BioSignals: 2025 in Review with Mike Bolinder

NATHAN: Welcome to Biosignals, the podcast powered by Bio crossroads, where we decode the pulse of Indiana’s life sciences sector. Each episode, we bring you the innovators, breakthroughs, and bold ideas shaping the future of health and science.

Welcome to the fifth episode of BioSignals. I’m your co-host, Nathan Brown. We’re doing things a little differently with this episode. Instead of an external guest, we’re bringing in someone internal. Mike Bollinger, senior vice president of external engagement and chief innovation officer here at Bio Crossroads. Last month, BioCrossroads released our 2025 annual report. And in this episode, Mike and Vince are going to take a step back to reflect on that year. Together, they’re going to unpack a year’s worth of milestones across innovation, manufacturing, workforce communications, and capital. 2025 was a watermark year for Indiana’s life sciences ecosystem. For the first time ever, life sciences in Indiana surpassed $1B in economic contribution, one hundred and two billion to be exact. We also became known as the Radiopharmaceutical capital of the world, and we vastly expanded our workforce infrastructure and supports. This episode is the perfect companion piece to our annual report, and I recommend everyone take a look at it for a comprehensive look at all of the states, activities and life sciences.

VINCE: It’s my pleasure to welcome Mike Bolinder. Mike, welcome to Biosignals. Mike, why don’t you introduce yourself?

MIKE: Yeah. Thanks for thanks for having me. Um, brief background. So I worked for many years in industry. Got into, got into the life sciences industry for very personal reasons. Um, just given our, uh, our firstborn had, uh, some serious health challenges and being two new parents and not knowing anything about medicine, man, that really affected us. So later, I was sitting in a mortgage business. I’d started and thought, is this really all there is to life? And if I could do something every day that, you know, might help patients or families going through what we went through with our daughter, Kiersten, I thought maybe I’d feel better about myself if I laid my head on the pillow at night.

So anyway, that led me to join the industry. I worked for Lilly for a number of years. I was always on the commercial side. I left Lilly, which I didn’t think I would ever do because I really enjoyed my time there, but went to work in a startup out in San Diego. Um, we had some pretty good success out there, transacted the company, uh, for like a billion and a half dollars and then moved back to Indiana, uh, to work on a startup that was out of, out of Europe, um, where we were, it was actually a company that we were looking to acquire when we were at the other company in San Diego. And, um, you know, it was a small team, had its fits and starts, as all startups do. And, uh, we, uh, were developing a suite of patient, supportive care products for patients undergoing surgeries and chemotherapies. And ultimately, um, ended up taking the company public. I at some point took over for the original founder and CEO. We got two drugs through the FDA approval process and, um, and built a commercial team, put our U.S. headquarters in Indianapolis and, uh, ultimately ended up transacting that company to a larger entity. And then, um, started working at bio crossroads, uh, right at three years ago now. Wow. Three years. That’s great. Yeah. It’s amazing. And, um, you know, so, uh, obviously, you know, I work here and innovation and external engagement and have really, really enjoyed working with the team and seeing, um, a lot of things that we set out to do come to fruition, or at least the beginnings of, of those things here in Indiana. So thanks for having me today. I’m excited about the conversation.

VINCE: Well, you’ve got a tremendous background. I’m really lucky to have you here at crossroads. Um, you know, twenty twenty five was a really incredible year for the life science sector here in Indiana. Yeah. Tell me about it. We marked, uh, really a great acceleration of our ten year strategic roadmap. Um, we crossed the one hundred billion dollars economic contribution threshold. Um, we got the Radiopharmaceutical capital of the world designation to highlight the strength of our radiopharma sector within our community. We got a new fund raised to try to fill a void of, of seed capital for our ecosystem. And we really got a lot of workforce and innovation programming off the ground as well. So this was a busy year for not only BioCrossroads, but also really a momentous year for the community and our sector at large. This episode really is an opportunity for you and I, Mike, to kind of not only look in the rearview mirror but also having a have a forward-looking conversation about all the exciting things in front of us for 2026 and beyond.

MIKE: Well, yeah, I mean, first of all, just listening to what you said there, I mean, it’s we ought to have plenty of things to talk about in this conversation. So that’s, that’s exciting. I guess the first thing is, is you look back at 2025, how do you think it might feel different, if at all, from prior years? And, you know, we’ve accomplished you listed off a few things that, you know, we’ve been working on some great accomplishments, some achievements for the ecosystem. But how do you see that? Is it is it is this incremental progress? Is this real structural change and acceleration? Like I’d love to hear your thoughts on.

