Bruce Lahn On Raising $80 Million To Build A Global Company Providing Gene Delivery Technologies To Enable Research And Clinical Studies

A scientist-turned-entrepreneur, Bruce Lahn has successfully transitioned from academia to leading businesses like VectorBuilder and Cyagen, reshaping gene delivery and genetic research. Here’s a dive into his extraordinary path and the lessons he’s gleaned along the way.

VectorBuilder has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Legend Capital, Operation Holding Group, Wanlian Securities Co., Guangzhou Yuexiu Industrial Investment Fund Management, and China Chengtong.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Bruce Lahn’s journey from academia to entrepreneurship was driven by a desire to fund impactful research and make the world a better place.
• Transitioning from running a research lab to managing companies required learning entirely new skill sets, including business operations and investor relations.
• Observing inefficiencies in labs led to the creation of VectorBuilder, revolutionizing how researchers access customized gene delivery vectors.
• Bruce emphasizes the importance of pairing visionary ideas with practical execution to build sustainable ventures.
• With operations spanning multiple countries, VectorBuilder illustrates how leveraging global resources enhances innovation and efficiency.
• Bruce’s companies prioritize giving back to the scientific community with free tools and resources, fostering trust and innovation.
• Reflecting on his journey, Bruce advises startups to focus on sales and marketing early to accelerate growth and capture market potential.

 

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About Bruce Lahn:

Bruce Lahn is the founder and chief scientist at VectorBuilder. He obtained his BA from Harvard University and PhD from MIT.

Bruce has an extensive track record in academia and industry, including a chaired professorship at the University of Chicago, an investigatorship at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and founding or chief scientific advisory functions for several research institutions and successful biotech enterprises.

Bruce’s expertise spans many fields, including biotechnology, genetics, genomics, epigenetics, stem cell biology, and evolution, and he has over 100 publications and patents.

His leadership in research and the biotech industry has also won him numerous awards and a reputation as a restless innovator and disruptor.

Connect with Bruce Lahn:

• LinkedIn
• TheOrg
• Crunchbase
• National Library of Medicine

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Deal Maker Show. So today we have a really ah unbelievable founder, you know a founder that has done it multiple times. Right now, he is writing an amazing company, and we’re going to be talking about it. you know We’re going to be talking about the main reason why he got started, amongst other things, but again, the building, the scaling, the financing, you name it. So without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Bruce Land. Welcome to the show.

Bruce Lahn: Thank you, thank you for having me.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally born in China, so give us a walk through memory e lane. How was life growing up over there?

Bruce Lahn: Yeah, so I was born in central China in a small town, and then I moved to Beijing with my parents at a pretty young age. Both my parents were physicists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, um which is probably why a lot of physics was probably my DNA. ah So when I entered college, I had actually initially wanted to study physics But then I heard that all the important things in physics ah that could be discovered had already been discovered, ah which in retrospect was totally wrong.

Bruce Lahn: But for what it’s worth, I ended up going to into biology. Then one thing led to another, I ended up getting a bachelor’s in biology from Harvard and then PhD in biology from MIT, then professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago.

Bruce Lahn: And then along the way, I found the number

Alejandro Cremades: And what what what what was that about? what What was that about? You were trying to get accolades from every single top university. i mean what what What was the main driver of that?

Bruce Lahn: I guess I had always been a dreamer. That was also probably in my in my DNA. you know I grew up in China back when it was desperately poor. And so I experienced a lot of hardship personally and also witnessed you know a lot of hardship around me. So I had always wanted to you know make my world and the world for everybody else a better place, which was probably the main motivator behind ah you know my studying hard and working hard for what I ended up in life.

Alejandro Cremades: And what what got you into you know developing that law for, let’s say, physics or biology? you know how How did that start?

Bruce Lahn: Well, in physics, you know I just love the logic. ah And you know physics ah is a discipline with a very tight logic. ah As I said, the you know I thought that maybe there wasn’t a lot of space for new discoveries in physics, so I ended up going to biology. And I did choose ah subfields within biology, ah that is genetics, that I thought was more logical, more physics-like, which is sort of ah you know where I ended up both professionally and also in terms of my entrepreneurship.

Alejandro Cremades: So in your case, you know after you got all the accolades from universities, like you were saying, like Harvard, MIT, the University of Chicago, you went into you you know just launching companies. I mean, you’ve done like five companies all in all, ah you know some successful, some Not so successful, but I’m sure that as they say, you either succeed or you learn. right But in your case, you know the the the main driver of ah of really getting started with companies was more than anything to finance your research. i mean That’s a pretty interesting concept. so So walk us through that. How did the whole idea of becoming an entrepreneur you know come knocking to you?

