Cold Networking Creates Partnership

A story about how Jess Mah partnered with scientist Mike Levin to commercialize his groundbreaking biotech research.

"I met Mike through a friend who was telling me about him over lunch. I thought this was brilliant and amazing, so I asked if we could fly out and meet Mike next week. I cleared my calendar and spent a few days getting to know him to figure out what we could do with this.

After meeting Mike and spending time with him, I realized this was really compelling. So I hired this guy named Tom who had taken a drug called Elzonris from lab through FDA approval for $16 million, which is absolutely crazy in the drug world - normally it takes hundreds of millions to get something approved. His drug actually worked, putting 8 out of 9 patients in full remission who normally would have died within months.

I brought Tom in to do due diligence on Mike Levin's science and figure out a strategy for turning these into real biotech companies. My contribution was my team - I have 12 people who work with me at my holding company. For me, it's just an extension of me where if there's something I want to manifest in the world, I have a team of brilliant people who will figure out how to help me make that happen.

We ended up creating several companies under this holdco. The first company, Selljaboo, helps overcome drug resistance in cancer treatments. Another company called Anthrobots is developing programmable human bio bots, which just got featured in Nature today."