CEO & Co-founder, Zymewire
Class of 2009
After graduating from the MBiotech Program and working in a marketing role at Roche Pharmaceuticals, Pete Bastedo was offered a sales position in Alberta so he picked up and headed West. He was mentored by some of the best in the business and when an opening in the GTA came up, he happened to be the natural fit for the job. In an effort to get back in touch with his inner scientist — while still leveraging his MBiotech degree — he set out in 2011 to test several business models at the drug development end of the biotech industry. The ideas evolved throughout the year and after interviewing hundreds of people about the challenges they face in their different corners of the industry, the concept for Zymewire was born.
Bastedo’s current role is managing the growth and operations of Zymewire. The technology he and his team are building gives companies in the drug development industry a really powerful and easy way to figure out how the rest of the industry’s actions affect their own business. Zymewire has now signed up its first paying customers and is using their feedback to continue improving the beta version of the software. When asked about future plans, Bastedo says, “one of my secret goals is to get the business to a point where we can hire our own MBiotech interns. How awesome would that be?”
For Bastedo, the most valuable part of his experience in the MBiotech Program was learning to operate under stress in a team. Moreover, his entrepreneurship skills were honed through BTC1830H, which has especially come in handy given his current career trajectory: “mostly I hear Andrew Maxwell’s voice repeating again and again how important cash flow is to a growing venture.”