Different types of stories cross my radar as a biotech journalist every day.

There are partnerships between established drugmakers that need new products and the little aspiring companies that need cash to develop their thing. Stories about clinical trial results that move markets. Regulatory actions that make or break companies and investors.

But for me, there’s something especially fun about talking with scientific entrepreneurs who raised their first big wad of investment cash. They’re latching onto some kernel of insight from a discovery. Or maybe they have a vision for stitching together a set of technologies. Either way, they are venturing into a great unknown to see if they can make a big step ahead in medicine. They often have insights that put them years ahead of the lumbering drug giants.