If you want to be successful in biotech, incremental gains aren’t the way to go—you’ve got to shoot higher.
One of Celgene’s top executives, George Golumbeski, said it best when I spoke with him recently: the company is always on the prowl for something ‘disruptive.’ Disruptive science capable of shaking up the biotech world. Disruptive companies that forge new approaches and challenge the norms of the life sciences ecosystem.
Many try to achieve this, only to end up in the biotech graveyard. So what does it take to buck the odds and succeed? How can investors and entrepreneurs work together to take a disruptive idea, and pursue that vision together? We’re eager to find out, so we’ve rounded up the founders and key investors of a trio of Boston biotechs that appear poised to become some of the industry’s most successful radicals—Bluebird Bio, Moderna Therapeutics, and Genocea Biosciences.
They are the stars of our latest event, “Boston’s Life Science Disruptors.” These company leaders and founding stakeholders will share their stories during a unique, interactive night of discussions we’ll be hosting at Novartis’ Institutes for Biomedical Research in Cambridge on Oct. 2. Here’s the lineup of panelists we’ve put together:
The Bluebird Bio Story
Neil Exter: Partner at Third Rock Ventures who has played a key role in forming and developing the strategy of a number of the firm’s biotech startups.
Nick Leschly: CEO of Bluebird Bio, who helped revitalize the gene-therapy company and lead it to one of the sector’s most successful IPOs this year.
The Moderna Story
Noubar Afeyan: Founder, managing partner, and CEO of Flagship Ventures, who has co-founded and helped build 25 life science and technology startups.
Stephane Bancel: President and founding CEO of Moderna Therapeutics, which earlier this year landed a big, $240 million check from AstraZeneca—all without having tested its messenger RNA technology in human clinical trials.
The Genocea Story
Kevin Bitterman: Principal at Polaris Partners, and a co-founder of Genocea, whose efforts to create a new class of vaccines have attracted the likes of the Gates Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, and Johnson & Johnson.
Darren Higgins: Co-founder of Genocea, and a microbiology and immunobiology professor at Harvard Medical School.
Space is limited, and tickets are getting snapped up fast already, so it’d be a good idea to grab them quickly—you can get a big discount if you register by Labor Day. So come join us for a fun night of networking and discussion.
Get your tickets here. Hope to see you at Novartis on Oct. 2.
