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MPM Capital

Featuring an Exclusive Interview with


Ansbert Gädicke, MD
Founder/President/CEO  


Overview | Interview
by: Carlo Rizzuto, PhD.

MPM Capital
One Cambridge Center, 9th Floor
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Phone: ( 617) 225- 7054
Fax:  ( 617) 225- 2210
Email:
am-ma-info@mpmcapital.com


COMPANY OVERVIEW

MPM Capital is the product of an ambitious plan to create the preeminent healthcare-focused private investment firm. Founded in 1992, the firm has grown to include 10 partners, supported by a number of associates, most of whom hold MDs or PhDs and have significant industry and investment experience- facts not lost on prospective portfolio companies looking for a partner that can understand their unique strategic and scientific challenges. With offices in Cambridge, San Francisco, and Frankfurt, Germany, MPM invests in both American and European companies, exclusively within the biomedical space. Private investments are made at all stages, ranging from start-ups to mezzanine rounds to private investments in public entities (PIPES). The current portfolio includes approximately 30 companies: the public companies Biomarin, Caliper, Sonic Innovation, and GPC Biotech; and private companies, such as DoubleTwist, Novirio Pharmaceuticals, and Quantum Dot Corporation.

In March, MPM completed raising its second fund, MPM BioVentures II. Oversubscribed and capped at $600 million, it is the world’s largest venture capital fund devoted to the biomedical space.

Below is an summary of MPM's current structure, personnel, and investment portfolio.  The interested reader can obtain more detailed information from the company's  website at www.mpmcapital.com.

 Offices & Management

 One Cambridge Center, 9th Floor
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Phone: +1 617 225 7054
Fax: +1 617 225 2210
am-ma-info@mpmcapital.com

 601 Gateway Blvd., Suite 360
So. San Francisco, California 94080
Phone: +1 650 829 5820
Fax: +1 650 829 5828
am-sf-info@mpmcapital.com

 Weissfrauenstrasse 10, 5th Floor
(inside the BfG Hyp building)
60311 Frankfurt am Main
Phone: +49 (0) 69 133898 0
Fax: +49 (0) 69 133898 29
am-frk-info@mpmcapital.com

Ansbert Gädicke, MD
General Partner

Luke Evnin, PhD
General Partner

Joachim Rothe, PhD
Principal

Nick Galakatos, PhD
General Partner

Kurt Wheeler
General Partner

Michael Steinmetz, PhD
General Partner

Stephen Bergman, MD PhD
Venture Partner

Greg Ayers, MD PhD
Venture Partner

 

Paul Brooke
Venture Partner

 Ashley Ledbetter
 Associate

 

George Daley, MD PhD
Venture Partner

 

 

Todd Foley
Associate

 

 

Elaine Caughey
Associate

 

 

 

Medical & Scientific Advisory Board

David Baltimore, PhD
Chairman

President
California Institute of Technology

Leroy Hood, MD PhD

President and Director
Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA

John Potts, MD

Professor, Harvard Medical School
Head of Research, Massachusetts General Hospital

Christopher T. Walsh, MD PhD

Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
Harvard Medical School

Irving L. Weissman, MD

Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology
Stanford University

Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, PhD

Gene Center, University of Munich;
President, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Portfolio Companies – BioVentures I - $230M

Acorda Therapeutics, Inc.
Central nervous system therapeutics

July, 1998

Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Small molecule therapeutics for G-protein coupled receptors

January, 1999

Atugen Biotechnology AG
Target identification and validation for drug discovery

November, 1998

BioMarin Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Recombinant carbohydrate-acting enzymes

July, 1997

BioValve
Drug delivery devices

April, 2000

Caliper Technologies Corp.
Micro-liquid integrated circuitry

July, 1997

Coelacanth Corporation
Combinatorial chemistry

April, 1999

DoubleTwist, Inc.
Internet-based application service provider (ASP) for life scientists

February, 2000

EPIC Therapeutics, Inc.
Sustained release formulation of leuprolide acetate for prostate cancer

March, 1999

GeneSoft, Inc.
DNA-sequence specific pharmaceuticals

October, 1998

GPC Biotech AG*
Functional genomics

August, 1997

IDEA Innovative Dermale Applikationen AG
Transdermal drug delivery

March, 1998

Intellicardia, INC.
Perfusion Technology for treatment of organ failure in CHF

June, 1999

IntraTherapeutics, Inc.
Developer, manufacturer and distributor of peripheral vascular stents to treat peripheral vascular artery disease