VINCE: Yeah, I think we did a lot of foundation building. Um, whether that be the new fund that we, that we helped raise, um, crossroads Health Ventures, uh, whether that be the mentoring program that your team launched access mentoring program. Um, the IU lab, um, got launched. One thing that is pretty special about our ecosystem is that we do have that full value chain here, uh, in Indiana. Perhaps even more importantly, you touched upon this in your own personal testimony is it’s even beyond the, the financial contribution, but also it’s the impact of lives not only within Indiana, but also on a global basis. Um, that is represented by the one hundred and two billion dollars as well, because that’s a translation of actual products that get shipped not only across the country, but to all corners of this world. You know, it can be said to be made in Indiana, which is pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, on that note, we used to have a saying, at least at Lilly, that we’d talk about doing, doing well by doing good. Right. And so that was, that was a big attraction for me and to this industry. I’m, you know, you talk about the people, uh, the Hoosiers, seventy zero zero zero of them that all across all those various jobs that you, you kind of listed the cool thing that stood out to me and it was pretty amazing.

MIKE: The average wage has gone from $110,000, like two years ago to $177,000. That is a, you know, $177,000 is a very, very you can do well and doing good. And I’m curious, you know, the $177,000, that number, what is that? What how does that strike you? What does that mean to you? What are you know, what does it mean about the jobs that we’re being that we’re creating through this sector of the economy in Indiana?

VINCE: Yeah, I think what it reflects is that life science jobs are knowledge-based jobs. Um, and therefore only reiterates the importance of our educational system in the state to make sure that we are investing in education, whether it be K through twelve, whether that be college and even adult lifelong learning as well. Because, um, in order to be able to continue to really host high value jobs within the state, it’s going to require a well-trained, uh, educated and continuously trained and upskilled workforce, whether that be on the science side, on the invention side, whether it be manufacturing side or on the distribution side. Right? So, um, it’s going to require that kind of continued investment in human capital because at the end of the day, uh, you know this so well, one of the first companies. First questions that a company asks when they are considering Indiana is like, where will the people that I need, where will the smart, hardworking people that I need come from? Um, and, uh, and so I think the good news is we’ve got a great answer to that, that we can dive into a little later. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s, you know, we, we say it, it may sound trite, but people are the key to everything that we do. Right? And it just yeah. So, uh, my favorite stat in all of the stats has been, you know, for the last several years, many years now, we’ve been the number one state that in manufacturing and exporting pharmaceutical products. But last year, the year before last, but last year, we started announcing that we had overtaken California to be the number one state in manufacturing and exporting all life sciences products. I’m excited that again, this year we still have that number one spot in all life sciences, uh, products. But that that to me is a continuation of momentum. How do you look at those numbers and what, what, you know, what, what do you see in its continued growth in some really key areas that have, from my perspective, a lot of runway yet to, to grow. Um, you know, whether that be, uh, you know, the integrated therapies, uh, are clearly a big driver of this growth. Having both Lilly and Novo, which are the number one and number two developers and manufacturers of those endocrine therapies. Um, you know, we’re just beginning to scratch, scratch the tip of the iceberg on that as additional indications come online for those therapies beyond diabetes and obesity, but in other areas as well, uh, that I think the runway for growth is exciting there. Uh, and then also the other area that is having tremendous growth is in radiopharmaceuticals. And that’s growing on a smaller base but still is a significant growth rate and I think has a significant kegger, um, growth rate going forward. Uh, and that will serve as additional fuel for, um, for that growth. And I think just Indiana’s well positioned from a, um, there’s a big movement of reshoring and manufacturing, uh, to the US. I think I always liked those numbers because they come as, as a bit of a surprise for a lot of folks. You’re like, what? Number one, like not California, not new Jersey, not New York, not, not Massachusetts or North Carolina. That’s right. Yeah. So, uh, I always love, I always love those numbers.

NATHAN: You’re listening to Biosignals, the podcast powered by Bio Crossroads. Now let’s listen in to Mike and Vince.

VINCE: We have, you know, four pillars, right, of our, um, sector strategy that got launched in January twenty twenty four. And, uh, you know, we’ve been really, I think as an ecosystem really focused on building those, those pillars. And, you know, your role as chief innovation officer here at Bio Crossroads, um, are a key leader in driving this innovation pillar. So maybe talk, talk with me about this new mentoring program that you and your team launched Mike, in 2025.