Bruce Lahn: Yeah, so when I was at the University of Chicago running a lab, I had to spend a lot of time applying for grants. It was enough to support maybe 15-20 people in my lab, but I did spend 20-30% of my time applying for grants and I thought, you know, that was a bit of a waste of time. I could have devoted ah my time to doing the actual research and additionally I could only get so much grant right so I wanted to do projects that the the amount of funding that I could get just wouldn’t be able to support so I thought if I started companies on the side I could perhaps over time build a ah level of financial support for my ah research interest beyond what I can get through grants so that’s one major motivator for for

Bruce Lahn: Launching these companies and obviously there were other motivators to one of which is just to provide better tools to the community. So other researchers can do their research better drug developers can ah develop drugs better, and also just to make the better the world a better place, right? My childhood dream, I thought that through both are research running a lab and also entrepreneurship, you know, starting companies that could make research better, I could make a better contribution to the world.

Alejandro Cremades: Typically, the people that they have your type of profile, which is say highly technical as a background, they tend to have you know kind of like a tougher time when transitioning into the business side of things. How was that transition you know into the business you know side for you as well?

Bruce Lahn: you know You’re absolutely right. ah What it takes to run a lab, run a research lab, is actually very different from what it takes to run a company. ah I had to learn a lot of things from s scratch. ah you know Running a company is is you know more than about producing good products, doing good R and&D. It’s also about um you know making ah generating revenue, you know making sure that people are getting paid, ah you know making sure over time your investors are getting returns on their investment. So a lot of that is is ah you know way beyond what ah running a research lab would require. So I would say that if running a research lab requires ah skill set level 10, running a company is probably 20 to 30. So yeah, I had to learn a lot of the that from scratch.

Alejandro Cremades: So then tell us about, you know, obviously out of the five companies, you know, we’ll talk about Victor Builder and then also Sygen, but I want to talk real quick about perhaps the other companies that were not so successful and that perhaps, you know, failed. What were some of the lessons that you got? You know, because you typically don’t learn as much when you’re succeeding, but more when you’re failing. So what what what were your biggest takeaways from, you know, embracing those, say, those tough moments, you know, when building companies?

Bruce Lahn: I think ah having dreams are important, but not enough. Obviously, ah most entrepreneurs go into founding companies with some kind of a dream. And you know that may or may not be practical. And I think that for some of the ventures that I ah was involved with, they were perhaps not so practical in retrospect. ah But at the time, maybe you know I was just blinded like everybody else. ah on the team blinded by by the dream, by the passion. And I guess just you know having a healthy dose of realism ah is is is very important to you know keep asking yourself, why you? and And what’s so different about this venture versus you know what is already out there and how how to convince yourself that you can succeed where other people probably have already failed.

Alejandro Cremades: So in that, in that case, you know, when, when you got started with Sygen and then also v Vector Builder, I mean, those are simultaneous companies, you know, that happened. You were literally like part of both in parallel. So how was that for you? You know, because i eventually you ended up paying, you know, really deciding to go all in into Vector Builder, but how was that sequence of events, you know, to have these two successful companies, you know, that were running in parallel?

Bruce Lahn: Yeah, well, Cygen was founded all a little earlier than Back to Builder. So Cygen was in the business of making genetically modified animal models, mostly for labs.

Bruce Lahn: these are rodent models, mostly ah mouse models, but also rat models. ah So that involves a lot of genetics, a lot of genetic manipulation, a lot of making vectors to deliver DNA into cells to make these genetic models. And also at the time, ah I was noticing that a lot of ah my grad students and postdocs were spending a huge amount of their time making ah vectors. So vectors are basically a piece of DNA or RNA that’s wrapped the package in some way to allow them to be delivered into cells. And it’s basically a research region, but also an important material for genetic medicine, especially in gene therapy and vaccines. um You know, you probably heard of CAR T therapy, which is basically a vector going to T cells to deliver genes into T cells to allow the cells to fight cancer. And then COVID vaccines are basically a piece of RNA

Bruce Lahn: ah that’s delivered into the but body to allow the body to fight off the COVID virus. ah So, you know, I saw that both an opportunity in ah in in in vectors ah you know, in medicine, but also the fact that, you know, vectors require a lot of effort to make in labs. These are highly custom reagents, different applications, different experiments require different vectors. So people used to, researchers used to make their own vectors in the lab. So I figured, hey, what about building a company, which later became vector builder, that would allow researchers to outsource

Bruce Lahn: ah The construction of the vector so they can focus on the real science. ah So also, you know, obviously, science at the time also needed a lot of vectors. So the extra expertise. ah In building vectors. ah You know, back when I found the science and was also very translatable when I decided to to found like the builder.

