Building exceptional biotech teams requires more than just assembling brilliant scientists. The real challenge lies in creating organizations that can navigate regulatory hurdles, secure funding, and bring life-changing therapies to market. Dr. Stella K. Vnook brings over 25 years of experience leading breakthrough innovations across multiple biotech ventures, currently serving as CEO of Likarda while founding companies such as Oral Biolife and Kaida BioPharma.
Building Teams That Transform Science Into Results
Managing multiple biotech ventures simultaneously might seem impossible, but Dr. Stella has found the key. “The truth is, it all starts with an exceptional team,” she explains. Her approach goes beyond traditional hiring practices, focusing on building organizations capable of transforming bold scientific visions into meaningful real-world outcomes. Through her work across oncology, AI-driven diagnostics, and regenerative medicine, she’s learned what separates high-performing biotech teams from those that struggle under regulatory and investment pressures. The challenge becomes even more complex when you consider the unique demands of biotech. These companies operate under intense scrutiny from regulators and investors while racing against time to bring therapies to patients who desperately need them. Success requires teams that can balance scientific rigor with commercial strategy, all while maintaining the agility to pivot when trials don’t go as planned.
Here are Dr. Stella’s four core principles for building biotech teams that can navigate the complex journey from lab bench to market success.
1. Hire for Vision and Execution Alike
Academic credentials matter in biotech, but they’re not everything. Dr. Stella learned this the hard way over the years. “I look for team members who can translate science into strategy, those who are comfortable making hard calls in ambiguous settings,” she explains. What she’s really talking about is finding people who can think both scientifically and commercially at the same time. When she was building the team at Likarda, they had great scientists but needed commercial expertise fast. The challenge was finding finance and regulatory people who could work alongside the lab team without slowing everything down. At Kaida Biopharma, the focus shifted to oncologists and regulatory experts who could push products from pre-clinical work to Phase I trials. Different companies, different needs, but the same basic principle: hire people who can handle complexity.
2. Embed Regulatory and Market Strategy Early
Here’s where a lot of biotech companies mess up. They build amazing science teams and figure they’ll worry about FDA approval later. That’s backwards thinking that costs time and money. Dr. Stella’s companies work with regulatory experts from day one, not because they have to but because it makes everything else easier. At Likarda, early FDA engagement helped them reduce risk around their hydrogel platform. But it did more than that. Having regulatory people involved from the start made their investor pitches stronger and their partnership discussions more productive. “You want your team thinking about IND-enabling studies, market shaping, and value-based care models from the start, not after Series B,” she points out.
3. Culture is Your Hidden IP
Culture might sound corporate, but it’s anything but that in biotech. When clinical trials go sideways or investors get cold feet, culture is what keeps teams together. Dr. Stella puts it simply: “We don’t just build companies, we build leaders.” That means creating environments where young scientists can learn while experienced people can take risks without fear. The companies that last are the ones where people feel safe enough to admit when something isn’t working. In biotech, failure happens all the time. The question is whether teams can learn from it and keep moving forward. Strong culture also helps attract the kind of investors who understand that drug development takes time and patience.
4. Build with Scalable Infrastructure
Nobody wants to talk about the boring stuff, but infrastructure matters more than most founders realize. Clean websites and professional email systems might seem basic, but they signal credibility to investors and potential hires. Dr. Stella’s seen too many good companies struggle because they didn’t take care of fundamentals early on. Every biotech starts with lab notebooks and big dreams. But pretty quickly you need proper accounting systems, legal structures, and ways to manage intellectual property. “Set the foundation wrong, and you’ll be rebuilding infrastructure just when you should be focused on growth,” she warns. The infrastructure extends beyond back-office work. Investor-ready pitch decks, organized data rooms, and clear IP strategies become essential when it’s time to raise money. These aren’t nice-to-have items. They’re requirements for any biotech company that wants to be taken seriously.
Building biotech teams that can actually deliver results isn’t just about finding smart people. It’s about creating organizations that can handle the unique pressures of drug development while staying focused on what really matters: getting therapies to patients who need them.
Follow Dr. Stella K. Vnook on LinkedIn to learn how she leads biotech teams through complexity to breakthrough success.
