At AACR 2022 Annual Meeting, Dr. Christina Bardon, Partner at MPM Capital and Dr. Robert Tepper, Partner at Third Rock Ventures, chaired another insightful session on how to tap venture capital and philanthropic organizations for oncology drug development. The panel consisted of accomplished speakers with a broad range of experience in medical oncology, public health policies and founding cell therapy startups.  Speaking on how to confirm that the idea is ripe to be taken out of the academic setting into a company, Dr. Belldegrun shared his experience of setting up companies at three different stages of development. Technology-based concepts can be transferred from academia to a company at a fairly early stage. Another option is to find molecules in academia and build a clinical program from it and build a company at the stage of drug chemistry, like Zytiga, a hormone therapy his team developed for prostate cancer.