Alejandro Cremades: So tell us about about the, also that moment where, I mean, you, you are lucky enough to have, um, you know, with your partner, both of you had shares in vector builder as well as sizing. So how was that the decision process towards getting to the point where you were like, you know what? Why don’t we just say you focus on sizing a hundred percent. I’ll focus on, on vector v builder, a hundred percent. And let’s just swap shares. That’s quite unique.

Bruce Lahn: Yeah, so ah one is um it’s hard for both of us to focus on two venture and also ah obviously I had ah had a lot back then. That was actually my full-time job. I could only devote part of my time acting as an advisor to the two companies. um But, you know, obviously a few years ago I closed my lab so I can focus on my ventures, ah but also, you know, just Having two companies run two companies at the same time was just ah not something that i I thought I could do well. So I spoke to my partner, and when we decided to kind of go our separate ways. um So you know I divested from Cyogen, and then my partner divested from Vector Builder. ah So we could each focus on you know one of the two ventures.

Alejandro Cremades: ah Tell us about Victor Builder. What are you guys doing with Victor Builder? What’s the business model? How do you guys make money?

Bruce Lahn: Yeah, so as I said, a Vector Builder makes a gene delivery vectors, right? So as I already mentioned, a vector is just a piece of DNA or RNA that is treated in special ways so they can go into cells in the body, the body of an animal in the case of doing research, of or body a human being in the case of genetic medicine.

Bruce Lahn: I mentioned CAR T and COVID vaccines as examples of genetic medicine utilizing DNA vectors or RNA vectors. So what we do is we ah allow researchers to design and order customized vectors ah from our online platform. We have online platform where users can just go there and very quickly with a few mouse clicks that design a custom vector and then put that in shopping cart and then order that vector from us as easy as ordering books from Amazon.

Bruce Lahn: And prior to that, as I mentioned, researchers had to build their own vectors in the lab and that requires a lot of background knowledge and a lot of technical expertise and it’s just a research region. So you know just like you know photographers photographers shouldn’t be spending time building cameras, they shouldn’t be spending, researchers shouldn’t be spending time building building vectors. So with vector builder, they could be easily acquire the vectors they need for their research without needing to acquire the expertise and spend a month of time to you know to to do the vector construction. So that’s the business model, but obviously we’ve gone a lot

Bruce Lahn: more beyond our initial online vector outsourcing platform. We now actually have a lot of additional downstream services in terms of ah ah validating vectors for drug discovery pipelines and also manufacturing clinical grade ah vectors for clinical trials and ultimately for

Bruce Lahn: approved ah ah commercial vector-based products in therapeutics and vaccines.

Alejandro Cremades: And when we’re thinking about building too, what is the difference between building a company, let’s say in the US versus building a company in China?

Bruce Lahn: So the company is actually, ah believe it or not, based in the US with manufacturing and R and&D in China. And we’re actually in the process of also expanding our manufacturing r and R&D into the US and a number of other sites. So we have offices in the US, in China, in Japan, are several sites in Europe, in Australia, in South Korea. So it’s ah you know we’re truly a multinational company.

Bruce Lahn: But obviously most of our manufacturing occurs in China right now, which we also want to expand into other sites going forward.

Alejandro Cremades: So talk to us about capital raising, because you’ve raised for a venture builder about 80 million between equity loans. I mean, how has it been through the path and and and the different sequences of of raising money?

Bruce Lahn: So we raised money based on ah equity ah three or four rounds total about 70 million. and then debt about 10 million. We had actually been profitable for quite a number of years, so we didn’t have to raise that amount of money. However, we wanted to grow, so obviously we needed the money to you know build new facilities, hire more people, especially back when we went in from our research use vectors into clinical use vectors, it was a completely different ballgame. It required

Bruce Lahn: very different facilities, you know very expensive instrumentation, ah which obviously needed a lot of money. So that basically was ah behind you all the fundraising efforts. And I have to say that we had a relatively easy time raising money because our business was doing well. It was either profitable or about to become profitable back when we raised the money. So we had a lot of investor confidence and we didn’t have to you know try hard to tell a good story. We already have a good story sort of in the

Alejandro Cremades: So when when it comes to to to the investment, you know, they’re betting on you guys. They’re betting on a vision. So if you were to go to sleep tonight and you wake up in a world where the vision of Victor builder is fully realized, what does that world look like?

