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Andrew L. Johnson, Ph.D. Founder
Andrew L. Johnson, Ph.D. is the founder and president of UpStart Life Sciences (www.upstartlifesci.com), a weekly blog and consulting firm dedicated to the challenges and opportunities facing entrepreneurs in the process of starting and growing new companies in the life sciences.
Dr. Johnson has over 20 years of product commercialization experience at large (PerkinElmer), medium (Harvard Bioscience) and small (Protein Forest) companies (>30 product launches in proteomics, genomics, cell biology and diagnostics). As a business leader and Cell & Molecular biologist, Dr. Johnson has a unique understanding and expertise in successfully addressing the business development and technical issues that both emerging and established companies face as they go to market and grow.
Dr. Johnson has lead cross-functional new product development teams on both national and international levels with instrument platforms, reagent kits and analytical software offerings. These initiatives have required his active participation in corporate strategy development at the highest level, including with the Board of Directors and senior management. Ultimately, this has led to significant company growth by both expanding revenues and profitability of existing products and through strategic acquisitions.
Recently, he led the successful commercialization of a proteomic biomarker discovery platform (instrument, reagent kits and software). This venture involved creating a Sales & Marketing function, coordinating new product introduction activities between R&D and manufacturing, training and supporting a domestic sales team and international distributors, launching a CRM system, and creating and directing budgets (R&D, Sales & Marketing) tied directly to corporate P&L. That multi-faceted effort also involved creating a Tech Support system, coordinating the work of outside contractors, training and managing a global distributor network, and preparing product line road maps and marketing plans based on regular customer interaction, market analysis and competitor intelligence. This resulted in a significant sales outcome that ultimately led to the successful acquisition of the company.