MIKE: The AXIS program has been at the heart of a lot of the work that we’ve been doing around innovation. And in fairness, access is a program that, um, takes a methodology from MIT in Boston. Um, they have this venture mentoring service, uh, model that we’ve adopted and was implemented actually quite a few years ago, started at bio crossroads. It went to the Ibri for a while, and we did pick that back up last year and have been trying to rework and revitalize. We tweaked a few things, but, but the basis, uh, the essentially what access is, is it is a mentorship program to help leadership or founders of startup companies to get the guidance and support that they need in that very, very difficult journey of bringing something from an idea to the patient bedside or to the patient. Right. It’s it’s such a challenge. And I think by calling it a mentorship program, which is truly what it is, it might undersell it a little bit. Because oftentimes when I think about a mentorship relationship, I think of sort of one on one. We’re going to pair you with somebody who, you know, who’s been around for a while, a little long in the tooth and can help you with, you know, this, that, or the other and give you some career advice. What this is what access really is, is it is essentially forming a bit of a, an advisory board, almost like a board of directors for this company. You know, so little advisory board. And the idea is to try to fill out areas of expertise that the founder or leader of that organization, they might be a scientist by training, or they might be a commercial person by training. But most of us are not as much as we try, are not really jacks of all trades, right? And so having experts either in, you know, legal matters, intellectual property or experts in commercialization, experts in regulatory, you know, regulatory pathways. And what that’s going to look like can help, let’s say a scientist founder who is trying to bring this great idea, this new invention forward, surrounding them with folks who’ve got the been there, done that badge, they’ve done this before and can give them some of that guidance is absolutely, absolutely critical. I mean, you know, you and I were in industry for many years, and one of the most important things you can have is good guidance. I know I, you know, the guidance and the networking and everything that we were able to take from, you know, our board of directors or whatever. That’s what we’re essentially helping to infuse into these startups to really help accelerate their growth and help them bring those things forward.

VINCE: That’s great. It’s one mentee to three mentors, right? So it’s kind of creates that surround sound. Yes. Um, you know, perspective, uh, that creates, I think, a much richer experience, um, and beneficial experience for the mentees. Let’s maybe pivot to another key development in our ecosystem. Um, the launch of IU lab. Oh yeah. Um, the launch accelerator for Biosciences, uh, over one hundred and twenty million dollars grant from Lilly Endowment that’s helping fund the creation of this asset. Maybe talk about how you see IU lab and its role in the larger innovation ecosystem that we’re building together.

MIKE: Yeah, I mean, to the point that you just made IU lab tremendous investment in the future of innovation here in Indiana, right? It’s a significant, significant undertaking. We are, as you know, thrilled to be a part of, you know, that team that is helping to, uh, to bring this forward. I think it can’t be understated that that investment, not just in capital, but in foresight of saying, this is what we’re trying to develop here. And I think it’ll be critical, uh, with regard to, you know, building this infrastructure, we just talked a little bit about the access mentorship program. And again, I said it’s been the heartbeat or the foundation of a lot of what we’ve been doing around innovation. And we, you know, we’re doing a lot of things to support IU lab and their efforts along with other partners, you know, whether that be a generator or plug and play or others in the ecosystem. Um, but we’re using a lot of the foundational innovation programs that we’re establishing and getting up and running as sort of that ongoing support. So as, as folks come through the Elab program, they go through these either pre-accelerator or accelerator programs. We are both trying to provide some mentorship and guidance, direction networking, you know, using our contacts as we’re doing that. But for those that want to continue on, and certainly those that are local here in the ecosystem, we’re able to use that as a, um, as a feeder into that access mentorship program and, um, really provide that ongoing longer lasting support. So those two things kind of work hand in hand, if that makes sense. Yeah. Well, I think what’s cool about IU lab is, you know, uh, instead of waiting for a building to be built and then standing up programming, your daily lab in partnership with its partners and generator, plug and play and ourselves. About crossroads. You know, they’ve really jumped in and said, you know, we’re not going to wait for the steel and the glass to go up. We’re going to bring value to the ecosystem. Um, even before the building. So, you know, lots of big kudos out to the IU lab team, uh, for that, uh, that initiative.

VINCE: Absolutely, absolutely. And then another, um, kind of innovation focused effort that you’re involved with is, um, the bio can grant program through the heartland bio tech hub. That’s really two different components of it, right? One is bio train, which is really a training initiative and the other’s bio launch, which is really for innovation purposes. And then kind of nested with underneath bio launch is this bio can grant program. So maybe tell, tell the audience what is the bio can grant and what’s its objective and who should be interested in participating?

