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Evaluating Biotech Startups?
spacey girl asks: "A start-up company i worked for was recently shut down. I've been looking for a new company for quite some time now. i've been offered something at two new startup companies (established in 2000) and I can't find too many references on the web for them. These companies are not exactly computer related but more science related in biotech (pharmaceuticals and such). What kinds of tools are available for evaluating stability and potential of these two companies? I tried looking for the investors but that was a no-go. Also, I'm referring to international companies, not just companies in the US."
I don't know what you mean by that looking for the investors is a "no-go", but if you couldn't find them, isn't that a bad sign?
care to say what the names of those companies? Or at least their competitors. Or you just want to dig up some information on bio-tech industry?
You have to ask yourself, do they have a viable business plan? More specifically, do they have a patent on a major organ? (Appendix does NOT count, these can be removed). If you patent the leg, and charge royalties of $1 each, and get a 1% compliance rate, you make $1/leg x 1% x 10 legs x 6*10^9 people = $600m. (Don't be fooled into using the average number of legs, 99% of people have *more* than the average number). Fingers are better (8 per person) or toes (10). If they have cells, you hit the jackpot. Remember to ask for your contract to include stock options *and* immunity from the patent.
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are these companies public or privately held? If public and traded in the US, you can look at insider trading, and see what the execs are doing with their stock...
Also, since you sound unemployed at the moment, just take the position you have a better gut feeling about...whats gonna happen - are you going to be unemployed again after a few paychecks? Big deal, youre unemployed now. On the other hand, if you are receiving unemployment benefits, make damn sure you do a bit more research than it sounds like youve done already before you blindly leap, dont waste another 5 months of benefits on a job that might not even last that long.
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
If anyone is going to know details about these companies, it is going to be the companies themselves. If you're considering working for them, surely they'd be willing to give you some idea of what they're doing?
If they don't want to tell a potential employee what business they're in, you probably don't want to work there.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Look for investments or partnerships with a major pharmaceuticals or govt or private research organizations. This will tell you that scientists have evaluated the technical and business prospects of the biotech's aims and have some confidence in it's prospects.
is to accept the offer and feel it out first hand. If you are in need of a job, then it is a no harm, no foul proposition.
If you take the job and you notice a general disatisfaction, low moral, rampant rumors of lay offs/and or the company running out of funds (or taking massive losses) then jump ship. It sounds like you may have done this before.
If their business-plan is to give organs away and live on service&support, STAY OUT!!!
in that order:
... )
1) what is the product, is it pheasible ? is it too trivial ? does a prototype even exist ?
2) what is the market for the products ? how vital is the product (especially when custumers are under economic stress)
3) how do the managerial staff strike you ? are they too non-technical ? are they too technical ? if so, do they intend to bring outside management ? what are mistakes of other start-ups they learned from ?
4) technical staff: do they have people which impress you ? who had previous publications ? who you'll learn from ? who you can work with ? (last one is hard to tell in interview
Working for necessity's mother.
No matter what, stay away from the groups that have the 3->5 year VC crap to worry about, such companies primary strategy is do find a buyer. Unless they have an amazingly cool product that does stuff that no one else's does, and have IP protection on it, then, well, they are sunk. Dont waste your time on such crap.
Find out if they have partnerships with current pharmas. See if they are developing their own discovery pipelines. Both are good things. See if they are building collaborations/contracts with others (Incyte, Celera, Lion, etc), see if they are providing a specific useful service (chemistry, xtallography, chemi-informatics, library design, probe/marker design/detection). If not, they are a dot-bomb
why not ?
what are they all putting money into ?
the wrong things
engineering drugs chemicaly is becomeing hard they are hitting the equivelent of 50million tranistors but without SPICE it does not work
invest in companies doing basic research into underwater opertunitys otherwise forget about it
oh and CAT's is dead
regards
john jones
The only way that a small biotech will ever succeed is if it is awarded a patent or have a drug that will pass clinical trials.
You need to find out:
1. What patents do they hold on procedures, genomes or technology.
2. Are any drugs in trials yet? How many?
3. How many drugs are in the pipeline?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Okay, they're not in the US. If you can find info about them in the US press, that probably means they have managed to get on the US media's radar screen, which indicates at least something is going on (could be good or bad).
No US info? Consider that normal for a foreign firm. Find out where the head office is; (you are mostly interested in what country).
Do a search on a nation-specific website. For example if it is UK based, you should start at a UK search site (or a UK home page of your favorite search site). If you know that it's Canadian (for example) you should try "insert-your-favorite-search-site-here.ca" to see if it has a page. Just about every nation on earth has it's own dot-something so don't assume no dot-com means no web presence.
Is it public? Find out the stock symbol but don't waste your time searching Nasdaq or NYSE, work on the country's national stock market(s). The stock might be over-the-counter, etc.
Where do they get their money? If it's venture capital, go to the VC firm's site and read what they say (have your bullshit filter on).
Search for the head office's city, get into a local page and poke around. Check out the local paper, business links, the Chamber of Commerce, etc.
Search journals in the related field; if there is big news there will be something there and even if it is international in scope it could be months or years before the US media figures it out. Ever notice how often mainstream media gets a science story wrong? That's because they don't pay attention to the journals until some editor tells them to. And somebody's got to tell the editor first.
Are they associated with a University (most biotech should be, somewhere along the line). Check out the University's reputation in the field, find out if there is a link with research, money, alumni, etc.
That should get you going.
Make sure you understand their business plan, at least in general.
Make sure you understand what they do, at least in general.
Make sure you get the job, don't be picky.
Make sure you are picky, when you have a job to switch from.