Azargen Biotechnologies- How to succeed as a biotech entrepreneur without incubators, accelerators or an MBA degree!

How do you go from a full-time academic researcher and lecturer to the CEO of a biotech company in Africa? Dr Mauritz Venter found a way of combining his passion and curiosity for both science and business by co-founding a biotech company, Azargen biotechnologies, following a successful career as an academic lecturer and researcher. His exposure to business magazines from his father who worked in the corporate sector and an internship in a business consultancy after a course for bioentrepreneurs by the then Cape biotech hub allowed him to pursue this entrepreneurial journey. He recounts how they were able to establish the company before the advent of incubators and accelerators and shares valuable skills that allowed them to succeed. I like that he mentioned how he followed the emotional pull that business and genetics had on him without necessarily having clarity of where this would lead. He believes in hands-on learning from real life experiences provided you take time to reflect on feedback you receive from colleagues, investors, mentors and even family members. Also important to his upskilling was continuous education by immersing himself in business literature and taking short courses at business schools. According to Dr Venter, if you decide to get into the industry with the highest risk but also the highest reward, which is the biopharmaceutical industry, you need to find like-minded people who are willing to work hard and give it their all. It would develop your character and you should infuse your values and make sure it is meaningful and worthy. The most important skills you will need are: to tolerate uncertainty the willingness to embrace complexity not to depend on textbook frameworks and theories, but to really be rooted in reality to have a deep understanding of risk relationship management understand how innovation works in other countries, but also in Africa get clarity of the desire of what you want to achieve and address the question on why did you are starting keep up your mental and physical health Some of the achievements of Azargen to date include a patent for a therapeutic candidate for respiratory disease which they have been able to express in a plant-based system. And the other one is a licensing candidate, a monoclonal antibody for auto immune disease that they've just completed a preclinical phase in the US. They are one of a few African biotechs that received feedback from the US FDA. In parallel they have entered the synthetic biology space with a platform technology for scalable manufacturing of biologics in therapeutics, biofuels and the cultivated meat industry. We also explored the trends that are likely to impact biotech in Africa in the near future such as bio-manufacturing capability, digital health, precision medicine, synthetic biology. Listen to find out Dr Venter's answer to my question on what role an MBA plays in becoming a biotech entrepreneur? At what stage do you need that certification? Is it when you're starting or in the course of it? Do you absolutely need it?