S01E56 - Ten Years, One Pivot, and No Guarantees: What a Biotech Founder Knows About Persistence ...

What does leadership look like when every mistake costs capital? Most leaders I work with have more room for error than they realize. A pharmaceutical startup doesn't. The team is small, the specialists can't cover for each other, and a single drug can take a decade to reach the finish line, with no guarantee it gets there. In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Isaiah Shalwitz, Senior Vice President and co-founder of Inversa, a pharmaceutical company developing an eye drop for diabetic keratopathy, a condition with no approved treatment. Isaiah brings twenty years of drug development experience, including leading development teams at Akebia Therapeutics. In this conversation, we cover: Why the pharmaceutical industry struggles to tell the story of how hard it works, and what drug failures have to do with drug prices How Isaiah measures engagement on a small, largely virtual team where he rarely sees his people Why he invites anyone in the company to challenge strategy, and what he learns when someone goes quiet The "blob of paint" approach to collaboration that cuts busywork and speeds up decisions What the next twenty years of pharmaceutical innovation may bring, from GLP-1s to longevity research The two lessons ten years of entrepreneurship taught him: persist, and assume you don't know everything Whether you lead a startup, a specialized team, or a department that runs lean, you'll come away with practical habits for building candor, ownership, and momentum. Listen on your favorite platform: YouTube (    / @billsodemann3ed   ) |Apple Podcasts ( https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... ) |Spotify ( https://open.spotify.com/show/1hA8r9P... ) |Amazon Music ( https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/2d2... ) |n3ed.com/podcast ( https://n3ed.com/podcast ) #StartupLeadership #Entrepreneurship #EmployeeEngagement #LeadershipDevelopment #Biotech #PharmaceuticalIndustry #ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman #PodcastForLeaders