Edition #14: Joshua Glass
Welcome back to Coffee Connect!
With the end of term approaching and summer just around the corner, it’s a good time to reflect on where our degrees might take us. While many of us have a particular career path in mind, the journey from university to the workplace is rarely straightforward. But what happens when the skills we develop in one field open doors to another?
In this edition, we sat down with Joshua Glass, who went from completing a PhD in immunology to healthcare consulting at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and now leads Sydney medtech startup Kunovus as CEO. We explored what inspired these transitions, how his scientific background shaped his approach to consulting, and what advice he has for students looking to build careers beyond their chosen fields.
Taking Things Apart
For Joshua, the journey began with a childhood curiosity for taking things apart and putting them back together. Even at university, he suspected he would eventually pursue a commercial career. Rather than leave science, however, he decided to learn as much as he could first.
He worked in microbiology and drug development at UNSW, the Children’s Cancer Institute and the Garvan Institute, before turning to vaccines. He wanted to understand the entire journey, from identifying a medical need to developing a treatment that reaches patients.
That led him to the University of Melbourne, where he joined the newly opened Doherty Institute as an early PhD student, with Nobel laureate Professor Peter Doherty chairing his PhD committee.
“There was not one defining personal moment. It was more a combination of intellectual curiosity and a deliberate effort to round out my scientific experience.”
Learning to Translate
While Joshua's PhD deepened his scientific expertise, it also helped him develop a skill that would prove invaluable in consulting: communication.
His research was complex, exploring how nanomaterials interact with the immune system, bridging two specialised fields. Thus, explaining his work to people outside either discipline forced him to find simple language for complicated ideas. He became “quite obsessed” with metaphors, models and illustrations that made the science accessible.
When Joshua eventually moved into consulting at BCG, that instinct became one of his most valuable skills.
“Storytelling is one of the most underrated capabilities of an effective management consultant.”
For Joshua, consulting is not just about breaking problems into hypotheses. It is equally about turning detailed analysis into a narrative someone can act on, whether answering a CEO’s question or building one compelling slide.
Consulting Meets the Clinic
Beyond sharpening his communication skills, consulting allowed Joshua to apply his scientific knowledge to the commercial challenges facing healthcare.
Working at BCG on projects across Australia, New Zealand, Italy and Switzerland, he noticed two common misconceptions: that change in healthcare is straightforward, and that the patient and the payer are always the same person.
A patient may benefit from a treatment, but a government, insurer or hospital might ultimately decide whether it is funded. That distinction shapes everything from pricing to adoption.
“If you misunderstand the payer, you can misunderstand the entire commercial model.”
Unlike a typical product launch, healthcare innovations may require years of clinical evidence, regulatory approval and reimbursement planning before reaching patients.
One of Joshua's consulting projects illustrated this challenge. A pharmaceutical company had repeatedly failed to secure government subsidy for a drug under Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). Rather than accepting that reimbursement was impossible, Joshua's team developed a new pricing model to determine what the government might be willing to pay.
The company resubmitted at the revised price and secured approval, meaning the drug is now subsidised for patients in Australia.
The experience reinforced an important lesson, where repeated rejection does not necessarily mean an opportunity is unviable. Sometimes, the underlying assumptions simply need to be reconsidered.
Back to the Bedside
Having spent years advising healthcare organisations on these challenges, Joshua now faces them firsthand as CEO of Kunovus, a medtech company developing implantable devices for degenerative disc disease.
The role brings him back to his original bench-to-bedside ambition: getting technology into clinical practice. Kunovus aims to offer an alternative to spinal fusion, which provides stability but restricts movement at the treated spinal segment.
Yet, as Joshua learnt through consulting, developing an innovative treatment is only part of the challenge. Getting it adopted is another matter entirely.
“Surgeons are remarkably innovative individuals. However, healthcare appropriately sets a very high bar for changing established practice.”
A new device needs compelling safety and effectiveness evidence, a feasible regulatory pathway and a case for hospitals and payers to fund it. Investors must back the journey, surgeons must help generate clinical evidence, and regulators and healthcare systems must be satisfied.
The same questions Joshua once helped clients navigate at BCG now shape his decisions as a CEO.
You Don’t Need a Lab Coat
While Joshua's scientific background has been central to his career, he is quick to emphasise that it is not a prerequisite for working in healthcare.
One of his consulting teams included a former AFL captain, an engineer and an economics graduate. Their different perspectives helped challenge assumptions that others might overlook.
For commerce students interested in the sector, Joshua sees consulting, particularly within a strong healthcare practice, as an accessible entry point.
“It gives you a rapid education in how different parts of the system fit together: providers, payers, regulators, pharmaceutical companies, medtech and investors.”
Investing offers another pathway, though opportunities are fewer and often easier to access after building advisory or operating experience.
Closing Thoughts
Ultimately, Joshua's career is less a move away from science than a series of connected steps. Research taught him to understand complex technologies, his PhD taught him to explain them, and consulting taught him how they are funded and adopted. At Kunovus, he draws on all three.
For students wondering whether they chose the right degree, his story offers a useful reminder: the boxes you tick at 18 do not have to define your career. Stay curious, learn to tell the story, and recognise that the skills you build today may open doors you never expected.
This article was written by Tharuka Thantirige and edited by Siddharth Ramachandran. All experiences and opinions are their own unless otherwise specified and do not represent the views of the UNSW Consulting Club or its affiliated organisations and sponsors.
