Kouki Harasaki | Andreessen Horowitz

Converging technology

“Like most scientists, my lab peers and YES team members got involved with basic research because we wanted to make an impact on the world. We then realised that commercialising translational science is one way to do this. YES began the process of learning about that path.”

From cell biology to healthcare startup venture capital

Kouki began working in healthcare 20 years ago. His first clinical research position was in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, an American academic medical centre based in Ohio. Kouki’s first lab research position was at the National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute within the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). One of his personal highlights is being at the NIH when it was announced that the Human Genome Project was completed.

Kouki went on to graduate from Cornell University with a double major in Molecular/Cell Biology and Asian Studies. After Kouki completed his PhD in Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, he took up a Research Investigator position at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. After three years at Novartis, Kouki pursued an MBA at Harvard before returning to Novartis to hold positions in strategy, finance, and business development.

In 2014, Kouki left Novartis for Baxter which, at the time, was preparing to spin off its biopharma division into what became Baxalta. When Shire announced that it was buying Baxalta for $32B in 2016, Kouki left to become a Blavatnik Fellow at Harvard Business School. This was a healthcare entrepreneur-in-residence fellowship funded by multi-billionaire Len Blavatnik. As a Blavatnik Fellow, Kouki ran Medal, a medical data machine learning startup as COO for two years.

Kouki joined the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in early 2018 as a Partner. He now spends his time working with healthcare startups that range from digital health to therapeutics.

Kouki says: “Biotechnology YES played an important part in my career choices. By good fortune, I’ve always been surrounded by innovative biomedical technologies. Competing in and winning the Biotechnology YES competition cemented my decision to pursue an MBA rather than an MD after my PhD.”

YES was a crash course on entrepreneurship and pitching

Kouki did not have any prior experience in or exposure to the business world. “The mentors gave us a crash course on entrepreneurship and pitching.”

Kouki cites the team’s greatest area for development was also the most nuanced aspect of pitching - story-telling. “The best pitches are great stories that inspire change. They are calls to action. The hardest part was telling a story that balances the practical and the aspirational. In the near-term, we wanted to simply explain the problem and our solution. In the long-term, we wanted to explain how our product could change the world.”

Looking back, Kouki says: “The topics of company formation, pitching, financing, and go-to-market strategy (that were first introduced to us at YES) have repeatedly come up over the course of my career as an R&D scientist, MBA student, business development professional, and startup COO. At Andreessen Horowitz, I use these skills every day as I work with startups.”