advice. Yeah. Honestly, career,

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Yeah. So what is next for

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you on this wild career ride that you're on? Do you

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have anything that is undone and you think, you know, before I'm done,

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I don't really have one, probably because

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I keep trying new things regardless. And I know I'm going to

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keep trying new things regardless. But career-wise, I

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think, first of all, I have had a remarkable career

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journey to be where I am. And I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. But

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being where I am right now, I've started to enjoy

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a lot more giving back. to

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the community, mentoring, and making sure that

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whatever I'm doing can actually help the

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next generation of folks who want to participate

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in any part of the journey I've been on, the legal part, the BD part,

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the HR part, you know, science part, that I'm,

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I'm part of that community to make that environment a

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better place, an easier place for them to, to thrive. Right. I

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see myself in participating a lot more on the community efforts,

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right. On a, in a board capacity perhaps, or,

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or, or advisory kind of, so that, so that it's,

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it's for me to be able to help people

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what is your favorite book, fiction, nonfiction, could have read

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it 20 years ago, could have read it yesterday, a book you think everyone should

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You know what? One of my favorite, favorite fiction

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book, it's actually a children's book. It's actually called

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The Rabbit Listened. And in essence, it's about

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this little kid. He was very frustrated, right? Because the

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toys fell down. And there are a series of animals coming, came

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to sort of comfort him. The bear roared because he was angry. The

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chicken said, let's talk. And the snake, you know, just a whole bunch

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of different things and said, let's do this, let's do this, let's do this. he

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didn't feel better. And what happened was this little rabbit, the

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rabbit came, sat by the kid, the child, and

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they just listened without saying a thing. And

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so as a result of that, the child started to

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angrily scream and then to roar and then to do

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all that stuff. And then at

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the end, the child goes, Now I'm

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ready to rebuild. Right. And so to me, that was such a lot

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of times we think we're helping people the

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way we know how to help, but that's counterproductive. Right.

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And so if anything, that's a reminder for myself that I would like

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to help. We should help people the way they want to be helped. if

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anything, that create a more inclusive environment because that

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can avoid a lot of the issues we're seeing with microaggressions

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and all that because we don't have the perspective of the other

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person. I do read a lot of fiction books, but this is probably one

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of my favorite ones. Yeah. And then now fiction, this book I really like

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is called Emotional Agility by Susan David. And

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to me, it was almost a summary of a lot of works that I really

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enjoy, right? Brene Fran's work, Alan Grant's work, Keenan

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Scott's work. And so this sort of summarizes how

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to be vulnerable, how to show up, how to stay intellectually curious

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and agile, and then give it a try. Right. And so that's

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Amazing. I'll put that on my list too. Yeah. I

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love all of the authors you mentioned and so anything that brings that together.

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Where can our audience get in touch with you if they have questions or

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Perfect. We'll link that in the show notes. If anyone wants to go Lincoln with you, I'm

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sure you'll get quite a few folks that are wanting to join your network and

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just follow your career. I'm fascinated. I can't wait to see what

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you do next. And I'm going to be following your career religiously because it

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is so fascinating. Thank you so much for coming on. This was a

About the Podcast

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Building Biotechs

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Carina Clingman, PhD