After more than two decades at Merck, David Peacock chose a Brisbane biotech, a square of microscopic projections and one large question: can vaccination become easier to ship, simpler to give and practical to use at home?

She began in audit, learned biotech from the inside, and became the operator companies call when science must survive contact with money, markets and momentum.

An engineer learned finance, a scientist sketched an audacious idea, and a married pair funded the first experiment themselves. Ten years later, Krish Krishnan is still treating the IPO as the beginning, not the arrival.

She spent nine years helping build NGM, then left for science compelling enough to begin again. At Lycia Therapeutics, Aetna Trombley has made patience, partnerships and protein clearance into an operating strategy.