What The 2023 Nucleus Awards Winners Hope For Philly’s Innovation Future
Local leaders Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, Margaret Berger Bradley, Sheila Ireland and Sulaiman Rahman were honored at the Science Center’s annual fête.
Philly has the talent to succeed as an innovation hub, but its people and organizations need to believe in themselves more to make it happen.
This was one of the themes discussed by leaders of Philadelphia’s STEM community at the University City Science Center on Tuesday evening to celebrate four of the best and brightest minds in local tech, the 2023 Nucleus Awards honorees.
When receiving their awards, each honoree discussed changes they’d like to see in Philly and where they hope the region has progressed in the future. Consider some of these smart things they said.
Pick a challenge and solve it
Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, the EVP, chief scientific and medical officer, and president of Lilly Research Laboratories at Eli Lilly and Company, received the Commercialization Award. He said he hopes to see more progress toward tough diseases.
Skovronsky reflected on his work developing diagnostic technology for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. His company Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, which is now a subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company, developed the FDA-approved product Amyvid, an imaging agent that can help diagnose Alzheimer’s.
“It was an incredible dream that we can make a difference in Alzheimer’s disease,” Skovronsky told Maiken Scott, the host and creative director of WHYY’s health and science show, The Pulse, during a Q&A onstage. “And we probably thought we could do it faster than 20 years, but that’s what it took, fine.”
His advice for companies in Philly doing similar work were to pick a hard problem, stick with it and make an actual difference.
“Drug addiction, schizophrenia, or any of the other diseases that aren’t very popular to work on right now, I bet you there’s teams in Philly working on them,” he said. “I hope 10 or 20 years from now they’ll be on this stage saying we beat that disease. We worked on it hard.”
Offer equal investment opportunities
Margaret Berger Bradley, the VP of strategic initiatives for Ben Franklin Technology Partners, won the Capital Award. She said she would like to see equal opportunities for investments for women and founders of color in Philadelphia.
“In Ben Franklin’s portfolio, 40% have women leadership, and 45% have had a BIPOC leader in a leadership team,” she said. “Well, we still have so much work to do.”
Berger Bradley added that Philadelphia needs to invest back into itself. Most capital coming from Philadelphia does not go back into Philadelphia companies, she said.
“Ben Franklin has created, first, our GO Philly Fund four years ago, and we’re raising a Go PA fund that will have its first close next month,” Berger Bradley said. “But so many of the companies we invest in can’t grow up.”
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