Focus

From research to spin-off.

Research translation work for healthcare teams turning papers, patents, prototypes, and platform technologies into spin-offs, ventures, partnerships, and market-ready paths. Work I do with research-led teams at Charité, BIH, MDC, university hospitals, and corporate R&D groups.

What the work is

Most healthcare spin-offs don't fail at the science. They fail at the layer just above. The use case is too broad — six diseases, three buyer types, two business models. The first customer is theoretical, nobody has signed anything. The team has the inventor but not the operator. The TTO timeline and the commercial timeline don't line up.

That layer is what I work on. Not the pitch deck. The shape underneath the pitch deck.

How an engagement usually runs

Six to twelve weeks of research translation and venture-shaping work, sometimes longer. Sometimes it is a sharper version of an existing thesis. Sometimes it is tearing the thesis down and rebuilding before the team commits to an entity. Sometimes it is the founder pattern itself — what kind of operator does this venture actually need, and where does that person sit.

Concrete tasks: tightening the venture thesis to one wedge that can be defended. Writing the first commercial story so partners and clinicians can react to it. Setting up the first three buyer conversations and listening for the things the deck cannot answer. Translating the science into a frame a non-PhD audience can fund.

Where this comes from

At BIH's Digital Health Accelerator at Charité (2021–2023) I mentored early-stage teams across digital health, medtech, AI, and care innovation — turning research-driven ideas into product, venture, and commercialization paths. At BIOTRONIK I led a board-sponsored R&D innovation program; two concepts advanced into the company, one became an integrated software offering with material commercial impact. At Roche Diagnostics I worked across business planning, market validation, partnerships, clinical evidence strategy, and executive decision support.

The pattern across them: science is necessary, science is not enough, the gap between them is buildable. In diagnostics-heavy settings, that work often overlaps with diagnostics innovation and broader venture building in healthcare.

Common starting points

Where teams usually bring me in

University and hospital settings with IP, early evidence, and a thesis that still needs founder and market shape
Translational programs preparing spin-offs, licensing paths, venture cases, or partnership options around a research asset
Corporate R&D groups shaping internal assets into external venture, platform, or new-business opportunities
Science-led teams adding commercial logic, first buyer conversations, and a clearer first route into traction

Adjacent work

Connected pages

Venture building in healthcare Diagnostics innovation

Next step

If the science is strong but the venture shape is not

That is usually the right room before a team loses time on a weak market story, a blurry founder pattern, or the wrong first commercial step.

Get in touch See selected work

Connected entry points around venture building, diagnostics, and research translation in healthcare.

Venture building in healthcare For shaping early opportunities into something a team can test, fund, staff, and move forward. Diagnostics innovation and new business For diagnostics manufacturers and lab-service players adding software, services, or new business categories around the existing portfolio. Selected work The broader proof layer across organizations, references, and real project contexts in diagnostics, care, pharma, medtech, and research.

What the work is

How an engagement usually runs

Where this comes from

Related pages