Preetha Ram

I'm looking forward to joining the Blavity Inc. HealthStack Virtual Summit: #GLP-1s and the Black Community on Thursday, August 20. I'll be speaking on "GLP-1s and Long-Term Health," where we'll explore what the research actually shows about the long-term safety and efficacy of GLP-1 medications, what equitable care looks like going forward, and what the Black community needs to know to make informed decisions. GLP-1s get plenty of coverage. The evidence deserves equal attention. I'm excited to be part of a conversation that prioritizes science, equity, and the communities that need it most. 📅 Thursday, August 20 💻 Virtual Registration is free. Hope you'll join us: https://lnkd.in/gtxhZsF5

The money is back in biopharma. But this time, the playbook is completely different. 🚀🧬 The XBI is up 35%, M&A exploded to $133 billion, and the IPO window is wide open. Capital allocators aren't just placing defensive bets anymore; they are actively funding the next generation of biopharma breakthrough productivity. Yes, the industry faces a $180B to $300B patent cliff by 2030. But here is the optimistic truth that isn't getting enough attention: This cliff is the greatest catalyst for innovation our industry has seen in a generation. It is forcing a complete shift from brute-force trial-and-error to high-precision, AI-empowered drug discovery. I had the privilege of sharing this vision alongside John Walters (Sanai), Rich Ramko (EY), Angela Jimenez MD MPS (OpenAI, Leon Precision Capital) , and Yangchen Bhutia Sharma (Roundtable Ventures), during our panel: "The Money Is Back in Pharma. Which AI Actually Earns the Return?" Here is why I am exceptionally bullish on where we are headed: 1. Reversing Eroom’s Law at the Root For decades, R&D productivity declined because we lacked the tools to fully understand complex biology upfront. Today, advanced AI platforms and target identification let us map disease mechanisms with unprecedented resolution before stepping into the clinic. We aren't just making discovery faster, we are making it exponentially smarter. 2. Precision Target Discovery Meets Translational Execution The biggest returns this cycle will belong to ecosystem builders. When you combine high-confidence AI target discovery with precision patient stratification, you slash trial timelines, reduce clinical attrition, and deliver transformative therapies to patients faster. 3. Native GxP Compliance as an Accelerator. Compliance is no longer a bottleneck; it’s a competitive advantage. AI platforms built natively with 21 CFR Part 11 audit trails and strict data lineage are streamlining regulatory pathways and bringing audit-ready validation straight to the FDA. The Takeaway: We are entering a golden era where data architecture, multi-omics, and AI converge to solve biology's toughest challenges. The biopharma leaders who harness AI to de-risk biology early will not only replace lost patent revenue, they will redefine the future of human health. A great discussion indeed. A big shoutout to the organizers Serena Yu (Sinai) Vanloan Nguyen (Berkeley Pharma Tech), for bringing us all together. To my fellow founders, investors, and scientists: What excites you most about this new era of AI-driven biopharma productivity? Are you seeing the biggest leaps in early discovery or clinical execution? Let’s discuss in the comments below 👇 #Biotech #DrugDiscovery #PrecisionMedicine #VentureCapital Agility Pharmaceuticals Longevica Therapeutics, Inc.#HealthcareAI #Biopharma #Leadership #Innovation #AI #News

The next generation of growth capital is being built around attention. Founding Partner Piyush Puri, recently sat down with Pulse 2.0 to discuss how MMC is evolving beyond traditional media-for-equity to build a broader services-for-equity platform. The thesis is simple: media creates access to attention. Services convert that attention into demand. Capital aligns everyone around long-term value creation. As AI reshapes discovery and consumers face an increasingly fragmented media landscape, attention, trust, and brand recall are becoming some of the most valuable assets a company can build. Read the full conversation with Piyush Puri in Pulse 2.0. https://lnkd.in/gK5EnPa3

I don’t get to Alaska often, but I’m still reflecting on my recent time with The Aspen Institute's Aspen Global Innovators Group Healthy Communities Fellowship alumni community, alongside the Rasmuson Foundation and Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. The summit brought together leaders working to advance health and well-being in communities across the country. As healthcare leaders and builders, we spend most of our time thinking and talking about outcomes, innovation, equity, efficiency, partnerships, and capital strategy. And in my day-to-day at MedHaul, we are very much in that work -- building infrastructure to help healthcare organizations coordinate transportation for patients with complex needs. But another part of the work we don’t always get the chance to pause and talk about: how do the people building and leading this work sustain themselves? I had the opportunity to lead a session at the summit on "Building Without Losing Yourself", a conversation about sustainable leadership, ambition, identity, and what it takes to continue doing meaningful work without sacrificing our values, health, relationships, or sense of self. Building in healthcare and building scalable solutions for complex communities requires more than innovation. It requires trust, operational discipline, proximity, the humility to learn from mistakes, and leaders who can sustain the work over time. The heart of my session encouraged us to "build what holds, not just what grows." A personal quote that keeps me grounded: “In every season, we return to the same truth: hard work builds, smart work scales, and heart work sustains.” Much gratitude to Tsion Ghedamu, Luwam Yohanes, and Peggy Clark for your leadership; for carrying forward the vision of our dear friend, the late Lola A.. Grateful for the Aspen community, these incredible fellows, the space to reflect, and the reminder that the work of building for communities is also the work of becoming leaders who can carry that responsibility well.

