Deborah Weidman
Title: Co-founder, CraniUS and PneuTech
Age: 24
Deborah Weidman co-founded two Baltimore biotech companies, including one that raised nearly $20 million last year, all before turning 25.
Weidman is the co-founder of Hampden startup CraniUS, which raised $19.4 million in October 2022, and also previously co-founded a lung biopsy company called PneuTech. Weidman left CraniUS this summer and is looking to continue her work in the medical technology field.
Weidman founded CraniUS in 2021 based on research with Johns Hopkins University professor Chad Gordon on ways to bypass the blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier blocks promising medications from reaching the brain without costly invasive surgeries. The CraniUS implant takes everything that would normally be used to inject medicine into the brain at a doctor’s office, from a pump ensuring proper dosage to a power supply, and places it inside the skull so medication can be automatically dispensed on a regular basis to the brain. The company is currently seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for human trials by the end of 2024.
Weidman also previously co-founded lung biopsy company PneuTech while pursuing her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University. PneuTech earned a $20,000 grant from VentureWell in January 2023 to advance a new type of lung biopsy needle that hopes to reduce the complications of lung treatments.
What inspired you to build CraniUS?
I first learned about the challenges of effectively delivering medicine to the brain during a lecture at a program I attended the summer before my senior year of high school, Yale Young Global Scholars Applied Science & Engineering (which I believe has since been renamed to Innovations in Science & Technology). I was completely captivated: I wanted to help translate medications that were promising in preclinical studies into safe and effective treatments for humans. I applied to college with the goal of studying biomedical engineering, and I was very fortunate to attend Johns Hopkins, and then grow CraniUS with such a wonderful team.
The company has already started to build momentum with a large $19.4M funding round. What was it like managing such an expanding company with a growing team at a young age? What kind of company culture have you tried to create?
Growing our engineering team was one of my favorite parts of CraniUS. With a relatively small team to develop such a novel device, our goal was to ensure that each person brought complementary skills and experiences. I love working on, building and managing teams, and I wholeheartedly believe that a diverse, motivating and collaborative team is necessary to develop meaningful innovation, especially in the health care space. It was very important to me to help create this type of creative and transparent culture.
What challenges have you faced when hiring and managing staff? Do you have advice for founders that are trying to hire staff?
I would suggest having a defined approach to the hiring process, as well as a clear idea of the type of role this person would do. For example, depending on the role that you are hiring for, this could be technical excellence, strong ethics and interpersonal skills, and a genuine alignment with your team's values.
What advice would you give to your peers currently launching startups?
I would share the following advice: listen to yourself and follow what you are passionate about. For me, I am driven by patient-focused innovation, and I love building and leading interdisciplinary engineering teams. If pursuing or joining a startup is something that you truly would like to do, I think having the opportunity to do so is wonderful.
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