Six months ago the biotech industry was on the verge of a sizzling season for IPOs, and since then, on average, we’ve seen one new biotech IPO per week.  Valuations of many of these offerings have been impressive, and this

For the past 2.5 years I’ve been experimenting with this blog, covering topics about biotech startups, the pharma industry, and venture capital – so I thought it would be a good time for reflection. In my first blog post in

Last month legendary investor Vinod Khosla commented that 95% of VCs add “zero value” and 80% probably “add negative value” in how they advise startup companies in their portfolio.  This is a stunning indictment of the VCs that Khosla has

As you might expect given the strong IPO market, biotech venture investors are doing less of the heavy lifting in support of their portfolio companies during this receptive climate than in the past few years. Biotech insider participation was the

Biotech is back with a vengeance in this IPO window.  After a decade drought, we’ve witnessed over 30 new biotech offerings this year and more than $2.5B raised – the best IPO market since 2000.  In fact, it’s already the

Successful deals in venture capital take on a life of their own, especially the rare massive outlier return.  Unfortunately for venture capitalists, Facebooks and Twitters are very rare. Understanding the nature of “winners” requires a good grounding in what a

Summer is gone and the hectic autumn schedule is upon us (despite hitting 96F in Boston on Wednesday): back to the routine of board meetings, SABs, conferences, diligence sessions, and a ramped up travel schedule. Importantly, this also means that

The Pharma R&D model is certainly suffering, and the industry’s pandemic sickness is best embodied by “Eroom’s law” of ever-decreasing R&D productivity. But it’s a lot easier to diagnose this disease than it is to prescribe a medicine. In fairness,

Getting deals done with Pharma is critical to the strategy of many Biotech companies.  Pharma deals often offer less dilutive funding to advance a program or portfolio, market validation enabling future traction, and potentially important liquidity for shareholders.  Given their

For the first time in over a decade, there’s real talk about an open IPO window for biotech companies.  The NVCA’s second quarter update highlighted that venture-backed biotech outpaced all other industry sectors in the number of IPOs and the

A couple years ago we unveiled a new startup called Nimbus Discovery LLC which was experimenting with a new model that combined three key elements: Schrodinger’s cutting edge in silico drug screening and design platform, a truly virtual and globally

Thiel’s law: A startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed. Much like an organism, the “DNA” of a startup gets encoded at the outset – which genes or attributes will really matter going forward, and the possible deleterious (or