Podcast Transcript

David Brühlmann [00:00:32]:
A material can behave beautifully on its inventor’s bench and fall apart the moment it’s transferred to another lab. That gap between a brilliant idea and a product researchers can actually trust is where most biomaterials die. In Part Two, Jan and Matt take us inside the messy, fascinating work of making 3D cell culture reliable. We look at organoids at scale, building quality in from the very first batch, and what a CEO and a chemist argue about.

Let’s continue. Here is part one of our conversation.

Speaking of partners, Jan, I would love to hear your take because you come from process engineering. Matt, you’re a chemist—a typical scientist, shall I say. How do that shared language and perhaps not always shared understanding—or simply different viewpoints—influence how you build quality standards into your hydrogels and, ultimately, how you interact with your customers?

Jan Hunik [00:02:45]:
First of all, yes, I’m originally a scientist, but I’ve been working in industry for a long time, so I’m very well aware of those quality standards. At a previous company I had, we were also ISO 13485-certified, so I know that’s not easy. One of the things is to start early. It’s important because then you create a culture where everybody who joins the company becomes aware that this is part of our DNA—to do things properly.

Secondly, I strongly believe in having different perspectives. Matt, of course, but we also have different people in the group now, with Clarissa on the cell biology side, and Georgia, who recently joined. I want to have different backgrounds and different views on the work. By having a good team dynamic, you can create a culture that really benefits not only the company but also embeds the quality standards that are truly needed.

If we become a supplier to the pharmaceutical industry and our material becomes part of IND submissions, then it needs to meet a very high quality standard.

David Brühlmann [00:03:47]:
How is that for you, Matt, to have these different perspectives?

Matt Baker [00:03:51]:
I think it’s good. You pointed out a nice area where we have a lot of overlap: characterization, the molecular perspective, and the process perspective.

One of the first folders we created in the shared folder for MosaMatrix was a QC folder. I think that shows how scientists think. It was scary and exciting at the same time, but we try to build those systems in so that we have ways to measure things and know what’s going on along the way.

I think that’s where we share a lot of the same language and appreciation.

We’re also very different. You’ve got someone who’s very business-oriented and someone who’s very scientifically oriented. It leads to a lot of fun arguments—a lot of back-and-forth about which perspectives to take into account.

Overall, I think it makes the company much better, and it also makes us better. I really enjoy having different perspectives on the table and having an open environment where you can debate openly and figure out the best way forward. It’s not always easy, but it’s always fun.

David Brühlmann [00:04:37]:
I love that. That’s a good way of looking at it.

Matt Baker [00:04:41]:
It’s really nice. There are times when, for example, I’m a scientist, and I really want to make sure we understand what’s going on and figure things out. But that’s not always what’s best for a company.

Jan is very good at saying, “Okay, we need to go in a direction now. Let’s pick this one. This looks best today. This is what we’re doing now,” and giving us that clear direction. I think those are two complementary strengths that we have, and playing off each other really works well for startups—ours especially.

Jan Hunik [00:05:02]:
I very much appreciate the different views, especially those coming from the university. A lot of ideas originate there. They can be controversial. They can be misleading. But they also help you make the right decisions in the end as a group.

I’m not making decisions on my own. We should make them as a group so that everybody carries them forward as part of the DNA of the organization.

As a university spin-out, I also try to create a two-way relationship. The university feeds our company, but we can also give something back to the university. It’s not only about money. It’s also about participating in projects and giving people the opportunity to learn how business works. If that interaction works properly, both organizations really benefit from it. And it’s also very fruitful to be located so close to the university, as we are at this stage.

David Brühlmann [00:05:52]:
What did that path of spinning the technology out of the university actually enable? Did it facilitate some of the developments, or how did that work?

Jan Hunik [00:06:02]:
First of all, it’s a very friendly organization. It’s Maastricht University, especially the MERLN Institute. What we do now is that they give us the opportunity to use their labs, and we pay for the materials we use, especially when using the very expensive analytical equipment. Recently, we also established a small lab of our own. That’s much more important for implementing our quality system and starting to produce materials reproducibly. But we’ll continue to use the university labs to experiment, try new things, and access the analytical tools. Definitely.

David Brühlmann [00:06:37]:
What has been the most challenging part of this entrepreneurial and scientific endeavor so far?

Jan Hunik [00:06:47]:
As always with a startup, the biggest challenge is: where do you get the money from? To give you an idea, one and a half years ago I was sitting in a flex office with just the computer I have in front of me and a bunch of digitally signed documents showing that we had started a company. We had almost no money.

Now we’re a team of five people, we have a reasonable bank balance, and we have a runway of roughly a year. But that’s always a challenge. It’s a challenge for all five of us. Everybody contributes to bringing in new funding. That’s a challenge every startup faces, and it will continue. I’m quite confident that we’ll make it through next year and the year after that, either through equity financing, by already commercializing some of our materials through collaborations, or through grants that we bring in.

David Brühlmann [00:07:35]:
In this challenging funding situation that our industry is facing, what piece of advice would you give a scientist who has a brilliant technology and is wondering how to make it happen?

Jan Hunik [00:07:50]:
I think that, at a certain point, it’s important to step away from the idea that you simply have brilliant science and instead try to match it with a genuine unmet need in the industry.

Things really opened up for us when we started asking questions like: How do you cultivate your cells? How do you harvest them? What do you like about your current workflow? And what don’t you like about working with your organoid cultures?

Once people start opening up, they’ll give you exactly those insights. That’s the hook you can use to position your product—not only for customers, but also for potential investors.

That’s a very different kind of conversation from the one you have as a scientist, but it’s also intellectually very rewarding because you’re extracting the information that really matters.

