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REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAIN Venture funding for US-based biopharma companies in 1Q 2021 topped the charts above $12B for the first time ever according to Pitchbook; amazingly, we’ve had 4 straight chart-topping quarters in a row. IPOs raised over $5B, making it one of the strongest quarters ever (#2 behind 3Q 2020). And public follow-on financings topped $11B, againone
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative WHERE DOES ALL THAT BIOTECH VENTURE CAPITAL GO Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have SEVEN HABITS OF CELGENE’S HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY Seven Habits of Celgene’s Highly Successful Strategy. Over the past seven years, Celgene has emerged as one of the most active and creative deal-makers in the biopharma industry. The Boston Consulting Group’s Biopharma Partnering Survey and Benchmarking analysis examines BD activity and perceptions across the industry, and their2014
RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAIN Venture funding for US-based biopharma companies in 1Q 2021 topped the charts above $12B for the first time ever according to Pitchbook; amazingly, we’ve had 4 straight chart-topping quarters in a row. IPOs raised over $5B, making it one of the strongest quarters ever (#2 behind 3Q 2020). And public follow-on financings topped $11B, againone
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative WHERE DOES ALL THAT BIOTECH VENTURE CAPITAL GO Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have SEVEN HABITS OF CELGENE’S HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY Seven Habits of Celgene’s Highly Successful Strategy. Over the past seven years, Celgene has emerged as one of the most active and creative deal-makers in the biopharma industry. The Boston Consulting Group’s Biopharma Partnering Survey and Benchmarking analysis examines BD activity and perceptions across the industry, and their2014
RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAIN Venture funding for US-based biopharma companies in 1Q 2021 topped the charts above $12B for the first time ever according to Pitchbook; amazingly, we’ve had 4 straight chart-topping quarters in a row. IPOs raised over $5B, making it one of the strongest quarters ever (#2 behind 3Q 2020). And public follow-on financings topped $11B, againone
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM By Philip Astley-Sparke, CEO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. One of the biggest elephants in the room regarding starting and scaling young companies is the tension, often healthy but sometimes detrimental, that exist between CEOs and venture capital firms. THE RECORD-BREAKING BIOTECH FUNDING TSUNAMI OF 1H2020 According to data from BMO Capital Markets, in aggregate, we’ve seen over $17.6B in equity funding in 2Q2020 into biopharma across both IPOs and follow-on’s (excluding offerings from Regeneron and Royalty Pharma). The biotech IPO fundraising level, in terms of capital raised, is the largest ever witnessed in a quarter, and the follow-on BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
LITTLE BY LITTLE: REAL LIFE LESSONS IN BUSINESS Little by Little: Real Life Lessons In Business Development. Posted April 16th, 2018 by Tariq Kassum, in Business Development, From The Trenches. This blog was written by Tariq Kassum, COO and Head of Corporate Development at Obsidian Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Experience can be a tough teacher. SEVEN HABITS OF CELGENE’S HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY Over the past seven years, Celgene has emerged as one of the most active and creative deal-makers in the biopharma industry. The Boston Consulting Group’s Biopharma Partnering Survey and Benchmarking analysis examines BD activity and perceptions across the industry, and their 2014 analysis was very telling. Celgene scored as the best partner on 78% of the partnering and culture metrics (7/9 OUR EXPERIENCE WITH FIRST-TIME BIOTECH CEOS: FIVE Of the 34 biotech companies, a whopping 82% had first-time CEOs. Further, only 26% of our CEOs had worked for prior Atlas companies; the vast majority were, by that definition, “new” relationships in the Atlas portfolio. Many of these were new introductions to our firm, often through referrals or via executive search processes. HIGH-PERFORMING BOARDS IN EARLY STAGE BIOTECH High-Performing Boards in Early Stage Biotech. Posted March 3rd, 2012 in Biotech startup advice, General Venture Capital. Having a highly functional and productive Board of Directors is a key ingredient for success for most companies, but its of particular importance for early stage startups. The web is full of advice around what are the BIOTECH CEO PAY: INFLATION HELD AT BAY Biotech CEO Pay: Inflation Held At Bay. The private biotech sector is awash in capital today: funding over the last few quarters has been record-breaking, up over 250% since 2013, as biotech CEOs have worked hard to strengthen their companies’ balance sheets. But in the process of filling up their corporate coffers, have they also filledup
LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAIN Venture funding for US-based biopharma companies in 1Q 2021 topped the charts above $12B for the first time ever according to Pitchbook; amazingly, we’ve had 4 straight chart-topping quarters in a row. IPOs raised over $5B, making it one of the strongest quarters ever (#2 behind 3Q 2020). And public follow-on financings topped $11B, againone
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative BIOTECH VENTURE DEAL TERMS ARE MORE "STARTUP-FRIENDLY Biotech Venture Deal Terms Are More “Startup-Friendly” Than Ever. Posted September 10th, 2018 in Biotech financing, Fundraising. Biotech is booming, with eye-popping new financings seemingly announced daily. The sector is having an epic year for startup fundraising, breaking records for what will end up as the most active private biotech WHERE DOES ALL THAT BIOTECH VENTURE CAPITAL GO Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAIN Venture funding for US-based biopharma companies in 1Q 2021 topped the charts above $12B for the first time ever according to Pitchbook; amazingly, we’ve had 4 straight chart-topping quarters in a row. IPOs raised over $5B, making it one of the strongest quarters ever (#2 behind 3Q 2020). And public follow-on financings topped $11B, againone
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative BIOTECH VENTURE DEAL TERMS ARE MORE "STARTUP-FRIENDLY Biotech Venture Deal Terms Are More “Startup-Friendly” Than Ever. Posted September 10th, 2018 in Biotech financing, Fundraising. Biotech is booming, with eye-popping new financings seemingly announced daily. The sector is having an epic year for startup fundraising, breaking records for what will end up as the most active private biotech WHERE DOES ALL THAT BIOTECH VENTURE CAPITAL GO Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAIN Venture funding for US-based biopharma companies in 1Q 2021 topped the charts above $12B for the first time ever according to Pitchbook; amazingly, we’ve had 4 straight chart-topping quarters in a row. IPOs raised over $5B, making it one of the strongest quarters ever (#2 behind 3Q 2020). And public follow-on financings topped $11B, againone
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
THE RECORD-BREAKING BIOTECH FUNDING TSUNAMI OF 1H2020 According to data from BMO Capital Markets, in aggregate, we’ve seen over $17.6B in equity funding in 2Q2020 into biopharma across both IPOs and follow-on’s (excluding offerings from Regeneron and Royalty Pharma). The biotech IPO fundraising level, in terms of capital raised, is the largest ever witnessed in a quarter, and the follow-on THE BIOTECH PARADOX OF 2020: A YEAR IN REVIEW According to preliminary data from Pitchbook, over $26B of venture funding went into US-based biotech firms in 2020, with several quarters topping the charts for record-breaking funding ( the “tsunami” in the first half continued into the second half of the year). 2018 was the prior high, and only hit $19B. This impliesUS-based private
BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
LITTLE BY LITTLE: REAL LIFE LESSONS IN BUSINESS Little by Little: Real Life Lessons In Business Development. Posted April 16th, 2018 by Tariq Kassum, in Business Development, From The Trenches. This blog was written by Tariq Kassum, COO and Head of Corporate Development at Obsidian Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Experience can be a tough teacher. OUR EXPERIENCE WITH FIRST-TIME BIOTECH CEOS: FIVE Of the 34 biotech companies, a whopping 82% had first-time CEOs. Further, only 26% of our CEOs had worked for prior Atlas companies; the vast majority were, by that definition, “new” relationships in the Atlas portfolio. Many of these were new introductions to our firm, often through referrals or via executive search processes. SEVEN HABITS OF CELGENE’S HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY Over the past seven years, Celgene has emerged as one of the most active and creative deal-makers in the biopharma industry. The Boston Consulting Group’s Biopharma Partnering Survey and Benchmarking analysis examines BD activity and perceptions across the industry, and their 2014 analysis was very telling. Celgene scored as the best partner on 78% of the partnering and culture metrics (7/9 HIGH-PERFORMING BOARDS IN EARLY STAGE BIOTECH High-Performing Boards in Early Stage Biotech. Posted March 3rd, 2012 in Biotech startup advice, General Venture Capital. Having a highly functional and productive Board of Directors is a key ingredient for success for most companies, but its of particular importance for early stage startups. The web is full of advice around what are the BIOTECH CEO PAY: INFLATION HELD AT BAY Biotech CEO Pay: Inflation Held At Bay. The private biotech sector is awash in capital today: funding over the last few quarters has been record-breaking, up over 250% since 2013, as biotech CEOs have worked hard to strengthen their companies’ balance sheets. But in the process of filling up their corporate coffers, have they also filledup
LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. ABOUT ME | LIFESCIVCLIFESCIVC About Bruce Booth. I’m an early stage venture capitalist. Like my partners at Atlas Venture, I enjoy working with great scientists and entrepreneurs to start new biotech companies. In short, we focus on seed-led venture creation around the discovery and development of novel therapeutics. Since joining Atlas in 2005, I’ve been involvedin
THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAIN Venture funding for US-based biopharma companies in 1Q 2021 topped the charts above $12B for the first time ever according to Pitchbook; amazingly, we’ve had 4 straight chart-topping quarters in a row. IPOs raised over $5B, making it one of the strongest quarters ever (#2 behind 3Q 2020). And public follow-on financings topped $11B, againone
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM By Philip Astley-Sparke, CEO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. One of the biggest elephants in the room regarding starting and scaling young companies is the tension, often healthy but sometimes detrimental, that exist between CEOs and venture capital firms. SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
PERSONAL REFLECTION: EMPATHY IN THE WORKPLACE Personal Reflection: Empathy In The Workplace. Just before I chaired a Board meeting last year, I spent a frustratingly painful hour going through many of the uncomfortable details of my divorce process and a set of emotional custody issues with my lawyers. Immediately after hanging up, with only minutes of transition, I put on my best poker NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. ABOUT ME | LIFESCIVCLIFESCIVC About Bruce Booth. I’m an early stage venture capitalist. Like my partners at Atlas Venture, I enjoy working with great scientists and entrepreneurs to start new biotech companies. In short, we focus on seed-led venture creation around the discovery and development of novel therapeutics. Since joining Atlas in 2005, I’ve been involvedin
THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAIN Venture funding for US-based biopharma companies in 1Q 2021 topped the charts above $12B for the first time ever according to Pitchbook; amazingly, we’ve had 4 straight chart-topping quarters in a row. IPOs raised over $5B, making it one of the strongest quarters ever (#2 behind 3Q 2020). And public follow-on financings topped $11B, againone
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM By Philip Astley-Sparke, CEO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. One of the biggest elephants in the room regarding starting and scaling young companies is the tension, often healthy but sometimes detrimental, that exist between CEOs and venture capital firms. SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
PERSONAL REFLECTION: EMPATHY IN THE WORKPLACE Personal Reflection: Empathy In The Workplace. Just before I chaired a Board meeting last year, I spent a frustratingly painful hour going through many of the uncomfortable details of my divorce process and a set of emotional custody issues with my lawyers. Immediately after hanging up, with only minutes of transition, I put on my best poker NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative ABOUT ME | LIFESCIVCLIFESCIVC About Bruce Booth. I’m an early stage venture capitalist. Like my partners at Atlas Venture, I enjoy working with great scientists and entrepreneurs to start new biotech companies. In short, we focus on seed-led venture creation around the discovery and development ofnovel therapeutics.
FIVE MACRO RISKS TO BIOTECH COMING OUT OF WASHINGTON Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE RECORD-BREAKING BIOTECH FUNDING TSUNAMI OF 1H2020 According to data from BMO Capital Markets, in aggregate, we’ve seen over $17.6B in equity funding in 2Q2020 into biopharma across both IPOs and follow-on’s (excluding offerings from Regeneron and Royalty Pharma). The biotech IPO fundraising level, in terms of capital raised, is the largest ever witnessed in a quarter, and the follow-on BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
LITTLE BY LITTLE: REAL LIFE LESSONS IN BUSINESS Little by Little: Real Life Lessons In Business Development. Posted April 16th, 2018 by Tariq Kassum, in Business Development, From The Trenches. This blog was written by Tariq Kassum, COO and Head of Corporate Development at Obsidian Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Experience can be a tough teacher. WHERE DOES ALL THAT BIOTECH VENTURE CAPITAL GO Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have SEVEN HABITS OF CELGENE’S HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY Seven Habits of Celgene’s Highly Successful Strategy. Over the past seven years, Celgene has emerged as one of the most active and creative deal-makers in the biopharma industry. The Boston Consulting Group’s Biopharma Partnering Survey and Benchmarking analysis examines BD activity and perceptions across the industry, and their2014
TALENT ACQUISITION: PHARMA IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF BIOTECH Talent Acquisition: Pharma Is The Lifeblood Of Biotech. Startup Biotechs need bigger drug companies for lots of things, including R&D collaborations, investments, non-dilutive funding, and eventual liquidity via M&A. The health of today’s ecosystem depends on biotech and pharma working together. But one of the most important andoften
BIOTECH CEO PAY: INFLATION HELD AT BAY Biotech CEO Pay: Inflation Held At Bay. The private biotech sector is awash in capital today: funding over the last few quarters has been record-breaking, up over 250% since 2013, as biotech CEOs have worked hard to strengthen their companies’ balance sheets. But in the process of filling up their corporate coffers, have they also filledup
RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
WHERE DOES ALL THAT BIOTECH VENTURE CAPITAL GO Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have BIOTECH VENTURE DEAL TERMS ARE MORE "STARTUP-FRIENDLY Biotech Venture Deal Terms Are More “Startup-Friendly” Than Ever. Posted September 10th, 2018 in Biotech financing, Fundraising. Biotech is booming, with eye-popping new financings seemingly announced daily. The sector is having an epic year for startup fundraising, breaking records for what will end up as the most active private biotech NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New SEVEN HABITS OF CELGENE’S HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY Seven Habits of Celgene’s Highly Successful Strategy. Over the past seven years, Celgene has emerged as one of the most active and creative deal-makers in the biopharma industry. The Boston Consulting Group’s Biopharma Partnering Survey and Benchmarking analysis examines BD activity and perceptions across the industry, and their2014
LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
WHERE DOES ALL THAT BIOTECH VENTURE CAPITAL GO Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have BIOTECH VENTURE DEAL TERMS ARE MORE "STARTUP-FRIENDLY Biotech Venture Deal Terms Are More “Startup-Friendly” Than Ever. Posted September 10th, 2018 in Biotech financing, Fundraising. Biotech is booming, with eye-popping new financings seemingly announced daily. The sector is having an epic year for startup fundraising, breaking records for what will end up as the most active private biotech NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New SEVEN HABITS OF CELGENE’S HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY Seven Habits of Celgene’s Highly Successful Strategy. Over the past seven years, Celgene has emerged as one of the most active and creative deal-makers in the biopharma industry. The Boston Consulting Group’s Biopharma Partnering Survey and Benchmarking analysis examines BD activity and perceptions across the industry, and their2014
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAIN Venture funding for US-based biopharma companies in 1Q 2021 topped the charts above $12B for the first time ever according to Pitchbook; amazingly, we’ve had 4 straight chart-topping quarters in a row. IPOs raised over $5B, making it one of the strongest quarters ever (#2 behind 3Q 2020). And public follow-on financings topped $11B, againone
THE RECORD-BREAKING BIOTECH FUNDING TSUNAMI OF 1H2020 According to data from BMO Capital Markets, in aggregate, we’ve seen over $17.6B in equity funding in 2Q2020 into biopharma across both IPOs and follow-on’s (excluding offerings from Regeneron and Royalty Pharma). The biotech IPO fundraising level, in terms of capital raised, is the largest ever witnessed in a quarter, and the follow-on THE BIOTECH PARADOX OF 2020: A YEAR IN REVIEW According to preliminary data from Pitchbook, over $26B of venture funding went into US-based biotech firms in 2020, with several quarters topping the charts for record-breaking funding ( the “tsunami” in the first half continued into the second half of the year). 2018 was the prior high, and only hit $19B. This impliesUS-based private
PERSONAL REFLECTION: EMPATHY IN THE WORKPLACE Personal Reflection: Empathy In The Workplace. Just before I chaired a Board meeting last year, I spent a frustratingly painful hour going through many of the uncomfortable details of my divorce process and a set of emotional custody issues with my lawyers. Immediately after hanging up, with only minutes of transition, I put on my best poker SEVEN HABITS OF CELGENE’S HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY Over the past seven years, Celgene has emerged as one of the most active and creative deal-makers in the biopharma industry. The Boston Consulting Group’s Biopharma Partnering Survey and Benchmarking analysis examines BD activity and perceptions across the industry, and their 2014 analysis was very telling. Celgene scored as the best partner on 78% of the partnering and culture metrics (7/9 OUR EXPERIENCE WITH FIRST-TIME BIOTECH CEOS: FIVE Of the 34 biotech companies, a whopping 82% had first-time CEOs. Further, only 26% of our CEOs had worked for prior Atlas companies; the vast majority were, by that definition, “new” relationships in the Atlas portfolio. Many of these were new introductions to our firm, often through referrals or via executive search processes. BIO COMES TO PHILADELPHIA, BIRTHPLACE OF U.S. INNOVATION BIO Comes To Philadelphia, Birthplace Of U.S. Innovation. This blog was written by Jeff Hatfield, CEO of Pennsylvania-based Vitae Pharmaceuticals, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. Next week, BIO returns to Philadelphia for its massive annual convention, bringing together from around the world more than15,000 attendees.
