Photo: Courtesy of Shalabh Gupta
Overview
Unicycive Therapeutics CEO Shalabh Gupta shares how to learn the leadership mindset that will keep teams aligned, keep you steady under pressure, and help you turn setbacks into momentum.
Founders entering biotech often brace for scientific uncertainty, regulatory complexity, and the daily grind of limited capital. What they may not fully brace for, however, is the weight of leadership. According to Shalabh Gupta, founder and CEO of Unicycive Therapeutics, leadership is the force that determines whether a company learns to navigate chaos or collapses under it.
Gupta took Unicycive public while he was its only employee. Before that, he trained as a physician, worked on Wall Street, and in corporate strategy in biotech. Those experiences taught him a pattern that appears in every early-stage company. The problems feel endless. Priorities multiply. Pressure comes from investors, regulators, and the unknowns you didn’t know to anticipate. What keeps a company moving isn’t brilliance on the bench. It’s leadership that clears the way for people to trust one another and move as a unit when the pressure spikes.
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Set the Top Three Priorities
Gupta says leadership begins long before they have a team to lead. If you’re setting the direction for a company, even a company of one, you’re already setting the tone. You’re deciding which tasks matter, how you’ll react to setbacks, and whether you’ll build an environment that people want to stay in once they join you.
That environment grows out of clarity, which doesn't always come naturally. Gupta says every founder can fall into the trap of endless to-do lists and priorities. Nothing ever feeling finished. The real change for him, however, came when he learned to strip everything back and focus on the top three priorities that mattered. He shared them with every team, and the message was simple. If your work doesn’t support these, it moves. That kind of leadership let Unicycive adjust to challenges quickly.
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Show That Setbacks Are Survivable
But there's another leadership skill that may be even more important: vulnerability. Gupta argues that leaders have to show, not tell, that mistakes are survivable. They have to own setbacks quickly and publicly. When the FDA unexpectedly demanded another trial for Unicycive, the team had hours to disclose the news and regroup. Instead of spiraling, they recalibrated, hired fast, and delivered data stronger than they had expected. That turnaround only happened because people felt safe enough to react with problem-solving rather than self-protection.
He tells founders to expect the pressure to grow as the company grows. The antidote isn’t bravado. It’s purpose, mentors who’ve been through similar storms, and a trusted expert who can give unfiltered feedback. And as the organization scales, the real sign of leadership is learning to disappear. When teams know how to think, act, and decide without the CEO in the room, the company finally has room to grow.
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