Closing Remarks: Ryan Westberry, COO of Lahjavida

I’m Ryan Westberry, COO of Lahjavida, a Colorado-based oncology company committed to making chemotherapy and other cancer therapies safer, empowering patients to fight the disease not the treatment. More about that later.

First, I want to thank Nancy Lowery, Michaele Linden-Johnson, and the entire Border Health Innovation Summit team for bringing us together. This summit isn’t just an event—it’s a catalyst for ideas, partnerships, and possibilities. It brings the right people and the right energy into the same room to shape what comes next. Let’s take a moment to recognize the team’s hard work and dedication to advancing innovation. What a great event!

We meet here in El Paso, at the heart of the Borderplex—a region where cultures intersect, industries connect, and opportunities multiply. But we also meet in a time of considerable challenges for healthcare innovation.

Funding and staffing cuts to agencies like NIH, NCI, and SBA have slowed early-stage biomedical discovery. High interest rates make capital more expensive. Venture funding has become more cautious and even sidelined, especially for early-stage life science companies. And global supply chain instability, tariff uncertainties, and potential trade disputes continue to ripple through the medical device and pharmaceutical sectors.

These are not abstract concerns. They are the conditions in which every one of us here must operate. But history has taught us something important: moments of constraint often produce the most profound advances. When resources tighten, innovators focus. When obstacles rise, visionaries find alternate routes.

Today, I want to explore four interconnected lenses of innovation—technology, policy, execution, and education—and how aligning them can focus our vision, amplify our opportunities, and position the Borderplex as a global leader in healthcare innovation.

The Technology Lens – Enhancing What We Have, Building What’s Next

To understand how innovation takes shape, we start with technology—the spark that ignites possibility. But innovation isn’t always about creating something entirely new; often, it’s about enhancing what already works to solve urgent problems more effectively.

The COVID-19 pandemic gave us a great example of this concept. mRNA vaccines didn’t emerge overnight—they were built on decades of research. That foundation, combined with infrastructure, global collaboration, and funding, allowed them to go from lab bench to patient in record time. It was a powerful reminder that innovation is not always about starting from scratch; it’s about being ready to act when the moment demands it.

At Lahjavida, we follow a similar principle. Our Dye-Drug Conjugate (DDC) platform takes proven standard-of-care chemotherapy drugs and pairs them with proprietary tumor-targeting near-infrared dyes connected via cleavable linkers. These cleavable linkers ensure the drug is released inside the cancer cells, sparing healthy tissue. The benefits are clear—fewer side effects, faster regulatory timelines, lower healthcare costs, new intellectual property opportunities for pharmaceutical partners, and most importantly offering reduced toxicity, targeted therapy to the masses.

The Borderplex offers many technology success stories. UTEP’s Keck Center for 3D Innovation is producing patient-specific surgical guides and orthopedic implants that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. In Juárez, SEISA Group evolved from producing simple gloves to manufacturing sophisticated Class III medical devices for global distribution.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is accelerating these capabilities. In drug discovery, AI can screen billions of compounds in weeks, identifying promising candidates or new uses for existing drugs. In preclinical research, AI-powered simulations can predict safety and efficacy before costly lab or animal testing. In clinical care, AI can integrate multi-omics data, electronic medical records, and real-world outcomes to generate personalized treatment plans at scale.

The opportunity for the Borderplex lies in targeting technological innovation toward urgent, unmet needs—amplifying proven science with AI-driven efficiency and leveraging the regional strengths in manufacturing, cross-border logistics, and local research talent.

The Policy Lens – Turning the Rules into a Launchpad

Technology alone isn’t enough. Without the right policy framework, even the most promising breakthroughs can stall. As Albert Einstein observed, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

In healthcare innovation, policy is often where those difficulties and opportunities converge. The right regulatory or legislative environment can **transform challenges into catalysts—unlocking markets almost overnight—**while the absence of such alignment can bring even the most advanced technologies to a standstill.

In 2012, the FDA introduced the Breakthrough Therapy designation. This policy shift has enabled more than 250 drugs to reach patients years sooner than expected. More recently, the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 and international acceptance of validated non-animal testing methods have created new, faster, more ethical drug development pathways.

Gravitas Women’s Health, a UTMB-associated start-up, is a prime example of aligning technology with policy. By using organ-on-chip technology for reproductive health research and leveraging the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 and NCAT guidance, they’ve reduced reliance on animal testing, cut costs, and accelerated market entry for companies utilizing their technology.

Policy doesn’t just happen at the federal level. State-level action can be just as transformative. Montana’s Senate Bill 535 expands “Right-to-Try” access for therapies that have completed Phase I safety testing. While it has sparked debate, it demonstrates how bold state policy can create entirely new avenues for patient care and technology advancement outside the burden of bureaucracy.

