Boba & Biotech Podcast By Armon Sharei | Portal Founder & CEO Biotechnologies Leader cover art

Boba & Biotech

Boba & Biotech

By: Armon Sharei | Portal Founder & CEO Biotechnologies Leader
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Boba & Biotech is a candid podcast about what it takes to develop new drugs and the ecosystem of academics, biotechs, pharma and investors behind it. Our field is often misunderstood by outsiders and insiders alike due to the poor communication habits and complex science that underlie human disease. I, Armon Sharei, was a PhD student in chemical engineering when I was first enamoured by the idea of engineering a patient’s own cells to attack their disease. Throughout my journey, we spun out a company, SQZ Biotech, from MIT, raised $400M in investor and partnered funding from Roche, and went public on the NYSE. Eventually my board and I had a big fight, I got kicked out and started all over again! Please join me as we chat with the people that have dedicated their careers to improving human health and how they navigate the challenges of science, money, corporate politics and the rollercoaster of clinical development. As we sip on our boba throughout these episodes, I promise the only sugar coating will be on the bubbles! Portal Biotechnologies, headquartered in Watertown, MA, is a rapidly scaling cell-engineering platform company redefining how scientists and clinicians engineer cells across research, drug discovery, and therapeutic applications. Since launching its first product in 2024, Portal has built a network of 100+ active customers, received an $8M contract from DARPA and been deployed in most of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies and leading academic hospitals worldwide. Armon Sharei, PhD, is the Founder and CEO of Portal Bio. Previously, Armon founded and served as CEO of SQZ Biotech (NYSE: SQZ), where he raised over $400M, advanced three oncology clinical trials, established a $1B+ collaboration with Roche, and led the IPO. A Stanford and MIT graduate and former Harvard Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Sharei holds 30+ patents and has been widely recognized for his scientific and entrepreneurial leadership.2026 Economics Personal Finance Science
Episodes
  • What should become a company? Lessons from an academic at the center of biotech translation

    What should become a company? Lessons from an academic at the center of biotech translation
    Mar 26 2026
    Guest: Klavs F. Jensen In this episode of Boba & Biotech, I sit down with Klavs Jensen - professor at MIT and former chair of its chemical engineering department - to explore a deceptively simple question: why do some scientific breakthroughs become companies while others never leave the lab? As we unpack the messy journey from academic discovery to startup, Klavs tries his first-ever boba tea, a refreshing mango green tea (sans sugar!) - while sharing candid insights from decades at the intersection of academia, industry, and entrepreneurship. Our conversation dives into the often-misunderstood relationship between universities, startups, and large companies. Klavs explains why many promising ideas are too early for startups, why incremental technologies struggle to displace existing infrastructure, and why timing, talent, and market forces can matter just as much as the science itself. We also explore the human side of innovation: why the skills required to finish a PhD are very different from those needed to build and run a company, and what makes innovation ecosystems like MIT so uniquely effective. Klavs Jensen is the Warren K. Lewis Professor of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. He received an MS in chemical engineering at the Technical University of Denmark in 1976 and a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1980. His work can be found in more than 490 journal articles, 180 conference presentations, and 63 US patents. He serves as the inaugural editor-in-chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal, Reaction Chemistry and Engineering. Links Armon’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/armonsharei/ Klavs’ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/klavs-jensen-381995a/ Credits Hosted by Armon Sharei, PhD Research by Julie Kim, MBA Produced by Arielle Nisseblatt of Pinwheel, Andressa Carroll, Portal Edited and mixed by David Woje of Pinwheel
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    39 mins
  • From Lab to Company: Engineering the Next Generation of Biotech Founders

    From Lab to Company: Engineering the Next Generation of Biotech Founders
    Mar 13 2026
    Guest: Soufiane AboulhoudaIn this episode of Boba & Biotech, over matching brown sugar milk teas (great minds, same taste), Souf Aboulhouda, co-founder of Nucleate, and I trace his journey from growing up between France, England, and California to pursuing a PhD in the Church Lab at Harvard - where he first stumbled into the world of biotech startups after watching labmates pitch to investors. What began as a personal crash course in company formation through the Harvard Biotech Club evolved into Nucleate: a global community now spanning ~40 cities and hundreds of universities. Along the way, the mission expanded from simply launching companies to building people - creating a dynamic talent network that helps scientists explore entrepreneurship, pressure-test cofounders, and find meaningful roles beyond the narrow “CEO or bust” narrative. The conversation dives deep into what actually separates biotech from tech: longer timelines, higher failure rates, capital intensity, and the need for pattern recognition that only experience can buy. We unpack why young founders sometimes outperform seasoned veterans and where they stumble , the cultural problem of investor non-candor, and the widening gap between top hubs like Boston/SF and emerging ecosystems. If he had a magic wand? Compress 15-year product roadmaps into one year and cut clinical costs by 10×, unlocking a future where biology innovation moves as fast as its ambition. Soufiane Aboulhouda received his BS from the University of California, Santa Cruz, has worked at the University of California, San Francisco, and received his PhD from Harvard University in the lab of George Church at the Wyss Institute. His thesis research focused on developing pooled in vivo functional genomics tools to interrogate the biology of cell trafficking to enhance solid tumor homing of immune cells. Soufiane is the co-founder and CEO of Nucleate, and has previously served as the President of the GSAS Harvard Biotech Club. Links Armon’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/armonsharei/ Souf’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/soufiane-ab/ Nucleate - https://nucleate.org/ Credits Hosted by Armon Sharei, PhD Research by Julie Kim, MBA Produced by Arielle Nisseblatt of Pinwheel Edited and mixed by David Woje of Pinwheel
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    53 mins
  • Money Meets Molecules: What Biotech Investors Actually Care About

    Money Meets Molecules: What Biotech Investors Actually Care About
    Feb 26 2026
    Guest: Ileana Pirozzi In this episode of Boba & Biotech, I grab a delicious mango-coconut sago with Ileana Pirozzi, a former biotech investor who’s stepping off the venture sidelines and into the founder seat. From growing up in Italy to studying biomedical engineering at Stanford and working at NASA, Ileana shares how venture capital became a crash course in scientific rigor and why it ultimately felt too distant from real impact. The conversation pulls back the curtain on how VC decisions actually get made: why “no” is so hard to say, how fund dynamics and internal politics shape outcomes, and why most firms prefer to follow rather than lead. They dig into what VCs often miss when judging founders, debate generalist versus specialist investors, and call out overrated and underrated trends. The episode closes with a look at what could truly unlock the next wave of clinical impact: rethinking how clinical trials are designed and run. Ileana Pirozzi is the Head of Healthcare Ventures at Lingotto Innovation in New York City, where she leads early-stage investments in technologies at the intersection of healthcare, life sciences, and frontier engineering. Her work focuses on identifying and backing the next generation of companies redefining diagnoses, treatment and delivery of care. Ileana holds a PhD in Bioengineering and Medical Engineering from Stanford University and a BSc from Brown University. Links Armon’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/armonsharei/ Ileana’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ileanapirozzi/ Lingotto Innovation: https://www.lingotto.com/ Credits Hosted by Armon Sharei, PhD Research by Julie Kim, MBA Produced by Arielle Nisseblatt of Pinwheel, Shirley Mao, rvnway.com Edited and mixed by David Woje of Pinwheel
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    43 mins
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