October, 1999

LXN Corporation
Diabetes management

March, 1998

Novirio Pharmaceuticals Limited
Antiviral therapeutics

June, 1998

Omrix Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
Surgical sealants

January, 1999

Pointshare Corporation
Community healthcare information networks

September, 1999

Pharmasset Ltd.
Small molecule antiviral therapeutics

June, 1999

Quantum Dot Corporation
Analytical reagents

April, 2000

Selfcare.com
B2C healthcare product retailer

March, 2000

Sonic Innovations, Inc.#
Hearing aids

October, 1998

Transform, Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Formulation Technologies

December, 1999

Venturi Group LLC
Medical device company incubator

June, 1999

Viacell
Stem cell therapy

November, 1997

BioMarin Pharmaceuticals (BMRN) completed an IPO on 7/99, $58M
Caliper Technnologies (CALP) completed an IPO on 12/99, $72M
*
GPC Biotech (sympbol not available) completed an IPO in Germanay on 5/00, $99M
#Sonic Innovations (SNCI) completed an IPO on 4/00, $50M

Overview

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

 

Ansbert Gädicke is remarkably accessible and accommodating despite maintaining a grueling travel schedule. In this interview, conducted at MPM’s Cambridge offices, he describes the founding of the firm and how, other than raising one’s own fund, one might break into the venture capital industry. He explains MPM’s approach to investing in and managing portfolio companies and the key qualities that he looks for in an entrepreneur. Finally, Gädicke discusses future trends in the industry, including the globalization of the biomedical enterprise.

CV Summary
Name: Ansbert S. Gädicke, M.D.
Title: President/CEO/General Partner, MPM Capital
Age:  42
Background:  Dr. Gädicke originally trained as a physician, receiving his M.D. from J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.  He subsequently held post-doctoral research positions at the German Cancer Research Center, Harvard University, and the Whitehead Institute at MIT.  His research interest was focused in the fields of molecular biology, genetic engineering, virology, oncology and immunology.

To gain business experience, Dr. Gädicke then spent three years as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).  There, he worked with top management of a variety of pharmaceutical, diagnostic, biotechnology and health insurance companies, in the areas of business strategy, pharmaceutical product development, marketing, company valuation and acquisitions. 
 
In 1992, he left BCG to found MPM.   For a time, MPM continued some of the work Gädicke had done at BCG, ultimately recruiting one of its clients, Dr. Michael Steinmetz, the global head of Biotechnology at Hoffmann-LaRoche, to join the firm and to help raise the first venture fund, BioVentures I, in 1997.  Nobel laureate, Dr. David Baltimore, was then recruited as the chair of the medical and scientific advisory board.
 
Dr. Gadicke is a member of the Harvard Medical School Advisory Council as well as the Human Science and Technology (HST) Advisory Council of Harvard University and the Masssachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).


Interview


To Topic Index

Getting Started...

CR: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me. Can you tell me about how you came to found MPM?
AG: Well, I was, originally, a physician. And while practicing medicine in an internship, I became more and more interested in the academic and scientific side of medicine. At that time, nearly twenty years ago now, there weren’t really that many diseases where you were able to provide other than purely symptomatic therapy. So, I found the clinical medicine, at that time, rather frustrating in that there were very few meaningful treatments available. In a way, there still are few treatments that really cure diseases. So, I got more interested in the scientific side.

But, it was pretty apparent to me that I didn’t want to become the typical researcher where I would focus the rest of my life on, potentially, one particular aspect of science and become the world’s expert in something. I was rather more interested in gaining a broad experience. So, I worked at the German Cancer Center and then came to the U.S. in the mid 1980s, worked in immunology and biochemistry at Harvard, and then joined friends of mine at the Whitehead Institute. During that time in Boston I met many people that were involved with biotech companies and I really got excited about the possibilities. I thought a lot about it and it became obvious to me that I really wanted to be on the commercial side of things and that that would bridge my interests in medicine, patient work, and science. Through commercialization, I could bring the science back to the patients. In a way, I went in a full circle.

