From 85% Failure Rates to Saving Lives: Intelligencia AI’s Mission-Driven GTM

From 85% Failure Rates to Saving Lives: Intelligencia AI’s Mission-Driven GTM

Every ten years on average, a new drug makes it from clinical trials to patients. Billions of dollars spent. A decade of work. And 85-90% of those programs fail completely. The drugs never make it to market. The investment vanishes. Patients who could have been helped continue waiting.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Dimitrios Skaltsas, CEO and Co-Founder of Intelligencia AI, shared something most founders won’t admit: He’s not building this company to get rich.

“Most of us have gone through either directly oriented, some healthcare related event in our lives, I have, and many people. But we are fighting, if you will, for better outcomes for patients out there. And that would be my vision three to five years from now,” Dimitrios says.

Here’s how mission actually drives go-to-market strategy—not as a tagline, but as a strategic advantage.

The Problem: When Science Is Suboptimal

The pharmaceutical industry has a paradox Dimitrios can’t stop talking about.

“The way the industry has been historically, traditionally approaching that risk is quite suboptimal, which is shocking because it’s an industry where science is very sophisticated and people are very sophisticated,” he explains.

The industry that develops life-saving drugs using cutting-edge science makes decisions about which drugs to develop using benchmarks and expert opinions. “You have this paradox where science is trade season making. Science is suboptimal, it’s not evolved enough.”

The cost isn’t just financial. “There are fantastic life saving therapies in the market. At some point we’re safe, and people often don’t realize this, but some of the major blockbuster trucks, at some point someone had deprioritized them.”

Life-saving drugs that exist today almost didn’t. And life-saving drugs that could exist are being shelved based on suboptimal decisions.

When Mission Becomes Competitive Advantage

For Intelligencia AI, mission solves a go-to-market problem that purely commercial approaches can’t. When selling to pharmaceutical companies making billion-dollar decisions, you’re not just selling software—you’re selling a different way of thinking about risk.

“We help people make better decisions, how qualified, track, how to understand the risk associated with track development, ultimately make better decision,” Dimitrios says.

Mission alignment creates three strategic advantages: It attracts talent who care (the chief of data science slept on Dimitrios’s sofa because the problem mattered). It shapes product priorities toward depth over breadth. It filters customer conversations toward outcomes rather than just features.

The ROI on R&D Paradox

Here’s the business case wrapped inside the mission: Drug development R&D has hit historic lows on return on investment.

“My vision is track development, landscape gets more effective, more productive. It has been on historical low when it comes to IRR on R and D, it’s historical low. It’s not sustainable,” Dimitrios explains.

This creates a rare alignment: What’s good for patients (better drugs reaching market faster) is also good for pharmaceutical companies (higher ROI on R&D investment) which is good for Intelligencia AI (a massive addressable market with urgent need).

The mission isn’t at odds with business success—it’s the path to it. “If you can understand it better, then you can actually mitigate it better. And that means you can bring therapies faster to market, you can make better decisions on accelerating, as well as potentially accelerating for things and spending your funds more mindfully.”

How Mission Shapes GTM Decisions

When Dimitrios talks about the future, he doesn’t lead with metrics. He leads with impact.

The company started in oncology—cancer therapies. Not because it’s the easiest market, but because it matters. Now expanding: “I would love to have full coverage. I started in narrow start with oncology, cancer therapies. And we have been expanding immunology, inflammation, neurology and so forth.”

Geographic expansion follows the same logic. “I would love to expand also in Asia, where increasingly there’s very interesting activity, especially in China, but also Japan and South Korea.”

This isn’t scatter-shot growth. It’s systematic coverage of areas where better decisions could have maximum patient impact. Even the business model reflects mission—they’ve reached cash flow positive, meaning independence from continuous fundraising.

The Gold Standard Vision

Where most founders talk about unicorns or market domination, Dimitrios has a different frame.

“The way I see, benefit a lot by being recognized as the gold starter in our space. Again, we have been pioneering in space. We having the first mover is not easy in many ways. It comes with strong challenges. But I think increasingly gets recognized as, you know, the compass out there.”

Being the “gold standard” isn’t about market share—it’s about trust. It’s about pharmaceutical companies calling you when they have critical decisions, not because you have the best sales team, but because they want your insight.

That’s a different GTM strategy than “sign the most customers.” It’s depth of impact over breadth of adoption.

Why This Matters for B2B Founders

The temptation is to treat mission as window dressing. Put it on the website, mention it in pitch decks, but keep it separate from “real” business decisions.

Dimitrios’s approach shows why that’s a mistake—especially in industries where buyers are sophisticated and values-driven.

“There are easier ways to make a living,” he admits. “You don’t sweat over building a company. I’m really for this. I know it’s often a commonplace saying, you know, it’s a vision driven company, an impact driven company. There’s a lot of truth behind that.”

When mission is genuine and aligned with market needs, it becomes strategy: It attracts talent that believes. It shapes products toward depth. It creates conversations about outcomes. It builds recognition as the trusted expert. It provides resilience during hard times.

The Long Game

Dimitrios’s vision isn’t about valuation or exit strategy. It’s about systematic expansion toward a specific goal: “I would love to be broadly recognized as game changer. As this reference point. The goals are in the space.”

Business success is expected, even assumed. But it’s not the driving force. The driving force is changing an industry’s approach to one of its biggest problems.

For B2B founders, the lesson isn’t “be mission-driven” in some vague way. It’s this: When your mission genuinely solves a problem your market cares about deeply, it becomes your most powerful GTM advantage. Not because it makes for good marketing. Because it shapes every decision in ways that commercial-only thinking can’t.