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? BIG PHARMA EXECS TAKING THE You may have noticed that more and more seasoned pharma executives are making the move from big pharma or big biotech to lead small biotech companies. Jeff Jonas at Sage Therapeutics and Don Nicholson at Nimbus Discovery are great examples. The topic was covered a few months ago by LifeSciVC ( here) in relation to the importance of the big HIGH-PERFORMING BOARDS IN EARLY STAGE BIOTECH High-Performing Boards in Early Stage Biotech. Posted March 3rd, 2012 in Biotech startup advice, General Venture Capital. Having a highly functional and productive Board of Directors is a key ingredient for success for most companies, but its of particular importance for early stage startups. The web is full of advice around what are the RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
THE RECORD-BREAKING BIOTECH FUNDING TSUNAMI OF 1H2020 According to data from BMO Capital Markets, in aggregate, we’ve seen over $17.6B in equity funding in 2Q2020 into biopharma across both IPOs and follow-on’s (excluding offerings from Regeneron and Royalty Pharma). The biotech IPO fundraising level, in terms of capital raised, is the largest ever witnessed in a quarter, and the follow-on THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM The Elephant in the Room. By Philip Astley-Sparke, CEO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. One of the biggest elephants in the room regarding starting and scaling young companies is the tension, often healthy but sometimes detrimental, that exist between CEOs and venture capital firms. NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
BIO COMES TO PHILADELPHIA, BIRTHPLACE OF U.S. INNOVATION BIO Comes To Philadelphia, Birthplace Of U.S. Innovation. This blog was written by Jeff Hatfield, CEO of Pennsylvania-based Vitae Pharmaceuticals, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. Next week, BIO returns to Philadelphia for its massive annual convention, bringing together from around the world more than15,000 attendees.
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? BIG PHARMA EXECS TAKING THE You may have noticed that more and more seasoned pharma executives are making the move from big pharma or big biotech to lead small biotech companies. Jeff Jonas at Sage Therapeutics and Don Nicholson at Nimbus Discovery are great examples. The topic was covered a few months ago by LifeSciVC ( here) in relation to the importance of the big BIOTECH CEO PAY: INFLATION HELD AT BAY Biotech CEO Pay: Inflation Held At Bay. The private biotech sector is awash in capital today: funding over the last few quarters has been record-breaking, up over 250% since 2013, as biotech CEOs have worked hard to strengthen their companies’ balance sheets. But in the process of filling up their corporate coffers, have they also filledup
RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
THE RECORD-BREAKING BIOTECH FUNDING TSUNAMI OF 1H2020 According to data from BMO Capital Markets, in aggregate, we’ve seen over $17.6B in equity funding in 2Q2020 into biopharma across both IPOs and follow-on’s (excluding offerings from Regeneron and Royalty Pharma). The biotech IPO fundraising level, in terms of capital raised, is the largest ever witnessed in a quarter, and the follow-on THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM The Elephant in the Room. By Philip Astley-Sparke, CEO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. One of the biggest elephants in the room regarding starting and scaling young companies is the tension, often healthy but sometimes detrimental, that exist between CEOs and venture capital firms. NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
BIO COMES TO PHILADELPHIA, BIRTHPLACE OF U.S. INNOVATION BIO Comes To Philadelphia, Birthplace Of U.S. Innovation. This blog was written by Jeff Hatfield, CEO of Pennsylvania-based Vitae Pharmaceuticals, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. Next week, BIO returns to Philadelphia for its massive annual convention, bringing together from around the world more than15,000 attendees.
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? BIG PHARMA EXECS TAKING THE You may have noticed that more and more seasoned pharma executives are making the move from big pharma or big biotech to lead small biotech companies. Jeff Jonas at Sage Therapeutics and Don Nicholson at Nimbus Discovery are great examples. The topic was covered a few months ago by LifeSciVC ( here) in relation to the importance of the big BIOTECH CEO PAY: INFLATION HELD AT BAY Biotech CEO Pay: Inflation Held At Bay. The private biotech sector is awash in capital today: funding over the last few quarters has been record-breaking, up over 250% since 2013, as biotech CEOs have worked hard to strengthen their companies’ balance sheets. But in the process of filling up their corporate coffers, have they also filledup
RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM The Elephant in the Room. By Philip Astley-Sparke, CEO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. One of the biggest elephants in the room regarding starting and scaling young companies is the tension, often healthy but sometimes detrimental, that exist between CEOs and venture capital firms. BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
BUILDING A BIOTECH: MAGENTA STARTS CHAPTER 2 WITH A TRIPLE Building A Biotech: Magenta Starts Chapter 2 With A Triple Play. This blog was written by Jason Gardner, CEO of Magenta Therapeutics and former EIR at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. We are excited to open the first page of Chapter 2 at Magenta today. Since our public launch in November 2016, we have been BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative TALENT ACQUISITION: PHARMA IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF BIOTECH Talent Acquisition: Pharma Is The Lifeblood Of Biotech. Startup Biotechs need bigger drug companies for lots of things, including R&D collaborations, investments, non-dilutive funding, and eventual liquidity via M&A. The health of today’s ecosystem depends on biotech and pharma working together. But one of the most important andoften
WHERE DOES ALL THAT BIOTECH VENTURE CAPITAL GO Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have OUR EXPERIENCE WITH FIRST-TIME BIOTECH CEOS: FIVE Of the 34 biotech companies, a whopping 82% had first-time CEOs. Further, only 26% of our CEOs had worked for prior Atlas companies; the vast majority were, by that definition, “new” relationships in the Atlas portfolio. Many of these were new introductions to our firm, often through referrals or via executive search processes. HIGH-PERFORMING BOARDS IN EARLY STAGE BIOTECH High-Performing Boards in Early Stage Biotech. Posted March 3rd, 2012 in Biotech startup advice, General Venture Capital. Having a highly functional and productive Board of Directors is a key ingredient for success for most companies, but its of particular importance for early stage startups. The web is full of advice around what are the LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
THE RECORD-BREAKING BIOTECH FUNDING TSUNAMI OF 1H20202020 BIOTECHBEST SMALL BIOTECH IN 2020BIOTECH INVESTMENT 2020EMERGING BIOTECH COMPANIES 2020NEW BIOTECH COMPANIES 2020SMALL BIOTECH 2020 According to data from BMO Capital Markets, in aggregate, we’ve seen over $17.6B in equity funding in 2Q2020 into biopharma across both IPOs and follow-on’s (excluding offerings from Regeneron and Royalty Pharma). The biotech IPO fundraising level, in terms of capital raised, is the largest ever witnessed in a quarter, and the follow-on THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM The Elephant in the Room. By Philip Astley-Sparke, CEO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. One of the biggest elephants in the room regarding starting and scaling young companies is the tension, often healthy but sometimes detrimental, that exist between CEOs and venture capital firms. NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
BIO COMES TO PHILADELPHIA, BIRTHPLACE OF U.S. INNOVATION BIO Comes To Philadelphia, Birthplace Of U.S. Innovation. This blog was written by Jeff Hatfield, CEO of Pennsylvania-based Vitae Pharmaceuticals, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. Next week, BIO returns to Philadelphia for its massive annual convention, bringing together from around the world more than15,000 attendees.
