From Followers to Leaders: Catalyzing Change in Canadian Drug Discovery.

A recent Reddit thread has given me the kick in the rear to share some thoughts I've been mulling over the past few years. I'm worried that our drug discovery industry is built to foster fast-followers and that we don't create space for first-movers. As a result, we may be "lacking in leadership", as this Redditor suggests. I am going to take a parallel perspective; I think that we have capable leaders, but that we actually lack the system to support the kind of leadership in innovation that this Redditor wants. I think we can address that; I think we have to.

For those unfamiliar, a first-mover is, as you might expect, the first off the starting line. The position can allow an organization to entrench themselves in a market and be very difficult to displace. A fast-follower is later to start the race but may actually finish the race faster/more efficiently/better because they learned from watching the first-mover and from letting them chart the way. Everett Rogers goes into more detail in his "Law of Diffusion of Innovation":

In drug discovery, and maybe life sciences more broadly, the path is rife with risks. Programs fail at an incredibly high rate, often due to poor understanding of disease biology, and few products actually reach the market. Knowing all that, at the outset, you need buy-in from talent to build a team, from investors to source capital, from other investors and pharma to partner and fund later-stage clinical work, and from an entire world of commercialization. You can imagine, it's much easier to attract those stakeholders with a clearer path to market and higher likelihood of success. One way to achieve that is to be a fast-follower. They get some unknowns clarified for themselves before diving in headfirst. There are quantifiable advantages to being a fast-follower.

Combine the industry-specific minefield, the potential market advantages, and the general risk-averseness of Canadians and I think we are moving into dangerous territory. Without any first-movers, we soon won't have fast-followers either and we'll be paralyzed. If Canada wants to innovate in drug discovery and be a leader in the industry, then we need to encourage more first-movers; we actually need to lead.

I'm not suggesting this is a binary selection; we at Molecular Forecaster are a good example of how a single organization can be both. In some facets, you can be first-mover, in others you can be fast-follower.

We're a product of university research that is, by design, pushing the boundaries of innovation. But building a successful business around such technology is about much more than that. When I made my first hire, the weight of our decisions became much heavier for me. I wanted to think like a first-mover, but act like a fast-follower and avoid the risk of not properly identifying customer needs, of taking missteps following an unforgiving business model: Research- and Software-as-a-Service (RaaS and SaaS).

In a nutshell, we want to support early-stage drug discovery programs at startups and biotechs and we do so by being diligent researchers and trustworthy partners. As collaborators, we need convince our customers that our approach brings value. If we were proposing entirely new workflows, with new technology, that seasoned drug hunters had never seen, then the burden of proof would be that much higher. On the other hand, a cookie-cutter approach might require less education, but doesn't stand out and might not be as exciting.

In our line of work, computer-aided drug design, you don't need to dig too deep to find current examples of the first-mover vs. fast-follower paradigm. You may have read how "AI-first" companies market their technology and then read how some of the market pushes back on those claims (examples: Nature, Science, Chemistry World). This article isn't about debating the merits of those arguments (save that for another day), but you can see the headwinds that first-movers have to face.

So, we try to be a bit of both. We want to innovate and break new ground (ex: CACHE, technology advancements, ...), but we're mindful of the market-side of business that we need to shepherd along with us if we stray further away from the common path. That has risks for our team, which is approaching ten folks that need to put food on the table. Finding the balance is tough, and it feels like we're constantly teetering on top of the fence. It should be okay to want to innovate while also maintaining a stable paycheck, right?

Zooming back out, consider the power of innovation and the contributions they make, like the Canadian contributions to mRNA vaccines and antibody treatments for COVID-19 (CTVNews, The Conversation, Eli Lilly). Before their value was laid bare, these technologies faced those first-mover headwinds and had less traction. But when the timing was right, they were able to pounce, because of that first-mover advantage. And so, as consumers, investors, and colleagues, we need to recognize the effort to be innovative, to lead. Market success will always be important, but we need to recognize the value created by first-movers and their foundational research, perhaps before they're worth billions.

For the Canadian government, that means substantial increases to tri-council funding and to graduate student stipends. The Honourable Kirsty Duncan has been relentless in her support for funding increases (see: Canada's Fundamental Science Review). For Canadian entrepreneurs, it means being brave, knowing the community around you will help you up if (when) you fall. For Canadian investors, it means taking chances on ambitious projects and ambitious entrepreneurs.

I recognize that our circumstances at Molecular Forecaster that allow us to live in both camps are not applicable to all organizations. But, as an ecosystem, we need to support both first-movers and fast-followers. Right now, that means intentionally making space for those first-movers. Much like a bike race, we need all members of the Canadian life sciences ecosystem to take turns fighting those headwinds so that we just might lead the way together.