Many states and cities try to port over a plan or a program that works but you can’t port over culture. What is the culture of the company? We’re here to impact the lives of people suffering from these disorders. This is affecting the lives of many people. The unique culture of OKC is a strength that needs to be leveraged and used as one of the pillars to get these things moved forward.”
CRAIG SHIMASAKI
P R E S I D E N T A N D C EO, M O L EC U L E R A L A B S C O - F O U N D E R @ B I OT EC H B U S I N E S S
If one of your kids wants to tear into your old appliances, maybe you should let them. “Growing up, I was curious how things work,” said Craig Shimasaki. “I would take apart my mom’s toaster and ironing board just to see how it worked. I just wasn’t so good about putting it back together.” His tinkering paid off: Shimasaki co-founded and is CEO of Moleculera Labs, which focuses on diagnosing neurologic, psychiatric and behavioral disorders triggered by an autoimmune response. It’s grown rapidly from its inception in 2011 to testing more than 13,000 patients associated with 1,700 doctors in 30 countries throughout the world. It’s complicated, but breaking it down for us mortals, Shimasaki and his team are studying the connection between bacteria like strep and viruses like COVID, and the long-term responses to those disorders, with long-reaching impact for children diagnosed with disorders like OCD, anxiety, autism, ADHD and long-haul COVID. “We’ve found if you treat the infection and the immune system, these patients can experience remarkable recoveries,” Shimasaki said. “We know that there is often a biological issue rather than a psychiatric issue in a good portion of these disorders. We’re looking at some of the underlying causes of mental issues and psychiatric and behavioral disorders.” In addition, he’s founded more than half a dozen other companies, written three books on entrepreneurship in the biotech industry and he’s an adjunct professor and
the Senior Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business. He’s growing the next leaders in the biotech field while he grows OKC’s bio tech field himself. “Our goal is to reach people all over the world,” he said. “We want to change how medicine is practiced. The brain is really the last frontier in medicine. “ He said OKC’s biotech industry is poised for significant growth because it has the necessary components to stimulate growth. “It’s like farming,” he said. “You need good seeds, good soil, sunshine, water and an experienced farmer. If you have four out of the five, it still doesn’t work. And Oklahoma City is poised for growth because we have an entrepreneurial culture, funding sources, innovations from universities and incubator facilities being set up. You combine all that with our other resources and results will begin to grow, crop up and sprout.” He said OKC’s biotech industry, with focus, is poised to explode. “The sun is everywhere, but if you take a glass and focus that sun, you can have fire,” he said. “If we have focus, and a focus at all levels, absolutely, we’ll have fire in the biotech industry.”