TIDE Genetics' business developer chooses science over buzzwords

What makes TIDE Genetics different? For Jawahar Kopparam, the company's part-time business developer, the answer is straightforward: “The beauty of TIDE Genetics is that we take a method that is widely available across the world and help users bring some of the latest therapeutics to market in a manner that meets regulatory requirements.”

Things have changed at TIDE Genetics since Jawahar first started working there. When he began as an intern, the company was busy developing its flagship product, TIDE, and preparing to bring it to market. Today, as a business developer, he’s delighted that the product has become available to pharma companies, drug developers, and genetic engineering labs. The team exceeded expectations, developed a clear understanding of the community’s scientific challenges, and established themselves as the unique provider in their niche.

A typical day at TIDE Genetics

No two days at the office are the same for Jawahar. As with any growing company, he wore multiple hats throughout his time at TIDE Genetics as an intern. One day he’d research product development through literature, market research, and lab work; the next, he’d immerse himself in business development and client-facing work to solve users’ challenges. Eventually, once he decided to join the team as an employee, he was especially drawn to one particular hat: business development.

“Today, I develop strategies to understand how TIDE fits the market to solve users’ challenges,” Jawahar explains. “Whether it’s green biotech, red biotech, or other aspects of genetic engineering, I find the relevant experts and identify where and how TIDE solves problems for the gene editing community.”

With Jawahar’s switch to business development, he traded the lab pipette for a laptop. On busy days, he sits in on meetings, develops contracts for collaborations and licensing agreements, or exchanges e-mails with clients, collaborators, and industry experts to optimize projects. Quieter days allow Jawahar to plan and strategize the team’s next steps. He typically dedicates these days to researching the field, identifying the right experts, collaborators, or clients, and crafting the best way to reach them. On these calm days, Jawahar collaborates closely with TIDE Genetics’ co-founders, Jelle ten Hoeve and Lorenzo Bombardelli, spending hours discussing value propositions and contact strategies.

Given its use as an umbrella term, business development differs depending on the context, for example, between and within academic research, startups, and established companies. But despite the diverse nature of the role, there’s at least one recurring theme in Jawahar’s work. Regardless of who he works with, he always needs to solve problems like a pro.

“While academia pushes you to identify novel and impactful findings to advance research and your career, the industry is all about solving a client’s pain point,” Jawahar explains. “But the underlying problem-solving approach is the same, whether in academia or industry; that’s where my academic training comes in handy.”

For Jawahar, that instinct goes back a long way. His academic path was long, international, and deeply rooted in life science research. From a US bachelor’s internship specializing in nanoparticle-based cancer drug development to a PhD in molecular biology in Switzerland developing preclinical lung cancer models, his academic path culminated in a postdoctoral position at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam working on drug development for neuroendocrine cancers.

It was around this point that Jawahar realized he wanted to explore what the other side of the academic fence could offer. What was it like working in the life-science industry? That’s also when he met Lorenzo at an industry event where they started discussing how Jawahar’s strong problem-solving skills from his academic years could help advance TIDE Genetics’ projects.

That academic foundation proves invaluable when sitting across from the experts and key opinion leaders he engages with daily. “You can’t discuss gene therapy or plant biotech with stakeholders without a background in life sciences, genetics, or genomics,’ he says. ‘You really are using your academic background to make a practical impact.”

This constant problem-solving is reflected in his work at TIDE Genetics, especially in his interactions with CSO Lorenzo, which trigger “crazy, somewhat wild ideas” and push TIDE into new territories, from plant engineering to microbial quality control for probiotics. Not every idea makes the cut, but that’s precisely the point. They explore the boundaries of what TIDE can do, then focus resources on the real scientific challenges.

“We are now living in a world where we always want to do the latest things, the fanciest things. It feels like the AI boom converted every company into an AI company. Although they probably don’t even need it most of the time, they still have to brand it that way. And that is where TIDE Genetics is different — we don’t say ‘hey, let’s go with the buzzword of the day,’ but instead, we believe in the science that we are doing.”

For a company built on a decades-old sequencing technology in an era of AI hype, that conviction is precisely what sets Jawahar and his team apart.