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? BIG PHARMA EXECS TAKING THE You may have noticed that more and more seasoned pharma executives are making the move from big pharma or big biotech to lead small biotech companies. Jeff Jonas at Sage Therapeutics and Don Nicholson at Nimbus Discovery are great examples. The topic was covered a few months ago by LifeSciVC ( here) in relation to the importance of the big BIOTECH CEO PAY: INFLATION HELD AT BAY Biotech CEO Pay: Inflation Held At Bay. The private biotech sector is awash in capital today: funding over the last few quarters has been record-breaking, up over 250% since 2013, as biotech CEOs have worked hard to strengthen their companies’ balance sheets. But in the process of filling up their corporate coffers, have they also filledup
RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
LIFESCIVC | BRUCE BOOTH, PARTNER AT ATLAS VENTURE, BLOGSBIOTECH FINANCINGVC-BACKED BIOTECH RETURNSBUSINESS DEVELOPMENTTALENT Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there a number of risks to biotech over the next 1-2 years out of Washington. THE BIOTECH JOB MARKET IS AS HOT AS THE HOUSING MARKET The biotech job market is a bit like the suburban housing market—red hot. It’s a buyer’s market, don’t waive your inspection rights! By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.. It is possibly the tightest biotechlabor
THE RECORD-BREAKING BIOTECH FUNDING TSUNAMI OF 1H20202020 BIOTECHBEST SMALL BIOTECH IN 2020BIOTECH INVESTMENT 2020EMERGING BIOTECH COMPANIES 2020NEW BIOTECH COMPANIES 2020SMALL BIOTECH 2020 According to data from BMO Capital Markets, in aggregate, we’ve seen over $17.6B in equity funding in 2Q2020 into biopharma across both IPOs and follow-on’s (excluding offerings from Regeneron and Royalty Pharma). The biotech IPO fundraising level, in terms of capital raised, is the largest ever witnessed in a quarter, and the follow-on THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM The Elephant in the Room. By Philip Astley-Sparke, CEO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. One of the biggest elephants in the room regarding starting and scaling young companies is the tension, often healthy but sometimes detrimental, that exist between CEOs and venture capital firms. NEW BIOTECH CORPORATE STRUCTURES: POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES Not a biotech conference goes by these days without a discussion about new models for financing or exiting companies, and BioPharm America in Boston this week is no different. I’m on a panel discussing the topic on Wednesday afternoon. New BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
BIO COMES TO PHILADELPHIA, BIRTHPLACE OF U.S. INNOVATION BIO Comes To Philadelphia, Birthplace Of U.S. Innovation. This blog was written by Jeff Hatfield, CEO of Pennsylvania-based Vitae Pharmaceuticals, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. Next week, BIO returns to Philadelphia for its massive annual convention, bringing together from around the world more than15,000 attendees.
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? BIG PHARMA EXECS TAKING THE You may have noticed that more and more seasoned pharma executives are making the move from big pharma or big biotech to lead small biotech companies. Jeff Jonas at Sage Therapeutics and Don Nicholson at Nimbus Discovery are great examples. The topic was covered a few months ago by LifeSciVC ( here) in relation to the importance of the big BIOTECH CEO PAY: INFLATION HELD AT BAY Biotech CEO Pay: Inflation Held At Bay. The private biotech sector is awash in capital today: funding over the last few quarters has been record-breaking, up over 250% since 2013, as biotech CEOs have worked hard to strengthen their companies’ balance sheets. But in the process of filling up their corporate coffers, have they also filledup
RETURN OF THE JEDI: STROMEDIX ACQUIRED BY BIOGEN Return of the Jedi: Stromedix Acquired by Biogen. Biogen just announced its acquisition of Stromedix for up to $562M. Another solid M&A exit in biotech emphasizing how innovation matters. With a very different model than Avila Therapeutics, an exit we announced in January, Stromedix is a biology-focused, asset-centric companydedicated to
SELECTIVE ALLOSTERIC TYK2 INHIBITORS Deucravacitinib is the first truly selective TYK2 inhibitor due to the fact that it targets the allosteric site. Due to improvements in the Nimbus chemical series, our TYK2 allosteric inhibitor extends these margins on JAK1, 2, and 3 even further. Until the BMS paper on deucravacitinib’s Phase 2b results in psoriasis ( NEJM, Sept 2018 ),the
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE POST PANDEMIC In a recent Harvard Business Review report (Figure 2) virtually all respondents felt that workplace wellbeing had declined since the pandemic. This is no surprise, but interestingly, 56% noted that increased job demands were to blame in large part due to a loss of work-life separation. Only 24% of respondents noted feeling of lostconnection
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM The Elephant in the Room. By Philip Astley-Sparke, CEO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. One of the biggest elephants in the room regarding starting and scaling young companies is the tension, often healthy but sometimes detrimental, that exist between CEOs and venture capital firms. BIOTECH SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARDS: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN Cons – The real costs of a poorly used SAB. SABs don’t come for free . Good ones are a lot of work. And they are also costly for a startup in terms of dollars and equity. A typical SAB member may charge $2.5-5K per day and receive 0.1-0.3% equity. Hollywood-star advisors can be much, much more expensive than that on the equityfront.
BUILDING A BIOTECH: MAGENTA STARTS CHAPTER 2 WITH A TRIPLE Building A Biotech: Magenta Starts Chapter 2 With A Triple Play. This blog was written by Jason Gardner, CEO of Magenta Therapeutics and former EIR at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. We are excited to open the first page of Chapter 2 at Magenta today. Since our public launch in November 2016, we have been BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATION Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood.Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an endless bounty of swag. Pisano sums up the harder, harsher reality of truly innovative TALENT ACQUISITION: PHARMA IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF BIOTECH Talent Acquisition: Pharma Is The Lifeblood Of Biotech. Startup Biotechs need bigger drug companies for lots of things, including R&D collaborations, investments, non-dilutive funding, and eventual liquidity via M&A. The health of today’s ecosystem depends on biotech and pharma working together. But one of the most important andoften
WHERE DOES ALL THAT BIOTECH VENTURE CAPITAL GO Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have OUR EXPERIENCE WITH FIRST-TIME BIOTECH CEOS: FIVE Of the 34 biotech companies, a whopping 82% had first-time CEOs. Further, only 26% of our CEOs had worked for prior Atlas companies; the vast majority were, by that definition, “new” relationships in the Atlas portfolio. Many of these were new introductions to our firm, often through referrals or via executive search processes. HIGH-PERFORMING BOARDS IN EARLY STAGE BIOTECH High-Performing Boards in Early Stage Biotech. Posted March 3rd, 2012 in Biotech startup advice, General Venture Capital. Having a highly functional and productive Board of Directors is a key ingredient for success for most companies, but its of particular importance for early stage startups. The web is full of advice around what are the Blog About Me From The Trenches Recovering scientist turned early stage VC A biotech optimist fightinggravity
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BIOTECH’S RELEVANCY CHALLENGE IN AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE Posted June 1st, 2021 in Biotech financing, Capital markets
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While this expansion has been great for financing R&D pipelines, the rapid increase in the number of biotech companies hasn’t been matched with a similar increase in the number of “core” positions in most public investors’ portfolios – leading to a heightened battle for their mindshare and attention. First, let’s review some data. As anticipated with a robust IPO market, the public biotech ecosystem has been rapidly growing in the past decade, as reflected onpreviously here
.
After contracting in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the number of public biopharma companies has nearly tripled since 2012. As of March 2021, there were over 620 biopharma companies listed on the NASDAQ and NYSE, according to BMO CapitalMarkets.
However, the number of biotech-savvy buyside investors hasn’t kept pace with the number of newly public biotech stocks. While anecdotally there’ve been a reasonable number of new funds formed, these haven’t launched at the same pace as new IPOs or the growth of the biotech markets as a whole in recent years. In fact, as explained below, data suggest that many of the bigger and more established public biotech funds have actually grown faster than the overallmarket.