🎓 Calling Universities: Help Shape the Next Generation of Founders Is your university home to groundbreaking research and ambitious entrepreneurs? The TiE Silicon Valley University Mentors Program is now welcoming universities to join our next cohort. This unique program connects university-founded startups with experienced Silicon Valley mentors, investors, and industry leaders who help transform research into fundable, scalable ventures. Participating startups receive: ♦ One-on-one mentorship from seasoned entrepreneurs and executives ♦ Practical workshops on fundraising, legal, go-to-market, and commercialization ♦ Access to the TiE Silicon Valley network ♦ The opportunity to present at the Pitch Finals before investors and ecosystem leaders If your university is committed to supporting innovation and entrepreneurship, we'd love to partner with you. 📩 Contact Preetha Ram to learn how your university can participate in the 2026 TiE Silicon Valley University Mentors Program. Anita Manwani, Andy Tsao, Anil Advani, Anjul Katare, Jagdeep Bachher, Krishna K. Chittabathini, Naeem Zafar, Nidhi Gupta, Preetha Ram, Saurabh Tandon, Sandeep Bhat, Shalini Govil-Pai, Uday Bellary, Ajay Manglani #TiESiliconValley #UniversityMentors #InnovationEcosystem #FutureFounders #Entrepreneurship #StartupEcosystem #InnovationLeadership #BuildingTheFuture #NextGenInnovators #UniversityStartups #EntrepreneurialJourney #GlobalEntrepreneurs #MentorshipMatters #SiliconValleyMindset

Just a couple years ago, I was AI curious. LLMs had just burst onto the scene, and I did what most people did at the time. I read the articles, listened to podcasts, and casually played around with the tools. I nodded along when people said it would change everything. But I didn't really understand it from the inside. And that gap from AI curious to AI native was a huge one. It is also the gap that separates the those who will shape what is coming and those who are on the sidelines. I've spent two decades in tech seeing this pattern repeat. Every major platform shift created two groups: the people who understood the new tools deeply enough to drive transformation, and the people who remained on the outside, fluent in the vocabulary but not the craft. The internet. Cloud. Mobile. Social. AI is no different, but it came faster and harder than what came before. Going from curious to native isn't another article or video demo. It's making something. It's the moment you go from understanding AI conceptually to having actually built something real with it shows you what is possible. I took SnapCamp with kids last summer, and we all learned what it meant to build. On June 12 and 19, we're bringing together a small group of people who are ready to make that leap. In 48 hours, you'll go from idea to shipped product with live instruction and 1:1 support to make it happen. Show don't tell. AI is best learned by doing.

𝐌𝐲 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥. 𝐈𝐭 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐧'𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬. She's headed to Duke this fall, equal parts terrified and thrilled to go. I left home at her age too, from a small town in South Carolina I'd spent twelve years trying to leave. My milestone was about leaving for a new world, but hers is about leaving home. She's worried about growing apart from her sister while she's away. I spent my freshman year barely speaking to mine because it was the time before cell phones and keeping in touch was hard. She knows she has a home to come back to every summer. I spent years making sure I never had to go back to mine. She's flying across the country to get there. I drove, every chance I got, just to stay close to the people I loved. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, we negotiated something we've been only half joking about for years: the terms of what happens next, written down like an actual contract. This month, my daughter Bethany and I wrote our Tiger Mom and Her Cub column side by side, two versions of the same goodbye, thirty  years apart. Putting her words next to mine, I kept landing on the same question, over and over. What were you running toward, or away from, the first time you left home?

Wonderful to speak at TiE Silicon Valley last week. It was an honor to share the stage with Marissa Mayer and Margo Georgiadis and talk about the future of AI, and spend time with both old friends and new. As I mentioned onstage, I believe that within the next 18 months, commerce will finally be fun - more meaningful, more magical. After 25 years of building in e-commerce, I’m looking forward to this!

It started at dinner. We had been hosting dinners for senior product women for several years, when we started talking about who was going to Grace Hopper. Someone asked why product didn't have a conference of our own, and suddenly, and idea was born. Our first conference focused on senior product leaders. We put it together with bubblegum and duct tape, but we pulled it off. And we have been doing it every year since. This year, we are going back to our roots and bringing together 400 senior product leaders for 26WIP: Leadership Edition on October 13 at the Computer History Museum. We have an incredible line-up of speakers including Amanda Richardson, Stacy Brown-Philpot, Jen Taylor, Marily Nika, Ph.D and many many more. The pace of change in our industry is dizzying, and this conference will be a conversation with those who are at the front lines of that change. If you are interested in attending, comment or message me. We are working with companies to cover the cost of the registration, and we can see if yours is on the list! Hope to see you there.