Nearly 200 scientists, investors and industry representatives attended Weill Cornell Medicine’s 2025 Biomedical Innovation Conference (“BioInnovate”) April 1, sharing their startup journeys and experiences nurturing biomedical advances into health care products and companies.
The conference, hosted in the institution’s Uris Auditorium, featured a fireside chat with venture capitalist Alex Gorsky, general partner at investment firm ICONIQ Growth and the former chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, as well as panels comprised of innovators, industry leaders and investors.
Speaking with Dr. John P. Leonard, senior associate dean for innovation and initiatives at Weill Cornell Medicine, Gorsky recounted the trail great science takes as it travels from the world of research to patient care.
“I think part of the secret sauce of America is that we have collaboration between all those institutions (government, academia, private sector) that make great innovations and breakthroughs possible,” Gorsky said.
He championed Johnson & Johnson’s focus on scientific innovation and the value placed on constantly learning, adapting and having the tenacity to succeed while helping others to soar too. Large corporations in pharmaceutical and medical technology increasingly rely on smaller venture firms to source innovation. Startups need to show that they "want to collaborate" and that they have "the business and the deal means to get a collaboration done,” Gorsky suggested.
Funding Pathways
Gorsky’s advice was critical: While research is central to finding new treatments and pathways for clinical care, private-sector funding is the fuel that brings these products to fruition. To that end, the conference provided an opportunity for academic founders to do more than speak about their work — they met and networked with potential industry partners and investors to help these advances come to market.
“The one-on-one meetings serve to initiate a conversation around mutual research interests and potential collaboration,” said Loren A. Busby, director of BioVenture eLab, part of Weill Cornell Medicine Enterprise Innovation.
Founders included Dr. Hani Najafi, an assistant professor of cell and developmental biology at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, who presented his cardiometabolic diseases-focused mRNA platform startup, ALmiR Therapeutics, and Dr. Elena Valdambrini, a postdoctoral associate at Weill Cornell Medicine, who spoke about Chiara Biosciences, a venture developing targeted protein degraders for cancer treatments based on foundational technology developed in the laboratory of Dr. Francis Barany, professor of microbiology and immunology.
Dr. Amir Mokhtare, postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University, accepted the 2025 Resnick Prize for his company IVSonance Biomedical Inc., which is developing an ultrasound-based ova handling technology used in IVF treatment. This technology has the potential to make ova manipulation less skillset dependent, more user friendly and less error prone, leading to reduced costs and potentially increasing the number of IVF procedures doctors can perform.
“We’re the only venture that’s providing a tool that’s cheaper and easier to use. And it doesn’t take months of training,” he said.
Growth in Innovation
Innovations in science, like IVSonance’s technology, can bring new approaches to care and reduce challenges across drug development.
Left to right: Dr. Gene D. Resnick (’70, M.D. ’74), Dr. Amir Mokhtare and Loren Busby.
"There are recent innovations and advancements along this entire continuum of discovery through development and clinical testing that aim to reduce the risk and accelerate timelines,” said Dr. Lisa Placanica, senior managing director of the Center for Technology Licensing at Weill Cornell Medicine, who moderated an industry panel discussion.
Her guests, including Dr. Michael Kurman (M.D. ’77), principal at Michael Kurman Consulting, Dr. Kevin O’Rourke (M.D. ’19, Ph.D. ’17), senior director, Investments & BD at Roivant Sciences, and Dr. David Huggins, executive director of computational biomedicine at the Sanders Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, discussed some of these innovations. All three panelists agreed that the future of innovation and patient care lies in better understanding biology and the pathophysiology of human diseases.
The panel provided examples of innovative tools, such as biomarker screening for KRAS mutations, that can help fundamentally understand and address biology that underlines a patient’s disease. Innovations in a compound’s chemistry can meet a patient’s needs in a better way. Artificial intelligence can build homology models for proteins and predict their properties, and help design clinical trials.
Left to right: Dr. Lisa Placanica, Dr. Kevin O'Rourke and Dr. David Huggins.
On screen: Dr. Michael Kurman.
For breakthroughs to come to market, innovators need various partners, each skilled in a unique, but complimentary way, noted Dr. Krystyn J. Van Vliet, vice president for innovation and external engagement strategy at Cornell University. She queried the audience asking how many saw themselves as inventors, C-suite executives, investors or innovators, and how a viable business requires people who understand that "you need other experts in the room to move those ideas forward.” "We all come at it from a different part of the table,” she said, “and if we're going to move it from lab to bench to bedside, we need that ecosystem."
To Gorsky, the confluence of innovative technology with biomedical advances should inspire early-stage firms and their founders, along with those looking for opportunities to advance their investment portfolios, he said. He challenged the audience to look for opportunities that could move research into patients’ lives.
“There's never been a time where I've been more excited and optimistic about the fundamental sciences,” he said, “whether it's biology, chemistry or physics, and how that's being impacted and integrated with new tech such as artificial intelligence, ML sensing, and so many of these other new capabilities that have rapidly accelerating.”
Many Weill Cornell Medicine physicians and scientists maintain relationships and collaborate with external organizations to foster scientific innovation and provide expert guidance. The institution makes these disclosures public to ensure transparency. For this information, please see profiles for Dr. Francis Barany, Dr. Hani Najafi and Dr. Elena Valdambrini.