Though metrics of public equity fund formation and activity in biotech are hard to track, there are a few proxy data points that shed some light. Investor positions for any fund with at least $100M in AUM can be tracked by what the SEC calls 13F filings. As background, the number of 13F filings scales with the valuation of companies in a linear way; a newly minted IPO may have 60-120 investors that are required to file 13Fs, which typically grows into 500-800 filers if the company is fortunate enough to get into the $10B market cap range, and Big Pharma’s often have more than 2000 filers. If the pace of fund formation for new investment managers was growing faster than the number of investment opportunities, you’d expect to see the growth rate of the AUM of a stable pool of existing blue chip biotech specialists to trail the growth of the overall biotech market (implying their “market share” was going down as new managers appeared). This hasn’t been the case. Examining the 13F filings of a sample of ten of the most active crossover/biotech specialists (including Baker Brothers, OrbiMed, Perceptive, Red Mile, RA, RTW, Deerfield, Rock Springs, BVF, and EcoR1) across the 7 quarters, from 1Q 2019 and 4Q 2020, reveals an aggregate value increase from $40B to $83B, or a 108% increase. Some of this is by accretive performance of their portfolio positions, some by net inflows into their funds.By
comparison, total biotech financing activity (in dollar terms) for IPOs and public follow-on’s grew 86% over that period (1Q19 vs 4Q20), and the $XBI biotech stock market index increased 76% over that period (3/31/19 to 12/31/20). This delta (108% vs 70-86%) implies that despite the arrival of new managers, many of the bigger and more established managers are increasing, not decreasing, in their aggregate share of the biotech investing/funding market. One of the many limitations of this analysis is it doesn’t capture differences in “where” investors play in the continuum of biotech companies, i.e., buying an IPO is different than buying Alnylam today, and some investors do more of the latter than the former. If anyone has better data on fund formation and activity, please share. That said, I think the analysis is directionally correct around the principle takeaway: THE PACE OF NEW NAMES TO INVEST IN (SUPPLY OF OPPORTUNITIES) HAS INCREASED FASTER THAN THE NUMBER OF POTENTIAL “BIG” HOLDERS OF THOSE NAMES (DEMAND FOR CORE POSITIONS). Fund managers are frequently constrained by the number of true “core” positions they have, due to both mindshare of their team and the need for meaningfully-sized portfolio allocations. Setting aside the huge long-only mutual funds (like Fidelity) that own large swaths of the biotech market, many of the best buyside investors in the biotech investing world only have 20-30 “core” positions, along with a tail of smaller “toe-hold” positions, irrespective of their fund’s assets under management (AUM). Given the illiquidity of many biotech names, these big core positions only typically accrue by participating in marketed or structured biotech financings (e.g., crossover private rounds, IPOs, and Follow-On offerings). Buying these big “core” positions only in the open market would put significant upward pressure on the stock prices for most SMid-cap companies. For an aspiring young biotech to build a successful and supportive investor base for the long-term almost requires becoming a core position with at least a few of the “blue chip” buyside investors. These funds often step-up in every financing with significant anchor orders, and they support the stock on the inevitable volatility dips. As an example, Baker Brothers did this with Synagevaand Seagen
over the past decade, buying into their equity financings as supportive insiders with strong conviction. But the number of core positions “available” in the industry only scales with the number of skilled and size-able investors, since most funds generally don’t have big positions beyond their core 20-30 names. Despite increasing in size (as shown in the data above), most of the top funds haven’t scaled by adding a proportional number of new “core” names. In short, their core portfolios have increased in valuation, rather than in the number of underlying stocks. This is part of what has driven the feed-forward flywheel of crossover and IPO sizes and valuations: larger raises mean larger allocations that are more meaningful for funds, driving up demand for participation in those raises, which increases the valuation and enables ever-larger raises – and so the positive cycle feeds itself. There are two ways for a fund to make room for new “core” positions. They can sell out of a position, believing their capital is better deployed elsewhere (due to either valuation levels or a loss of conviction on the biotech’s prospects). This trading obviously happens, and many observers track the 13F filing changes of the top funds (like this one, tracking EcoR1).
Or, a fund’s core position could be cashed out because of M&A. An acquisition recycles cash back into the fund for redeployment into new names. Over the past year, though, M&A has been rather quiet relative to past bull periods in this 10+ year super-cycle, reducing the relative role of recycling in fund-level portfolio reallocations oflate.
So all these trends highlight the “RELEVANCY CHALLENGE” IN THE BIOTECH EQUITY CAPITAL MARKETS TODAY: in an ever-expanding world of names, where the “supply” of possible core positions is outstripping “demand” for additional core positions, how does a biotech become or maintain relevance to the best long-term investors? The obvious answer is to have an unusually compelling story to tell with great data revealing huge potential for transformative impact on patients. Much easier to say then to truly demonstrate, and “compelling” for an early stage story is often in the eye of thebeholder.
But beyond the obvious, there are a number of things that can beimportant.
For achieving relevance, one way is to become a core position for a set of public investors before an IPO. This is the crossover phenom we’ve talked about in the sector for years, and it’s only increased in its importance over time. By building a diverse and deep investor base as a private company via appropriately-syndicated crossover rounds, you establish yourself as a core holding for a half-a-dozen or more key funds. But it’s a tricky Goldilocks formula: too many participants and the position will be immaterial so you won’t become a core name; too few participants and you won’t have broad-based support in the IPO and after-market. The same Goldilocks situation exists in how an IPO book is allocated. These crossover and IPO allocations should reinforce the “core” positions of the best, “thought-leader” accounts who will be there for the long-term, as those are the funds that other investors will follow (e.g., if Orbimed or Perceptive are big buyers in the deal, others will want to be in the deal). Scarcity creates demand, but only as long as you’ve already ensured your biotech is a core position for some of the key investors. As a young public company trying to achieve relevancy in the SMid-cap markets, there’s a multi-faceted approach that requires Board-level strategic prioritization. This includes detailed investor outreach plans built around the company’s key milestone/data releases, as well as medical and scientific meetings, publication strategies, and investor conferences. The old adage is true in this relevancy-challenged world: always be selling. Not in an over-promotional way (a common mistake in biotech IMO), but in a credible, data-driven, and sophisticated way. You build support for the next financing by earning the respect and support of investors over the long run. In addition to good IR skillsets inside of companies, it’s often very valuable to work closely with IR firms and banks to help drive investor connectivity. Cultivate good relationships with a broad range of sell-side analysts, who can often help communicate a story within the context of a new space (e.g., where Company X sits in the neuroscience landscape). A management team with deeply credible reputation is often sought-after for advice about other topics by investors, further strengthening the respect and connectivity they have from the investment community. To this end, building your personal brand as a “thought leader” beyond your specific corporate role can be helpful. Remember, people buy from people they trust and respect – and investors are no different. The bottom line is that achieving and maintaining relevance with the top buyside funds in an ever-expanding universe of investable opportunities only comes through hard work and planning, plus a healthy dose of good fortune in R&D. This buyside relevancy is critical to getting the attention required to access funding at a reasonable cost of capital – which is an existential requirement for success in loss-making R&D-stage biotech over the long term. Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit0 Comments
FIVE MACRO RISKS TO BIOTECH COMING OUT OF WASHINGTON Posted April 22nd, 2021 in Biotech financing, Capital markets
, Pharma industry
, Pricing and Policy| 1 Comment
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politicians. Around the time of the 2020 election, there was almost a pollyannaish view that Biden’s moderate position and the COVID vaccine/therapy halo would push off any material pricing reforms for a few years. That sentiment is no longer, and we’re bracing for the rumored upcoming announcements on the topic.Recycled bad ideas
like slashing the prices via international reference pricing, outright caps on prices or increases, importing drugs from elsewhere, or adopting more draconian “NICE-like” reviews are being discussed. Framing drug price cuts as a source of funding to support other ideas of the administration makes them seem more palatable to the public, even if the end result is the same. Many of these ideas will hurt the innovative biotech sector if they come to pass. For the record, it’s not that drug pricing and healthcare spending reforms aren’t needed – they are, as out of pocket costs to consumers are just way too high. But it’s the fear that innovation-crushing reforms will discourage the necessary drug R&D investments required to bring medicines from bench to bedside. I shared my views in Dec 2019 when H.R.3 was being considered in the House, in a blog post titled “Venturing a Perspective on the DrugPricing Debate
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This blog still captures my views, which support concepts like true value-based pricing, greater transparency around the gross-to-net pricing dichotomy, and clearer biologic genericization pathways (maybe including “contractual genericization”).
