Greater Washington, D.C.’s first life science venture studio
American life science has grown too comfortable raising big and spending big. Stronger global competition leaves less room for that waste.
SOAR Bio builds companies to do more with less: experienced founders who run both the science and the business, a small team shared across programs, and AI built into research and operations. We are building the next generation of life science companies through resourceful American entrepreneurship.
Inside our operating modelOur thesis
America’s strength is resourceful entrepreneurs, not an unlimited appetite for capital.
Our view is simple: years of scientific leadership have made it too easy to confuse money raised with value created. Large teams and expensive plans can consume a discovery’s potential before patients ever benefit.
Competition from China and elsewhere raises the stakes. We respond with founders who lead research and operations themselves, experiments that settle the important questions, and hiring only when a program needs more capacity or expertise.
That is the SOAR Bio model: bring scrappy American company building back to life science.
How we build
We fund the experiments that can change a decision: advance, revise or stop. Before commissioning a study, we ask what its result would tell us and whether there is a simpler way to find out.
Our companies spend to reach the next meaningful milestone, with room for uncertainty. Hiring follows need. Spending follows the evidence. Safety, scientific quality and regulatory standards remain essential.
We challenge U.S. life science’s golden rule
“Raise money when you can get it, not when you need it.” We’ve heard this familiar advice enough times. Access to capital matters. But so does what each dollar accomplishes.
The SOAR Bio Golden Rule
“If you take care of the pennies, the dollars take care of themselves.”
The pattern we challengeHire a management team before the company needs one.
How SOAR Bio buildsWe execute across functions. We add specialists where their judgment is essential.
The pattern we challengeCommission a broad plan to reduce every uncertainty.
How SOAR Bio buildsWe ask which result would change the decision. We fund that study first and stop when the case no longer holds.
The pattern we challengeBuild executive compensation into the cost base before creating value.
How SOAR Bio buildsWe hold leadership accountable for the capital it spends and the value it creates.
The pattern we challengeTreat headcount and the next financing as signs of success.
How SOAR Bio buildsWe judge progress against capital spent and equity issued. We raise capital to reach a meaningful milestone.
AI in daily practice
We use AI to extend a small team’s capabilities, investigate questions and challenge our reasoning. AI enables us to do more with less.
01 / Daily practice
We use AI to review literature, develop draft protocols and challenge hypotheses and experimental plans. AI also supports the daily demands of running a company, from accounting and purchasing to competitive analysis and intellectual property research.
We build reusable processes so that each task strengthens our ability to handle the next.
02 / Computational research
We use computational methods to investigate disease biology, assess targets and study molecular structures and interactions. We interpret those findings alongside experimental and clinical evidence to identify the questions worth testing.
Predictions guide experiments; they require validation before they can support scientific conclusions.
Seed. Optimize. Advance. Repeat.
Four stages connect a scientific idea to a company, then carry the studio’s experience into the next venture.
Identify science with a credible path to patient benefit and commercial value.
Test the assumptions that determine whether a program deserves further investment.
Form and operate the company, committing people and capital as the case develops.
Each project gives us opportunities to improve how we evaluate science, run experiments and manage development. We carry useful methods, operating knowledge and experience into subsequent ventures, building a studio that does not have to start from scratch with every company.
The founders
Murat Kalayoglu and Michael Singer built companies by mastering the science and managing their development themselves. Their experience spans clinical and preclinical R&D, intellectual property, QA/QC, manufacturing, operations and financing. That breadth shapes how SOAR Bio builds companies.
Founders stay close to the science and the daily decisions. Everyone is expected to contribute across functions and take responsibility for completing the task. No role is too small. We hire when a program requires more capacity or expertise, and bring in specialists where their judgment is essential. We learn enough to define each assignment, assess its quality and remain accountable for the result.
Co-founder & Managing Partner
Co-founder · Strategy & Clinical Development
Across life sciences
We find and develop opportunities across therapeutics, devices and diagnostics. We revisit technologies that fell short when new science offers a credible way past the original obstacle.
Our Greater Washington, D.C., network connects us with emerging discoveries. We also develop technologies in-house, drawing on our team’s scientific, clinical and operating expertise, and identify new needs as medicine advances.
Our search is broad and our criteria are demanding. We look for credible science, meaningful patient benefit, a defensible commercial opportunity and a practical way to test the central assumption. We ask what could make the approach fail, which result would justify further investment and whether a focused team can move it forward.
These companies illustrate our reach across life sciences. We discuss program details directly with prospective investors and strategic partners.
Featured company
Developing new approaches to targeted cancer treatment.
Featured company
Developing technologies to address barriers to potent biologics.
Featured company
Developing more sensitive ways to monitor cancer.
Founder development
Building lean and successful life science companies requires leaders who can execute before they manage. Entrepreneurs must learn to execute across the full spectrum of R&D, from earliest discovery research to late-stage clinical trials. The CEO fellowship adapts the apprenticeship model of medical and scientific training to that task.
Fellows train beside experienced founders on real programs. They learn to assess evidence, design development plans, manage vendors and allocate capital. Responsibility grows with demonstrated competence, judgment and temperament, assessed through results and formal review.
The central skill is deciding what deserves time and money under uncertainty: when to investigate, when to act, when to seek expertise and when to stop. Fellows also learn to teach others, extending the studio’s capacity to build companies.
Greater Washington, D.C.
Greater Washington, D.C., brings together research institutions, clinical expertise and scientific talent across D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia. SOAR Bio is building a repeatable way to turn that regional strength into companies, through experienced founders, versatile operators, shared capabilities and disciplined investment.
Our ambition is for Greater Washington, D.C., to help shape how American life science companies are built over the next decade. By combining the region’s scientific strengths with resourceful company building, we aim to establish a model that entrepreneurs elsewhere in the country can adopt.
