Strategic & Technical Consulting

Planning for success,
from bench to boardroom.

Founded by a Harvard-trained Ph.D. immunologist and a Columbia-trained machine learning engineer, we're a consulting practice that works across the life sciences and tech (LST). We offer deep expertise in immunology, cancer biology, drug development, machine learning, and AI — along with hands-on experience founding, scaling, and providing leadership to early-stage companies. We help teams navigate the technical and strategic challenges that come with turning exciting ideas into products.

What We Do

Strategy & Leadership

Pipeline strategy and execution, hiring plans, team development, and VC fundraising guidance. We help leadership teams make high-stakes decisions with clarity and confidence, drawing on years of hands-on experience building and scaling biotech and tech startups from the ground up.

Drug Discovery

Significant experience driving target identification and validation, hit discovery, hit-to-lead efforts and in vitro/in vivo pharmacology. We can guide preclinical programs, design experimental plans, critically assess data packages, identify the key risks facing therapeutic programs and approaches to manage those risks.

NewCo Development

We've helped build four early-stage biotech and tech companies — from initial concept through technical strategy, scientific execution, team building, fundraising, and operations. We know what it takes to create effective organizations to pursue exciting new ideas.

Data Science & AI

Extensive expertise in machine learning, AI/LLM approaches, data engineering and infrastructure in biopharma and non-biopharma spaces. From building predictive models and integrating large language models into scientific workflows, to designing data pipelines and architectures, we help teams maximize the value of their data.

Early-Stage Biotech

Founding teams developing their scientific strategy, pipeline, and investor narrative from the ground up.

Pharma & Biopharma

R&D groups seeking external scientific expertise in immunology, oncology, or computational approaches.

Venture Capital

Investors conducting technical diligence on biotech and AI-driven therapeutic opportunities.

Tech & AI Companies

Teams developing novel ML/AI models who need deep domain expertise.

Who We Work With

We work with organizations at every stage — from founders shaping their first pitch to established teams navigating complex technical pivots.

Academic Institutions

Research groups and technology transfer offices looking to translate discoveries into viable startups and commercial opportunities.

How We Work

Every engagement is scoped around the problem — not a template.

We structure our work to fit what you actually need. Some clients come to us with a focused question that takes a few weeks to answer well. Others want a thinking partner they can call on over months or years. We're set up to do both, and we'll be straightforward about what makes sense for your situation.

Project-Based Work

Defined scope, clear deliverables, fixed timeline. Ideal for diligence exercises, landscape analyses, data package reviews, and strategic assessments where the question is well-defined from the start.

Advisory Retainers

Ongoing access for teams that need a senior scientific or strategic sounding board on a regular basis. Useful when challenges evolve over time — fundraising cycles, pipeline decisions, or building out a new function.

Embedded Support

Deeper involvement for critical periods — we work alongside your team on a defined initiative, contributing to execution as well as strategy. Best suited for high-stakes moments like company formation, key hires, or pivotal data readouts.

The Team

Sarah Bettigole

Co-Founder · Principal Consultant

Harvard-trained Ph.D. immunologist with over a decade of biotech industry experience building new companies. As a VP at Volastra Therapeutics, she led both the immunology and data science groups, focusing on preclinical target discovery, validation, and drug development. Before that, she co-founded Quentis Therapeutics, where she served as Director of Research and Research Project Lead. Both companies were named Fierce 15 companies. Her work spans both preclinical drug discovery — target identification, screening, validation, and hit-to-lead — as well as biomarker strategy development and execution.

LinkedIn →

Ethan Benjamin

Co-Founder · Senior Advisor

Machine learning practitioner with over a decade of experience and an M.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University. Currently CTO at Sequen AI. Previously, Staff Applied Scientist at Etsy and Director of Research at Text IQ, with published work in personalized retrieval, recommendation systems, and NLP. Ethan serves the practice in a senior advisory capacity on select engagements involving machine learning, model development and infrastructure.