Latest / Entrepreneur Odyssey / How AI Can Compress Weeks of Drug Research Into Hours
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- Tejneet Selhi: So yeah, I mean, your background is incredible, but I want to now pivot a little bit and talk about building Ambrosia. And let's start off with the name. It's a really interesting name. I believe it comes from Greek mythology. Do you want to talk us through what it means and then why it resonates with you and your company? Issa Kildani: Yeah, so I guess I can before I even tell you about that there's a little I guess interesting background to where it came from so I already you know picked up this is already me working with these consulting firms and working with all these different companies and so on and A week before I think The week before I actually created a company I had a friend of mine. He was looking for help as well. So Me and him were talking and we figured, how can I make this a, you know, how can we make this a deal? I'm already working with a consulting firm. I can definitely help you out. And then that week, my whole consulting team got laid off. So that's where the decision was like, oh, perfect. I can make a company. And I sat down with my brother. He's a great marketer. And he said, okay, I know you like history. So I'm like, yeah, I want to do something historical. He goes, about Ambrosia? I'm like, oh my God, it's perfect. So Ambrosia is... In Greek mythology, it's like an elixir that was given to the gods and the purpose was this elixir that they use, the ingredients that they use, like the honey and ambrosia. It helps these gods to give immortality. So the idea is, you know, ambrosia, the company is, we have all these tools, we have these skill sets, we have this elixir that we give to companies, give to investors, that gives them this, you know, immortality in the industry. Tejneet Selhi: Nice. I love that. love that. And again, it's going in with that degree of confidence. Like, this is it. This is here for the long term. I love it. And obviously, you touched on the fact that your entire team was laid off. So what made you decide to go, and I know you'd already been dipping your toes in, let's say, but did you always want to be an entrepreneur? and did being laid off kind of give you that impetus. Issa Kildani: Yeah, so I mentioned when I was younger, I always wanted to be a physician. But I guess even before that, one of my earliest endeavors was basically being an entrepreneur. I had to this book. It was like 100 ideas for a business. So I'd always, after I'd come home from school, circle it and then try it out. And then do it, try it out. So I'd have composition books full of ideas. So the idea was always there. So it was almost like inception. I always wanted to do something like that, but I just never knew how I can ideate it and actually have it come to life. So when this opportunity came about, like, okay, I knew I always wanted to have my own company. So this was, I think, the entryway for that. Tejneet Selhi: Nice. And then how did you land on consulting and advisory rather than say building a product? Issa Kildani: I think one of my strongest suits is giving advice. I was always very good at giving strategic advice, recommendations, how do we go towards the next inflection point, how do we carry on, how do we get to X million, how do we go to different markets. That was something else, one of my strongest suits, especially from working in different backgrounds, and it just excites me to talk about that. Not to mention, I'm not to say that I don't mind doing selling products. just, it has to be a product that I really am, you know, it means something to me. It has some story behind it. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah, that makes complete sense. And you mentioned early on, even at the age of 22, you were being asked your opinion and your advice. It seems like almost like a natural transition. So Merosio works with SMB mid-size life sciences companies. Issa Kildani: Yes. Tejneet Selhi: It's a very different buyer to say the pharma giants that you've consulted with before. What has surprised you most about selling to and serving that segment? Issa Kildani: So I have a great opportunity of working on both ends. like the SMBs and like the more larger corps. It's great to have the exposure of larger corporations, but I always knew that the smaller guys, needed more of the help. They needed more of the advice, the guidance, and that's where I know all the innovation is coming from. So that's kind of where we started. Okay, let's work with them. But the biggest, I think, hurdle, of course, because when I started, in the industry was like a very tough period. they weren't getting funding. So they didn't have any funding. They weren't able to, you know, pay consultants or pay advisors. So you had to be a little bit creative and creative in every which way possible. So it was, that's probably one of the biggest areas. And of course there's the psychology of a smaller, of a startup CEO that they either come from, you know, science backgrounds, so they're PhDs. So they're totally scientists and I know how they think and they're very very passionate about their work But they're sometimes means that they're very stubborn about their work. So they they're not as receptive to taking recommendations or advice Then vice versa. There's also the other end where there's the serial entrepreneur that's been doing this for 20 30 years So he thinks they have or he she thinks they have a proven method that's worked for them, but it's not working So but they're also not receptive to taking on new ideas. