Chandana Haque
Executive Director | Altitude Lab
Chandana Haque has transformed Utah’s biotech landscape as co-founder of Altitude Lab, a startup incubator and accelerator program established with Recursion’s Chris Gibson in 2020. Motivated by her father’s cancer battle and equipped with a molecular biology degree from Carnegie Mellon and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, she built expertise through 15 product launches, dozens of technology acquisitions and in-licensing deals.
Under her leadership, Altitude Lab has supported over 30 biotech startups, facilitated over 200 venture relationships and secured over $150 million in funding. Her commitment to diversity has resulted in 70 percent of startups being led by underrepresented founders. Through initiatives like WeAngels and Women in Innovation dinners, she’s elevated Utah’s reputation as a biotech innovation hub.
What emerging market trends or disruptions are you preparing your company for?
China is becoming an increasingly active player in drug development. … While the United States is a global leader in novel medical technology, China has demonstrated that it is uniquely able to compete by finding new drug targets in literature and building new medicines at fractions of the cost. This will threaten many traditional biotechs’ financial calculus going forward.
What has been a significant challenge you’ve faced? How did you overcome it?
Our mission is to build Utah’s biotech economy by supporting homegrown startups. Initially, it wasn’t clear if there were enough biotech startups to build a sustainable business here. To make it more complex, I’m not native to Utah! I had to build every relationship from scratch. We overcame this by getting involved in the community and working directly with potential founders, nurturing business ideas at their most vulnerable stage. Then, we democratized what we learned through publicly available tools and materials. We’ve stayed hyper-focused on making it easier for founders to launch and build.
