Native Hoosier Derek Small ’98 didn’t set out to change the world through science. Yet today, as founder and managing director of Luson Bioventures, est. 2007, he’s the driving force behind multiple billion-dollar ventures helping to shape the future of biotechnology and pharmaceutical drugs. He also serves on the board of directors for Biocrossroads®, a catalyst for Indiana’s life sciences industry, and Innoviva, a public investment and specialty biotech company. To understand how he arrived at this point, it helps to start at the beginning of his college journey.
After Small was accepted into a large university’s engineering program, he hit unexpected hurdles that shook his confidence and sent him home mid-semester for a mental reset. During that period of uncertainty came a phone call — that seemed like a lifeline — from Grizzlies’ then–head football coach Mike McClure ’75, who had tried recruiting him in high school and was circling back. After Small shared that the university felt “too big, too soon,” McClure asked, “Why don’t you try the business program at Franklin?” Unsure of his next move but open-minded, Small simply said, “OK.” Now, he says, “That was the decision that changed everything.”
Even though his first football season was interrupted by reconstructive shoulder surgery, he began to thrive in Franklin’s close-knit community. “It came down to being surrounded by people who seemed to go the extra mile for students,” Small said. While rehabilitating his shoulder, he received exceptional physical and emotional support from athletic trainers *Kathy Taylor Remsburg and *Chris Shaff ’96, who made a lifelong impression. Another impactful individual was then-head men’s basketball coach Kerry Prather, now Franklin College president. “Somehow, I ended up in his office talking about how to refocus and succeed at Franklin. Even though I wasn’t a basketball player, Coach Prather always remembered my name. That’s the stuff that stuck with me,” Small said.
Further support came from an academic adviser who helped guide Small toward a major in business and marketing. Though he wasn’t sure what a future in business might hold, his courses sparked curiosity and a sense of possibility. By senior year, “everything clicked” in a seminar course led by business professor Jim Williams, now faculty emeritus. “I realized I liked making presentations, creating (PowerPoint) slides and getting feedback from really smart professors,” Small said. “That’s essentially what I do every day now; it just happens to be in biotech.”
While Small credits that senior-year class and the Franklin College community that made him feel seen and valued as turning points, 27 years ago he couldn’t yet see where the road would lead. Graduation from college only heightened his uncertainty, as each job application seemed to end in another rejection. Then came another phone call that shifted his trajectory again. Football teammate Chad Wolfe ’98 encouraged him to join a financial services firm, a role that ultimately wasn’t the right career fit but proved formative.
Small completed broker training at the World Trade Center in New York City and grew his professional network. “That training helped me plug in with investors and tech companies,” he said. On his own time, Small learned to write business plans, literally using “Business Plans for Dummies” at a Barnes & Noble and borrowing a computer in his apartment clubhouse. In 2002, his career path took another turn when a friend invited him to help raise capital for a biotech company.
“In biotech, you have to be able to convince prospective investors that the science is good,” Small said. That challenge drove him to learn the language of bioscience, to gain better understanding of the research and to surround himself with experts. The scientists he met early in his career were, in his words, “so kind, smart, patient and focused on helping people with their science” that they hooked him on the mission of developing new medicines. “Science, technology, regulatory affairs — I never would have predicted I’d enjoy this stuff in college,” he said. “And yet, it feels like a calling.”
That calling has propelled Small and Luson Bioventures to build and scale 10 groundbreaking companies over the last two decades, including Naurex, Assembly Biosciences, Coferon, Gate Neurosciences, Syndeio Biosciences and Monument Biosciences.
Over the same period, he has raised more than $1 billion in capital from investors, forged regional and global partnerships and led strategic transactions of more than $3 billion. He also gained valuable experience launching AssemblyBio in China, a company focused on tackling the hepatitis B and C epidemic there, which broadened his understanding of international drug development.
But it’s not the dollar signs that drive him. It’s the patients. He vividly remembers the first clinical trial he helped launch and the first patient, a 27-year-old woman with stage 4 gastrointestinal cancer. “She was our first dose patient, and she stabilized before we had our second patient on the drug. The physician and principal investigator were so excited and thankful, and that case was the clincher for me in realizing we could make a really big difference,” Small said.
That belief deepened when Small’s father was diagnosed with dementia, and he became his primary caregiver. The experience inspired Small to fully dedicate Luson Bioventures to neuroscience and mental health in 2017, and the company has maintained that focus ever since. “I saw firsthand what this disease does to people, and how our medications can help,” he said. “Now my mission is to help patients like my dad.”
With his recent venture, Syndeio Biosciences, Small is supporting the development of innovative treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and depression. He also is passionate about mentoring the next generation of biotech leaders and has helped create a drug development and business-launch curriculum used by faculty at Northwestern University in Chicago. He has partnered with 20 academic institutions over the course of his career.
Sometimes Small’s two paths — Franklin College and biotech — intersect. One of his mentors, globally renowned chemist and biomolecular scientist Richard DiMarchi (HD ’20), Ph.D., whose pioneering research underpins today’s obesity drugs, gave Franklin’s 2020 commencement address. Through it all, Small’s foundation remains his faith and his family. He and his wife, Amy, whom he dated throughout college, have been married 25 years and are raising three children, Madison, Lucas and Elleana. He calls his time at Franklin part of his testimony. “The Columbine shootings happened while I was a student, and I remember feeling lost. But I walked into the chapel one day, and that’s where my faith truly became my own.”
He also credits philosophy and religion professor emeritus Rev. Dr. Cliff Cain, Ph.D., and economics professor emeritus John Stevens, Ph.D., for believing in him and helping him earn a spot to study abroad at Harlaxton College in England, a “watershed moment” that gave him confidence, humility and global perspective. “I didn’t know what I was doing back then,” Small said. “But Franklin College gave me people who cared, opportunities to grow and the foundation I needed to figure it out.” Now, decades later, he still creates slides, presents business cases and seeks feedback from intelligent colleagues, just like he did in that senior seminar. Only now, the stakes are higher, and the work is saving lives.
*Editor’s note: At the time referenced in this story, Franklin College offered only a minor in athletic training. Today, the College offers a master’s program in athletic training, and Taylor Remsburg serves as professor and interim coordinator of clinical education. Shaff is the College’s head athletic trainer.
Story by Amy VerSteeg ’96, Editor of the Franklin College Magazine