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah, that's really interesting you say that. And you touched on having to be creative in many different ways when, I mean, look, if we look at the world at the moment, there is... you know, a cost of living crisis, say, particularly here in Europe, and I think on your side, the pond as well. How, could you talk us through a couple of areas where you were creative, and what did that look like? Issa Kildani: Yeah, so when I first started it, knew I was fortunate enough that when I first started, had my first client. So the idea was I work with them and I wanted to build a crew of concepts. So I wanted to first get a client within my own network. And then after that works out and the engagement ends, I want to be able to get another client outside my network. So Tejneet Selhi: Okay. Issa Kildani: I was very, very basically still green in the industry as far as networking and people who I knew outside of my working relationships. So I wanted to take that time to just learn about more of the industry, more of the networks, more of the different ecosystems. So at the time I was living, I was in Detroit from Michigan originally, and we have a very small life science ecosystem here. So the first idea was, okay, I already have this one client, I can focus on that, but also let's also spend some time on growing the network. learning. different ecosystems, getting our names out there. Just who are the key players, who are the ones that are the deal makers, who are the investors, who are the startups, who are the accelerators, get to know them, and then go to another smaller ecosystem. So because I knew that we were small, so that has some good, you know, some drawbacks, but it has a lot of advantages, you know. We have not as many barriers to entry, meaning. we can adapt very, very quickly if we see there's a certain trend coming in that we can adapt versus a lot larger consulting firm that would take maybe months, maybe years, depending on how big they are to actually transition. So that was one of the advantages. So I would go to different small pockets of ecosystems, understand pain points, get our name out there, and then build the confidence that what we do is definitely helpful. Tejneet Selhi: Nice, really great. then did you have to be quite, because I speak to founders all the time, especially early founders that, you know, trying to get their first few clients in the door. And there, you know, there's that balance between not wanting to undervalue what you do, but also wanting to get in business. Did you find that you had to be creative about pricing? Issa Kildani: Yes, absolutely. So I knew initially that, if we're working with smaller startups, we can't charge the massive retainers that I was accustomed to different consulting firms, right? So of course that hadn't come into play, but there was also a walk away threshold I had to set because it wouldn't make any sense if I were to charge at the minimum fee when I can't really. It's not helping both parties really so there had to be some some leeway there's some workarounds, but also I had to be a little bit, you know creative and how I can actually help them So actually that was like one of the the early stages of a lyric. That's that where the idea came in Tejneet Selhi: Okay, interesting. And I do want to talk about Aleric actually, but before we get there, I just want to also touch on your life sciences and &A side of things, because it's notoriously complex. What would you say has changed in how buyers and sellers are approaching deals in the last few years, let's say, since COVID? Issa Kildani: Yeah, since COVID, I think there's been two different cycle changes since COVID. So of course, 2020 was a big one. Then I'd say just two years ago was another really big one. This is like the GLPs ones, know, the, the, the metabolisms that market that really has shifted the cycle. And it's shifted in a positive way where the value, total deal value of companies are skyrocketing now. And now especially this is giving into a lot on the more China markets as well that's been also evolving as far as deal value. What do we consider a median value? Because historically, we always viewed that China assets coming into the US were very cheap. So US strategics, they would want to go there if we wanted it to be cheap or spend as much on R &D spend or any acquisition costs. very, very, very, very manageable. But now, that's kind of, that idea has shifted. So now they're seen as very, very expensive now. So that's kind of shifted the perception now on what do we value, what do we see as an asset. Tejneet Selhi: Okay, very interesting. And then you've written about the challenge of building strategic partnerships between startups and Big Pharma. What from your experience does a startup need to get right for it's even worth having that conversation? Issa Kildani: Yeah, so like you mentioned, it's very complex in the life science, even if it's any