If you get that right—if you find the right combination between your product and the market—it can become a very fruitful combination.

David Brühlmann [00:08:38]:
So what I’m hearing, Jan, is: start with the end in mind. Understand the needs of your customer and then work backwards from there, instead of saying, “Hey, I have this amazing scientific discovery,” and trying to push that onto people.

Jan Hunik [00:08:56]:
It doesn’t help if you say, “I have the best polymer.” It helps if you go to a customer and say, “I think I have something that can really help your work become better, smarter, or give you better results.”

Of course, you then need to fulfill that promise with the product you’ve developed. I don’t want to dismiss that part. But the match between the product and the customer’s need is the critical part.

Matt Baker [00:09:19]:
I would debate that a little bit. I think that, as a scientist, you do have to go out and advocate for your ideas and your product.

But I think what I learned most clearly from working with Jan was that you really have to learn to listen. If you can figure out what people’s problems are and provide a path toward solving them, it doesn’t really matter how great your technology is. If you’re solving people’s problems, they love it.

A good example is our material. A lot of the traction we get comes from the fact that it’s animal-free. That’s not how I, as a scientist, originally designed it, but that’s the need it addresses in the market. Those are the types of customers we target today.

My advice to any scientist starting a company is: turn on your ears. Really listen, and write down what you hear from people. That will help you find your ideal customer much faster.

David Brühlmann [00:10:00]:
What does your technology development look like over the next five years? What’s your vision?

Jan Hunik [00:10:06]:
I think, for the coming year, it’s very important that we establish some really strong collaborations and firmly anchor them within the company so we can continue to grow from them.

We’ve already identified several opportunities where we believe we can also generate commercial traction. With a platform technology like ours, it’s important for attracting investors that we have customers and sales—especially reliable and reputable customers.

With that combination, we should be able not only to grow this product but also to develop a couple of other ideas that I think are very promising. We can add those to the portfolio and offer a broader range of products over the next two to three years. Our target is to reach break-even within two to three years.

Matt Baker [00:10:54]:
I’d always add to that by saying that, like Jan mentioned, what’s really critical now is securing that first solid customer. That allows us to start producing materials at a larger scale, get our foot in the door, and become validated in the market through real customer use.

Then it becomes exciting for me again because we can start doing more R&D and developing the ideas that are currently on the back burner while we focus on getting ourselves established.

David Brühlmann [00:11:25]:
As we’re wrapping up, what additional question should I have asked?

Matt Baker [00:11:32]:
I didn’t think about this question. That’s a good question.

David Brühlmann [00:11:37]:
Yes, Jan, go ahead.

Jan Hunik [00:11:38]:
One thing that’s important for us is that people know how to find us, or that they’re intrigued by listening to this story and want to know a little bit more. Our network is still relatively small, even one and a half years after starting the company. I think there are many people out there looking for an application like the one we have to offer. I’d love for them to get in touch with us and explore whether we can work together.

Matt Baker [00:12:04]:
For me, a good question is always: “What are you most excited about right now?” I touched on it a little earlier with the transition to animal-free materials, but I really think we’re approaching a turning point where we can start creating living systems from combinations of cells and materials.

Using that for 3D drug models is one application. But there are also opportunities in cellular agriculture, engineered living materials, and the broader field of biomanufacturing.

I think this area is still in its infancy, and watching it develop over the coming years is incredibly exciting. That’s where we want to grow as a company, because we believe good materials are essential to enabling that future. We hope the field develops quickly, and we hope it’s every bit as exciting as we believe it can be. Being able to engineer living systems is a new frontier for our industry, and that’s something I’m genuinely excited about.

David Brühlmann [00:12:48]:
What is the most important takeaway from our conversation?

Matt Baker [00:12:53]:
For me, it’s simple. I really think that the matrix is not in the background. It’s part of the biology, and it needs to be part of the process.

David Brühlmann [00:13:01]:
Jan, anything you would like to add?

Jan Hunik [00:13:04]:
No, I would just encourage people to remember that sentence because I think it’s a very useful one, and it’s also very true. The matrix of our body determines, to a large extent, what kind of tissue we get. I once heard a biologist say that the cells in the skin of your arm have the same genetic makeup as the cells in your eye. But nevertheless, the eye is where the eye is, and the arm is where the arm is. The only thing that determines this is the environment that the cell is in. I think that gives an exact representation of the impact the matrix has on living human cells.

David Brühlmann [00:13:44]:
Fantastic. That’s a great way to conclude our conversation. Where can people connect with you and learn more about MosaMatrix?

Jan Hunik [00:13:55]:
Our website is mosamatrix.com. You can reach me at jan.hunik@mosamatrix.com and Matt at matt.baker@mosamatrix.com. We’re both on LinkedIn, so that’s also a great way to reach out. We welcome questions, collaborations, encouragement, and investment opportunities.

David Brühlmann [00:14:12]:
Smart Biotech Scientists, there you have it. I’ll leave the links in the show notes. Please reach out to Matt and Jan, and thank you very much for being on the show today. It has been a great conversation.

Jan Hunik [00:14:25]:
Thank you very much, David. It was a pleasure.

Matt Baker [00:14:28]:
Thanks, David. I appreciate it.

David Brühlmann [00:14:30]:
When the material environment becomes something you can tune, measure, and trust, 3D cell culture stops being an art and starts becoming a discipline. Jan and Matt showed us what it takes to get there. We talked about materials that are animal-free, reproducible, and built for researchers who need answers they can stake a program on. That’s where drug discovery is heading. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform.

Thank you so much for tuning in, and we’ll see you next time.