16: CEO Leo Petrossian, Ph.D, of Neural Analytic – His Company, Amazing Technology, and How to Start a Biotech Company

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Leo is the founder of Neural Analytics, a company that is building technology that lets physicians and techs get past the skull and to the brain without any surgery.  This allows them to see traumatic brain damage, stroke, or any number of things without being too invasive. This is a life saver, and I cannot wait to see Leo develop his company in the coming years. In this episode, we go into the technology, into Leo’s story and his company’s story, and get extremely detailed into the process of starting a biotech company. Anyone even remotely interested in biotech companies should check this episode out since we do a great job at demystifying the process and having fun while doing it.

Here is his company website if you are excited to learn more: website.

Here are some other articles covering Leo and his technology:

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/dod-awards-neural-analytics-10m-to-develop-brain-injury-device

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180108005449/en/Neural-Analytics-Raises-15-Million-Series-Financing

https://www.massdevice.com/neural-analytics-launches-study-of-transcranial-doppler-for-evaluating-mild-tbi/

https://www.massdevice.com/neural-analytics-touts-95-accuracy-tcd-platform-expedite-trial/

 Timestamped Hyperlinks (“**” Next to My Top 10):

1. [ 01:00 ] **How his technology can permeate our skulls to get accurate images when bones normally cause ultrasounds to bounce off.
2. [ 03:00 ] The different areas of the skull you can get through with ultrasound.
3. [ 04:00 ] How the ultrasound works by analogy.
4. [ 05:00 ] How their device works in the field, how much training, and the huge impact it is going to make.
5. [ 08:45 ] **Military contract, and how this tool is similar to a CT scanner in ability to diagnose a brain injury or TBI.
6. [ 10:45 ] How his technology helps out stroke victims and what we can expect to change.
7. [ 12:20 ] “Doing good by doing well” mantra explained.
8. [ 14:00 ] **Three things he looks for in a successful entrepreneur and why he values PhD scientists/engineers in an early stage startup.
9. [ 17:50 ] How he picks his staff, things he thinks about, questions he asks.
10. [ 20:30 ] **How he built the work culture at his startup and his book recommendations on how to build a great work culture.
11. [ 22:30 ] Stanford Marshmallow Experiment with children, and how being able to put off gratification tends to lead to success.
12. [ 23:55 ] **What he got his PhD as a National Science Fellow in, designing a detector for anthrax, and how defense work can be difficult as you tend to not know if what you made works due it being top secret.
13. [ 27:50 ] How close they are to having deliverable project, and how the funding process goes.
14. [ 28:30 ] **The start of the “How to build a biotech” part with how to get funding or find funding to apply for, with google searches.
15. [ 32:25 ] ** How to think about grant funding, pair the grants with investor funds, and how to strategically use what you get to produce results.
16. [ 37:50 ] Asking who the right investor is, hiring your own boss, and 3 pieces of advice on raising money.
17. [ 39:00 ] Defining the objective first, then working to achieve that objective over doing random things.
18. [ 40:00 ] KPI explained.
19. [ 41:30 ] **Interpolation. How to look at what you want, and how to work towards that goal.
20. [ 42:30 ] **How does the patent and IP transfer process work from universities, and where to go to find open patents for purchase (i.e. bridgenetwork, AZTE, Columbia tech transfer ). We literally opened up browsers at this point and walked through the process. Follow along! 🙂
21. [ 48:00 ] Follow this section to get an idea on how to find patents/IP and funding that would match what you get. This is extremely fascinating and makes the process much simpler than you would guess.  One window SBIR, and the other IBridgeNetwork.
22. [ 48:30 ] **Do you need a PhD, how to overcome not having one, and how to take feedback openly.
23. [ 50:20 ] How hungry people who have listened can grow themselves, and things to think about with 2 book recommendations (The lean Startup and The Startup of You ).
24. [ 52:20 ] Quote from Osborn on playing in traffic.
25. [ 53:00 ] Summary of his suggestions, and how to purposely build yourself in a particular way.