transaction, even if it's a strategic partnership, right? So one of the earliest advices we usually give for startups, for example, if they want to get into that discussion, is start as early as you can speaking with them. Even if it's like an idea or maybe you're looking for a raise, you're not looking for them to get that, but you're letting them know the stages just because you're putting them on the radar. and usually takes time to build that trust, you know? So once you get to that point of say, you you have a phase one asset or you have a phase two asset, or maybe you did finish pre-clinical testing and you're looking to start building, you're building traction, you got other partnerships, maybe you have a research collaboration, maybe you're getting small funding, that's when you wanna get them involved just because they see that as an attractive model. So they would definitely wanna start talking with you. Tejneet Selhi: Very good. So start building that relationship slowly for when Issa Kildani: Yeah. Tejneet Selhi: you are really ready to engage with them. That makes sense. So we did touch on Aleric AI. an AI-powered platform that compresses weeks of investment research into hours. Tell us the problem it solves and why you decided to build your own tool rather than use what already existed in the market. Issa Kildani: Yeah, so I think about three years ago, so right around the time that I started, I saw that, you know, of course, AI was coming into the market and it was making a lot of impressions. aside from just working in life sciences, I'm always, I guess I'm like a kind of a tech nerd too. So I like to see like the latest and greatest. And I've noticed like there's a lot of advantages that can happen in this industry. And I think the iterative model is just understanding. how a consulting firm or an advisory practice like mine can help the market. How does AI affect that? So one of the earliest was understanding pain points on the early stage startups. They're not getting funding. And then I think a year and a half later, we work more with investors and then we saw something like, investors are also not working or they're not getting the right checks too. So they're not finding sometimes the right comp. So then the idea of Alaric kind of came about. even before to get to Alaric, my mind went, is that there has to be a step-wise approach. So the idea of Alaric is a large engine, but before it's a roadmap to Alaric. So we have building four different platforms actually, that's going to feed into Alaric, each four platforms. they're serving, they have standalone value that serves different use cases to that overall question on how do we help startups get funding? How do we help investors get the right funding? And even greater than that is the overall whole industry. How can bankers make their work streams better? How can we help other consultants? How do we help lawyers? How do we help anyone that are players in this life science ecosystem? get to those two questions really. So the first platform that we created, it's assessing or helps with asset valuation. It helps with asset benchmarking. So say that you're a pre-clinical company or a clinical stage company and you wanna partner, you wanna license your asset, you wanna sell your company, you wanna do some sort of collaboration. But one of the biggest pain points we noticed early on was that They sometimes don't know their true valuation like what their you know licensing Amount would be what would their total deal value be who would be the right partner for them and When you're a small company, you don't have the flexibility of a whole BD team or business development team compared to a larger company Or you don't have the bandwidth to do, you comparable analysis, market landscape analysis. So sometimes you would have to still reach out to a consultant who's going to charge an exorbitant fee compared to someone who has a smaller budget. So that's kind of what we care to then we realize that also this can evolve and leap into the investor's world as well. each of these platforms, like I mentioned, they're feeding into a layer that's going to be able to make that more of a predictive modeling engine. Tejneet Selhi: Nice. And that sounds like gold, really. Amazing. And so you're also a speaker on AI in drug development in clinical trials, I believe. Where do you think AI will have the single biggest measurable impact on life sciences in the next two to three years? And where do you think on the converse of that, where it's being overhyped? Issa Kildani: Yeah, so I actually just gave a talk about this last Thursday at the Interfax conference. Talked more on the CDMO manufacturing and AI intersections. And two years ago, maybe a little bit over two years now, I would have told you that it was a lot into toxicity screening, drug screening, more like the drug developments, drug identification. has a stiffly, it's great use cases there and I think that's gonna be honed in. But one of the macro levels that I'm seeing is that a lot of the tech companies, they're gonna do a lot of partnerships with these pharma companies. Just because now you're gonna get a lot of new data points, lot of new understandings on how we can further grasp that. like maybe different software development, maybe you're gonna have a lot more. certain medical devices that's going to be able to hone in. So maybe your Apple Watch is going to be able to tell you a lot more data points compared to what it does now, you know. