Why you don’t need a PhD to get started in biotech: Interview with Subaita Rahman

Welcome to Invite Health! This week, I invited one of my friends, Subaita Rahman, to share how she built an impressive career by combining her interests in bio, tech, and entrepreneurship. Today’s highlights include:

• How Subaita broke into biotech venture capital (VC) as an undergrad- a field known for having a high barrier to entry!

• Subaita’s entrepreneurial experiences, from building biotech co-living houses in Boston to contributing to Toronto’s start-up ecosystem

• How Subaita landed many of her paid positions through cold messaging & networking - and how you can too

Why you don’t need a PhD to get started in biotech: Interview with Subaita Rahman

First off, tell us about your journey so far. Where do you study, what inspired you to pursue this, and what’s next? What else do you like to do outside of studying?

Hi Readers! My name is Subaita Rahman (she/her). I’m currently wrapping up my final year at the University of Toronto, St.George double majoring in Human Biology and Immunology at the Faculty of Arts and Science, with membership at St. Michael’s College. I’m currently doing my final year thesis project on gene expression mapping of cardiac tissue during pregnancy at Brian Cox’s (http://sites.utoronto.ca/coxlab/) Lab. 

Growing up, I always loved the idea of building something of my own instead of working on someone else’s vision, or at least helping shape a big part of it. The summer before university, I was a part of a summer entrepreneurship program for university and highschool students looking to learn how to start their own ventures called Basecamp, run by the DMZ incubator at TMU (applications opening soon!). I didn't know what entrepreneurship was at the time, but I applied out of curiosity. Funny enough, I came across it on an Instagram ad. 

The program required us to pitch a business idea we would work on. I pitched an idea I came up with while writing a nanomedicine review paper for my 12th grade biology class. It was analogous to covid rapid tests but for biomarker based diagnostics of general health conditions to help triage patients at the ER and walk-in clinics. My larger vision was to expand the technology to rural areas in Canada where healthcare is less accessible. Here’s a link to the review paper I wrote back when I was 17 (almost 6 years ago now!). 

Throughout the program, I spoke with various leaders within the healthcare system. After many conversations with doctors and clinicians, I pivoted to a software based healthtech platform for healthcare record management and appointment booking/cancellation. 

The experience exposed me to the world of startups and the tech community. I learned how to conduct customer discovery and market identification, which is understanding if your business is something that people want and will pay for. I also learned how to prototype, code, create a minimal viable product, design thinking, financial roadmapping, grant applications, and sales and marketing. We got to visit Google and Meta’s HQ offices in Toronto, and heard from engineers at Uber. A good book I’d recommend for someone new to the world of startups is Peter Thiel’s Zero to One book. At the end of the program we got a chance to pitch our startups to win a $5000 grant. 

My time at Basecamp made me realize my passion for biology and need to stay as close to it as I could. I decided to not pursue the company after the program. Knowing that I wanted to continue down this path of merging biology and business, I wanted to build my scientific expertise in biology throughout my degree, and build my business expertise I gained at Basecamp by directly working at companies. 

I choose UofT because of its unique position being right beside the world's leading research hubs, hospital networks, incubators/accelerators and a plethora of biotech startups. Most life science programs have the option to conduct a final year thesis project at a lab. Many of the courses I am in discuss what the current state of the art is in biology and invite guest lecturers who are working at the cutting edge of those fields. Some of my favorite courses in the HMB program include:

• HMB204H1 (Introduction to Human Biology)

• HMB201H1 (Introduction to Fundamental Genetics and its Applications)

• HMB301H1 (Biotechnology)

• HMB491Y1 (Project in Biotechnology Industry) where you get to work at a biotech company for credit! 

Since then I’ve been able to work on interesting research projects spanning from tissue engineering to single-cell sequencing for a variety of applications such as understanding cancer and reproductive health. Being close to major hubs of innovation in Toronto meant I could easily attend events such as hearing from the founder of Deep Genomics, or networking events at JLabs (biotech incubator space). Beginning of my second year through UofT’s work study program, I landed a paid marketing position with UofT’s Entrepreneurship Centre giving the opportunity to directly interact with all of UofT’s student-led startups. 

During this time, many of my peers would ask me about biotech and how they could learn more and break in. That led two of my friends at UofT and I to co-found Nucleate Dojo (previously known as BioDojo, merged with Nucleate in 2021). Our goal was to build a tight knit community, educational programs on the various paths and roles within biotech, and provide funding. We kept it open to those outside of UofT, with the goal of exposing our peers to the world of biotech on the global scale. 

