Outsourcing Science: How to Choose, Manage, and Learn from CROs and CRDMOs
The future of science is outsourcing. In this Sierra Nights, we will explore how biotech startups can work effectively with CROs and CRDMOs, from choosing the right partner to designing studies, managing timelines, interpreting data, and avoiding common outsourcing mistakes.
A CRO, or Contract Research Organization, is an external company that provides specialized research services to biotech and pharmaceutical companies, including assay development, preclinical studies, toxicology, pharmacology, formulation, manufacturing support, clinical trial operations, and more.
The evening will include a panel of biotech leaders who have worked with CROs across different stages of company building and drug development. They will share practical lessons on what worked, what went wrong, how to communicate expectations, and how to turn outsourced experiments into decision-ready data.
The event will also include participation from CRO sponsors, giving founders a chance to meet service providers, ask questions, and better understand how to evaluate potential partners.
Date: August 5
Time: 5:00 PM – 8:30 PM
5:00 - 6:00pm: Doors Open and Networking
6:00 - 6:15: Host & Sponsors Introductions
6:15 - 7:30pm: Panel Discussions
7:30 - 9:00: Reception, Music, and Networking
Founder and CRO Panelists:
Leah Makley, PhD, is Chief Operating Officer of MBC BioLabs, the Bay Area's largest life sciences incubator supporting 200+ biotech startups across five sites. She brings over a decade of firsthand experience managing CRO relationships as a startup founder or executive: she co-founded and led ViewPoint Therapeutics, developing novel small molecule therapeutics in ophthalmology as a virtual, venture-backed company with a small team of 16. She later served as COO of Deciduous Therapeutics, and is now building Ocutheia, a new ophthalmology company advancing a novel small molecule therapeutic on a primarily virtual basis. Across all three, Leah has relied on CRO partners, giving her a founder's-eye view of what it takes to manage quality, timelines, and budget through those relationships. Leah holds a PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Michigan.
Stephen Floor, PhD, is the Head of Biology at Marigold Bio where he uses AI and scalable experiments to advance genetic medicines. In his current role, Stephen actively identifies, contacts, negotiates with, evaluates, and executes research plans with CROs spanning diverse research domains. He formerly led R&D and strategy work at Inceptive using generative AI to design mRNA therapeutics. Prior to Inceptive, Stephen was a professor at the University of California, San Francisco studying RNA regulation in human cells and how it is altered in cancers and developmental disorders. Stephen has deep experience managing distributed teams and CROs in academic and biotech environments, including working across timezones and continents - and the challenges and opportunities that creates experimentally and logistically. Stephen received his PhD in Biophysics from UCSF.
Debanu Das, PhD, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Accelero Biostructures and Co-Founder of XPose Therapeutics, where he pioneered a structure-first approach to drugging traditionally “undruggable” targets, using 3D crystal structures of small molecules bound to DNA Damage Response (DDR) proteins to generate novel therapeutic leads. This DDR-focused pipeline supports multiple treatment strategies, including enzyme inhibition, synthetic lethality, and targeted-protein degradation. XPose’s discovery was powered by Accelero’s high-throughput protein X-ray crystallography platforms, which enabled rapid fragment screening and iterative, structure-guided optimization of hit compounds. In 2026, XPose was acquired by Mid-Atlantic BioTherapeutics (MABT). Debanu joined MABT’s leadership team as part of the acquisition, bringing over 20 years of expertise in structural biology, drug discovery and outsourced R&D with CROs. Debanu holds a PhD from Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, and an Integrated MS from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Will DeLoache is co-founder and CEO of Tabulous, a data platform for life sciences R&D teams. Previously, he co-founded Novome Biotechnologies, a South San Francisco company engineering bacterial therapeutics for chronic disease, where he served as CEO and later CSO. During his tenure, Novome advanced its programs from early-stage research through Phase 2 clinical trials and established a therapeutic partnership with Genentech, working with CROs and CDMOs across preclinical, manufacturing, and clinical development. He holds a PhD in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley and a BS in Biology from Davidson College.
Sponsors: WuXi Biologics, Clutch Bio
Who should apply
People building or operating in biotech and related life science workflows.
About Sierra Nights:
Sierra Nights is an event series for the parts of biotech that don’t show up on slides. The gaps people are dealing with, the tools they’re actually using, and the signals worth paying attention to.
About MBC BioLabs:
MBC BioLabs, flexible lab-space for ambitious biotech companies tackling today’s biggest challenges. Learn more at www.mbcbiolabs.com
