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When Crystal Shih Byers left her job at Novartis in 2020, she was excited to make the leap into a smaller startup.

Byers had spent almost nine years at Novartis, most recently helping lead a group that worked on gene therapy. But pharmaceutical companies are large and complex, and she craved more immediate impact. “I was looking for a place where I could be in the room,” she says. She wanted more autonomy, and to feel like her work would reach patients sooner.

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At the time, biotech startups were rolling in cash and seeking to capture some of the magic that had fueled Moderna’s meteoric rise. They handed out lots of logo-embossed swag. “Investors were putting a lot of money into stupid science,” Byers says. “There were a lot of companies that lasted for a lot longer than I thought they would on very little data.”

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