We’ve been able to connect students with paid opportunities at biotech companies, land paid positions at top research labs, and secure funding for their startups. We’ve managed to build a 300+ community to date. Some programs I led in the past include a fully-funded biotech themed co-living house in Boston, after my experience living in a tech themed co-living house over the summer of 2021 in San Francisco. 

Nucleate Dojo is big on making sure undergraduates know the value and potential they have, and get fairly compensated for their work. In the past, we launched educational programs training students on the various roles they can work at a biotech, be in the know of the latest industry trends, negotiate paid positions, provide industry mentorship, stay in the loop of various opportunities and internships at the cutting edge, and connect them with funding opportunities to support research based work. We ensured students were equipped with the knowledge needed to become leaders in the space, especially those that lacked the knowledge or network. 

Most recently, the team has been able to directly financially support undergraduate students through the launch of DojoGrants, providing stipends to students from underrepresented backgrounds or demonstrated financial need to conduct high potential research. 

Building Dojo was one of the most rewarding things I had done in my undergrad. We were able to attract students from biotech hubs around the world. It gave me an excuse to interact and meet with an incredible group of founders, scientists, and other ambitious students wanting to build and work in biotech. I’ve met my best friends through building Dojo. In my third and fourth year, I’ve been able to leverage the work I did and get paid consulting work with my dream companies and founders I wanted to learn from. I was able to break into biotech VC, a notoriously difficult position to get into if you lack a PhD. 

Finding the “third door” into biotech as a young undergrad proved how willing people in the industry are willing to help if you just ask. During the pandemic, I started reaching out to people on Twitter/X and LinkedIn for coffee chats genuinely curious about the work that they did. You will be surprised by how many people, no matter how busy they may seem or how senior they are, are more than happy to chat about their careers and thoughts with someone just starting out. Genuine curiosity and interest in the work someone does goes a long way. 

Standing out is key. Because I had built Dojo, I was surprised how many people were curious about what it was and reached out to me. Finding a problem and doing something about it, no matter how small of a step you take, shows people that you are intrinsically motivated, driven, and eager to learn. 

When it comes to reaching out, sometimes it is as easy as saying:

During the call, it depends from person to person. It’s best to skim their work beforehand and come prepared with questions. It’s good to start by briefly introducing yourself and what you are looking to learn, give them a chance to intro themselves or ask questions, and then ask your questions.  Sometimes they may directly ask “how can I help?”, sometimes they’ll introduce themselves off the bat and start asking you questions. It depends! The more practice you have doing coffee chats, the easier it gets to navigate them.  

If it goes well, it’s important to routinely follow up with them. Six months to a year is a good timeframe for both sides to have updates. Some of the people I reached out to years ago became my future colleagues. Some of them instantly became my best friends.

An example is one of my long term mentors + good friend. I reached out to someone on LinkedIn on a whim, and she connected me with them. She’s a few years ahead of me but she’s been able to help me get to the next phases of my career, and I’ve been able to watch her career growth as well which has been incredible to watch. 

Generally outside of work, I love thinking about startup hubs and ecosystems, how we can create more opportunities for people to pursue startups, and different funding mechanisms to get young people started. Startups are a great vehicle to pursue wild dreams and ideas, and it gives people the platform they may not have otherwise to change the world on a scale of billions.

I’m a fan of initiatives like 1517 Medici Fund, which give grants to high potential young people. I truly believe by giving young people a platform and financial support, they can go on to build incredible businesses.

A lot of your work has centered around biotech and VC. Can you explain what biotech and VC are, to readers who may be learning about it for the first time. And what is biotech VC?

Biotech is about using biology as a tool to solve problems. It ranges from things like creating new therapeutics from cells, for example CAR-T or monoclonal antibodies, agriculture like creating new fertilizer from bacteria, or using biology to tackle problems in climate, defense, or fertility. Anything can be considered biotech as long as you are using biology as a technology (biotech). It’s a bit different from healthtech, which often uses software to solve problems in a healthcare system. There’s also been the emergence of techbio, which are often “software-first” biotech companies. 

VC, known as venture capital, is a funding mechanism many startups use to fund the first few years of a company in exchange for shares or % of ownership (equity) in most cases. There are different stages within VC such as pre-seed, seed, series A, B, C+, and each stage has various ranges of check sizes. In the US, a pre-seed round could be anywhere between $5k to $1M, and seed rounds could be from $1M to $10M. These numbers vary vastly from fund to fund, region, city, and country.

Some other terms that are often thrown around in VC:

1. Due Diligence = the process of researching a company. Understanding the market, the team, or the technology. This process may involve talking to other competitors in the space, reading papers, or spending time with the founder and learning more. 

2. Term sheet = when a VC gives an offer to a company of a certain amount of $ for a % of equity. There are different ways to have equity or a “stake” in a company so it can vary.