The question, then, was how do you get from the science and medical side to the commercial side? And there my interests were, again, very broad. I thought that, rather than work in one particular company for a long period of time, I would like to have an impact on a whole set of companies. I decided to first gain some experience on the business side and took some courses at Sloan [MIT] and then went to work at BCG for three years. At that point, I felt that I had enough background, which may have been an overestimation, but I still felt that I had spent enough time in medicine and science and three years in business. I wanted to do my own thing.

I decided in 1992 to start my own company. The concept, at the time, was to build an investment firm that would be completely dedicated to the healthcare area. My goal was to bring top scientists, top physicians, and top investment professionals together to build THE healthcare-focused investment firm and, over time, offer the full spectrum of investment vehicles. In 1992, when I started the firm, that was perceived as unusual. First of all, it’s unusual to go out and rent an office and say, "I’m starting an investment firm." And secondly, at that time, the idea of an industry-focused or technology-focused investment firm was perceived as not mainstream at all. Venture capital was completely dominated by generalist firms. Nearly all venture capital firms had 2/3 or 3/4 of their funds in software and high tech and about 1/3 or 1/4 in biotech. The idea of focusing on one of the two was perceived as not particularly appealing.

So, I obviously needed to work my way into this. Being by myself, with no investment track record, it wouldn’t have been realistic to raise a fund at that time. I basically continued the work that I had done at BCG, which was partially M & A work. I worked with a number of the clients that I had had at BCG. Among them was Hoffmann-LaRoche, where I worked on a number of projects and got quite close with Michael Steinmetz [former head of research], who was later the first partner that joined me for the first venture fund. I also maintained a close relationship with David Baltimore, with whom I had developed a good relationship at the Whitehead Institute. So, that work on the M & A side really got the firm going in respect to cash flow as well as in respect to building the relationships and developing the track record that then, ultimately, allowed us to raise the first fund in 1997.

CR: Was that the BioVentures I fund?
AG: Exactly. We raised that in 1997 and that was a $230 million fund, which at the time, was actually the largest biotech venture fund.

CR: Do you think that working at BCG was useful in terms of acquiring the skills to be a venture capitalist?
AG: I think it was extremely useful. If you look at the successful venture capital or LBO [leveraged buy-out] firms, a very large percentage of those firms have people with backgrounds in consulting, mostly from BCG, Bain, and McKinsey. Bain Capital, itself, is probably one of the two or three most successful private investment firms in the US. So, I think a consulting background is incredibly valuable.

To Topic Index

Transition to Business...

CR: Was the transition from medicine and research to BCG a shock to the system?
AG: Oh, yeah! That was a complete nightmare both for BCG and for me. In that respect, BCG was probably the most difficult firm at the time because BCG, when I joined them in 1989, held the principal of exclusively hiring and building generalists. It was not possible, at that time at BCG, to specialize in any industry. They did not have a program to hire non-MBAs. I think that in my class, of 20 or 25 consultants that were hired that year, I was the only MD. To my knowledge, there had been only one MD hired before and still in the system. So, for BCG, it was very experimental and I certainly felt like the lab mouse that was ready to be sacrificed at any time for the purposes of the experiment. What I think saved me was that I had taken a few courses at Sloan so, at least, I knew some of the terminology involved and had looked at a balance sheet and things like that. But it was, nevertheless, quite an experience because I basically had to compete with MBAs on what was, essentially, business work. There was nothing scientific to be done there. But in the end it worked out quite well though I certainly had to go through a pretty dramatic learning curve.

 

CR: That’s interesting because a lot of the top firms are now actively recruiting MDs and Ph.D.s.
AG: Yes; that was eleven years ago. By now, everything’s changed. Also, in the last few years, most venture capital firms have specialized; most of them do IT and related fields only and some of them do biotech only. Now, consulting firms hire specialists and investment banks hire specialists. There’s an entirely different perception of technology. Now, people talk about the new economy, relating to technology, and the old economy, meaning everything else. It’s just completely different compared to eleven years ago.

To Topic Index

Raising the Funds...

CR: OK, I’d like to move on and talk a little more about MPM. The BioVentures I fund was raised in collaboration with a firm called Bellevue Asset Management. Can you explain the relationship between MPM and Bellevue?
AG: Bellevue helped us with a road show as part of the effort to raise the first fund in Switzerland. That fund is completely committed by now and the second fund, which we just raised, was raised without collaboration with Bellevue. So, at this point, it’s more of a historical feature.

