25 Sep 2020
In this video, Susie Harborth, Executive Vice President at Breakthrough Properties, explains how a collaboration with PHCbi has been critical to her company's goal of delivering high-quality resources and environments that enable scientists to develop pioneering therapies, diagnostics and vaccinations.
This video won the Drug Discovery & Development Video Interview of the Year in the 2021 Scientists' Choice Awards. Find out more about the awards here
Hi. I'm Susie Harborth. I'm the Executive Vice President of Business Operations for Breakthrough Properties. Breakthrough Properties is building world-class life science communities for innovation users of all sizes around the world. My role is to focus on our Global Operations platform and especially user experiences within our properties.
We believe scientist entrepreneurs need innovation ecosystems that really support their research, and our goal is to enable innovation communities so that life-changing discoveries can be made within these environments.
We are very focused on, not only the real estate portion, of which we will provide world-class spaces, but also bringing therapies to patients is really a goal of ours. One of the interesting things we are seeing now is that we are really in the age of biology. Whereas before where we were just treating symptoms, science has actually moved to a point where some of these therapies and vaccinations and diagnostics, and we're actually at a point where we might be curing disease, and that's really transformative.
And so science is really key to innovation, human health and if we can provide the resources to do that, that's really a goal that we have. Well, my entire career has been about supporting scientist entrepreneurs be able to focus on what they do best, which is generate meaningful data and getting therapies to patients.
We have a really great collaboration with PHCbi and I think one of the important things to recognize with them is that they have this strong legacy of being part of the Panasonic family of focusing on quality products and quality services.
And for early-stage researchers, the data and the science is so critical to get right. It's the currency of their business, and really having high-quality products that you can rely on to generate that data is a game-changer. And it's been an amazing collaboration with PHCbi, in that they've been at the forefront of innovation, supporting us in our different innovation hubs to bring the best products to these researchers, so that they can do what they do best, which is focus on science.
As an entrepreneur, and as an investor myself, I understand what it takes for scientists and entrepreneurs to travel through that entrepreneurial journey. We do that in a number of ways, access to industry partners, facilities that enable innovation, almost plug and play, access to potential capital sources, and just general peer-to-peer learning.
The life science industry faces many challenges, and customers are not immune to some of the challenges we're currently facing in this COVID era. But I think the bioscience industry has been shown to be very resilient in this era of uncertainty and challenges and at the forefront, pioneering therapies and diagnostics and vaccinations to help human health.
We really want to create environments that foster innovation, which therefore allow discoveries that really transform lives. I would say that the reason I'm in biotech is because of the fact that it creates such an impact and also what we do when we invest today really does generate returns for future generations, so when we talk about generational investing.
Well, at Breakthrough Properties, we hope to be your preferred real estate partner in which our environments will help scientist entrepreneurs bring their therapies, ideas, and innovation to life while we take care of a lot of the peripheral services, operational facilities, environmental health and safety services, and as well as connect you to industry partners and best-in-class resources.
So when I'm asked by people what entrepreneurial scientists should really look for in a real estate partner, I think you should look for someone who understands what you do, how you do it, and why you do it. PHCbi's products are just world-class products, made with precision engineering and we rely on it heavily for our research in our labs, and we hope that we will continue to partner with them in innovative ways for the benefit of human health going forward.
Breakthrough Properties
Susie Harborth is Executive Vice President of Business Operations for Breakthrough Properties, where she oversees the firm’s global property operations platform. She has nearly 20 years of strategy and operations experience working with biotech and tech startups, including as an entrepreneur and investor. Most recently, Ms. Harborth was co-founder and COO of BioLabs, an innovation platform of coworking lab spaces and services for innovation users; and partner and founding CFO of Mission BioCapital, a life science venture capital firm. She has advised leading and emerging biotech ecosystems in the US, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions, and continues to mentor startups and founders. She holds a Masters in Biology from Harvard University, and a Bachelors in Business Administration from CSU, Long Beach.