Bruce Lahn: Well, first of all, we want to be synonymous with gene delivery and vice versa. So when people Think of vector builder, they think of gene delivery. And when they think of gene delivery, they think of vector builder, kind of like you know Google is synonymous with a search engine. So that’s the first thing that we want to realize. ah And you know obviously we want to speed up our life sciences research. So my estimate based on running a lab for a couple of decades is that about 10% of life sciences research is devoted to making vectors and related reagents.

Bruce Lahn: So if vector builder can allow researchers to easily outsource that amount of work so they can focus on their own research, then we could ah speed up research by maybe up to 10%. So you know obviously, both research and you know whatever research is needed of to develop a genetic medicine would be better, faster, and cheaper.

Bruce Lahn: ah and Also importantly, we want to give back to the community. So as part of our company’s mandate and culture, we built a lot of free tools, DNA analysis tools, educational materials for the community that they can use ah the students, postdocs, they can use these tools to advance their research without paying money. That’s also part of our commitment and also part of our sort of mission to become synonymous with gene delivery not only only as a for-profit entity but also as an entity that provides ah important free resources to the community.

Alejandro Cremades: Well, you guys have now over 700 employees. So how has it been to the um the process of of building such a big team, you know and then also going about making sure that the culture is really embraced?

Bruce Lahn: I think there are a couple of things I can think of. ah One is to ah always ah focus on the differentiators, ah meaning that what we can do better ah than our competitors. ah So you know our team is constantly motivated by the fact that you know we are not dispensable. right we We are putting out the unique values to the community. The second is,

Bruce Lahn: um to remind ourselves that we’re doing this not just for the money. Always, money is important. ah you know We need to ah make good returns for the investors. But also, we’re doing this to make the community better and know to make the world at large better. So I think that’s also a very important motivating factor here at Back to Builder.

Bruce Lahn: And lastly, to never compromise on innovation, on quality, to always aspire to be the leader of the industry. So you know we wake up in the morning having a sense of our importance ah in that regard, which is also an important motivating factor.

Alejandro Cremades: So now, in terms of um also um thinking about the paths, if you could go back in time and and let’s say to that younger self, to that younger Bruce that was coming out of you know MIT, Chicago, Harvard, and and be able to Give that younger self that is looking at it perhaps getting more money or unlocking more money to be able to finance research. you know If you could give that younger self one piece of advice for launching a business, what would that be and why, given what you know now?

Bruce Lahn: Well, ah I would probably advise the earlier version of myself to quit my university professor job sooner to focus on Back to Builder ah because Back to Builder has really turned out to be a much bigger stage to put on a much bigger show, not only for my research ah ambitions, but also just you know for my dream of ah making the world a better place. But more specifically, I would probably also advise myself to invest more in sales and marketing early on. ah you know We they definitely had a very good i idea, a very good product. We let it grow organically for a number of years without really doing much sales and marketing. In retrospect, though we should have invested invested more in sales and marketing tool

Bruce Lahn: let the business grow faster ah during the early stages.

Alejandro Cremades: And then in terms of um you know being able to grow, I mean, 700 employees is a lot of employees, 80 million is a lot of money that you raise too. So I mean, it’s a lot of you know really growth and acceleration that is happening for the company. So how have you been also able to to perhaps develop yourself in order to keep up at the same pace of the growth of the company?

Bruce Lahn: ah So my official title in the company is not only founder but chief scientist. I oversee, directly oversee a large number of R and&D projects, especially the more innovative type of projects. So I feel that it is important in a high-tech company like ours to always have our eyes on innovation, ah not just to talk about innovation and have somebody else do it, but really, you know, be in the trenches and be you know work along the innovators in in the team to bring better products, new products onto the market. And also on the side, just so as my own little the pet project to also ah conduct some of the research projects that I had always been interested in. And basically to ah you know to keep learning about about about the field, to so stay excited about um making discoveries.

Alejandro Cremades: So I love that, Bruce. So for the people that are listening that would love to reach out, learn more about the, you know, Vector Builder as well. I mean, what what is the best way for them to to reach out?

Bruce Lahn: Well, ah they can probably just email me brucelan at vectorbuilder.net and you know i I read all my emails and I answer all my emails.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing. Amazing. Well, easy enough. Well, Bruce, thank you so much for being on the Dealmaker show today with us. It has been an absolute honor.

Bruce Lahn: Yeah, thank you so much Alejandro, it’s been a great pleasure.

*****

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