Nick's Note
Optimizing ROI: Return on “Innovation”
The etymology of the word Innovation itself is derived from ““change” and “new”. New is fun. Change is scary.
But new without change doesn’t move the needle. And change for its own sake? That is just chaos –unless you’re hiding from the authorities.
For those of us reading this who have devoted our careers to innovation in the life sciences: Why do we have to watch so many brilliantly innovative ideas go nowhere? Why do “genius” concepts so often land with a thud? Why bother?
There are answers, but most of us learned them the hard way. Why couldn't someone have just told us in advance?
I recently found myself in what can only be described as the latest of many spontaneous self-help therapy sessions. But this one felt different. A blend of post-corporate disillusionment, retrospective learnings, a little absurdity, and the unintentional hilariousness of outlining all the times innovation has gone sideways in large organizational settings.
“That time we signed a shiny start-up that absolutely nobody wanted”
“That time we accidentally built the same app twice only to find out the company also signed an external partner”
“That time we had to pretend we succeeded with smiles and celebration instead of attempting to learn what failed and evolving”
“That time we built a solution to predict something super-interesting but it turns out not super-useful"
“That time we realized the world had no data to scale our solution”
And then we asked: what actually worked? What core principles held up? How to adapt? How to build a proper foundation? What to do at t=0? How to make sure that what you’re doing both mattered and was realistic.
We wished someone had told us this 20 years ago. So now we are telling each other and You. This newsletter is our forum to learn, challenge and refine together. To replace learning the old-fashioned “hard way” with something just a little more modern. And that’s why we are here, and happy that you are too!
Patients First. Platforms Second.
Ruminations & Ramblings is a new series on the future of drug development—where scientists, executives, and investors meet at the messy middle to ask harder questions and chase fewer myths.
Why chasing tools before defining problems wastes time, money, and patient trust
Here’s the point: the patient—not the platform. If a shiny tool doesn’t move a specific decision closer to a better outcome at the bedside, it’s theater.
Merriam-Webster defines “innovation” as “a new idea, method, or device”. Wikipedia adds “that offer improvement in offering goods or services”. So, it’s not just about …follow the ramble
The Tail is Wagging the Dog
Innovation without direction probably isn’t innovation
You would be hard pressed to find someone who would call me a “techno geek” though my good friend, Szczepan, will tell you that he’s one. I do support the pursuit of continuous innovation in our tools and our ways of working, but I’m not always convinced that “progress” in our capabilities equals “progress” in our quality of life or our ability to solve problems. It could be the Luddite in me, but I sometimes think we’re serving …follow the ramble
Human & Machine
The future of research in life science
So, it’s safe to assume that Gen AI will start “generating” new medicines soon too, right? Alas, there will be no push button solution for new “AI drugs” anytime soon – at least not in the traditional sense. Let’s think about why. But also about how AI will and is helping in drug discovery and development. And what exciting developments to expect from the next round of innovations. Discovering new drugs is incredibly complex, has lots of … follow the ramble
The Messy Middle of Innovation
Closing the Loop Between Preclinical Tools and Clinical Truths
Let’s get one thing out of the way: I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been pitched a “game-changing” technology that was supposed to fix everything that’s broken in drug development. Most of the time, these silver bullets turn out to be blanks. Still, every so often, something genuinely surprising happens—a new approach or tool actually moves the … follow the ramble