274: Engineering iPSC Neurons for Parkinson's: From 3% Survival to Durable Graft with Bilal Fares - Part 2

Building a cell therapy company is hard. Building a genetically engineered iPSC therapy for the brain, on a preclinical budget, is one of the hardest translational problems in biotech. Every experiment has to move the program closer to an IND, or it's motion without progress.

That's the operating constraint Bilal Fares faces as CEO and co-founder of AzureCell, the University of Geneva spin-off engineering neuroprotective iPSC neurons for Parkinson's disease. In Part 2, he walks through how his team decides what to build, where AI and synthetic biology genuinely accelerate a CMC roadmap, and the four founder lessons he wishes he'd internalized earlier, including his conviction that scientists who use AI will replace those who don't.

Topics discussed include:

• Strategies for prioritizing experiments and narrowing focus with limited resources (03:33)
• How business opportunity validation programs helped define a product roadmap (04:08)
• Integrating AI and synthetic biology into research programs—and where these tools do, and don’t, accelerate development (05:07)
• Building a cell therapy platform for personalized approaches in neurological diseases beyond Parkinson’s (06:38)
• Lessons learned in biotech leadership and why tackling big problems matters (08:08)
• Key advice for aspiring biotech entrepreneurs: kill your own solutions quickly, and learn from others (09:27)
• The importance of having a strong team and how a powerful mission attracts top talent (12:21)
• AzureCell’s near-term plans and future goals, including upcoming fundraising and R&D milestones (13:30)

Smart insight: What separates successful biotech ventures from the rest? According to Bilal Fares, it is not just technical skill but mindset. First, choose a problem large enough to be worth the struggle. Second, try to “kill your solution as fast as possible”—engage experts, enter competitions, and seek brutal feedback early so you can pivot, improve, or abandon as needed. And finally, plan with the end (approval, patients, impact) always in sight.

If you enjoyed this, check out these episodes on cell therapy, where engineered cells can survive and do more than replace what's lost: Michael Rome's investor lens rounds it out for founders facing the same funding realities.

• Episodes 269 - 270: How to Turn Mesenchymal Stem Cells into Programmable Cancer Delivery Vehicles with Jun Yung Woo
• Episodes 253 - 254: How to Source, Manufacture, and Scale the Earliest Stem Cells for Allogeneic Cell Therapy Without Ethical Barriers with Yuta Lee
• Episodes 249 - 250: How T Cell Activation Redefines TIL and CAR-T Manufacturing (Boosting Success Rates to 95%) with Chantale Bernatchez
• Episodes 259 - 260: Why Strong Science Isn't Enough to Get Funded: What Investors Actually Look For with Michael Rome

Connect with Bilal Fares:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/b-fares
AzureCell website: www.azurecell.co
Email: info@azurecell.co

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