We’re excited to be back for another episode of the Life Sciences Today Podcast by Healthcare IT Today. My guest today is Gabi Tarcic, Chief Development Officer at Evogene. In this episode, I sit down with Tarcic to ask a question the industry has been asking for twenty years: how does a platform company become a real business? Evogene has lived through every wave of “compute will transform biology” — genomics, systems biology, computational biology platforms, and now generative AI — and built a business across human health, medical cannabis, and agriculture on the bet that the answer is yes. 

A must-listen for TechBio founders.

Check out the main topics of discussion for this episode of the Life Sciences Today podcast:

• What does Evogene actually do, and what does BD look like in a company structured around a computational platform and multiple subsidiaries?
• The company has lived through several waves of “compute will transform biology” — genomics, systems biology, computational biology platforms, and now generative AI. What’s genuinely different about this wave, and what’s the same story in new packaging?
• Platform companies struggle to monetize because value accrues to the products, not the platform. Evogene has tried both — licensing the tech engines out and spinning up subsidiaries to develop products in-house. What have you learned about which model actually works?
• In a world where AlphaFold is free, foundation models are commoditized, and every biotech now claims to be AI-driven — what’s defensible about Evogene’s platform that a well-funded startup with the latest models can’t replicate?
• You’re in BD, which means you’re the one sitting across the table from potential partners who have to decide whether Evogene’s platform is a genuine accelerator or just another vendor. What do the good conversations have in common, and where do the deals that fall apart usually fall apart?
• What’s the biggest anti-pattern you see in TechBio — something founders and platform companies keep doing that doesn’t work, that everyone in the industry has watched play out multiple times now?

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Along with the popular podcasting platforms above, you can Subscribe to Healthcare IT Today on YouTube.  Plus, all of the audio and video versions will be made available to stream on Healthcare IT Today. As a former pharma-tech founder who bootstrapped to exit, I now help TechBio and digital health CEOs grow revenue—by solving the tech, team, and go-to-market problems that stall your progress. If you want a warrior by your side, connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you work in Life Sciences IT, we’d love to hear where you agree and/or disagree with our takes on health IT innovation in life sciences. Feel free to share your thoughts and perspectives in the comments of this post, in the YouTube comments, or privately on our Contact Us page. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if you have any ideas for future episodes.

Thanks so much for listening!