If reforms were done well and addressed these issues, without damaging the rewards for innovating, it would likely strengthen the biotech sector. Further, it could shift Big Pharma’s focus from squeezing the juice out of older products with steep annual price increases towards launching greater numbers of new and innovative products – a large proportion of which will need to come via external innovation (partnerships, M&A). This is the potential silver lining for biotechM&A
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which I reflected on during the 2016 pre-election drug pricing discussion, that a well-crafted drug pricing reform legislation woulddeliver.
But the prevailing winds in Washington don’t give me great confidence that a rational, informed perspective on the subject will win the day. Rumor has it the Biden administration may share some policy ideas on drug pricing later this month. Let’s hope these ideas support the first principle of early stage biotech investing_:
if we can positively impact the lives of patients by discovering and developing an innovative new medicine, the system will reward that risk-taking with superlative investment returns._ * FTC COULD BLOCK FUTURE M&A DEALS. For years, there’s been a chorus of ill-informed voices claiming that biopharma M&A was anti-competitive, and that this consolidation kept drug prices too high. This has been an anti-Pharma talking point by politicians for multiple election cycles. Sadly, even though it is wrong, it has gotten renewed energy in the current environment.In
March, the FTC announced a new multilateral working group,
involving sister trade commissions from other countries, aimed at addressing the “issue” of M&A in Pharma, flailing the tired “mergers are bad, because prices are up” rhetoric (here).
This new working group comes after a period of increasing chatter inWashington.
For example, Rep Katie Porter’s “bombshell” report (here) was
released in January, claiming that M&A kills innovation in smaller biotech firms, citing some anecdotal complaints of former Immunex folks 20 years after the fact. There was so much, so wrong with the report, and it showed a striking lack of insight into how biopharmaecosystem works.
Big Pharma M&A certainly creates a temporary dislocation, and popular sentiment is often negative towards them. But there’s actually significant counterpoint scholarship that big M&A can create value when done well. An analysis of mega-mergers over the past few decades showed that “large pharma mergers are associated with higher R&D productivity” in delivering medicines to patients. But I’m not here to debate their merits with politicians, when the markets are the real and rightful allocators of demerits or merits for corporate takeovers. I do, however, take the fundamental view that M&A is a good thing in the long run for the biopharma sector. It’s not just about the myopic company-centric view of M&A, where of course there are good and bad deals that get done. But at an industry level, M&A helps to efficiently allocate talent, science, and capital across the ecosystem.
M&A frees up talent to populate new startups and cross-fertilize new perspectives; it free up assets to find “better champions” (out-licensing); and, it frees up capital to shareholders (cash) so it can be redeployed elsewhere. The diaspora from many of the big M&A events now populate the leadership ranks of countless startups, as well as other large companies. There’s also a reality in biotech: it’s hard to escape the gravity of the balance sheets of larger firms. These big firms need external innovation to feed their pipelines and salesforces. This cycle of life often makes sense: the biotech takes the early stage R&D risk to bring new product candidates forward, and bigger firms take the later stage and commercial risks to get those to patients around the globe. And this “M&A put” underpins the price behavior of a lot of biotech valuations, as there’s an expectation great emerging companies will get acquired (e.g., Loxo, Juno, Kite, etc). If the FTC creates real roadblocks to M&A in our sector, this “put” goes away and stock prices will certainly decline – raising the cost of capital for R&D-stage biotech companies. If they tried to “ban” only Big Pharma mega-M&A (which I think would be bad for the ecosystem), at least smaller biotech will potentially be spared. But how do you draw the line? Right now, a biotech like Moderna has a larger market cap than a conventional Big Pharma like Takeda. Seems very hard for the FTC to be the adjudicator of a Big Pharma vs Small Biotech difference. Fortunately, despite the noise around the FTC in the recent past, deals are getting approved. AZ’s purchase of Alexion was clearedby the FTC
on April 16th, which is a good sign for continued M&A activity. While 18-months ago, it’s worth noting that after a lengthy review, the FTC voted 5-0 (including Democrats and Republicans) to approve the Roche-Spark acquisition in Dec 2019. These might suggest that, despite the bluster of the headlines, sanity and thoughtfulness will prevail behind the scenes when it matters. Let’s hope so. * FDA COULD MAKE APPROVALS HARDER. Twenty years ago, the FDA was commonly cited as being counterproductive to innovation, more an adversary than an ally. Since that time, due to great leadership and a number of very productive initiatives, the FDA changed that perception dramatically and has been widely viewed in a favorable light in recent years. Sure, the FDA is still tough on some drug applications – but they have been actively encouraging new medicines for underserved diseases, facilitating the study of new modalities, and partnering with industry, big and small, in ways that foster innovation.Recently,
there’s been noise that the FDA’s pendulum will swing from this industry-friendly view to becoming more aggressive and less accommodating towards innovation. Some recent surprise rejections via Complete Response Letters (CRLs), as well as a series of high profile delays, suggest this might be the case, amid calls that they are “moving the goalposts” on new drug applications. In addition, the FDA is certainly making it harder for new modalities, especially around the CMC aspects of gene and cell therapies. Further, the FDA is holding prior “accelerated approvals” to task for needing to prove themselves in some of their “conditional” indications. Several drugs have failed to confirm, and have been pulled in those indications (like Imfinzi in bladder cancer, Keytruda in metastatic small cell lung cancer). I actually applaud these moves as holding a high standard. The aducanumab FDA decision is coming and is seen by some as a bellwether for the FDA. But it’s honestly not a clear or slam dunk case, and I don’t think we should read too much into the FDA’s action on a single drug as an indication for an overall posture towards drug approvals. For those supporters of the drug and Biogen, an FDA rejection will be viewed as an aggressive action by an overzealous regulator, raising broader concerns for them. For those that think the mixed data require further confirmation, like those that agreed with the FDA’s Advisory Committee of experts, an approval will be viewed as a weak regulator, sloppy science, and a bad precedent, raising broader concerns for them. Either way, this one is likely to have a complicated set of bipolar responses from the investment community. My view of the FDA overall remains more positive than most, and perhaps more positive than the market’s expectations. The FDA has had a ton on its plate and is processing a bigger industry portfolio of programs than ever before – and it’s a more complex portfolio with many new and exciting modalities. All this while prosecuting a COVID response with new vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics in record time. In many ways, I’d argue they are doing a great job. Importantly though, a rigorous FDA with a high bar for safety and efficacy is important to the health of the sector. One critical regulatory risk factor right now is who will be leading the FDA and what is their overall posture is to working with the industry to advance new medicines. This remains the open question for the biopharma community. * MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICY COULD DRIVE INTEREST RATES UNFAVORABLYHIGHER.
We’ve been in an unprecedented time from a fiscal and monetary perspective: the Federal Reserve has been locked into a “zero rate” policy for over a year, and the stimulus packages out of Washington have flooded the country with trillions of dollars. Typically, prolonged near zero rate environments are good for “risk-on” sectors like biotech. Low borrowing costs, abundant liquidity, and low returns on interest-bearing securities push investors towards betting on higher risk sectors to seek better returns. We saw this in 2020 in particular, with tech and biopharma booming with positive fund flows.But
expectations are that rates have to go up. The economy, juiced up on all the free money, is booming: US GDP is expected to be above 10% annualized rate in 1H 2021. Inflation measured in various ways jumped in March, pegging above 4% annualized that month on the CPI. The heat in the economy, captured in these inflation measures, mean that rates are going to be increasing. The yield on the 10-year Treasuries has already gone up considerably in past few months. As rates go up, the relative risk-adjusted returns elsewhere in the economy start to look attractive. In addition, industries whose valuations are more dependent on expectations of future cash flows, like biopharma, tend to be weaker as rates go up. Discounting the future values by higher rates depresses today’s value, or so thelogic goes.
Fortunately, all of that is just good textbook theory. Empirically, the data aren’t as black and white. According to a Cowen report fromMarch
,
historically periods of rising rates have actually correlated with strong biotech returns. But they also correlated with strong overall equity market returns in general, and the delta in performance to other sectors was actually smaller during periods of rising rates vsother areas.
Every market period is different, but there’s certainly merit to the view that a booming economy outside of biotech could cause a sector rotation that pulls capital out of the biopharma – which in general would be a bad thing for biopharma. Fund flows have been a net positive force in the sector for the past few years, and have helped drive biopharma to its highest ever percentage of the Russell 2000small cap index
.
