DR. MORITZ HORN & FLORIAN MELEROWICZ: ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN SCIENCE

Entrepreneurship and science startups are interesting topics, especially when it comes to aging research. We talk with Florian Melerowicz, who is a CGA student of the Class of 2022 and currently exploring if his PhD thesis research could develop in to a star-up idea, as he takes his first steps in this exciting new direction. We also chat with Dr. Moritz Horn (Class of 2010), Chief Scientific Officer at JLP Health and CEO and Co-Founder of ACUS Laboratories, to hear about his experiences, development and advice.

Florian, many research ideas remain papers or projects. Yours maybe won’t. What was the moment when you thought: ‘This shouldn’t just end up in a publication; this could actually become something else…maybe even develop into a start-up’?

Florian: I am convinced of the value that the longevity field seeks to deliver to society. The vast majority of societally relevant diseases are associated with aging. We need to find safe interventions to keep us healthy as we grow older. Data from my PhD project indicate that we are able to identify drugs that may have beneficial effects on aging and simultaneously could become treatments for specific disease indications. Therefore, I view it as an ethical responsibility to assess the translatability of my fundamental research into the real world. The GO-Bio funding allows us to precisely evaluate our potential for building a start-up, a vehicle that would enable bold action. 

Getting GO-Bio funding is an impressive achievement. When you first started working on the idea, what were the biggest unknowns, and how did you convince others that your idea was worth funding?

Florian: At the moment, the idea of targeting aging therapeutically is very promising, but drugs to slow down aging are understandably not yet accepted by the FDA or EMA in humans. This will likely change over the coming years, as the FDA has just conditionally approved such an aging intervention in dogs. In time, accumulating data will demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the first class of life- and healthspan-protective drugs. 
Currently, targeting aging itself as an indication still comes with many challenges and I asked myself how we could bridge this early translational gap. I carefully evaluated possible disease indications for which our platform’s hit selection approach would offer an increased likelihood of identifying efficacious candidates.  This led me to identify a cardiovascular disease indication that combined an urgent medical need with a compelling scientific rationale for our hit selection approach. I believe that focusing on a specific, near-term indication is what made our proposal attractive and tangible.

Between experiments, meetings, and business plans: what does a typical week look like for you right now, and what keeps you motivated when things get complicated?

Florian: Currently, my work week is a balancing act between the experiments needed to complete my PhD and the activities required to secure follow-up funding. This includes tasks that go well beyond typical academic work, such as market analysis, freedom-to-operate analysis, project management, and fundraising. In collaboration with consultants, we have analyzed the economic potential and the medical need. We even spoke with patients first-hand. Things do get complicated on a regular basis, and most of the time, I have to find solutions in uncharted territory. Knowing that there are patients desperately waiting for novel treatments is what keeps me going. 

Let’s imagine a future CGA student reads this story five years from now and is secretly considering a start-up idea. What would you tell them?

Florian: Hi future CGA student! Trying to build a deeptech and especially a biotech might be one of the most challenging endeavors you can envision. At the same time, the difficulty is inseparable from the meaning its success would carry. Carefully consider whether you are willing to devote your life, or at least the next five to ten years, to building something that has a high likelihood of failure, offset by the potential for maximum impact. Working in a biotech start-up is at least as demanding as the pursuit of an academic career. However, it may lead to a cure that will help every patient long after approval and this is why it’s all worth it for me personally. If my idea has turned out to be a success by the time you read this, feel free to reach out. I would be happy to help and advise.

Moritz, do you remember the moment when your research stopped being ‘just a scientific question’ and started looking suspiciously like a business idea? 

Moritz: During my time as Postdoc at the MPI for Biology of ageing, we developed a new genetic screening method with the goal to uncover fundamental biological principles – ideally mechanisms that help cells to cope with small molecule induced stress. However, instead of revealing general stress-response pathways related to longevity, our screens repeatedly identified the molecular target structures of the compounds we used as stressors. The moment it started to feel like more than a scientific question was when I saw a job ad from Bayer for scientists in drug target discovery. We thought maybe the method we had built was exactly the kind of approach pharma companies were looking for. So the business idea was almost born by accident. From there, the idea of creating a spin-out developed quite naturally, and we decided to follow it.

Running a start-up requires skills that rarely appear in a PhD or Postdoc curriculum. Which parts of your scientific training at CGA/MPI AGE turned out to be unexpectedly useful for building a company, and which parts of being a CEO did you have to learn the hard way?

Moritz: As scientists, we are trained to solve problems and in both lab life and company life, those problems can look different every day. During my time as a researcher I liked to collaborate and discuss ideas and experiments. In my view it is critical to enlist help from more experienced people such as former founders. That mindset turned out to be very useful when building a company, and it helped avoiding some of the hard lessons. With hindsight, there are still many things I would do differently, but it does not feel like too hard learnings.

What was one moment in your start-up journey where you thought: ‘This might actually fail’? And what helped you move past that point?

Moritz: There are still moments where I think, “This might actually fail.” The science itself is often the hardest part to plan. Experiments do not always follow business timelines, and unexpected results can suddenly challenge your plans, milestones, or financing strategy. Financing is, of course, always critical. But what helps me move past these moments is the same mindset that helps in science: staying flexible and resilient, plus surround yourself with people that challenge your plans and that you trust.

Let’s imagine a future CGA student reads this story five years from now and is secretly considering a start-up idea. What would you tell them in one honest sentence?

Moritz: Go for it! You will learn a lot, meet fantastic people, and get the chance to make a difference.