MIKE: Yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s another, you know, talk about major investment in the future of Indiana and our ecosystem here. This EDA tech hub was $51M. It was the largest, uh, tech hub grant, uh, in the country. And we again, are excited to partner with Ari on heartland Bioworks and all the other, you know, stakeholders and partners, uh, from the ecosystem. But a component of that $51M there is this is the bio can grant program that that you were asking about. And that is essentially there’s, there’s been nine million dollars over the five years earmarked to go towards helping, um, helping provide non-dilutive funding to startups in particular, those that will, in your benefit to the Indianapolis, you know, central Indiana, uh, area. And so this is it’s an exciting program. We’re, you know, we’ve run a couple of, of grant cycles now. And it’s really neat to see the applicants that are both coming in from here locally, but also from around the country. And we’re excited to be able to provide the help. And, you know, the idea of that, that whole program is to say, we’ve got to strengthen manufacturing. How do we really tip the scales and make this, you know, uh, a global leader in, in the manufacturing, in particular these biopharmaceuticals. And so that’s, that’s, that’s what that’s about. Probably the next pillar I’d like to cover, um, briefly is the manufacturing pillar. Um, that you also helped spearhead last year. We got the Radio Pharmaceutical Capital of the world designation from the United States Patent Trademark Office. How do you see this designation being utilized by either our, you know, bio crossroads or members of the Radiopharmaceutical. Kind of community here that you help convene on a quarterly basis? Yeah, I think, well, first of all, kudos to you in, in bringing that forward and getting that, that trademarked. Um, I think what we have here in Indiana is really special in particular here in the radiopharma world. I mean, we have seen this convergence and, uh, growing, uh, you know, this, this growing momentum around companies in the radiopharmaceutical space that are locating here for a confluence of issues, uh, or, or driving factors, right. One, you’ve got Purdue, the largest by far radiopharma pharmacy program in the country. Um, so there’s tons of talent. You’ve got lots of FDA savvy talent here. You’ve got the logistics. These things are the logistics infrastructure. These things are like often described as melting ice cubes. And so being able to because they have a, you know, they have an effective life sometimes of maybe a day, a day and a half, sometimes even shorter than that. So how do you get these to the patient and have them manufactured right in time for that patient’s appointment and get it to them while, while it’s still effective? Um, is, is a real, you know, it’s a real trick. And because of where we’re located, we’re a twelve-hour drive from eighty percent of the population in North America. You, we have the second largest Fedex hub in the world right here. We’ve seen this growing cluster. But before we even had the designation, I mean, you know, we had people calling us from Europe from all over the place saying, you guys have this crazy, uh, awesome, uh, radiopharmaceutical cluster that’s growing there. How do we become a part of that? How can we partner with you? How can we work together on these things? And so I think really, we were able to put a name on something that, uh, that had, you know, materialized, uh, kind of spontaneously. And what we’ve tried to do over the last few years is we’ve created this working group to try to say, how do we foster that growth? And how do we continue to throw gas on that fire and continue the momentum of everything that we’ve got going on there? So I think that moniker is really helping us with, with being able to, uh, continue to spread the spread. The word on central Indiana gives us something to rally around, right? Yeah. Maybe the last piece I’d like to cover with you is just, uh, workforce, uh, pillar two things kind of jump out at me when we think about how we advance the ball on workforce and talent development. One is our friends at Heartland Bioworks secured the exclusive license to the curriculum from the National Institute of Bioprocessing Research and Training, which is an institute out of Dublin, Ireland, which is globally recognised as really the gold standard for training. And now that we’ve got the exclusive license for their curriculum for a five or six state region here, I think that’s pretty transformative to really establish Indiana as a center of excellence on a regional basis, if not a national basis for life science, manufacturing, training. And then a second thing I’m really excited about on the on the talent side is the launch of our INCAP, the Indiana Career apprenticeship pathway, where we’re, you know, playing a key role in with other partners in importing from Switzerland their robust apprenticeship program to deliver work based training and education experiences to high school students. Bio crossroads plays the role of serving as the convener for employers in not only health care and in life sciences. When you hear about all of this workforce development, investments and activity. You know, what does that mean in terms of our ability to attract companies?