How much this inflation/interest rate risk really impacts biotech depends in large part on how attractive other opportunities are relative to those in the sector. If any of the aforementioned risks (pricing, M&A, FDA) play out unfavorably, the downside reaction could be amplified by this interest rate risk. * TAX POLICY COULD DISCOURAGE LONGER-TERM RISK-TAKING. Biden’s tax policies could also have negative impacts on biopharma, including both individual capital gains tax rates and corporate tax rates. I’ll just focus on the former.Low
long term capital gains (LTCG) tax rates encourage risk-taking by investors, by compensating them for locking up their capital for longer periods of time. The LTCG tax rate fundamentally affects investor appetites for extended holding periods. In long cycle time industries, like biotech, these tax incentives play an important role for investors in a world of alternative investment opportunities. The recent Biden tax proposals to move most LTCG tax rates up to current income removes the incentive to keep capital at work (“buy and hold”) in a specific deal, as patient capital no longer benefits relative to more rapid trading strategies. We may already be feeling the acute effects of this: the mere expectation of higher future LTCG rates creates pressure to take gains now before tax increases occur. I’ve heard from some buysiders that they believe the swoon in Feb/Mar of 2021 could have been due to investors with huge paper gains (up 100% over a year) selling as soon as they were into LTCG territory, trying to get in front of the future tax changes. Many expect 4Q 2021 to be particularly active for realizing gains before a new tax law takes effect. The longer term effect of removing the incentive for LTCG is likelytwo-fold.
First, it could lead to less investor interest in the sector, all else being equal. In aggregate, investors will demand higher returns to offset their increase in capital gains taxes, which will cause valuations to tighten. Or they will seek less risky, less long-term investments, depressing the fund flows into the sector. Either way, assuming other factors don’t change, investor interest will soften for a risky sector like biotech with higher LTCG taxes. Second, with no incentive to hold longer term, more investors may adopt active trading strategies (vs patient “buy and hold” strategies) which will create increased volatility in an already volatile sector. Given the small floats in many stocks, higher trading velocity will have an accelerator effect on stock movements. In short, the expectation (and reality) of increased LTCG tax rates is generally bad for long term investing. The second major tax issue is around corporate tax rates. I won’t get into them here, as these tax rates generally don’t affect early stage biotech directly (since they are unprofitable for years). However, they do affect the ability of bigger firms to deploy their global balance sheet efficiently for doing acquisitions, partnerships, etc… Further, the global minimum tax concepts described by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen are widely believed to be a negative for the Pharma (and tech) industries, as described elsewhere (here,
here
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How all these macro risks play out, and how much is already embedded in the prevailing market sentiment, is anyone’s guess at this point. I’ve never been very good at predicting acute market reactions toevents.
While these five risks are independent variables in many ways, they have the potential to amplify each other. If they become compounded negative outcomes unfavorable to the sector, the downdraft in the markets could accelerate significantly, tightening up the financing environment. But if several unfold in more positive ways than expected for the sector (e.g., more M&A, a friendly FDA, and only “smart” drug pricing reforms), removing the negative overhang could unleash renewedbullish sentiments.
Only time will tell. Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit1 Comment
BIOTECH FUNDING TOPS THE CHARTS AGAINAPRIL 20, 2021
Another quarter, another set of all-time highs for biotech funding – and this surfeit of capital continues raises possible concerns about its disciplined deployment. Back in January, when reflecting on the strange paradox of 2020, all-time-highs were across the board:1 Comment
PERSONAL REFLECTION: EMPATHY IN THE WORKPLACEMARCH 16, 2021
Just before I chaired a Board meeting last year, I spent a frustratingly painful hour going through many of the uncomfortable details of my divorce process and a set of emotional custody issues with my lawyers. Immediately after hanging up,3 Comments
THE BIOTECH PARADOX OF 2020: A YEAR IN REVIEWJANUARY 4, 2021
2020 was an incredibly paradoxical year for those of us in biotech: the striking dichotomy of simultaneously experiencing agonizing tragedy alongside buoyant optimism. It was truly a horrifically tragic year for humanity, and for America in particular. As everyone knows,0 Comments
BIOTECH: THE FEATHERWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE MARKETSNOVEMBER 20, 2020
Biotech punches way above its weight-class, and that’s never been more apparent than in this pandemic and the race for a COVID vaccine. For those of us in biopharma, it feels like it’s a large and dynamicsector populated by
0 Comments
IT’S RAINING BIOTECH SPACS!OCTOBER 15, 2020
SPACs are all the rage today. With the IPO market booming and public investors seeking better returns, blank check companies called “Special Purpose Acquisition Companies” (SPACs) have been fueling up their tanks and chasing down their merger targets. New ones1 Comment
EVOLUTION OF THE BIOTECH IPO MARKETS FROM BUSTED TO BOOMINGSEPTEMBER 21, 2020
In the excitement of today’s biotech IPO market, and the bullish period since 2013, it’s almost hard to remember how painful the equity capital markets were back in the day. When I began my career in venture capital in 2004,0 Comments
KYMERA DEBUTS ON THE PUBLIC MARKETSAUGUST 31, 2020
August continued to show the biotech market’s resilience in the face of the COVID pandemic with one of the biggest venture fund flows for the month ever, and a half a dozen IPOs. Kymera Therapeutics was oneof those August
1 Comment
THE RECORD-BREAKING BIOTECH FUNDING TSUNAMI OF 1H2020JULY 15, 2020
We’re half way through one of the craziest years in recent memory, with a raging viral pandemic, civil unrest and protests, staggering unemployment and economic woes, and invasive murder hornets. And yet, like the indefatigable Energizer bunny, the biotech market0 Comments
VALUE CREATION AND DESTRUCTION: DISPERSION OF PERFORMANCE IN BIOTECHIPOS
APRIL 17, 2020
The biotech IPO market in 2020 remains strong, despite the volatility and COVID headwinds. We’ve seen stellar pricings and good after-market performance, with ten new offerings already this year. And the queue for companies with active S1’s on file is2 Comments
BOOMING VC-BACKED BIOPHARMA: STRONG MARKET DESPITE PANDEMICAPRIL 8, 2020
Venture capital is a long investment cycle business, and never before has that been so clear as now in the face of the ongoing COVID pandemic. Even with the unprecedented public equity market volatility, venture investing into private biopharma companies1 Comment
STRATEGIC PLANNING IN BIOTECH DURING A PANDEMIC CRISISMARCH 26, 2020
In the throes of a full COVID-19 pandemic, most business leaders’ top priority is rightfully the health and safety of their employees, families, and communities. Even though business disruptions are significant and overwhelming, the primary efforts focused on bothsafety
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BIOPHARMA M&A DRIVES MORE EFFICIENT RESOURCE ALLOCATIONMARCH 2, 2020
M&A is an omnipresent reality in the biopharma industry, from Big Pharma mega-mergers to smaller acquisitions of emerging startups. We’ve recently witnessed several large M&A transactions get closed or announced, including BMS-Celgene, Takeda-Shire, and AbbVie-Allergan; according to BMO Capital Markets2 Comments
WITHER NEW BIOTECH STARTUPS?JANUARY 27, 2020
Biotech is in the midst of an incredible era of innovation: new modalities and novel medicines delivering real value to patients, leading to a decade-long bull cycle. It’s been exhilarating to watch and participate in this market, and venture capital0 Comments
OUR 2019 YEAR IN REVIEW: MACRO, BIOTECH, AND ATLASDECEMBER 13, 2019
It’s that time of year again when we pause to reflect on the state of the industry – and there’s more to focus on in biopharma today than just the drug pricing debate. As I described last year, we host1 Comment
VENTURING A PERSPECTIVE ON THE DRUG PRICING DEBATEDECEMBER 10, 2019
