A good story is more powerful than a good strategy and much harder to create.
— Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi: “The Essential Advantage: How to Win with a Capabilities-Driven Strategy”
When we talk about early-stage biotech or medtech ventures, we often focus on platform differentiation, IP defensibility, and scientific novelty. Yet what often determines early success isn't just what you are building, but who’s paying attention to you.
Early-stage founders must navigate a dual challenge: cultivating deep technical credibility while building strategic visibility in a saturated narrative landscape.
A compelling narrative, repeated in the right rooms, can accelerate fundraising, partnership interest, and recruitment. This session confronts a pivotal leadership question:
How do you create such meaningful buzz?
Iraj Ali became CEO of Achilles Therapeutics in 2018, after being a board director for 2 ½ years, and led the company from an early-stage platform into a NASDAQ-listed, clinical-stage biotech. Over the course of his tenure, he raised over $240 million in private and public capital, including $175.5 mio during the IPO in April 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the start of that journey, Achilles was preclinical and operating with a lean team. By the end of 2020, it had grown to 159 employees, expanded its in-house manufacturing capability, and advanced multiple clinical programs. This kind of growth combined with access to U.S. public markets is still rare for a Europe-based life science ventures.
Iraj has sat at both sides of the table, as CEO and investor. Prior to Achilles Tx, Iraj served as Managing Partner at Syncona, where he co-led investments in companies including Nightstar Therapeutics (acquired by Biogen) and Blue Earth Diagnostics (acquired by Bracco Imaging), and Achilles Therapeutics. He previously worked at McKinsey & Company and trained as a medical doctor. He holds a doctorate from the University of Cambridge and a medical degree from the University of Reading.
Why this INSIGHTS is relevant for you.
Early-stage founders are often asked to prove traction before any real data is available. Visibility, when led deliberately, becomes a source of leverage. It creates awareness and possibly FOMO amongst investors, makes you credible vis-a-vis collaborators, and more competitive in attracting the right people.
A well-orchestrated narrative can accelerate your venture. When it's misaligned either too cautious or too promotional, it limits optionality rather than creating any.
Iraj has worked at that edge. He raised significant capital, led a UK-based company through a U.S. IPO during a global crisis, and maintained credibility through market shifts and programmatic changes. His perspective will offer you a unique view into how narrative clarity, when actively managed, reinforces strategy not just externally, but inside the organisation as well.