Recovering scientist turned early stage VC A biotech optimist fighting gravity

Running A Biotech Startup Prussian Style
April 8, 2014

Doing more with less, hanging on to fight the next fight, putting out fires on multiple fronts are all de rigueur here at the Atlas Venture NewCo factory (aptly coined by brother-in-arms, @michael_gilman).  Our seed model (here, here) focuses on

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Tradeoffs and Timing: IPO vs. M&A Decision Making in Biotech
April 2, 2014

In light of the continued interest in biotech IPOs by the capital markets, there’s probably not a venture-backed biotech boardroom that hasn’t been discussing the merits of going public. Whether warranted or not, taking a company public via an IPO

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Encouraging Biotech Innovation
March 31, 2014

Let’s face it, biotech entrepreneurs are innovation junkies.  We desperately want to deploy the most novel technologies to solve difficult problems in medicine and deliver new, life changing medicines for patients who need our help.  Independent of additional factors that

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Transformational Late Stage Drugs Delivered Through Deal-Making
March 21, 2014

Today’s biopharma industry has a richer and more exciting late stage pipeline of compelling new therapeutics than its had in years, drawing lots of enthusiasm from analysts and investors.  Goldman Sachs (GS) recently published a report on the “10 drugs

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Chemistry’s Age of Enlightenment
March 20, 2014

Despite many decades of success, small molecule drug discovery appears to be increasingly challenged.  The likelihood of approval of a small molecule at phase 1 is approximately half that of a biologic; pharma companies have shifted their pipelines dramatically towards

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The Rookie Year and the Biotech CEO
March 12, 2014

Five years ago I stepped into my first (and so far only) CEO role. It seems impossible that it was five years ago but I definitely still remember many moments from my rookie year as a CEO – both successes

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Unlocking The Promise Of Biotech Startups: Learnings From Mars, Goliath, and Evolution
March 5, 2014

As an early stage biotech investor, the future of the industry and its structure are clearly important things to think about – especially since most of the drug programs our new startups are working on won’t get launched, if they

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The Awesome Power Of Risk
March 3, 2014

Humans are supremely lousy at evaluating risk. We get nervous when we fly but not when we drive. We worry about terrorist attacks when we’re far more likely to die in our own bathrooms. We flock to buy tickets for

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Introducing A New Blog Feature: A View ‘From The Trenches’ Of Biotech
February 28, 2014

Three years ago this month I started this LifeSciVC blog experiment and its been more fun and rewarding than I would have expected. As I wrote in my first post, the reasons I started blogging were to add a voice

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Immuno-Oncology Startup CoStim Pharmaceuticals Acquired By Novartis
February 18, 2014

Today Novartis announced its acquisition of CoStim Pharmaceuticals, a young biotech company focused on next generation approaches in the exciting immuno-oncology field (here).  Their oncology capabilities and commitment to anti-cancer immune mechanisms made them an ideal partner for us at

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Biotech IPO Returns: Great, Good, And Not So Good
February 10, 2014

The biotech IPO bonanza appears to be continuing into 2014, with over thirteen offerings already this year.  We’re just now completing the busiest two week period in biotech IPOs ever.  Another dozen or so companies appear likely to price IPOs

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Biotech M&A: Steadily Delivering Returns in 2013
February 5, 2014

While all eyes have been on the raging IPO market in biotech over the past year, the private biotech M&A market has continued its fourth straight year of impressive results. Yesterday, HBM Partners released their always-excellent annual report (here) on

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