 

CR: What’s the name and size of the second fund?
AG: Its called MPM BioVentures II and it’s a $600 million fund. The fund raising was really like a feeding frenzy. We sent the documents out in the second week of January [2000] and by the beginning of March, we had $850 million in commitments. But, we felt that the maximum we could responsibly manage in the venture capital fund, with the existing people, was $600 million. We actually talked for a long time about what the right number should be but we felt that we should not go over 600 million and we, ultimately, cut the 850 in demand down to 600. That makes it, by quite a good margin, the largest venture capital fund in biotech.

 

CR: Can you describe the process by which you raise a venture capital fund?
AG: Well, assuming that you have established investor relationships- we’re not talking about raising a first fund for somebody who’s trying to get into the business- you let the investors know, several months ahead, that you’ll be out raising a fund. Then, you send out the documents- both the private placement memorandum and the partnership agreements and so on- and you visit the investors and give them presentations. Afterwards, they will typically get back to you with particular questions. Then, depending on the level of interest, a dynamic develops between investors. You can gain a lot of momentum- which happened in our case- when people come to understand that the fund will likely be oversubscribed. Things can happen very quickly because investors want to make sure that they’re able to get in. So, in our case, we ended up with $850 million in commitments within less than two months.

 

CR: That was also nice timing coincident with the market run-up on genomics companies. I’m sure that helped?
AG: Absolutely. But we also had had two incredibly successful IPOs. We have five IPOs in the pipeline right now. So, what also certainly helped was that the first fund looks to be extremely successful in financial terms.

 

CR: Is BioVentures II targeted to a particular stage of investment?
AG: Our philosophy is to be completely focused on healthcare technology. But within healthcare technology, given that we’re the largest fund, we feel that we should cover all relevant stages. The way the fund will be invested is that about one third will be invested in early stage companies and two thirds in later stages. Early stage, for us, is anything from start-up to financings that are still the first round of institutional money coming in- sometimes the start-up is done through angel, private, or university funds or whatever. So, until the first real institutional investor comes in, we still define that as early stage and that’s about one third of the investments. Then, two thirds are targeted to later stages, which include all private investments up to the IPO. That’s still venture capital but then there are also so-called PIPES, which stands for Private Investment In Public Entities. Those are privately negotiated investments in companies that are already publicly traded. It’s basically a venture capital investment in a public company. Now, that’s the strategy for BioVentures II. We’re also going to put a public fund together that will cover public companies in the broader sense, rather than just PIPES.

 

CR: I hadn’t heard about PIPES before. Is it a new type of investment?
AG: Well, it’s not particularly new but it’s just not that common. The reason is that the typical public investors don’t use it; they simply buy stock through the stock exchange. Most venture funds don’t do it either because most are focused purely on private companies. It’s really on the interface of venture capital and the public markets. So, it’s something that’s existed for a long time but it’s just not that common.

In biotech, it’s particularly appropriate for two reasons. First, I don’t think that anybody who understands the biotech market would claim that it’s a really efficient market. There are several hundred public companies out there. Many or most of them are not well covered by analysts; many of the technologies and projects are not well understood by analysts. Therefore, it’s not that efficient. And that means that there are good companies out there that are ignored by the public market and that can get into cash crunch situations.

The difference between providing a PIPE and buying stock on the open market is two-fold. First, the money goes directly into the company and the company issues stock. That’s really what’s needed because those companies are in a cash crunch and they actually need the cash. Usually, if their stock price simply increases, that doesn’t necessarily help them. The second reason is that, with PIPES, you can often negotiate more attractive terms than through the public market. If you invest $20 million, through the public market, in a stock that’s thinly traded, the price will go up dramatically and you’ll buy at a higher price simply because you are buying. And, the money doesn’t even go into the company so that company isn’t necessarily better off. If you do a PIPE, you may be able to negotiate a discount so that you buy more cheaply. Plus, the cash goes into the company and supports the company, which, from our perspective, is much more attractive.

To Topic Index

Evaluating Business Plans...

CR: Interesting. So, when you receive a new business plan through your network- I know that VCs never look at anything that comes in over the transom- and the technology looks interesting, how do you perform the necessary due diligence and how involved is your scientific advisory board in that work?
AG: Well, to give you some idea of the situation, we get about 800 business plans per year. Now, you hear all sorts of different numbers in this industry. I recently heard from one of our competitors that they get 5000 business plans per year. But that’s certainly not possible since there aren’t that many companies. So, there’s a lot of double counting going on. Our 800 business plans are not double counted. If the same business plan gets into different offices during the year at different times, we don’t count it every time. And also, business plans for, let’s say, unrealistic companies are not counted at all. A lot of business plans are out there that don’t really describe a company; it’s just somebody in a lab who has an idea or two and writes a summary of something. So, those are 800 real investment opportunities.

