With the inauguration of Donald Trump as president on January 20th, the editors asked some of our Xconomists to offer their thoughts on “How could the incoming administration significantly affect your industry?” The life sciences industry has one problem: Lack of productivity. When it figures out how to consistently make a profit discovering and developing drugs … Continue reading “Biopharma Industry, Heal Thyself (Without Government Help)”
Author: Standish Fleming
Standish Fleming is a 29-year veteran of early stage life sciences investing. He has helped raise and manage six venture capital funds totaling more than $500 million, and has served on the boards of 19 venture-backed companies, including Nereus Pharmaceuticals, Ambit Biosciences, Triangle Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Gilead Sciences) and Actigen/Corixa (now part of GSK).
He has extensive experience in all aspects of venture management and finance, including fund-raising, investor relations, operations and portfolio development. He has made investments, managed portfolio companies, raised funds, pursued business development, taken companies public and successfully exited investments through public-market sales and buyouts. In 1993, Mr. Fleming co-founded San Diego's Forward Ventures. He has made investments in almost every segment of the health-care industry, including pharmaceuticals, biologics, diagnostics, devices, services, and software. He has managed both platform and product companies, portfolio investments, and led or participated in financings at all levels, from pre-startup to PIPES in public companies, in both debt and equity. He has helped start more than 15 companies and served as founding CEO of eight. Fleming serves as a director of CONNECT, San Diego's support organization for the early-stage community, and is a past president of the Biotechnology Venture Investors Group. Before establishing Forward Ventures, He served as the chairman, president and CEO of GeneSys Therapeutics, (merged with Somatix and acquired by Cell GeneSys [NASDAQ:CEGE]). Fleming began his venture career with Ventana Growth Funds in San Diego in 1986. He earned his B.A. from Amherst College and his M.B.A. from the UCLA Graduate School of Management.
How to Lower Drug Prices, Improve Care, and Save Pharma
I recently received a note from a longtime friend who questioned me on the issue of pharma pricing. I answered with the always-reliable alleviating-the-scourge-of-disease-through-the-miracle-of-modern-medicine defense of “free-market pricing.” My friend, who is not in the pharmaceutical business, responded: The fundamental flaw in your argument centers on the notion that there is any relevance to “market … Continue reading “How to Lower Drug Prices, Improve Care, and Save Pharma”
Pharmaceutical Price Controls Might Be Closer Than You Think
Amid the hue and cry over the Mylan EpiPen pricing debacle, Hillary Clinton unveiled her “Plan to Respond to Unjustified Price Hikes for Long-Available Drugs.” Clinton’s plan calls for “dedicated oversight to protect consumers.” To that end she would “convene representatives of federal agencies…to create a dedicated group charged with protecting consumers from outlier price … Continue reading “Pharmaceutical Price Controls Might Be Closer Than You Think”
Pharma’s Productivity Problem: Finding More Blockbuster Drugs
A recent Wall Street Journal article that raised the possibility of Biogen as the target of another huge pharma buyout cited the lack of productivity as a major driver of M&A in the pharmaceutical industry. The authors made the point that, given the size of companies today, a single garden-variety blockbuster hardly moves the needle. … Continue reading “Pharma’s Productivity Problem: Finding More Blockbuster Drugs”
More than a Matter of Appearances: Pharma’s Existential PR Problem
When President Obama forced Pfizer to scrap its proposed $160 billion merger with Allergan, the industry as well as the company emerged as losers in the eyes of the public, despite Pfizer’s credible and constructive position. As Pfizer CEO Ian Read explained in a recent op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal: Pfizer has long … Continue reading “More than a Matter of Appearances: Pharma’s Existential PR Problem”
Even When Money is Easy, Rules of Biotech Finance Still Apply
Last month Juno Therapeutics closed a $250 million IPO, bringing the total raised since it was founded in Seattle in 2013 to close to $600 million. The money is earmarked to support more than ten clinical trials over the next 12 months. Last year, 133 biotech companies around the world raised $11 billion in initial … Continue reading “Even When Money is Easy, Rules of Biotech Finance Still Apply”
BIO 2014: An Industry Surrounded by Insurmountable Opportunity
Biotech is riding the crest of a wave of public and private financial interest unparalleled in the 36-years since the founding of Genentech. Since 2012 public markets have committed $10.3 billion to more than 100 life-sciences IPOs, an industry record. Pharma has been buying/partnering with biotech on an unprecedented scale. Research breakthroughs from cancer immunotherapy … Continue reading “BIO 2014: An Industry Surrounded by Insurmountable Opportunity”
Balancing Power Between Biotech and Big Pharma Benefits Both
Xconomy’s Luke Timmerman recently suggested that biotechs’ IPO option has shifted the balance of power between Big Pharma and biotech closer to parity, and the big guys have lost (or at least loosened) their iron grip on venture-backed biotech. As he put it, The power dynamic between the two parties is the closest it’s been … Continue reading “Balancing Power Between Biotech and Big Pharma Benefits Both”
My Top Picks in Bio-Venture Innovations, and Predictions for 2014
I am a biotech VC, but not a techie. So I don’t follow stem cells, gene therapy, and other similar “blockbuster” technologies in the life sciences. Rather than looking at all the gosh-and-golly stuff going into the biotech pipeline, I wait to see what is coming out of the other end. So far, very little … Continue reading “My Top Picks in Bio-Venture Innovations, and Predictions for 2014”
Seeing Beyond the IPO Window Dressing
In his Life Sci VC blog, Bruce Booth recently wrote “Biotech is back with a vengeance in this IPO window.” It’s an accurate snapshot of the market, but the good times he describes accrue to money and sweat equity already long in the ground. In a business with a 10- to 15-year product development cycle, … Continue reading “Seeing Beyond the IPO Window Dressing”
Can’t Get No Respect? Bio-venture Issues Are Deeper Than Paper Gains
In one of his recent blogs at Life Sci VC, Atlas Venture’s Bruce Booth makes the optimists’ case for venture capital investments in the life sciences. Booth’s message is that life sciences venture capital is healthy but misunderstood, but he misses the forest for the trees in important ways. Based on my 27 years in … Continue reading “Can’t Get No Respect? Bio-venture Issues Are Deeper Than Paper Gains”
Why Not Test a Supply Chain Model? What We’ve Got Isn’t Working
I find myself siding more with Flagship’s Noubar Afeyan than with Katrine Bosley in the intriguing conversation emerging in Xconomy in recent weeks over the supply chain model for early stage biotech. Today neither biotech nor pharma are producing a sufficient supply of new products. If we can’t figure out a way to profitably finance … Continue reading “Why Not Test a Supply Chain Model? What We’ve Got Isn’t Working”
Rewarding High-Risk Innovation: The Case for Carried Interest
As Washington grapples with the deficit, nothing generates more emotion than tax “loopholes.” A priority “loophole” target in the budget that President Obama sent to Congress last week is the treatment of managers’ carried interest in private equity funds as capital gains, which he characterizes as “unfair” and the key reason for the low tax … Continue reading “Rewarding High-Risk Innovation: The Case for Carried Interest”
Still Waiting for the Ships to Come in at Third Rock Ventures
Third Rock Ventures was in the enviable position of turning away some institutional investors when the life sciences venture firm recently closed on $516 million for its third venture fund. So first let me say, “Congratulations!” to team Third Rock. Mark Levin has demonstrated at Third Rock and as the chairman and CEO of Cambridge, … Continue reading “Still Waiting for the Ships to Come in at Third Rock Ventures”