“We're already seeing smaller teams, virtual outsourcing, fractional C-suite, not building out big teams. I support on the venture side a couple of companies that are in clinical stage, in some cases pivotal studies, with 20 employees… I think this idea of smaller teams is here to stay. And AI is going to facilitate that.”
Biotech Hangout · Health & Longevity · October 2026
Context
Responding to news that a one-person biotech was acquired, the host said lean teams are becoming normal in biotech R&D, pointing to venture-backed companies he supports.
Transcript
…about that you know beyond their their current franchise um so look ai it's hard to go through any week without ai being a big topic in biotech but this one uh kind of an unprecedented deal that was done by anthropic brian you want to kick us off on that and it might lead to a broader discussion
…here viewing sort of the impact of ai i know what i sort of say when people say you know where where's ai gonna drive biotech over the next five 10 years and and you know are all these ai companies going to swallow up biotech um but you know i'd love to hear the perspectives let me put some
…teams? And we're already seeing smaller teams, virtual outsourcing, you know, fractional C-suite, not building out big teams. You know, I've support on the venture side, a couple of companies that are in clinical stage, in some cases, pivotal studies with 20 employees. And I have one that's on the cusp of phase two. We have one full-time CEO and raising a Series B to build out a small team. So I think this idea of smaller teams is here to stay. And AI is going to facilitate that. But anyway, I would love to hear from the other co-hosts, their thoughts and comments on this whole AI theme.
Well, in our chat, I think Sam brought up a very provocative question. And I think AI is absolutely going to make a difference. And I think eventually people are going to have a lot more free time because they are going to be in their self-driving Tesla on the way to work. And it's going to make…
So look, we in my team use AI quite a bit. And I can verify that for some relatively basic tasks where I need massive amounts of data gathered and sifted through, it is making a significant difference. I'm finding that I can displace two or three contractors, for instance, in some data gathering…
Yeah. Yeah. And I also think we're still lacking good translational models to be predictive of what will happen in humans. And at the end of the day, especially new targets, you won't know the rubber hits the road with a true clinical study in human subjects, right? And a data readout. It'll be…
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