to advance the company, you don’t need to convince everybody, just “the next set of people.” That means graduating from venture capital to IPO investors at some point, which his company did last month.
—Paul Hastings on how to strike a Big Pharma deal: Really innovative biotech companies need to find true contrarians within Big Pharma to support their ideas. Moncef Slaoui, chairman of GlaxoSmithKline’s R&D operation, is one. “Moncef loves to be a contrarian,” Hastings said. Stephen Friend, the former senior vice president of cancer research at Merck, was another contrarian, Hastings said. Bryan Roberts chimed in to second this idea of seeking out key individuals, saying “great decisions in this business aren’t made by groups.”
—Hastings on how to build value, both real and perceived: Find a partner to support one asset, and keep another asset wholly owned “because Wall Street flips back and forth on which strategy it favors.” He also suggested entrepreneurs develop drugs on parallel tracks so that a company doesn’t end up focused on just one asset in development, which requires a letting go of people when the project graduates out of their department, and there isn’t another exciting thing to work on at a different stage. “The best way to lose credibility is to discover things and then fire the scientists to hire development people,” Hastings said.
—Roberts on the trend in venture investing: “There’s more interest now in funding real biotech innovation than any time in past 15 years.”
—Hastings on the steely, single-mindedness it takes to actually develop something truly new, like a drug that works against cancer stem cells: This was in response to a question from an economist in the audience about whether he’s paying attention to healthcare reform, who will pay for these biotech drug innovations, and how the company can justify the high cost of its efforts. “If I listened to you, I wouldn’t be in this business,” Hastings said. “Without innovation, we are toast.”
