Sara Jane Demy, CEO and Founder of Demy-Colton, has spent more than two decades helping biotech CEOs get into the right rooms—and build the relationships that move their companies forward.
In this episode of The Russo Edge Podcast, Sara joins host Solomon Wilcots for a candid conversation about what it takes to lead in today’s capital-constrained biotech environment. She shares why preparation—not just presence—is the key to investor meetings, and what biotech CEOs often get wrong about outreach. Whether you’re a first-time founder or a veteran CEO, this episode offers practical guidance, honest insights, and a look at how the playbook for biotech leadership is being written in real time.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity.
Solomon Wilcots: What’s the most valuable resource a biotech CEO can have in today’s environment? Well, it’s not just capital. It’s connections. Whether it’s finding the right investor or having candid conversations with your C-level peers, access to the right people can change everything. On today’s Russo Edge podcast. We talk about what it takes to get into those conversations and how staying in them can shape the future of your life science company.
Sarah, how are you doing today?
Sara Jane Demy: I’m doing great, Solomon, great. Thank you so much.
Solomon Wilcots: Well, look, it’s always great to have you. Look, talk to us about how you got your company started in this space. What inspired you to launch Demy-Colten?
Sara Jane Demy: When I was working at Bio, we closed our New York office and I decided to set up Demy-Colten on my own. And I was inspired to do this partly because there were other programs that I wanted to do. Primarily, while I was at Bio companies would come to me and say, you know, Sarah, when we’re out here at JPM, there’s no room for us anymore. You know, smaller private companies. There’s no room. We’re not really part of that gang anymore and there’s no space for us. Why doesn’t Bio do something about it? And at that point in time, Bio simply did not have enough bandwidth.
So my first thought was, you know to work on creating an event during JPM week, and Biotech Showcase was born out of that. It happened faster than I thought it would. The first year we did it, I sent invitations out to I don’t know how many hundreds of people while I was in an internet cafe in Rome, of all places. That’s after I got EBD to say yes, they would partner with me on it. And we had 50 presenting companies and 300 attendees. That was the beginning of Biotech Showcase. And, you know, that really kind of launched Demy-Colten and the pathway that we took. We did a number of events, we were supporting other local regional organizations, and then we went out on our own and created our biotech CEO summits, which are frankly just really profound.
Solomon Wilcots: Well, you certainly are an industry leader. I think you’ve just done a wonderful job and built a career off putting the right people into the right room. So kind of share with us some of the secrets of curating these meaningful connections instead of just putting name tags on everyone and saying, have at it.
Sara Jane Demy: Well, there’s a lot more thought that goes into it than that, I can assure you. It’s about identifying the components, if you will, that would have meaning for the company. So our thinking is always focused on the biotech company. What can we do to advance them? That’s what we’re in it for. And, you know, developing relations with, you know, potential. partners, whether it’s Pharma or another biotech company, finding the way to make doing that easy. And a lot of that was built through the partnering program but also putting on meaningful sessions, finding a way to really enhance the way that companies present at our meetings. And we’re thinking.
You know that going forward when we do buy a future in New York City in the fall, we’re looking at a new way to have companies present. We think that having a company present in a room and requiring investors to go in there is almost the equivalent of saying to the investor you have to pick this company. And we think that’s difficult. So what we’re thinking about doing is putting together a group of companies to basically to present to an audience of a hundred. Because you know that in order to attract investment, the investor has to hear about you over and over and again. Hopefully with updates along the way because that makes it much more meaningful.
We’re always thinking about what we can do to make it really meaningful for the, primarily with our focus on the biotech companies, and then for others that come to the meeting like our pharma partners and engaging with them along the way to provide them with meaningful opportunities to talk about what they wanna do with biotech companies.
Solomon Wilcots: Well, you do a really good job of helping those biotech CEOs really kind of traverse what has really become a tough capital environment out there and the events like the ones you just mentioned, it really does help those companies remain visible and create a pathway moving forward. I also now wanna talk to you about logistics, right? What do CEOs often get wrong when it comes to preparing for investor events and setting up those meetings? What can you do to help in that space?
Sara Jane Demy: Well, that’s something that we talk about a lot and it’s a bit of a pet peeve with me. So, so if I can just say, and I know biotech CEOs are so, so, so very busy, but when you are recounting on other people’s money to move your product, your asset forward, you have to take good care. You have to be a good chaperone of it. So when it comes to attending an event like… Biotech Showcase or any other partnering meeting.
If you want to seriously meet with investors, you can go into the system, identify who’s going to be there before you reach out to them. Before you reach out to them, you need to do the research and identify who may be interested in your company. What are the comps that these investors are investing in? You don’t want to. approach an investor who was only interested in phase two and forward potential assets when you’re only at preclinical or phase one. You don’t want to do that because then you look foolish. You look as though you haven’t done your homework. If they’re investing in oncology and you just happen to be focused on fungus, that may not be the right thing.
So that’s the work that it’s really incumbent upon a company and their team to do. It’s better to take fewer meetings and have each one be more meaningful and insightful than to just do scatter shot and try to get many meetings. I always encourage CEOs that I speak to reach out to investors. You can do the meetings at Biotech Showcase or on site. But reach out to them beforehand to let them know that you’re going to ask, request a meeting and tell them why and why they should meet with you. So to up the possibility of securing a meeting with them.
Solomon Wilcots: Yeah, that’s a good way of achieving connectivity. Kind of talk to us about what kind of investors are showing up these days. We often hear about specialized or generalist investors, but what about say family offices or individual investors?
