Context

Scientists are trained to be skeptical.

When an AI company walks into a room full of researchers, regulatory professionals, and drug developers promising transformation, the response can sometimes be suspicion instead of excitement.

The life sciences audience has heard the disruption pitch before, so leading with it risks making storytelling and positioning harder, not easier.

Having spun out Form Bio from Colossal Biosciences (the de-extinction company bringing back the wooly mammoth, dire wolf and dodo), I knew we needed to earn credibility with people who don't give it easily.

What I Did

I architected an ambitious, multifaceted program assortment to rapidly build the reputation and position of Form Bio within the biopharma industry.

While I ran a complete marketing mix appropriate for our industry and commercial model, there were 5 specific pillars I took on that were particularly consequential:

01 - Turning scientific leaders into visible and credible industry voices

02 - Assembling a PhD-level scientific marketing supergroup

03 - Harnessing scientific advisory and academic relationships that helped AI feel safer for skeptical researchers

04 - Being seen and heard with industry leaders like NVIDIA, Google, PacBio, and Ginkgo Bioworks

05 - Building proximity to the people and conversations shaping the regulatory landscape

The details of these pillars follow:

Form Bio's Chief Strategy Officer, Dr. Claire Aldridge, had deep expertise across immunology, genetics, and tech transfer—but no public profile in biopharma technology and AI-driven drug discovery.

To expand and shape her industry profile, we built a systematic placement program to get Claire seen and heard in the media and on the stages that mattered.

Select Placements:

• BiotechTV · Form Bio's Chief Strategy Officer on optimizing the payload of cell and gene therapies

• Forbes · 10 Women Leading the SynBio Revolution

• PharmaVoice · Woman of the Week

• SynBioBeta · Cell & Gene Manufacturing

• Molecule to Market · The puzzle-solving, lifelong science geek

• Genetic Engineering News · Cell Therapy Manufacturing Grapples with Scale-Up

• American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy · Utilizing AI in Gene and Cell Manufacturing

Credibility with scientific audiences requires content, messaging and material developed by people who've actually done the science.

I recruited a team of PhD-level scientific marketers—former bench scientists with research backgrounds across life sciences fields.

Here's our all-star team, who I still maintain relationships with:

Regulatory Thought Leadership

Analysis of emerging FDA guidance and its implications for gene therapy developers.

Examples:

What the FDA’s New Safety Draft Guidance for AAV Gene Therapies Means and How to Be Ready

Design for Manufacturing: A New Paradigm for Computational Life Sciences

Scholarly Publications

Peer-reviewed research co-authored with scientific advisors and partners.

Examples:

Developing Machine Learning Powered Solutions for Cell and Gene Therapy Candidate Validation

CRISPRank: A Tool for Determining the Best CRISPR Genome Editing Method

Mini Case Studies

Quantified proof points showing AI/ML solving specific AAV vector design problems.

Examples:

AI/ML Optimization of Coding Sequences Reduces Genome Truncations in AAV Vectors

Reducing the Risk of Immunogenicity Using an AI/ML Model

AI/ML Optimization Reduces AAV Discovery Timeline from Years to Days

Webinars

Live scientific discussions with partner scientists and executive leaders from Google Cloud, NVIDIA and the biopharma R&D community.

Examples:

Data Science Meets Life Science: AI Challenges & Opportunities in Biopharma, Synthetic Bio & Beyond

Explore Google’s Advanced Omics AI Models and Key Discoveries with Form Bio

Form Bio's (and Colossal's) scientific advisors included Nobel Laureate Carolyn Bertozzi (2022 Chemistry, Stanford) and George Church (Harvard/MIT, pioneer of the Human Genome Project), alongside leading researchers in cell and gene therapy from prestigious academic and corporate labs.

These relationships represented a variety of research partnerships, several of which we harnessed for marketing publications, community events, and speaking opportunities.

Our academic relationships (and how we presented them) provided an important dimension of credibility and made AI feel safer and more accessible for skeptical researchers in both industry and academia. Our advisory and academic relationships played a critical role in helping us teach the market how AI and established scientific process come together.

Each of these partner activations required coordinated PR, joint content, co-marketing execution, and careful brand positioning.

The comms strategy is what turned technical integrations into visible, high-signal endorsements.

Outcome

Form Bio rapidly converted spinout attention into scientific credibility.

Our content, our executive visibility, our academic and industry affiliations and our hosted events track collectively positioned Form Bio as a credible player in the space.

This category authority directly supported Form's commercial pipeline, with customers like Bristol Myers Squibb, Solid Biosciences and Cure Rare Disease entering long term, 8-figure partnerships with us.