3. Partner/Principal = can vary again, but partners are the ones who usually make the final decision of what companies get investments. Principals often spend their time doing due diligence with companies and getting to know founders. 

4. Venture creation/incubation = when a VC creates a new team and business using its own resources. More common in biotech. 

I’ve spent most of my time in the pre-seed to seed stages when companies are just getting started and have small team sizes of anywhere between 1-10 people. In general, most VCs are focused on unicorn returns, meaning whatever they invest in, they expect to make anywhere between 10-100x the initial amount. Unicorn companies are those that are valued at $1 billion or more (i.e how much the company can be “worth” in the future). 

Biotech VC is funding biotech companies through VC. Biotechs can be very research and development (R&D) heavy for the first few years, and require a ton of upfront capital to create a viable product such as a drug. This is very different than normal tech VC, as they expect you to have a minimum viable product before you pitch to VCs. 

Development of a biotech product often requires expensive facilities and a highly technical team which can be costly. This is where VC comes in as they can invest large amounts of funding. Biotech rounds can get funding of up to $200M in some cases for Series A/B rounds.

You took a gap year to work at Pillar VC, a VC firm based in Boston. Can you tell us a bit about your experience and what the application process was like?

VC firms can be structured to have an investment team that focuses on investing and doing due diligence in companies, and a platform team that focuses on marketing the firm, founder support, and recruiting, such as Pillar. A firm can also be comprised of one or two investors. 

My role at Pillar was a paid Biotech Platform Co-op role, responsible for leading the team’s biotech-focused platform initiatives. I participated in investment team meetings and company due diligence to gauge what our founder community needs are. I often felt overwhelmed at the large volumes of complex research data during pitch meetings. We would see new science the rest of the world may have not seen yet, or companies inventing a whole new branch of medicine. There were times where I could not contribute because of being young and inexperienced, compared to those that spent 25+ years in the industry. The best situation in a scenario like this is having mentors to learn from, and super important to note before joining a new role. 

I was lucky to have mentors that answered my questions, such as their thought process during a pitch. It was fun to learn what due diligence looks like in early-stage biotech investing, learning how to assess technical risk, market risk, team risk, and scientific risk. I learned a ton from both of my mentors at Pillar, Tony Kulesa, who co-founded Petri, and Thomas De Vlaam, who previously built his own company and was a part of Flagship Pioneering (a fund that helped create Moderna!). 

Diving into some of my projects at Pillar, I was given the chance to lead the 2022 Founder-Led Bio Summit, which is a week-long conference inspiring people to spin out companies from their research in the lab, and hearing from leaders who’ve done it before. I also helped organize cohorts of Pillar’s Frequency Bio program, which is a week-long boot camp coaching high-potential individuals on how to start biotech companies. I got to lead an exploration week in the UK, sourcing new bio founders and companies.

I joined Pillar because I truly believed in community being a key pillar (no pun intended) in the startup ecosystem. Pillar made a strong mark in the biotech community because of their platform initiatives in the US and UK, and they truly do care about helping as many scientists as they can.

For the role itself, there was no formal application process. I met Pillar’s principal Tony Kulesa through Twitter/X, and he came across my work with Nucleate Dojo. I told him I wanted to experience living in Boston and take advantage of the momentum I built with Nucleate Dojo, and luckily Pillar was hiring at the time.

Another big reason why I decided to take a gap year between my third and final year is due to the pandemic. I’ve only worked remote jobs and I wanted to experience working in person. A lot of my classes were still hybrid or fully remote, and I wanted to have my final year completely in person. One of the reasons I decided to go to UofT was for the upper year course offerings, and I knew I would be able to build good relationships with my professors and gain the most benefit in person. For example, in my current final year thesis project, I get to interact with my lab members and PI weekly and have learned a lot through in person interactions. 

With Pillar, I was lucky that I was able to work a full-time role in person in arguably the world’s best biotech hub. I highly recommend being in person for a role and take advantage of the city you are in, it can truly make or break your experience. Similar to in person courses, you learn so much from just being in the office and have many more opportunities to chat with people in the company you would normally not interact with. You can increase chances for serendipitous conversations and learning opportunities to occur. The most insightful conversations were ones where I was at the office. I’d often get roped into meetings I wasn’t initially apart of, or if the team was driving to visit a founder, they often invite me to come with them. You also bond with the team and build stronger relationships with mentors much faster in person than virtually. 

Something I wish I did more of is taking detailed notes of every meeting, every conversation, or notes about what you learned each day. It helps solidify the learning you can take away once you move onto your next role. Ask as many questions as you can. Show your interest in wanting to learn. Always better to voice questions than pretend to know everything. You make a more lasting impression if you ask for help, take their feedback and radially improve! Be hungry, humble, and smart (as Thomas always says).

