Meet the LifeScience ORG CEO
Dan Crowley - RemedyBio
What called you to lead?
I never saw myself in biology, but computational science led me to its heart.
As a teenager, I had hardly any interest in biology. I couldn’t see any system behind it—like a chaotic and arbitrary collection of discoveries and knowledge accumulated over centuries. Instead, I was drawn to physics, computational sciences, and maths, which were more clearly based on universal systems that could be built upon.
After about a decade in those fields, I began to see patterns and relationships in biology— especially in molecular biology—where living things could be understood systematically. Therefore, those systems could be engineered.
I’ve always been a technological and scientific optimist and my greatest motivator is the potential of using science to make a better world. But, I didn’t have the patience to be a career scientist, so I dived into the business of it.
About half of my career has been in investment. While I kicked off my career as an engineer in Silicon Valley working with a couple of startups, I quickly realised that I was more interested in the business side. So, I went to business school in leafy Ithaca NY, at Cornell’s Johnson School, leaning heavily into the PE/VC side of the MBA programme.
Returning from the USA to my home town in Dublin, I worked in investment. I joined NDRC, a public-private accelerator group, and set up one of Europe’s first science venture accelerators there. In the early 2010s, I joined ARCH Venture Partners and helped build ARCH’s presence in Ireland, the UK, and Europe, and co-founded and led Genomics Medicine Ireland.
As I get older, I increasingly recognise that despite—or maybe because of—its many ups and downs, I get energy from being at the coalface of building a company. Leaders often have an intrinsic drive they can't fully articulate. This inner drive, more than any top-level reason, keeps them going. And it’s the same for me.
Dan’s full profile is available for our members inside the community.