🧬 Betting on Women's Health | Sabrina Johnson (1/4)
May 18, 2026
In this episode, Jon Chee sits down with Sabrina Johnson, President and CEO of Daré Bioscience, a Nasdaq-listed biopharma advancing women's reproductive health. Daré's team of 25 executes the groomed trail approach — matching therapeutic gaps to FDA-approved actives — with a non-hormonal contraceptive in pivotal Phase 3 and $75M+ in non-dilutive funding from the Gates Foundation, NIH, and ARPA-H.
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"A calculated risk is not the same as being irresponsible or cutting corners."
In this episode, Jon Chee sits down with Sabrina Johnson, President and CEO of Daré Bioscience, a Nasdaq-listed biopharma advancing women's reproductive health. Daré's team of 25 executes the groomed trail approach — matching therapeutic gaps to FDA-approved actives — with a non-hormonal contraceptive in pivotal Phase 3 and $75M+ in non-dilutive funding from the Gates Foundation, NIH, and ARPA-H.
Key Topics Covered:
- Entrepreneurial Roots: Immigrant parents forged unconventional paths and seeded her comfort with risk.
- The Science Fiction Pitch: A teacher reframed biomedical engineering as sci-fi and changed her path.
- New Orleans as a Classroom: A cross-cultural city and cross-disciplinary field that shaped her.
- At the Dawn of Biologics: A junior year at UCL put her in the room with early biologics pioneers.
- The Bench Isn't for Everyone: Month one at Baxter revealed she loved science, not the bench.
- The Authenticity Breakthrough: Dropping the sales persona took her from worst rep to first.
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Subscribe to the Podcast:
Find our guest, Sabrina Johnson at these links:
Website: https://darebioscience.com/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/
Learn more about Excedr:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/
Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:
Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:
Non-Dilutive Capital for Biotech Startups: https://www.excedr.com/blog/the-benefits-of-non-dilutive-capital
Marketing & Sales for Biotech Startups: https://www.excedr.com/blog/marketing-sales-strategies-for-biotechs
Funding Research on Women's Health: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44222-024-00253-7
History of Monoclonal Antibody Development: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4284445
Daré Bioscience Pipeline: https://darebioscience.com/pipeline
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:
Daré Bioscience: https://darebioscience.com
Baxter Healthcare: https://www.baxter.com
Clonetics / Lonza Bioscience: https://bioscience.lonza.com
Tulane University: https://tulane.edu
University College London: https://www.ucl.ac.uk
Thunderbird School of Global Management: https://thunderbird.asu.edu
Scott Cowen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Cowen
Malcolm Lilly: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biochemical-engineering
Peter Dunnill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Dunnill
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
06:29 Growing Up Between Rome and Phoenix
07:45 Entrepreneurship Beyond the Startup: Lessons from Her Parents
09:43 The Science Fiction Pitch That Changed Everything
12:05 Finding Tulane at a College Fair
14:33 New Orleans as a Classroom: Cross-Disciplinary Thinking
15:41 At the Dawn of Biologics: Junior Year Abroad at UCL
19:20 Landing the Dream Job at Baxter — and Discovering the Bench Wasn't for Her
24:55 Lunch Table Informational Interviews and the Case for an MBA
31:26 Everyone Said Start in Sales — But Not That Kind
34:42 Worst Rep in the Building: Six Months at Clonetics
37:16 The Authenticity Breakthrough
39:05 Outro
The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.