🧬 Maneesh Jain - Mirvie - Part 3 | Finding & Addressing Unmet Needs | The Maternal Health Crisis | Creating an Empathy-Focused Company Culture | Fundraising & Hitting Milestones in a Recession

Part 3 of 3.

My guest for this week’s episode is Maneesh Jain, CEO and Co-Founder of Mirvie, a life science company that predicts pregnancy complications before they happen by revealing the underlying biology of pregnancy health. Mirvie is dedicated to shaping the future of pregnancy health through simple, personalized blood tests. Before Mirvie, Maneesh was a founder, CEO, or executive of five successful start-ups, which include Parallele Bioscience, Auriphex Bioscience, Ion Torrent, Butterfly Network, and Cirina.

All of the businesses successfully exited or commercialized to the likes of Affymetrix, Illumina, Life Technologies, the FDA, and GRAIL, respectively. Join us as we sit down with Maneesh to talk about how finding the biggest unmet need led to the founding of Mirvie after leaving GRAIL.

Maneesh also discusses the maternal health crisis and the state of the market for pregnancy health. We also cover his thoughts on how to create an empathy-centric culture that balances being collaborative and understanding with achieving aggressive goals. Lastly, Maneesh discusses the intricacies of fundraising during recessions and the critical importance of hitting milestones, especially the ones investors value most. Please enjoy my conversation with Maneesh.

Find Our Guest, Maneesh Jain, at these links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maneesh-jain-2509388/
https://www.mirvie.com/

Find Our Host, Jon Chee, at these links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee
https://www.excedr.com

Social & Website
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@excedr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/excedr_inc
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ExcedrInc
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/excedr
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@excedr
Podcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:43 Episode start, founding Mirvie after leaving GRAIL, finding the biggest unmet need
04:08 Detecting abnormal developments during pregnancy, the state of the market for pregnancy medicine
07:23 The maternal health crisis and working to resolve it, finding safe methods of diagnosis
09:04 Creating a collaborative and supportive environment with aggressive goals, empathy as a core value
11:55 Fundraising during recessions, hitting your milestones, and creating/proving your own value
14:08 Finding milestones investors value most, the importance of asking “why” for prioritization
17:16 What’s in store for Mirvie in the next year or two, shifting paradigms for pregnancy health
20:20 Shoutouts to people who have supported Maneesh over the years
22:29 Advice to a 21-year-old self, self and team success are the same thing
24:37 Outro

Enriched Notes:

Topics Mentioned:
GRAIL https://grail.com/
Mirvie https://www.mirvie.com/
Hematology Analyzers https://www.excedr.com/clinical-equipment/hematology-analyzer
Medical Imaging https://www.excedr.com/blog/medical-imaging-and-radiology-overview
New Drug Applications https://www.excedr.com/blog/ind-application-process
FDA Drug Approval Process https://www.excedr.com/blog/fda-drug-approval-process-guide
Clinical Trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial
Principal Investigator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_investigator
Series A, B, & C Funding https://www.excedr.com/resources/series-funding-explained
Funding Options for Startups https://www.excedr.com/resources/biotech-startup-funding-options
What Is a Seed Round https://www.excedr.com/resources/seed-round-funding-explained
Bootstrapping Your Biotech Startup https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-to-bootstrap-biotech-startup
Invert (Charlie Munger Model) https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/inversion
Stanford Genome Technology Center https://med.stanford.edu/sgtc.html
Affymetrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affymetrix

People Mentioned:
Charlie Munger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Munger
Maya Angelou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou 

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.