Assessing VC funding in biotech

Posted by Bruce Booth | Categories:

Ever since Prospect Ventures “handed back $150M “:https://www.fis.dowjones.com/WebBlogs.aspx?aid=DJFVW00020111006e7a60005l&ProductIDFromApplication=&r=wsjblog&s=djfvwof of committed money to its limited partners, there has been plenty written on the lack of venture capital funding for the life sciences.  Read more

Financing early stage biotech

Posted by Bruce Booth | Categories:

I read Bruce Booth’s blog, Life Sci VC, when I get the chance, and he’s often lent his skills to Nature Biotechnology. We had him into our offices as part of our “Meet the Author “:http://www.nature.com/bioent/authors/index.html series, for example, where he discussed his article on biotech IPOs.  Read more

Four Types of “Premature Scaling” in Biotech

Posted by Bruce Booth | Categories:

Earlier this week the Startup Genome project released a report on the DNA of internet startups. Essentially what attributes lead to success or failure. One of the things they found was that 74% of startups failed because of “premature scaling”. Sounds like an unfortunate medical condition. Its when internet startups build their companies too fast and spend too much money before they really know what they have – their product, customer, market, etc…  … Read more

Starting a biotech? Advice for how to pitch VCs

Posted by Bruce Booth | Categories: ,

Lots of great advice exists for tech entrepreneurs trying to pitch to VCs, but very little for the aspiring life science entrepreneur, especially for therapeutics startups. Since that’s the type of deal we invest a good portion of our fund at Atlas, I thought I share a few thoughts.  Read more

Academic-Pharma Deals: A threat or opportunity for VC?

Posted by Bruce Booth | Categories: ,

Academic-industry partnerships are popping up all over the place these days to fund early stage programs as part of ‘“open innovation” initiatives and “external sourcing” of new pipeline projects. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of a few such deals this year alone:  … Read more

Academic bias and biotech failures

Posted by Bruce Booth | Categories: , ,

I just met with an entrepreneur who was the founding CEO of a company created around an academic lab’s discoveries. It was fascinating new approach to drugging hot receptor targets. To protect the innocent I won’t mention the names, but Atlas Venture looked at in back in 2008 and, although intriguing, we ended up passing on the deal. Thankfully, because we missed a bullet – it recently was shut down.  Read more