Building Precision NanoSystems and the Road to a Danaher Exit

Guest: James Taylor In this episode of Boba & Biotech, Armon sits down with James Taylor, co-founder of Precision NanoSystems, for a candid conversation about building a platform technology for nanoparticle-delivered RNA medicines from a PhD project into an 11-year journey that ended in an acquisition by Danaher Corporation, a leading global life sciences and diagnostics healthcare company.  They cover the early grind of bootstrapping with non-dilutive grants, why it took five years to raise a Series A, and the case for staying a tools company even as the "sexier" path to therapeutics beckoned. Taylor opens up about a near-death experience scaling the sales team, the hard lessons of building a channel as a technical founder, and why boards don't run companies, management does. They also dig into building in Vancouver V.S. the US, the tension between royalty and per-unit business models, and what he'd change about how the industry communicates its impact to the world. James Taylor is the Co-Founder and former CEO of Precision NanoSystems (PNI), a Vancouver-based life science tools company specializing in lipid nanoparticle platform technology. He holds a B.A.Sc. in engineering physics and a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of British Columbia (UBC). After 11 years building PNI, James led its acquisition by Danaher, where it was integrated into Cytiva's Life Sciences portfolio. Links Armon’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/armonsharei/   James’ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorrobertjames/  Credits Hosted by Armon Sharei, PhD Research by Julie Kim, MBA Produced by David Woje, Woje Productions, Andressa Carroll, Portal Edited and mixed by David Woje