Yeah. I mean, we touched on this a little bit earlier in the conversation, just that the importance of the talent piece. And we’ve also talked about the fact that, you know, our manufacturing has been growing by leaps and bounds, number one in the country, right. Um, the challenge with that is you got to have, you got to have the people to be able to turn the crank, if you will, to, to produce those, uh, to produce those products. And we’ve got to keep up with the pace of growth. And our growth has just been so tremendous. So how do we do that? And how do we, how do we as we try to keep up with the growth, how do we establish, like we said before, the foundation and be able to, to lay the foundation so that we can keep that. So a couple of things you got to do when you got to be able to reskill or upskill workers to be able to fill those needs. And that’s where I think NIBRT plays a tremendous role. And it was so, um, I don’t want to keep using the word exciting, but it was very exciting for us to be able to do that through the Heartland Bioworks, um, project because NIBRT, as you said, it’s the gold standard. I mean, companies from all over the US, major pharma companies like the one I used to work for, send their folks for NIBRT training continually to be able to be that NIBRT affiliate and to be that regional representative here for the Midwest in multiple states is going to pay dividends and, and again, be part of that foundation building that that we’re doing, not just to solve the short term need, but to solve the longer term need. The other piece, speaking of longer term need, is what you were talking about with the Swiss apprenticeship model, the change in the Indiana um, diploma and pathway through INCAP to be able to help identify talent at very early ages, you know, beginning in, you know, what middle school, high school ages that kids start getting exposed to what we’re doing and what’s available to them is incredibly important to build those talent pipelines. So we’re really, we’ve got, we’ve got a lot of work to, to do and a long ways to go on this, but we are building these key foundations to be able to have the talent, which is absolutely the number one most important thing when anybody’s looking at putting a site somewhere.

VINCE: So, Mike, one final question we ask of all guests is, you know, what are what’s one or two technologies or innovations that you are really excited about that you think it’s going to be transformative for, um, healthcare and medicine going forward?

MIKE: When I think about technologies, I think we touched on this earlier radiopharmaceuticals, um, the, the, that technology for me is just so amazing. The ability to deliver radiation in pinpoint delivery, right to the cancer cell and be able to irradiate cells without really affecting the the other cells around the cancer is just, I, I think we’re it’s amazing when you see the results that they’ve shown. You know, you can see the scans, here’s the patient before therapy, here’s the patient after therapy. And it is it is night and day. I mean, they’re absolutely eliminating that cancer and doing it in such a, an amazing and unique way that I think that technology, you touched on it earlier, that it will be transformative. Right now, you’ve only got, you know, a, a therapy or two that are approved. But as you see many more come online and then many more indications for those therapies. Um, I think it’ll be absolutely transformative for cancer care. Yeah. Because today I think the foothold right is in prostate cancer. But I think every solid tumor, um, is fair game for this technology. And so it’s super exciting as it goes beyond prostate. Um, what about you? I mean, what are the technologies that, uh, that, you know, really get you excited or you’re, you’re really excited about the future for.

VINCE: Yeah. It’s also in the realm of precision medicine, just like radiopharmaceuticals is, but it’s not in oncology, but it’s in neurodegenerative disease. I think it’s a super, you know, I’ve been in my career has been very involved in bringing precision medicine into oncology through a biomarker informed approach, leveraging diagnostics to drive earlier diagnosis and screening to therapy selection and, um, therapy response monitoring. I think that then delivers better outcomes for patients. I think that, uh, opportunity now is beginning to open for diseases like Alzheimer’s, where we can identify screen Alzheimer’s in a non-invasive way. Understanding the disease biology of Alzheimer’s, that it’s not just one disease, but perhaps has multiple pathways, multiple biomarkers. And that’s just going to really open up, um, lots of avenues for, um, better outcomes, better therapeutic interventions, earlier therapeutic interventions. Um, and I think down the road you’re going to see, um, a, really a big portfolio of potential therapeutic options for patients, uh, of Alzheimer’s disease. And it’s not going to be, it’s not one disease, it’s multiple diseases, right? And so just like we know cancer is not one disease, but it’s a multiple number of diseases. So I think that’s what I’m excited about. We’re really at the dawning of a new age for biomarker informed precision medicine for neurodegenerative disease. And Indiana is well positioned to be a leader in that. So it really is exciting. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Mike, we covered a lot of ground. Twenty twenty five was indeed a very busy and productive year for the life science community here. And I think a lot of amazing initial seeds were planted. And I think twenty twenty six is all about, you know, nurturing and growing those seeds into more robust scaled programs. Um, and so super excited to continue to partner with you to, to do that and the rest of the team and, and all of our amazing partners, um, that we get the privilege to work with every day. So thanks so much for joining us and giving us a little bit of a twelve months, uh, look back and then a little bit of a peek on what we’re going to be focused on going forward. Absolutely. Um, thanks, everyone for joining us.

NATHAN: For more information about Bio Crossroads, our events programs, and how you can get involved, please visit bio crossroads dot com.