Based on our own internal knowledge- we have nine partners plus several associates and analysts, most with an MD or Ph.D. background in addition to business experience- we can determine, in the vast majority of cases, that it’s not interesting to us. Either it’s in a field that we don’t find interesting or the team looks weak in terms of the people behind the company or the technology or the product looks unattractive. So, one can probably bring it down from 800 to 100 very quickly purely based on internal resources. To get from the 100 that look reasonably interesting down to about 15, which is roughly the number of investments we make per year, that’s where the real work needs to be done. In those cases, we often work with experts in the area. We know many of these experts directly. We’ll involve the advisory board if it’s an area in which the advisory board members are experts. In some cases, we don’t know an expert ourselves but then the members of the advisory board, who are very well known people, will get us in contact with the right experts to look into it.

 

CR: What types of analyses will you perform when evaluating a business plan or technology?
AG: Well, one should distinguish between technology and product opportunities. In any case, we’ll always do a patent review. That’s done by external patent lawyers. The scientific or medical experts usually do not have a good grasp of that area. Then, with respect to technologies, it’s more a question of whether the core technology has proof of concept. We go in depth with the data to get a very good understanding of the competitive field. We only invest in companies that we believe will be the leaders of their particular fields. We have no interest in investing in the 45th gene therapy company- there are a lot of those like that. So, those are some of the questions for technologies.

With respect to products, there’s obviously a calculation of value for the patient and both the market size- the number of patients- and the reimbursable price, which is related to the severity of disease, to the value-added for the patient, to the types of alternative treatments, and so on. That’s where a lot of work is involved. Last but not least, management is extremely important, whether it is a technology or product focused company.

 

CR: How important is exit strategy when deciding whether to invest in a company?
AG: I’m sure it’s important for everybody but we put considerably more emphasis on it than most venture funds. One of our venture partners- a venture partner does not work full time but basically spends as much time with us as needed- is Paul Brooke. Paul was, until recently, the global head of healthcare research and strategy at Morgan Stanley. He is, clearly, one of the most respected investment bankers and analysts in the healthcare industry. We discuss every potential investment with him to assess the likelihood of taking the company public. And in particular, what types of milestones would have to be met to take the company public, as well as what kinds of valuation expectations to have. So, for each investment we make, we have an expectation both for the timeframe to an exit, as well as for the profitability at an exit.

To Topic Index

Working with Portfolio Companies...

CR: How would you describe your role in the portfolio companies? Is it an active role? Do you encourage interactions between the portfolio companies? Do you look for synergies?
AG: It’s an active role that is characterized by the facts that, first, we are the largest fund in the industry, which means that we typically play a lead investor role. Our investment size is $5-50 million per portfolio company. That makes us, to my knowledge, not only the largest venture capital fund in the healthcare space, but also the fund that has the capability for the largest individual investments in a portfolio company. And that, combined with the fact that we have, I think, the broadest and most experienced partner team in the industry, allows us to work very closely and very actively with our portfolio companies. As I mentioned, we are the lead investor in most companies and, in nearly all cases, we are represented on the board. We like to have close relationships with management so that management can use the resources within our partner group to help them with some of the critical decisions they face, particularly in areas where they may not have experience.

By way of example, Michael Steinmetz ran biotechnology worldwide for Hoffmann-LaRoche. He had 800 scientists working for him and he guided several products through the R & D phase. That’s an experience that most biotech companies don’t have internally. Nick Galakatos [another MPM partner] was a senior manager here at Millennium, obviously an extremely successful biotech company. So, we have the resources internally- the people who can give very valuable advice to the management of biotech companies.

We certainly encourage collaboration between portfolio companies. When we see synergies, we get them in touch. Several of our companies collaborate but, on the other hand, those have to be arms-length transactions. We certainly don’t push companies to collaborate with each other simply because they’re our portfolio companies. If there’s a better reason to collaborate with a company that we’re not invested in, that’s obviously what they should do.