In the Borderplex, policy alignment could leverage cross-border advantages. With one of the largest Foreign Trade Zones in the nation and the infrastructure to move products globally, you could establish a regional regulatory acceleration hub. Such a hub could specialize in submissions supported by advanced preclinical models, making this the fastest place in the country to bring safe, ethical innovations to patients.

The Execution Lens – The Engine Powering Vision to Reality

If technology is the spark and policy is the launchpad, execution is the engine that drives innovation to the finish line. Thomas Edison warned, “Vision without execution is hallucination.”

Ideas are only as valuable as the plan—and discipline—behind them. Execution means moving from manufacturing readiness to clinical trials to market launch, with each stage managed for speed, quality, and compliance.

In today’s environment, funding is a central execution challenge. Federal cuts to NIH, NCI, and SBA have made it harder for early-stage companies to move forward. But new legislation is beginning to broaden the definition of accredited investors, allowing more individuals to participate in private offerings.

At Lahjavida, we acted quickly to take advantage of this shift—partnering with Strata Trust to use self-directed IRAs as a non-traditional investment vehicle. This allowed individuals to invest retirement funds directly into our current funding round, bypassing some of the barriers of traditional capital markets. It’s an example of financial creativity that keeps projects moving despite public funding cuts.

The Borderplex has unmatched execution advantages: $123B in annual U.S.–Mexico trade, the Union Pacific Santa Teresa Intermodal Facility, five international ports of entry, and a skilled binational/bilingual workforce. These assets make it possible to move from prototype to production to global distribution faster and more cost-effectively than in most innovation hubs.

In addition, Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can amplify these strengths by combining government support, academic expertise, and industry capabilities. But they require rigor—clear goals, measurable milestones, and mutual accountability. Done right, PPPs can accelerate commercialization timelines, expand manufacturing capacity, and build resilience into the supply chain.

The Education Lens – The Pipeline to the Future

Even with strong technology, policy, and execution, innovation cannot thrive without a talent pipeline and the education infrastructure to power it. As Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Education is the foundation that sustains innovation—not just today, but for the future.

In the Borderplex, this means building a continuous pipeline from K–12 STEM exposure to advanced degrees and technical certifications.

In K–12, students must engage in design thinking, hands-on problem-solving, and career-connected learning. In universities, courses in commercialization, intellectual property, and regulatory science should be embedded into life science, engineering, medical, and business programs.

Vocational and continuing education must evolve to prepare a new generation of workers and reskill existing workers for roles in advanced manufacturing, precision medicine, and clinical trial operations.

UTEP’s R1 research designation, its 4,400+ students in health-related programs, and a 70% local graduate retention rate are powerful assets—but only if the curriculum aligns with rapidly evolving industry needs and AI advances.

Education doesn’t just produce skilled workers—it produces engaged citizens who understand how they can contribute to the region’s growth, innovation, and quality of life. That’s how education becomes not just a pipeline, but the heartbeat of a resilient, sustainable ecosystem.

The Opportunity for the Borderplex

Innovation in the El Paso–Borderplex region thrives when the four lenses of innovation—technology, policy, execution, and education—converge.

When these lenses align, they create a focused multiplier effect—turning potential into measurable impact, and local assets into global advantages.

The region already holds the building blocks: cutting-edge research at UTEP and the Medical Center of the Americas, advanced manufacturing capabilities in Juárez, integrated logistics infrastructure, and a skilled bilingual workforce.

Technology is the spark—emerging from research labs, startups, and clinical innovators—and the Borderplex has the capacity to validate these breakthroughs quickly through FDA-compliant manufacturing, clinical trials, and alternative testing models.

Policy is the enabler. Forward-thinking legislation, targeted incentives, and cross-border trade agreements can open capital channels, accelerate regulatory approval, and expand investor participation.

Execution is where vision becomes reality—empowering people and institutions to maximize their potential. Education is the long-term engine, preparing the next generation with the skills to adapt and lead in advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, and emerging health technologies.

The interplay between regional health science centers, local tech companies, government agencies, and public-private partnerships offers a rare opportunity to create a fully integrated innovation pipeline—from concept to commercialization—right here in the Borderplex.

Fear and uncertainty can be reframed as catalysts, focusing attention, driving collaboration, and prompting decisive action.

The world is watching. This is your moment to connect technology, policy, execution, and education with purpose and urgency—to deliver safer therapies, build resilient industries, and create lasting prosperity.

“Let’s make the Borderplex the beacon in the desert: a place where vision meets execution, policy fuels progress, education builds capacity, and technology transforms lives.”

That is how you make a difference, how you innovate, how you change the world.

Thank you.