Thousands of companies develop new therapies. But behind every one of them are the companies that make the work possible. They build the software, supply the reagents, run the experiments, develop the analytical methods. They create new algorithms, new approaches, better services. Hard, important work that stays in the shadows. This podcast tells their stories. Each episode, one founder talks about how they built a company that supports drug discovery. Hosted by Imants Zudans, former CEO of Molport.

]]>https://zudans.substack.com/s/podcastRiverside.fm (https://riverside.com)Mon, 02 Nov 2026 14:44:21 GMTMon, 23 Mar 2026 18:28:27 GMT60Imants Zudans<p>Thousands of companies develop new therapies. But behind every one of them are the companies that make the work possible. They build the software, supply the reagents, run the experiments, develop the analytical methods. They create new algorithms, new approaches, better services. Hard, important work that stays in the shadows. This podcast tells their stories. Each episode, one founder talks about how they built a company that supports drug discovery. Hosted by Imants Zudans, former CEO of Molport.</p>episodicImants Zudansim.zudans@gmail.comnoIn 2001, Matt Segall joined Camitro. The idea that would become StarDrop was born there. It moved through ArQule, Inpharmatica, and BioFocus before Matt and Ed Champness took it independent in 2009. We talked about how the idea survived, the buyout, and the marketing that actually worked.

Episode notes page.

Chapters

• 00:00 — Cold open and introduction
• 01:26 — Cambridge to Camitro
• 09:11 — ArQule: the ethnographer, BlackBerries and the glowing molecule
• 22:54 — Inpharmatica: someone else's compound fails
• 40:13 — Galapagos, BioFocus, and the first answer was no
• 50:27 — Conferences and the marketing you cannot measure
• 53:38 — Reading Kahneman: marketing that wasn't marketing
• 1:01:31 — Scientific value vs. business value
• 1:03:23 — Close
  
  Matt on LinkedIn
  Imants on LinkedIn
  
  

]]>7be15faf-f6b6-469d-91a3-f65bfa2d3da7Thu, 30 Apr 2026 12:58:51 GMT<p>In 2001, Matt Segall joined Camitro. The idea that would become StarDrop was born there. It moved through ArQule, Inpharmatica, and BioFocus before Matt and Ed Champness took it independent in 2009. We talked about how the idea survived, the buyout, and the marketing that actually worked.<br /><br />Episode <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://open.substack.com/pub/zudans/p/episode-2-the-stardrop-story-with?r=56tust&amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;showWelcomeOnShare=true" target="_blank">notes page</a>.<br /><br />Chapters</p><ul><li>00:00 — Cold open and introduction</li><li>01:26 — Cambridge to Camitro</li><li>09:11 — ArQule: the ethnographer, BlackBerries and the glowing molecule</li><li>22:54 — Inpharmatica: someone else's compound fails</li><li>40:13 — Galapagos, BioFocus, and the first answer was no</li><li>50:27 — Conferences and the marketing you cannot measure</li><li>53:38 — Reading Kahneman: marketing that wasn't marketing</li><li>1:01:31 — Scientific value vs. business value</li><li>1:03:23 — Close<br /><br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-segall-19228a4/" target="_blank">Matt on LinkedIn</a><br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/zudans/" target="_blank">Imants on LinkedIn</a><br /><br /></li></ul>no01:03:542The StarDrop Story with Matt Segall, OptibriumfullThe founding story of Pharmacelera. How two Intel chip designers, a pharma industry veteran, and a quantum mechanics professor built a drug discovery company from scratch. Enric Gibert talks through the whole journey: what they built first, how they got their first clients, and where the company is heading next.

Episode notes page: https://substack.com/home/post/p-192460577

Chapters

• 00:00 — Introduction
• 00:36 — A Decade at Intel
• 03:38 — The Monday-Wednesday Shutdown
• 08:10 — Finding Drug Discovery
• 17:54 — The Pharma Box Mistake
• 25:33 — Crossing the Desert
• 29:23 — First Customers and Benchmarking
• 34:40 — Selling to Scientists
• 41:28 — Product-Market Fit
• 48:21 — Ten Years and Beyond
• 55:25 — Closing
  
  Enric on LinkedIn

]]>7b509fd9-4040-421c-b0f5-f727668b4a66Sun, 29 Mar 2026 13:58:29 GMT<p>The founding story of Pharmacelera. How two Intel chip designers, a pharma industry veteran, and a quantum mechanics professor built a drug discovery company from scratch. Enric Gibert talks through the whole journey: what they built first, how they got their first clients, and where the company is heading next.<br /><br />Episode notes page: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-192460577" target="_blank"><b>https://substack.com/home/post/p-192460577</b></a><br /><br /><b>Chapters</b><br /></p><ul><li>00:00 — Introduction</li><li>00:36 — A Decade at Intel</li><li>03:38 — The Monday-Wednesday Shutdown</li><li>08:10 — Finding Drug Discovery</li><li>17:54 — The Pharma Box Mistake</li><li>25:33 — Crossing the Desert</li><li>29:23 — First Customers and Benchmarking</li><li>34:40 — Selling to Scientists</li><li>41:28 — Product-Market Fit</li><li>48:21 — Ten Years and Beyond</li><li>55:25 — Closing<br /><br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/enricgibert/" target="_blank"><b>Enric on LinkedIn</b></a></li></ul>no00:56:091Two Chip Engineers and a Drug Hunter Walk Into a Tapas Barfull