An article published on Forbes.com last week featured Surbhi Sarna ’03, who was recently named startup accelerator Y Combinator’s first ever health and biotech partner. Sarna is the founder and former CEO of nVision Medical, which sought to create medical devices that could expedite the detection and therefore the treatment of ovarian cancer. The Mountain View-based Y Combinator, a highly successful tech startup accelerator, has helped launch companies including Airbnb, DoorDash, Dropbox and Twitch.
According to the article, the move to make Sarna a partner was in part motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Sarna’s mission is straightforward: to help deepen and standardize YC’s playbook when it comes to bio and life sciences participants, all while supporting other entrepreneurs who may not fit the traditional biotech VC funding pipeline mold,” author Alex Konrad writes. Her strategy will be to take a more science-based approach different from that of Y Combinator’s historical evaluation of software companies, speaking with physicians and investigating the science that goes into their documentation.