The VIC Fellows Program provides an opportunity for individuals with relevant expertise and interest to learn how to identify and evaluate promising innovations from global sources. We are pleased to highlight the members of the 2023-2024 class of Fellows in our ongoing series of interviews, such as this recent discussion with Sobha Pisharody, PhD.
Please tell us about yourself and your background.
Having worked in both early-stage start-ups and a Fortune 500 company, how has this broad range of experience shaped the way you assess and evaluate technologies?
Having seen the entire product commercialization process at various sizes of companies, it has made me extremely cautious with timeline and revenue projections, as both tend to be wildly ambitious, especially if teams have skipped over the very important work of the voice of customer, customer-defined product design and robust requirements definition. A nimble team can react to technical obstacles and pivot, but if the company’s true north isn’t directed at customers with significant unmet needs has already lost, they just don’t know it.
What do you consider to be your greatest career accomplishment to date?
One accomplishment I’m particularly proud of was when I was asked to recommend the strategic direction of a $400M Sanger Sequencing business, which had been expected to dwindle away once next-generation sequencing came on the market. I led a worldwide deep primary market study that led to the insight that the technology user had completely changed, from expert users at genome centers to every day scientists who didn’t want to be sequencing experts. This insight and the subsequent customer-centered redesign of the sequencing platform led to a $30M investment and a highly successful product.
What made you decide to become a VIC Fellow?
I had wanted to push my work with innovation teams earlier in the pipeline. I have worked with 2-person startups to 50,000-person multinationals, so the opportunity to work even early, at the academic invention stage, was very appealing to me. I also wanted to gain experience on the investor side of the table, as well as working with therapeutics.
What trends or emerging technologies in the life sciences are you most excited about
I am most excited about the advancements in our ability to harness the immune system to heal our bodies. CAR-T therapy was just the beginning.
With your experiences in the life sciences ecosystems, what do you see for the future of health innovation in the US?
I see harnessing the power of whole genome sequencing to give individuals their own whole-life genetic roadmap as a healthcare evolution whose time is now. The convergence of the cost of sequencing coming down, the number of gene-disease correlations that have been made in the last 10 years and the analytical power of AI/ML will (hopefully) usher in a new wave of precision medicine that will actually deliver on the promise.
What do you like to do for fun?
I have two adult daughters and my husband and I just took them on our first two-week grown up vacation (no beach, no theme park) last year. We all loved it and did it again this year. I am so excited to experience travel with them as friends as well as daughters. What happens in Lisbon stays in Lisbon…