 

CR: I’d like to talk about of couple of the portfolio companies. Recently, you invested in DoubleTwist, which formerly was Pangea. Can you explain how you came to this deal? I think that it was a late stage investment and that you hadn’t been involved with the company previously?
AG: Actually, we looked at Pangea a couple of years ago and, at the time, we were not particularly excited about the business model. The business model, then, was to sell very expensive bioinformatics packages to companies- they would have been in the $1-3 million range per package. We thought that that was a very difficult business model. It actually turned out that it is indeed a very difficult business model- that doesn’t mean that we’re always right- and the company changed its focus, a while ago, to offer access to its software, as well as databases, as an ASP [Application Service Provider] through the internet. From our perspective, that dramatically changed the dynamics because one can now gain access through a subscription model. That means that one doesn’t have a capital investment of, potentially, several million dollars but rather one pays for a subscription, which makes it achievable and attractive for a dramatically larger number of companies. It also makes it very simple to have access to the newest version of the software; you don’t have to worry about keeping your hardware and software going and you don’t have to hire the internal people to handle that. So, we felt that that was a dramatic improvement in the business model.

We did quite a bit of competitive research on the other companies that are out there and we concluded that DoubleTwist was the leading company in that space. And therefore, we were very excited to work with the company. It was, actually, an extremely competitive financing. To my knowledge, they had six, basically identical term sheets on the table and selected us as the lead investor. I think that’s a good example of the fact that portfolio companies recognize that we are the largest and, probably, the most knowledgeable venture fund in this space. That also helps us to get highly competitive terms.

 

CR: Two other portfolio companies that caught my interest, partly because I used to work in the HIV field, are Novirio and Pharmasset. I noticed that they’re working together and was wondering if you could explain how you came to that deal and how they have come to collaborate?
AG: We identified the Novirio founders first, through our network. Anti-virals is one of the areas in which we have a strategic interest. We believe that that’s an area where a lot of progress is being made, and where the medical need is still growing. So, it’s and area where we like to invest. We don’t mind having several investments in one area, particularly if the companies are collaborating closely, which is the case between Novirio and Pharmasset. The founders of those companies are actually overlapping and they intended a collaboration between the two companies when they were founded. We invested in Novirio first, got to know Pharmasset through Novirio, and then decided to invest in Pharmasset as well.

The founders are clearly among the top leaders in the anti-viral field. Jean-Pierre Sommadossi [Novirio] is extremely well known in the HIV field on the clinical side. He led several of the big clinical studies. Raymond Schinazi [Pharmasset] is probably the chemist with the best record of developing compounds as anti-virals. Bruno Lucidi [Noviro] was the head of anti-virals for Bristol-Myers Squibb and worked on the most successful, fastest product introduction in the HIV field ever, to my knowledge. Maureen Myers [Novirio] did a fantastic job managing, from research to product launch, the very successful Boehringer Ingelheim HIV project. And Martin Bryant [Novirio] did a fantastic job with respect to the anti-viral field as head of research at Aviron. So, we put a just stellar team together. They have a strong pipeline. It’s an exciting area. Those are really the reasons why we invested.

 

CR: Would you say that investing in two, closely related companies is the exception to the rule? From a portfolio management standpoint, is over concentration a concern?
AG: Well, having two investments out of 26- the size of the BioVentures I portfolio- in one field is not a problem with respect to diversification. If you want to invest heavily into one field, then, doing that with a couple of companies rather than just one probably reduces your risk, particularly if they are companies that have synergies and like to collaborate- that’s a great situation.

To Topic Index

On People...

CR: What qualities do you look for in an entrepreneur?
AG: The main thing we want to see is vision and the appropriate experience- appropriate experience in the entrepreneurial field. If somebody has, let’s say, 15 years of experience in a large pharmaceutical company, that’s great experience but it doesn’t, necessarily, mean that he will be successful in running a small company. On the other hand, people like Mark Levin, here at Millennium, didn’t have a lot of experience at running companies but he had great vision and motivation and an ability to motivate others. He did an unbelievable job; no one else would have been able to do it. So, it’s the combination of having the vision and having the mental ability to really drive the sector forward, together with the appropriate background.

 

CR: Do you think a strong board can be sufficient to support an inexperienced CEO, provided he has the vision?
AG: If he has the vision and the right personality and if he’s smart enough, I think that’s definitely true. I’d rather have somebody who’s smart and young and has energy and vision than someone, again, who has 25 years of pharma experience and is basically retired.