The perennial drug pricing debate has reached a fever pitch, as loud as it’s ever been over the past few decades. Politicians on both sides are bashing the drug industry with the typical talking points about exorbitant prices, countered of15 Comments
THINKING BOLDLY: ALKERMES ACQUIRES RODIN THERAPEUTICSNOVEMBER 18, 2019
Today Alkermes announced its acquisition of Rodin Therapeutics, a leader in the field of synaptic dysfunction and neuronal epigenetics. Alkermes extensive experience in CNS diseases made them an ideal partner for Rodin, and this acquisition helps expand Alkermes’efforts into
2 Comments
THE PROMISE OF PRECISION NEUROSCIENCE AND LAUNCH OF ARKUDATHERAPEUTICS
NOVEMBER 14, 2019
Neuroscience has had a tough run of news lately. With Amgen deprioritizing neuro this year, Pfizer doing the same last year, and others like BMS, GSK, and AZ cutting back on CNS a few years earlier,it would seem dark
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THE CREATION OF BIOTECH STARTUPS: EVOLUTION NOT REVOLUTIONAUGUST 15, 2019
The startup paradigm for the creation and funding of new biotech companies has evolved enormously over the past two decades. Recently there’s been a pair of articles from Tech VCs about applying alternative models of company creation (here, here) to2 Comments
BIOTECH STARTUPS AND THE HARD TRUTH OF INNOVATIONMAY 20, 2019
Gary Pisano’s recent Harvard Business Review piece, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, beautifully frames up how innovative corporate environments are frequently misunderstood. Innovative startups aren’t just about being cool and nimble, having beer taps in the kitchen, or an1 Comment
GETTING CLINICAL ON NEW DRUG LAUNCHESMAY 13, 2019
The IQVIA Institute released a data-rich report in April 2019 on the state of clinical R&D in the US pharmaceutical industry titled “The Changing Landscape of Research and Development: Innovation, Drivers of Change, and Evolution of Clinical Trial Productivity”. The2 Comments
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ADVICE FOR STARTUP BOARDSMAY 6, 2019
Startups management teams often have a love-hate relationship with their Board of Directors: while Boards can be hugely helpful and constructive in the best of times, they can be dysfunctional and damaging in the worst. And most CEOs enjoy complaining0 Comments
SHARING AN INNATE DESIRE TO ADDRESS INFLAMMATION: NOVARTIS AND IFMTEAM UP
APRIL 1, 2019
Today Novartis announced the acquisition of IFM Therapeutics’ portfolio of NLRP3 antagonists, via the purchase of IFM Tre, a subsidiary of IFM (here, here). These immunomodulatory medicines target the inflammasome, a key innate immune node whose pathologic chronic activation is associated with0 Comments
ARTEAUS’ FINAL CHAPTER: MONETIZATION OF THE EMGALITY ROYALTIESAPRIL 1, 2019
Back in September 2018, the FDA approved Lilly’s Emgality, an anti-CGRP antibody therapy, for the preventative treatment of episodic and chronic migraine. Arteaus Therapeutics, a biotech company founded by Atlas Venture in 2011, played a critical role in Emgality’s early0 Comments
SHARING THE ADAPTIVE SKI EXPERIENCE WITH THE BIOTECH COMMUNITYFEBRUARY 25, 2019
JB Harvey broke his personal record earlier this winter by skiing over 22 trails in a single day at Loon Mountain. It was an awesome day. And 22 runs would be a huge day for anyone, but it was particularly1 Comment
OUR YEAR IN REVIEW: ANNUAL TALK ON MACRO, BIOTECH, AND ATLASFEBRUARY 12, 2019
At the end of every year, we host both our Atlas Venture Annual Meeting for our fund investors (Limited Partners) and our Atlas Retreat for senior industry executives. As a kickoff for these two meetings, we typically open with a3 Comments
BIOTECH INSIDER STOCK SALES: PEER BENCHMARKS AND GUIDELINESFEBRUARY 6, 2019
Over the past six years, the biotech sector has experienced an incredible run of IPOs, reflecting the longest and largest “open window” for new offerings. Much has been written about post-IPO performance here and elsewhere, but there’s been little discussion0 Comments
VENTURE VOLATILITY: 2018’S BANNER YEAR CLOSED CAUTIOUSLYJANUARY 16, 2019
2018 was a gangbuster year for VC-funding into startups, reaching levels not seen since the height of the dot-com and genomics era. According to recent data from the NVCA/Pitchbook, VC across all sectors topped $130B invested across nearly 9000 deals1 Comment
THE GAME ISN’T WORTH THE CANDLE: REFLECTIONS ON THE JPM HEALTHCARECONFERENCE
JANUARY 14, 2019
Another year, another JPM week. With a weekend to recuperate and reflect, I come away more concerned than ever about JPM and our industry. For context, by JPM I don’t mean the actual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference at the Westin17 Comments
BIOTECH IPO MARKET: CLOSING THE BOOKS ON 2018’S CRAZY YEARJANUARY 3, 2019
2018 was a incredible boom year in the number of new biotech offerings, with 60 IPOs on US exchanges. But as we’re all painfully aware, after the overall biotech market ($XBI) touched its all-time high in August, the last third0 Comments
2018’S BIOTECH IPO BONANZA: VIEW FROM THE AFTER MARKETOCTOBER 17, 2018
2018 has so far been another gangbuster year for biotech IPOs: the first three quarters of the year have delivered nearly 50 new biotech offerings, reinforcing the strong new issuance performance of the past 6 years. With lots of pundits0 Comments
SCIENCE2STARTUP 2019: BRINGING VENTURE & ACADEMIA TOGETHEROCTOBER 15, 2018
After last year’s inaugural success, we’re excited for 2019’s Science2Startup conference in April 2019, an invitation-only university-focused biotech entrepreneurship event aimed at building connectivity across the academic, tech transfer, and venture communities. Working with a steering committee comprised of Atlas,0 Comments
FEAR OF THE FLOOD: POST-IPO LOCKUP EXPIRY IN BIOTECHOCTOBER 5, 2018
The dreaded “lockup expiry” is something all newly-minted public biotechs begin to worry about shortly after their offerings. The fear seems reasonable: venture investors and other large shareholders, now free to trade, dump large amounts of stock into the market1 Comment
THE RISING TIDE OF BIOTECH IPO VALUATIONSSEPTEMBER 24, 2018
The biotech IPO market continues to march forward, with five new offerings expected to price in the next week or so. Investor demand for stories advancing novel innovative therapies remains at historic levels – extending what is now over a0 Comments
THE INCREDIBLE EXPANDING UNIVERSE OF BIOTECH STOCKSSEPTEMBER 21, 2018
The biotech sector is unique relative to the rest of the stock market in many ways, but one that is often overlooked: its expansionary public equity market footprint. It’s been well appreciated by market analysts that the universe of U.S.0 Comments
BIOTECH VENTURE DEAL TERMS ARE MORE “STARTUP-FRIENDLY” THAN EVERSEPTEMBER 10, 2018
Biotech is booming, with eye-popping new financings seemingly announced daily. The sector is having an epic year for startup fundraising, breaking records for what will end up as the most active private biotech financing year ever. Although overall sentiment in0 Comments
HOTSPOT THERAPEUTICS TURNS UP THE HEAT ON NATURAL ALLOSTERYJULY 17, 2018
Most conventional small molecule drugs engage directly with the engine of a protein’s function, aiming to often turning off an enzymatic activity associated with a disease. These drugs bind and compete against the natural substrate of the protein at what1 Comment
A HAT TRICK OF CELL AND GENE THERAPY IPOS: AVRO, MAGENTA, AND UNUMJUNE 28, 2018
Last week, AvroBio and Magenta Therapeutics priced their IPOs on the same night. Less than three months earlier, Unum Therapeutics priced its IPO. All three biotech companies are emerging leaders in the cell and gene therapy space, broadly defined. They0 Comments
FAREWELL TO ZAFGEN: A PERSONAL REFLECTION ON BOARD EVOLUTIONJUNE 7, 2018
Today, Zafgen announced my resignation from their Board of Directors after 12 years of service. It’s a bittersweet moment for me: having been there since the beginning, I’ve watched, and supported, the Zafgen story through all the ups and downs0 Comments
BIOTECH CEO PAY: INFLATION HELD AT BAYJUNE 1, 2018
The private biotech sector is awash in capital today: funding over the last few quarters has been record-breaking, up over 250% since 2013, as biotech CEOs have worked hard to strengthen their companies’ balance sheets. But in the process of0 Comments
ANOTHER TROPHY QUARTER FOR VC-BACKED BIOTECH FUNDINGAPRIL 30, 2018
The flood of capital continues to pour into the private biotech ecosystem, marking the current climate as the most prolific period of investing into the sector of all time. The first three months of 2018 secured yet another “biggest quarter2 Comments
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