You wrote a piece about the current therapeutic landscape for reproductive health. What sparked your interest in female reproductive health, and how do you see yourself making an impact in this field?

I remember asking my investor friends what they thought were the next biggest problems that people should be working on and a handful mentioned fertility. Overtime I saw a wave of FemTech companies and interest in general women’s health. The more I spoke about it with friends and family, the more I realized almost every woman in my life has had issues with their health and couldn’t get the care they needed until much later. 

Excruciatingly painful menstrual cramps are not normal. Suffering from the symptoms of birth control is not okay. Dismissing women’s pain as a whole is doing a disservice to the next generation of humanity (not just women silly!). IVF shouldn’t be a painful, time-consuming, and expensive process. 

There’s such a huge emphasis on fertility, but it seems like no one was addressing the underlying issue which was the neglect of women’s reproductive systems. Endometriosis diagnosis can take up to 10 years, and it’s often a reason behind infertility. 

My current thesis is that building in women’s reproductive health is a good start from a therapeutics perspective. I’d love to help create or build companies that develop new therapeutics using today’s technology and treating the reproductive system as a lifespan framework, then develop new drugs catered towards women’s health as a whole. In 5-10 years, I would love to see women’s health care shift towards early diagnosis and prevention, instead of reactive medicine. 

The female reproductive system is more than just what happens when trying to get pregnant, or post reproductive years. It’s the body’s second command center and can influence so much beyond just reproduction. There’s so much we can learn from the system and use it as a platform to understand human health broadly. There’s a plethora of immune cells that only arise when a placenta is around, and cells that give rise to the placenta have been shown to potentially be involved in remodelling the heart, potentially shining light on heart disease as a whole. I touch on this more deeply in my piece!

As of now, the top selling drugs in this space are menopause symptom control (which also serves as general osteoporosis drugs) and female contraceptives. We need new drugs, drugs that are developed with the intention to treat reproductive health first. We need more companies working on alleviating symptoms that are highly specific to reproductive disorders beyond menopause. We need basic research funding to understand the system, develop new models, and publish more open source datasets.

You’ve done quite a bit of work across research, entrepreneurship, and VC, and you’re in your final year at UofT now. So, what’s next?

Figuring out how to build biotech therapeutic companies in women’s health. Please please reach out if this is a space that interests you. Working on a few ideas at the moment.

Where can students go if they want to learn more about your experiences, and if they want to get involved in these spaces that you have been part of?

My website is fairly up to date! I try my best to get back to cold emails, Twitter DMs, or LinkedIn.

Is there anything else that you would like to add for Invite Health readers?

Don’t be afraid to ask dumb questions. You can always ask for what you want, it takes practice but remember that the worst thing that’ll happen is that it doesn’t happen. One of my early mentors wrote a wonderful piece on early career advice I love. 

Reputation does matter! Always always be kind and try to give back the help that people gave you. Don’t forget those that helped get you to where you are 🫶

Next Week on Invite Health 💌

I interview Michael Trinh, a rising immunologist, bioengineer, and music producer from UofT. Michael shares his story behind why he decided to pursue immunology, how he secured undergrad lab positions at UofT and MIT, and advice for students wanting to gain lab experience. Fun fact- Subaita and Michael co-founded Nucleate Dojo together!

This interview will be available next week on Invite Health.

In the Community 👩🏻‍💻

• Follow Invite Health’s new Instagram page! @readinvitehealth

• Indigenous Internship Program at the Government of Ontario (paid)

• Research Scholar, Northeast Asia (paid)

• Innovation Developer, High School Student - RBC Summer Tech Labs 2024 (paid)

• Amgen Operations + HBCU 20x20 Biotech Fellowship (paid)

• Research Coordinator at Knowledge Institute on Child and Youth Mental Health and Addictions (paid)

• Social Connectedness Fellow (paid)

• The Lifemark Scholarship for Black Students in Occupational Therapy or Physiotherapy ($5,000 CAD)

• Read last week’s interview with Harshini Ramesh:

About Invite Health 💌

Invite Health is a newsletter for students trying to figure out what to do with a life sci / health sci degree. I highlight students pursuing careers in healthcare, and the paid experiential learning opportunities they've had. From big tech to pathobiology research to health politics, my goal with this newsletter is to introduce you to the various pathways that students can pursue in healthcare (and get paid along the way!).

Whether you’re reading this on a commute, during your study break, or from the comfort of your own home, I hope you enjoyed reading today’s newsletter.

- Sachi

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