 

CR: On the other side of the coin, what qualities make a good venture capitalist?
AG: Well, I’m probably the wrong one to ask [laughs]. But, I think you should not only try to select the right companies, but also focus on adding value. My personal bias is that many venture capitalists don’t have enough understanding of the industry to really provide a lot of guidance to biotech companies. On the other hand, I think a lot biotech management feels that they get a lot of guidance anyway. So, that’s what I would say is the big problem. I think one has to make sure that one only provides guidance when it’s needed and if one really has the qualifications to give the guidance. But, if that’s the case, then one has to be willing and able to support the portfolio companies’ management at the right time as much as possible. And that has to include funding as well as advice. If you only have advice and the company is in a cash crunch, that’s not necessarily that helpful. Having a large fund allows you to support the companies on a sustained basis and to provide stability for them.

 

CR: Ok, other than starting your own fund, what paths are you aware of into the venture capital industry?
AG: I think there are a number of paths. It’s great to gain experience at a consulting firm. We have people that worked at BCG, McKinsey, ADL, and the Wilkerson Group. I personally think that’s a fantastic background. Obviously, there are other ways, not counting getting directly into a venture group. A background in investment banking is very helpful. It helps you understand what the exit opportunities are and how different stage investors are looking at the opportunity. Gaining some operating experience in these companies, particularly on the corporate development side, is helpful as well.

To Topic Index

Looking Ahead...

CR:
In the two minutes remaining, can you talk about where you see the technology moving and opportunities for investment in biotech outside of the medical space, such as in agriculture? Also, can you say a word about whether you think the Clinton-Blair statement of March 14 is going to have a lasting impact on the market, particularly on the genomics side?
AG: In the big picture, I’m sure that biotech is having a large impact on the agricultural side as well as on environmental technologies. However, we made a strategic decision not to focus on that at all. We focus purely on the medical applications. So, I’m biased in that aspect and am probably not the best person to talk about the other areas. However, we feel that, so far, we have been on the right side of things because, at least recently, the most public criticism has been on biotech with respect to agriculture. I think it’s much easier, for people who view biotech as something scary, to worry about modified food rather than to argue against new drugs being developed.

In respect to technologies, I think the next ten years will probably be the most exciting time for biotech and for medicine ever due to the secondary effects of the human genome project. The pure sequencing that has happened so far is essentially not that exciting, but this next stage- bioinformatics, proteomics, understanding pathways and system interactions- is where the value added will come.

And that leads to the Clinton-Blair initiative. I, personally, think it’s incredibly positive for the industry. If a few companies, like Celera, would be able to dominate the patent positions in the human genome, it would certainly be a potentially great opportunity for those very, very few companies. But it would constitute a problem for the rest of the industry, which is 99% of the companies out there. So, I don’t know how it’s going to play out. A political remark is one thing. How will it really play out? I don’t know. I feel that these remarks certainly hurt a small portion of the industry but I think it’s not bad for the industry, as a whole, at all. But, it will take a while for the markets to, hopefully, come to that conclusion.

 

CR: What about Europe and other regions of the world with respect to the biotech revolution? Do you anticipate them playing a larger role in the second fund?
AG: Currently, we see about 80% in the US and 20% in Europe. We have a European office, and a very high level presence in Europe, so we certainly see what’s going on there. It’s shifting a little bit towards Europe over time- not because the US is slowing down but because Europe is catching up to its appropriate role given the size of the economy and the existing science. I also think that Asia will pick up. We’re very excited about what’s going on in Singapore and my expectation is that that’s going to be a first beachhead for biotechnology in Asia. I think it’s too early to say how that will translate into other countries. But, I would be extremely surprised if, five to ten years from now, our portfolio would still look like 80% US, 20% Europe, and very little in Asia.

Overview | Interview Topic Index

About the Author
Carlo Rizzuto is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and a director of the GSAS Harvard Biotechnology Club. In his "free time," he plays a decent game of rollerhockey and enjoys growing prize-winning vegetables in his community garden plot. Carlo lives in Cambridge with his wife, Rita, and their cat, Sweetie. He didn't name the cat.  He can be reached at: carlo@thebiotechclub.org

General Comments or Questions about Profiles should be sent to: kim@thebiotechclub.org

Copyright 2000 GSAS Harvard Biotechnolgy Club
All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

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