From Idea to Start-up: Founders & Investors in Conversation
Have a great idea? Thinking about starting a business venture but not sure where to begin?
Join us for an informal fireside chat to hear from Dr Isaac Johnson, Co-founder of Verinnogen, and Dr Damian Crowther, Co-founder of TRIMTECH Therapeutics, about their entrepreneurial journey from starting a new business from scratch, to building founding teams, raising investment and developing a roadmap to bring game-changing innovations to life.
They will be joined by Industry and Enterprise Fellows Dr Anne Horgan from Cambridge Innovation Capital and Dr Loukik Arora from Macmillan Impact Investments who will be bringing their investor perspective to Isaac’s and Damian’s experiences.
Whether you’re simply curious or already considering your next entrepreneurial step, this informal event will give you a sense of what’s involved and where to find support.
What to expect?
- Insights into the early stages of venture creation
- An introduction to the Cambridge ecosystem and the support available
- The chance to connect with others interested in exploring similar paths
This session is a starting point, an opportunity to ask questions, gain clarity and consider what might come next for your idea.
Please sign up for the event here.
Speakers:
Damian trained in internal medicine and neurology at Cambridge then Oxford, squeezing in a PhD in the structural biology of a family of proteins that like to aggregate – this started a fascination in the topic that led him to academia in Cambridge. His group worked on protein aggregation and how it underpins disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Ten years ago he moved out of the ivory towers, in an effort to put all that learning into therapeutic action. After six very happy years at AstraZeneca neuroscience he started out as a COVID-era entrepreneur, eventually finding his calling working with Cambridge Innovation Capital and SV Health Investors as an Entrepreneur in Residence. With scientific co-founders Leo James and Will McEwan, he founded TRIMTECH therapeutics at the end of 2023, raising $31m in seed funds just less than a year ago. TRIMTECH is developing therapies that can selectively degrade toxic protein aggregates while leaving functional soluble proteins unaffected.
Isaac is a scientist-turned-founder who moved from academic cancer research into building a biotech company to solve a widespread problem he kept running into in the lab.
His background is in oncology research, completing a PhD in Cancer Metabolism at the University of Cambridge followed by a translational postdoc in pancreatic cancer treatment, working closely with AstraZeneca. Across both academia and industry, he saw how technical limitations, particularly around measurement and reproducibility, often slowed progress more than the biology itself.
That experience led him to co-found Verinnogen in 2021. As CEO, he now leads the development of a novel 3D tumour-profiling technology designed to improve accuracy, reduce variability, and lower cost in pre-clinical cancer research. They have taken the technology from concept to beta trials with academic labs, pharma, and CROs, raising £1.75M via equity and grant funding.
