The Life Science Factory is the official sponsor of the Global Mentorship Program. In the interview you can find out why we are participating in the program as a sponsor and coach and what other tips we have for you.

What’s the mission of the Life Science Factory?

We want to establish Göttingen as the “location of choice” for life science start-ups. We aim to mobilize entrepreneurial forces from academic researchers, identify future technologies, and support spin-offs in order to maximize the prospects of entrepreneurial success for young life science start-ups. Therefore the Life Science Factory will allow occupants the opportunity to research, work, and build prototypes. Occupants can share innovative thoughts in collaborative and comfortable environments.

Why do you think supporting life science innovators is important? What’s the most important role of an incubator in the life sciences?

Life science start-ups encounter some challenges that start-ups from other fields may not encounter. Mostly, they face a very high technical risk and long and expensive product development phases. Moreover, strict regulatory guidelines and missing entrepreneurial skills sometimes complicate the process. Therefore, it is important that start-ups are supported at an early stage in order to handle these challenges. As a life science incubator, we are experienced in identifying the needs of an individual life science team, to provide support, mentoring programs, and to help them in making a suitable connection to relevant players. From 2021 we will offer fully equipped and serviced lab space and thereby also make the appropriate infrastructure for start-ups available.

Coworking offices have been around for a while now, can you tell us about the idea of the coworking lab?

Like coworking offices, sharing a lab with other start-ups promotes contact with other entrepreneurs and innovators that enables important peer exchange and helps to advance your own project. Another benefit is that our labs will be fully equipped and serviced which saves a lot of time and money. Our labs will allow teams to start your experiments within 48 hours and to benefit from the access to shared facilities and high-end equipment. 

Part of being an entrepreneur is about learning to fail. How did you learn to embrace failure?

Failure and trial and error is very often a routine during a scientific career. After some years of experience in fundamental research in molecular biology, you know that it is important not to give up too early. You also learn that it is important to carry on in being convinced of your project, however, you always should try to be open for slight changes in your path that sometimes lead you to the final success.

You want to read the whole interview? Read it on cLABs website and learn more about the program.