Robin Quirk is the Vice President, Technology Sourcing & Venture Development at CCRM, leading market-driven venture creation in the advanced therapies sector.
This blog first appeared on CCRM Australia’s website and is reposted here, with permission. It contains some minor edits from the original.
CCRM, a leader in developing and commercializing regenerative medicine-based technologies and cell and gene therapies (CGTs), has long supported early-stage technologies. One of the key ways for doing this has been through a program of technology evaluation and incubation, with the end goal of creating companies that can propel promising advanced therapies into the clinic.
Traditional models of company creation often begin with a promising technology. While this approach has produced many notable successes, it is also resource‑intensive, inefficient at scale, and yields only a low number of compelling investable ventures. In a nutshell, starting with technology and then searching for a market can be a risky strategy.
CCRM’s venture studio model, Venture by Design, was developed to complement existing frameworks by introducing a more explicitly market‑driven entry point. The process differs in that it begins with clearly articulated unmet needs (which could be technical, clinical, manufacturing, or operational), and then deliberately assembles the science, intellectual property (IP) and capabilities needed to address them. This framing shifts attention from developing specific individual technologies to building the overall configuration required for a viable company.
From technology push to company readiness
In the few years since we launched our venture studio, we’ve witnessed firsthand that proto companies that originate from clearly defined bottlenecks and problem statements meet commercialization readiness standards both faster and more often. Viable ventures are those designed with credible answers to questions such as: How might we best solve the problem? Who will adopt this approach? How will it be paid for? Can it be made at scale? And why this solution now?
Our shift from asking “Is the science interesting and can it be applied to a certain problem?” to “Does this configuration support a workable company?” has proven to be one of the most consequential aspects of the model.
Emerging patterns across venture studio cycles
Running repeated venture studio cycles has revealed additional patterns that separate viable company creation from stalled efforts:
- Market pull is non‑negotiable.
Companies born from the desire to address clear unmet needs (e.g. underserved patient groups, manufacturing constraints, delivery gaps, etc.) create more compelling propositions than those built around unanchored science. Early end-user and partner conversations should be used as design inputs.
- Initial de‑risking must happen before incorporation.
Wet‑lab diligence, application-driven feasibility work, manufacturability assessments and freedom‑to‑operate thinking are most powerful when done before a company is set up. This early exploratory work enables the concept and strategy to be refined in an expedited, capital-efficient manner. CCRM’s specialized laboratories and academic collaborator network are hugely beneficial for this.
- Early external engagement is not optional.
Programs that engage pharma, clinicians, or health systems early don’t just validate the need, they also shape the product. Even tentative early engagement can benefit downstream development. It may be surprising to some, but these stakeholder groups are predominantly very willing to engage and advise, for which we are very grateful.
- IP strategy must be intentional, not reactive.
Successful Venture by Design projects treat technology components and IP as design variables. Being overly prescriptive or fixated upon specific solutions early in the concept-building stage can stall progress.
- Teams matter earlier than you may expect.
A recurring challenge is the availability (and bandwidth) of leadership in pre‑financed companies. Ventures that allocate a leader to drive fundraising, partnerships and execution, even if only in the interim, outperform those trying to manage the early stages by committee.
Reflections on the Venture by Design model
One surprising aspect of working in this model is how much of company creation is about trying to remain objective about emerging concepts, and how challenging this is. Venture by Design is as much about pivoting from ideas early as it is about nurturing them. That can be difficult when accustomed to championing novelty, but it’s entirely necessary.
Another lesson is that incubating concepts inside a larger organization has drawbacks. Our deep infrastructure, expertise and networks are powerful accelerants, but they can also slow decision‑making if not managed deliberately. The ventures that progress fastest are the ones that selectively decouple to some degree and adopt startup‑appropriate processes early while still leveraging institutional strengths.
Further, we’ve found from running our model that process and infrastructure alone are not the advantage, but rather their orchestration is. Access to manufacturing, capital, talent and partners only creates value when it’s deliberately sequenced. The Venture Studio’s strength is not just in structured ideation but also in its integration.
Why Venture by Design works
Venture by Design is not simply an ideation workshop; it’s a company formation system. It integrates:
- An ideation process grounded in market need
- Structured, stage-gated diligence with objective scoring
- Early partner and customer signals
- Intentional governance, IP, and incubation design
- Capital‑efficient paths to value inflection
The belief is that this combination will increase the probability that a spun‑out entity is more financeable, partner‑ready and resilient to occasional pivots. For the regenerative medicine sector, where timelines are long and capital efficiency matters, an ordered and disciplined “bench to bedside and back again” approach is a necessity. If we want more companies to reach patients, we must spend time designing the company as well as developing the science.
Venture by Design works because it treats company creation as a system, integrating science, diligence, partners and capital into a coherent whole. As our venture studio continues to evolve (incorporating quicker early validation, stronger external engagement and deeper advanced computing), I’m convinced this type of model will be shown to be one of the most effective paths for translating complex biological innovation into durable, scalable companies.
The takeaway is simple: while great science and technologies are of course necessary, viable, high-impact companies happen by design.
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