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah, that, I mean, that'd be amazing. That would be incredible. And then Issa Kildani: Mm-hmm. Tejneet Selhi: where do you think it's being overhyped, would you say? Or Issa Kildani: Mmm. Tejneet Selhi: is anything being overhyped? Issa Kildani: Yeah, I mean I even got asked if it's for like in a bubble and I think we kind of are just because you know, technically we are just from everyone wanting to use it, know investors are still pouring into it, which is you know, it's expected and it's a caution but the what I've seen too is a lot of companies they use overuse AI and it's using it in the way it shouldn't be used I don't think so it's a lot of like degenerative chat GPT wrappers so it's just another iteration of a chat GPT model and that's Tejneet Selhi: and Issa Kildani: not it don't get me wrong those generative models they're great they're great foundations for any AI use but there's a lot more that can be used to it like there's physical AI there's you know certain other you know umbrella or the certain other areas of AI that can be used for greater goods Tejneet Selhi: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. think the next two to three years are going to be incredibly, incredibly interesting in every single sector, actually. Issa Kildani: yeah. Tejneet Selhi: So as a, obviously you're a boutique consulting company, where else are you using AI in your business? Issa Kildani: So I mentioned like the platforms that we have so even before we launched our platforms we built our own internal internal platform so we built our own CRM we built our own pipeline and what we use the engine that we kind of built is that we are able to detect certain other market changes in the industry so that kind of gives us a little bit of an advantage just because yes, we are a boutique and it's kind of intentional that way. That would be can be really, really receptive to any small changes that we're seeing. So we can have a leg up kind of on the competition a bit. But also we, I noticed there was a shift. I think last year I wanted to make this more of like an AI consulting model, like more of an integration. I actually, Sequoia earlier, think last month they released a report saying that the next trillion dollar company is going to be a platform as a service. So a service provider integrating AI into their practice. So not to say our company is going to be a trillion dollar company, which would be great, but the Tejneet Selhi: you Issa Kildani: idea is that that's a huge market that hasn't been really touched yet. And because of AI is involved and how everyone's using AI, we're not using it to integrate into service providing and that's kind of where Aleric has his hand in because that was already something I had in mind three years ago. So it's just an extension of what we do as an advisory firm but it's reaching certain companies that to your question before you know where we had to be creative on pricing now we can touch these companies that couldn't afford us now they can because we have a service that can do that. Tejneet Selhi: you came into entrepreneurship through knowing about the science world, but not necessarily the business world. What's been your hardest skill to learn to sort of grow your business? Issa Kildani: Yeah, so I always, yeah, of course, of course, right. So Tejneet Selhi: And I'm sure it's really me, actually. Issa Kildani: I guess one of the things that the unique parts is that what I realized business has a lot of deals with lot of psychology. having a strong EQ to a lot of the work that you do. And that was always something that I was very strong in. So that was like I learned that was like I learned very early on the learned response, but I'd say one of the hardest areas Gras starting was understanding. How do you scale it? how do you scale your company, right? And that was like an iterative process and that was like a learned behavior from experiences, of course, early on. And then I think now we have a very, very great roadmap that, and then from that, you know, a lot of it's trials and errors and a lot of it is understanding, meeting new people and getting to a feel on what makes sense. How do you, is this working with our bottom line? So if you new people, does this work with us? Does it work with our roadmap and will it help them as well? Tejneet Selhi: right? Europe, South East Asia, Middle East. How have you managed to scale? What's been the biggest operational challenge you've found into going into different countries Issa Kildani: Yeah, I'd say of course the bandwidth, right? So you want to take on everyone, but then you don't have bandwidth to do everything, strategic. So what can we deal with quarter by quarter? What makes sense? So how many engagements can we work with? And even that what, you know, say that we were working in the Middle East that has certain different layers of cross border advisory than it does for working with something in the APAC regions like in China, Japan, Korea, US. So if it's more inside the states, we can work, we can use that model very, very quickly