Sara Jane Demy: Well, at Biotech Showcase, for instance, and at BioFuture, you have family offices, you have individual investors. You don’t have institutionals that much, although there are some, because we do have public companies, but it runs the whole gamut of investors that you would see. So venture capitalists, investors that are sector-specific investors. depending upon what it is that we’re doing, you will find that they will also attend our meeting. I just got a whole list of them. I said, okay, tell me what kind of investors came to Biotech Showcase. And I have a list of about 30.
Solomon Wilcots: So that’s really good. Yeah, at your CEO summit, you know, conversations are all off the records here. We know that. So why is that so very important? And what makes these sessions so different from typical panels are investor fireside chats?
Sara Jane Demy: Well, we run the CEO summits more like a think tank, if you will. So everybody,at the CEO summit has a job, you cannot just register to come to the meeting. So you’re a CEO, or you’re discussant, and or a sponsor, but you all have a job. And the job of a sponsor or discussant would be to lead to start a conversation to set the stage for it. Or to lead a round table discussion on a specific topic. It’s closed door and it allows the CEOs to share their experiences, i.e. a banker comes to you with a new potential. financing proposal that you haven’t heard of. Well, what have other CEOs done? Have they gone down that pathway before? You know, what is the good and the bad? A pharma company or two is talking to you. What are other CEOs’ experiences with those pharma companies? What is the real motivation behind them? Do they wanna do a takeout? Will they forbid you from working with that asset with another company? You know, you need to understand those things in order to make the best decisions for your companies. So talking to others, leading your team. Yeah. How do you manage the communication?
So the big thing with all your audiences, you know, the internal audiences, the external, the board, the media, how do manage all of that and keep your team marching along in the same direction? How do you deal with a co-founder and CSO who says, well, I know the CEO likes asset number one, but I really prefer asset number three. What do you do about that when? you’re in clinical trials and you’re looking to raise money. So you have to keep everybody going in the same direction. And what are the tricks? What if you were hired by a board and there is maybe a board member who has got other interests. The interests are not totally aligned with the company. Their interests are perhaps to make a quick exit and they’re forcing you to make potential decisions that may not be best for your company. How do you deal with it? So those are those are the conversations. You can’t have those conversations. sitting around a board table. You can’t have them necessarily. You can have them with your senior staff. You have to figure out how to navigate them. And that truly, I believe, is the value of it. We’ve heard some really profound stories at our CDN summits.
Solomon Wilcots: Yeah, I bet you have. You often say that there’s no playbook for being a biotech CEO. Why is that? And how are these events helping to write that playbook real time?
Sara Jane Demy: Well, I don’t know if the events specifically are writing that, but what will happen? Well, you know, maybe let me take that back.
Solomon Wilcots : What’s transpiring, right?
Sara Jane Demy: Yeah, because the events will update people on what is happening and how people are doing things from whether it’s financing or deal making or forming a company or working with a specific investor or not. But there was no roadmap. If you think back to when I got into this space, which was in 1999. Um, yeah, that, that long ago, there was no roadmap. The roadmap was, yes, we’re external research organizations. We would get to a certain point and we will sell or outlicense our asset that we’re working on to pharma. We’re not going to develop it. It wasn’t until about 2004, 2005, that CEOs started talking about FIPCO’s fully integrated pharmaceutical companies. and That was a big thing that stirred the pot quite a bit. And now more companies are, in fact, fully integrated pharma companies.
But biotech companies don’t necessarily have that. They’re not built in the same way as pharma companies. So you don’t have a clinical development department. You don’t a department that necessarily can help you understand your valuation. and you don’t have. the infrastructure that bigger companies have. And a lot of CEOs, you know, they may come out of the scientific world, but you can’t go to Harvard and follow the playbook on how to build a biotech company because there are so many variables and unknowns. Like where do you get your money? Other people’s money.
Again, being a CEO of a biotech company means that you’re always raising money. you’re always leading your organization. You’re always dealing with the unknowns and the challenges of the FDA and going through approval and relying upon the research. It’s really hard. I applaud every CEO of a biotech company because frankly, after all these years, I think it’s one of the hardest jobs in the world.
Solomon Wilcots: Yeah, and you’re helping many of them to navigate what is a very tough and difficult landscape. But I wanna ask you even more importantly, this last question with everything that’s happening across the biotech landscape, what’s your message to CEOs who are trying to navigate those difficult spaces? I know you just named some of them, but how are you helping them to do that?
Sara Jane Demy: Yeah, that’s, well, by being an ear and listening to them and bringing the questions to the forefront. So, you know, when it comes to our CEO summit, we will have discussions about everything that’s going on currently, bringing opinions together that may conflict with one another so that we can understand what’s going on when we get to our BioFuture meeting, we will also do the same thing.
That’s understanding what is happening in terms of the bigger environment is important to understanding what one needs to do in order to successfully raise capital. It’s only part of it, but it’s a part of it that’s really important.
Solomon Wilcots: It really is. Well, we want to thank you, Sara Demy. You’re awesome, great information. So whether it’s in the US, Europe, or anywhere where innovation is taking place and being built, we know that you are going to be at the forefront of it. So we greatly appreciate you and the work that you’re doing with biotech leaders. We know it can be a very vulnerable space to work in. So, we appreciate the work that you’re doing out there. I’m Solomon Wilcots, everyone. We want to thank you for joining us right here on the Russo Edge podcast.
Sara Jane Demy: And thank you so much.
The Russo Edge is hosted by Solomon Wilcots and features candid conversations at the intersection of biotech, healthcare, and innovation, spotlighting leaders, scientists, and investors moving medicine forward. Listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
