Monday Jun 02, 2025

The Future of Biotech

🎙 Episode Title: The Future of Biotech

Guest: Andrew Craig, Founder of Plain English Finance | Author of Our Future is Biotech

 

 

📌 Episode Summary

In this bold and wide-ranging conversation, Ian Wendt and Na-Ri Oh sit down with Andrew Craig—British investor, entrepreneur, and author—to explore how biotechnology is poised to shape the next century in the same way physics and computing shaped the last.

Craig draws on his decades of experience as a London and New York investment banker and as a former partner at WG Partners, where he advised more than 60 biotech companies and worked on marquee deals like the $7.6B sale of Nordia Bank and IPOs for brands like EasyJet and Burberry.

But his latest passion lies at the intersection of finance and innovation: making the case that our future is biotech—without a question mark.

🔍 Topics Covered

  • Why biology will define the 21st century: Andrew outlines the structural and technological reasons biotech is primed for exponential impact.

  • CRISPR, AI, and the "exponential stack": How data storage, ML, and sequencing speed make today's breakthroughs possible.

  • Fixing Europe's biotech lag: The cultural, capital, and regulatory headwinds slowing biotech innovation in the UK and EU.

  • Rebuilding trust in pharma: Why good actors in drug development don’t get headlines—and how that hurts innovation.

  • From Oxford Biomedica to DNA-based storage: Vivid examples of tech cost reductions and where we're headed next.

  • The case for optimism: How to resist the press's negative bias and invest in human progress—literally.

📚 Resources & Links

🧠 Memorable Quotes

“The last century was about physics and tech. The next one will be about biology—and by extension, biotech.”

“If success begets success, then a crop of billion-dollar biotech companies in Europe can kickstart a self-sustaining cycle of innovation and investment.”

“People forget that the smartphone they hold was a $100 million science project in the 1990s. Biotech is heading the same direction.”

“We need to fight the narrative that pharma is inherently bad. There are good actors, and we must do a better job telling those stories.”

📈 Key Takeaway

Biotech isn't just a sector—it's a structural solution to some of humanity’s greatest problems. From disease treatment to environmental restoration, the converging forces of AI, genetics, and biological engineering make this the most consequential time in science since the industrial revolution.

 

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