PIR International BioLeader Interview - Luba Greenwood (Managing Partner, Binney Street Capital Venture Fund)

Luba Greenwood is a distinguished executive, investor, and company builder with over 20 years of experience in the healthcare and tech sectors. Luba has served as the Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board of Kojin Therapeutics, a leader in ferroptosis. She currently serves as the Managing Partner of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute Venture Fund, Binney Street Capital (BSC), which she has founded, investing and building companies across therapeutics, diagnostics, and digital sectors. She has also served as a lecturer at Harvard University in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Key milestones in your career journey to date?

• Practising law in a large global firm gave me a unique edge in business and a well-informed view of the world; including insight and expertise in IP, securities, deal negotiation and problem solving.
• Working in big pharma – Roche and Pfizer – enabled me to navigate the financing to get deals done.
• Finessing investment strategy and building early stage companies has come through my experience at investing in and building companies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute venture fund, which I founded. As well as CEO of multiple companies including Kojin Therapeutics and as a Board member of MassBio, BenchSci, In8bio, Abcam, Luca, and most recently Closed Loop Medicine.

Who has had the greatest influence over your career?

• My first mentor, a federal judge, helped develop my confidence in the early days and show the limitless possibilities ahead.
• The Managing Partner at Wilmer Hale has encouraged my professional lawyer skills.
• The CEO of a major pharma company demonstrated what great leadership looked like.

What top three attributes make an outstanding and relevant leader in today’s world?

• Boundless energy and resilience.
• Empathy and emotional intelligence will enable a leader to step into other’s shoes; being curious and listening rather than following a script.
• Authenticity and transparency.
• Encourage wellbeing through a culture of healthy work/life balance.

Describe your approach to motivating and leading high-performing, multi-generational teams in a flexible hybrid working culture

• Clarify the goal and vision of the company through transparent communication.
• Decision making – what process is followed to reach decisions?
• Promotion – how do I get noticed?
• Clear expectations – the value of continuous feedback and using teamwork to solve problems.
• Information sharing – avoid silos by encouraging information sharing across teams.

Are there particular leadership characteristics which have encouraged greater cultural diversity in your company, resulting in different behaviours and outcomes?

• Transparency and openness will set clear values and avoid subconscious bias.
• Share your own diversity experience (I originate from Eastern Europe); and sponsor junior scientists from varied nationalities.
• Empower colleagues to speak up; embedding a culture of active listening and mentoring.

What are your learnings from the Biotech Winter which has engulfed the sector since 2022 and are you feeling quietly confident that a thaw is in process?

• Whilst Covid super charged some biotech valuations, the biotech winter clarified that the sector is not an outlier and is subject to cycles like most industries.
• CEOs have had to learn to do more with less and to manage the cash runway with greater care.
• Focusing on collaborative critical patient programmes is creating more successful team building.
• Yes, the thaw is in process!

How do you believe the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) 2022 will impact the biopharma sector, particularly investor habits?

• After the initial panic and concern by investors, there is now a realisation that small molecules are easier to manufacture compared to the challenge of gene and cell therapies; leading to the inevitable levelling out of the market.

What impact will AI make both operationally and across research applications in your business over the next 5 years?

• The impact of AI on drug discovery will increase, particularly in relation to biomarker ID and the growth of precision medicine.
• The Board should be encouraged to be up to speed on the strategic power of technology; appointing an AI champion could catalyse this.

How do you switch off and strive for a healthy work/life balance?

• Social exercising with family and friends is great; whether that be running, swimming, soccer, pickleball or walking meetings.

Tell me something about your company that you would like to share with the PIR community

• I have founded and built Binney Street Capital, the venture capital fund for Dana Farber Cancer Institute. DFCI is a leading Harvard affiliated academic cancer institute. We invest in innovative therapeutic, diagnostic, digital health, and service companies that have transformative potential to improve patients’ lives. We invest across the innovation life cycle from inception to clinical proof-of-concept. We capitalize on our deep expertise, premier access, and network to add value to our portfolio companies from the initial build and launch to optimizing the clinical regulatory strategy. Our experienced team has a proven track record of success in company building, investing, and deal-making. We leverage premier access to top-tier researchers, clinicians, and health administrators as a foundation for our success.

What advice would you give your 23-year old self?

• I should have invested in google!

Words of Wisdom?

• Best Advice I was given: People are the key to the success of all organisations.
• Advice I’d give: Positivity always wins and enables you to navigate failures. Curiosity and listening skills are undervalued.
• What I wish I’d known: It’s OK to say no!