Meet the nextGEN member
Sam Windsor - Ignota Labs
Who or what called you to lead?
After working with DeepMind’s AlphaFold among others, I saw huge potential for AI in life science.
I started in mathematics research and then moved into healthcare and digitising the NHS, so my path into life sciences wasn’t direct. It was a gradual pull, shaped by my curiosity and a desire to work on something meaningful.
I have a background in mathematics, and many of my university peers ended up in finance and actuarial careers, but I just couldn’t see myself doing that. I wanted to focus on real-world, impactful challenges. Healthcare always intrigued me – perhaps influenced by my sister, who’s a doctor – and that presented an endless array of challenges.
A defining moment came during my time at INSEAD. Through career coaching and leadership training, I realised I thrived at the cutting edge of innovation. I loved surrounding myself with deep technical experts and connecting the dots between science and business.
I worked with Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold Team, helping them think through commercialisation strategies. That cemented my fascination with pharmaceutical tech. The industry was brimming with scientific breakthroughs, yet many companies seemed to be tackling the same problems in predictable ways. I began wondering if there was space for a different approach.
Around the same time, an old friend from my undergraduate years at Nottingham – Jordan – approached me with an idea. He’d spent a decade as a scientist in drug discovery and hand first hand experience of both the issue of drug failures due to safety, but also the growing potential for AI within drug discovery. However only if it was applied in the right way. By combining his scientific view of the world and my commercial experience, perhaps we could build something smarter and more impactful.
Taking the leap into entrepreneurship wasn’t part of some grand plan – it was a calculated risk. We spent months analysing the industry, identifying inefficiencies and overlooked opportunities. That led us to drug safety – an area critical to the success of new medicines but surprisingly underserved by innovation. Companies weren’t really looking at what was going wrong, at why a drug failed, and how to avoid it again in the future.
A handful of people helped me figure out what I wanted as I stepped into the role of founder. I had a couple of coaches and mentors at INSEAD who were phenomenal at helping me understand what I was good at and what excited me. Also, some people helped me see the big picture – consultants who could map the entire healthcare ecosystem and business leaders who knew how to rally behind an idea.
Perhaps the most significant realisation was that leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room, it’s about resilience and bringing experts together. The most successful entrepreneurs weren’t necessarily the most brilliant scientists or business minds – they were the ones who could push forward, adapt, and bring people along with them.
Sam’s full profile is available for our members inside the community.