Show Notes
In this Women TechEU Roundtable episode, three founders building Deeptech cancer companies in France sit down together for a candid conversation about science, scaling, and what it really takes to move a breakthrough from the lab to the patients who need it.
Muriel Bardor (Alga Biologics), Inna Menkova (Allogenica), and Emily Fang (InFocus Therapeutics) each tackle cancer from a different angle: sustainable microalgae-based manufacturing for antibodies, allogeneic "off-the-shelf" T-cell therapies, and AI-driven generative chemistry to design small molecules that directly target RNA.
Together, they represent a new generation of European innovators working across advanced therapies, regenerative medicine, and next-generation drug discovery.
Beyond the technology, this roundtable digs into the harder questions every founder faces. Where is the biggest gap between great science and real-world cancer care in Europe today? What happens when the science looks promising, but building a company around it proves far more difficult than expected?
The founders share their most difficult moments, what Europe's ecosystem does particularly well, where it still slows companies down, and what they wish someone had told them before turning their research into a business.
Looking five to ten years ahead, the discussion explores which change could most transform outcomes for cancer patients and reflects on how the Women TechEU programme shaped their journeys as founders beyond the grant itself, from confidence and visibility to networks and access to the next stage of growth.
More from EU-Startups Podcast
What if technology could give blind people the freedom of a guide dog - without the waitlists, the cost, or the care requirements? In this episode, we sit down with Cornel Amariei, CEO and founder of .lumen, the Romanian startup building smart glasses that help blind and visually impaired people navigate the world independently.
In this episode, we sit down with Paul Bonnet, General Partner at 20VC, the London-based venture capital firm founded by Harry Stebbings that sprung from the extremely popular 20VC podcast.
This is a special two-part addition, building on the back of the A5X conference series we published last week. Since the EU-Startups team could only stay for part of the event, we missed the Singapore Defence Tech Hackathon (SDTH) in person - so we're bringing it to you in a slightly different format. Instead of our usual deep-dive conversations, we sat down with the winners to hear how they built their projects and where they're heading next.
This is a special two-part addition, building on the back of the A5X conference series we published last week. Since the EU-Startups team could only stay for part of the event, we missed the Singapore Defence Tech Hackathon in person - so we're bringing it to you in a slightly different format. Instead of our usual deep-dive conversations, we sat down with the winners to hear how they built their projects and where they're heading next.
Filmed at the A5X Conference, Singapore - This interview forms part of a wider series we filmed in collaboration with NUSX, who invited us to Singapore to speak with founders, investors and academics from across the globe about shared challenges, the developing bridge between Europe and Asia, and the lessons we can learn from each other.