so we can take on more engagements that way. And like I mentioned to you early, like we, the first six, eight months was a lot of ecosystem building. So after a year, we already got our name across. So we're pretty comfortable going into certain areas and knowing a of the people there. So that kind of helped us scale a lot quicker, especially in Europe. Europe was one of the first ecosystems that we were involved in as well. So it was very easy to understand certain areas and pockets in Europe. So that kind of helped us with scalability. So scalability now isn't too, isn't an issue. Of course, any boutique firm, they're going to have their operational challenges. Tejneet Selhi: Nice. And I guess, yeah, mean, God, there's so many things I could ask you about this. Issa Kildani: you Tejneet Selhi: It's fascinating, it really is. But yeah, I guess, what are you looking to achieve with Ambrosia Ventures in the next sort of six to 12 months? Because you've already achieved so much, but I guess, what's your vision for the company? Issa Kildani: Yeah, so for me, it's always what else can we do that we're not doing? So it's always let's take on the next licensing deal, the next &A deal. And then, of course, integrating a lot more of Aleric into our practice. And how do we get that to scale as strong as we did with Ambrosia? And then how do we continue to evolve it? How can we adapt to certain market changes that can help those companies? and those investors as well. it's always the, you even just yesterday I was having a whole strategic session with some of my team members on scaling into Q3. So it's always a thought that it's always gonna be, it's always evolving honestly. it's, where else can we grow? How can we grow there? Tejneet Selhi: Nice, nice. And then a question I ask to everyone that comes on the podcast. What's the one piece of advice you would give to yourself or new founders when starting their business? Issa Kildani: Probably the best piece of advice is that to... Embrace the failures so When you know when you're starting you don't want to run the failures because it feels like you're hitting a roadblock and you're going a little bit behind but in reality Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. Issa Kildani: when you're facing the failures that's leading you to where you want to go to the your success so being able to take that as a more of a Crazy to say but a positive thing versus a negative aspect that will lead you to where you want to go Tejneet Selhi: Excellent advice, excellent advice. mean, yeah, obviously, especially when you're small, any kind of financial failures feel like a really big hit, right? Issa Kildani: course. Tejneet Selhi: But it's such a huge learning. If Issa Kildani: Yes. Tejneet Selhi: everything was plain sailing, where would be the learning and the growth? So think that's such great advice. Issa Kildani: brand. Tejneet Selhi: Issa, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. I'm excited to see the journey that Ambrosia goes on and I'm andyleric AI for that matter. I'm very, very confident that you're going to make both an incredible success or even bigger success than it already is today. Where can our listeners find you or anyone within the pharma space? What's the best way of getting in contact? Issa Kildani: Yeah, the best way is going through our website, ambrosiaventures.co. You can utilize our first platform that's live. It's calculator.ambrosiaventures.co. And then of course, you can find us on LinkedIn. We're pretty active on LinkedIn. We're always covering new market insights based off our engine. Just very, very active there as well. And we host monthly events in New York through VNTR as well. So... I'd love to if any investors are in the part of your podcast community that you need, they're more than welcome to attend. We have one coming up May 21st. So yeah. Tejneet Selhi: Excellent. May 21st, it in your calendars. Well, thank you again for your time today, Esu. It's been really, really enlightening. I think what I love most about what you're doing at Ambrosia Adventures is that it's rooted in something real. You've lived the complexity of this industry from the inside, and you're using that to give life science founders the kind of personalized strategic partnership that big firms simply can't offer. And then of course there's Aleric AI. You're not just advising people on how to use AI, you're actually building it into the fabric of how they get deals done. that's next level. So that's awesome. As Issa just mentioned, you can find Ambrosia Ventures at www.ambrosiaventures.co. And don't miss the Aleric AI page if you're in the investment and course LinkedIn if you go to if you search for I Kandani or Issa Kandani I think you'll come up on both searches. Issa thanks again for your time and for sharing your story so openly really appreciate it. And to everyone listening if this episode has sparked something for you please like, subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. It genuinely helps more entrepreneurs find the show. If you're curious about how AI could be working hard for your business, head over to ai-efficacy.com and let's have a conversation. Until next time, keep building, keep growing, and keep exploring your own entrepreneur odyssey. Take care, everyone. Thank you.