Purdue Foundry Network: Diana Caldwell of Amplified Sciences
By Wade Lange, Chief Entrepreneurial Officer, Purdue Foundry
Each month I have the opportunity to learn from entrepreneurial CEOs about lessons learned from their journey. Their ongoing role as entrepreneurial role models and as supporters of the Purdue entrepreneurial ecosystem is instrumental in our ability to achieve President Mitch Daniels’ vision of Purdue as “Startup U.”
Diana Caldwell is president, CEO and co-founder of Amplified Sciences in West Lafayette, Indiana. Prior to founding the company, she was an executive at Eli Lilly and Company and an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Purdue Foundry. A serial life science entrepreneur, Diana has over 25 years of experience in both large corporate and small entrepreneurial environments.
Q&A with CEO Diana Caldwell
Wade Lange: You had a successful marketing career at Lilly and then started and built a successful life science consulting company before leading Amplified Sciences. How did those previous roles prepare you to lead a diagnostics startup?
Diana Caldwell: I am very thankful for early career experiences at Lilly, one of the great pharmaceutical companies in the world. I held a variety of roles in sales and marketing as well as other general management opportunities in finance and operations.
I learned the most important skill that any leader must possess — how to build talent and lead teams. I had the great fortune of having a few great bosses along the way and leading some very large and talented teams.
My roles in marketing and sales taught me how to listen to clinicians and patients talk about their problems and needs. Often, startups make the mistake of assuming their innovative product or platform will be adopted because it is so unique and disruptive. However, many diagnostic and therapeutic innovations never see the light of day because they don’t find the right unmet clinical need to fix.
I left Lilly after 15 years to jump into my entrepreneurial journey. I am a bit of an atypical entrepreneur having survived corporate America so long. My first startup was a life science product development and regulatory compliance consulting company. We were focused on accelerating our clients’ product development pathways.
Being CEO and founder of that company taught me a lot. I learned how all functions of a company have to work together to succeed and how important it is to hire talent that is better at those functions than you are. We scaled and served over 300 startups over nine years, and this helped prepare me to take helm of Amplified Sciences as I carefully watched these startups’ journeys and how they navigated adversity. I also learned I missed developing and delivering products to patients, so that ultimately led me to selling my half of the company so I could return to my product development roots.
Lange: What do you find invigorating about being a CEO?
Caldwell: I love the diversity of the job, the complexity and challenges of the work, and working alongside a team to build something. Being a startup CEO means you have to figure out how to make something out of a kernel of an idea but nothing else. And there is no way to do this alone. You have to join forces with a team of employees, advisors, suppliers, investors and supportive partners to make it happen. Building a company surrounded by great people is truly invigorating.
Lange: What key lessons have you learned about working with an academic startup that you’d like to share?
Caldwell: Well, academia tends to move a little slower than businesses and the external marketplace. And the tech transfer process can be extremely challenging. However, forward-thinking universities like Purdue recognize this and put the people and processes in place to let their startups go and grow. As long as you understand what is important to your partners in the university, you can usually figure out a way to negotiate a win-win.
There are tremendous advantages in being affiliated with academic institutions. V. Jo Davisson, Ph.D. — our CSO, founder and inventor of our technology platform — is a brilliant chemist and he brings us credibility, expertise and connections. Academic institutions can also help startups by providing access to business tools, instruments, labs, clinicians, banked samples, a diverse network of experts, and even investors.
Lange: How has your background as a marketer helped you create success for Amplified Sciences?
Caldwell: To be a good marketer, you need to be able to connect with customers who will use your product. And that connection should lead to adoption of your product, or you aren’t a very good sales or marketing person.
I keep the voice of the customer — doctor, lab staff, payor and most importantly the patient — at the center of all we do at Amplified Sciences. Our mission is to create diagnostic products that lead to earlier detection of devastating disease. This is important work.
Most of our employees and advisors are scientists, and my experience in commercial roles helps us stay focused on our goal to quickly deliver clinical products to patients. Having diversity of experiences in your startup makes your investors feel more comfortable as well.
Lange: You served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Purdue Foundry and are on the boards of other early-stage companies. Tell us about your experiences in leveraging advisors and board members to accelerate the growth of startup companies.
Caldwell: I cherished my time at the Purdue Foundry as an EIR. My fellow EIRs were a fabulous team of colleagues that gave selflessly to that startup community. And without that role, I would have never met my co-founder V. Jo Davisson! Further, the network of contacts spanning technical, business and investors that came out of my contacts with Foundry staff and EIRs has proven invaluable.
Lange: When you’re not working, how do you enjoy spending your time?
Caldwell: I love to relax with my husband and three daughters. We have a little log cabin in Brown County that gives me respite and summertime boating fun. I am not a skier but I love to watch my girls enjoy watersports. I also enjoy gardening and cooking my grandma’s Mexican recipes.
Lange: Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Caldwell: Think big, surround yourself with people smarter than you, and persevere. And for those of us in life sciences, remember that the patient is waiting … waiting for us to develop life-changing solutions.
Thank you to Diana Caldwell for these great insights! I would love to hear our readers’ entrepreneurial stories. Also, if you are interested in mentoring Purdue companies, please reach out to me at walange@prf.org.
About Amplified Sciences
Amplified Sciences is a life science diagnostics company focused on accurately detecting and pre-empting the risks of debilitating diseases. The company’s lead assay is for the early detection of pancreatic cancer. It conducts operations in the Purdue Research Park of West Lafayette and has key alliances in San Francisco and Boston.
Amplified Sciences commercializes research conducted by V. Jo Davisson, professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology in Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy. The license agreement is with the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization.
Earlier in 2021, Amplified Sciences completed a $1.8 million round of seed funding that will enable validation of the company’s lead assay and bring it closer to commercial launch. It also will allow the company to hire key talent and advance the development of the company’s proprietary technology platform.
Amplified Sciences also was named to the Most Fundable Companies list by Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School. It competed against more than 3,300 early-stage U.S. companies from all 50 states. It will be profiled on Entrepreneur.com and will be featured in the December print issue of the magazine.
