This Is Your Brain On Drug Money

Posted on | October 26, 2007 | No Comments

The tech guys don’t have dirty, sexy money all sewn up. Nope. The biotech and pharma guys are gettin’ theirs too. A passel of them are set to gather at Stanford Research Institute’s (SRI) annual Biotech Investing Conference. The conference is an industry gathering of venture capitalists, private equity investors, biotech companies, big pharma, endowments & foundation representatives, corporate strategic investors, institutional investors, licensing executives, and commercial and investment bankers.

The conference will be held at SRI’s headquarters in Menlo Park on November 5-6, 2007. The event is billed as an opportunity for the leaders building and financing the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industry to discuss trends in private and public funding, innovative business strategies, new alternative partners, and the impact of global competition.

SRI’s conference isn’t the only game in town either. There are over 150 biotech and pharma conferences scheduled this year. And, big Pharma (Pfizer, Biogen, Merck and the other biggies) are also joining the mad dash to finance early stage drug development and trials in order to get first dibs on new discoveries, to supplement their own R&D departments and to access the brainpower and intellectual capital of entrepreneurial scientists and researchers.

Pfizer and Biogen-Idec have both created incubators to help “earlier-stage” companies in need of development help. Startups in Biogen’s Cambridge, MA-based “bi3″ incubator spend 2-3 years trying to create a drug. The startups also receive business and financial support, access to Biogen scientists and equipment.

Other companies have begun incentivizing scientists and bio-engineers to develop new drugs more quickly. Incentives range from equity stakes in the drugs they develop to running their own spin-offs within the larger companies.

Nonprofits and government are also getting in on the biotech and pharma boon, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is providing large grants of $1M+ to promising researchers and biotech/pharma startups to help them develop breakthrough drugs. California voters approved a bond measure that raised $3B for stem cell research. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) appropriated $60M (FY 2007) to “to accelerate the development of challenging, high risk technologies with the potential for significant commercial payoffs and widespread benefits for the nation.”
Large nonprofit organizations including The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) and the Michael J. Fox Foundation are throwing considerable funding behind development of drugs that target a specific disease. CFF gave $22 million to FoldRX Pharmaceuticals to advance preclinical research. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) gave AlphaVax over $4M to develop SARs vaccines.

Nonprofits, corporations and venture capitalists are also partnering to fund drug development. Collective Therapeutics of Durham, NC received $27.5M from a group of venture capitalists and Genentech. Pharmaceutical companies developing breast cancer treatments have received funding from the likes of Estee Lauder and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Not to be outdone, venture capitalists and private equity firms are laying claim to the startups of promising scientists. The only wrench in their usual plans is that drug development is long, unpredictable and slow to pay off. But, nevertheless, venture capitalists and private equity firms are exploring their options.

So, what can you do with this info?

• First, if you’re interested in this field, you can explore opportunities inside and outside of the lab. The biotech and biopharma industry is bustling and expanding, so talented folks can land great jobs here.

• Next, if you happen to be a mad scientists aching to break out of the boring R&D routine and jump into an accelerated, high-incentive R&D routine on steroids (and other people’s money), here’s your opportunity.

• Finally, if you have some knowledge and experience in conducting designing, evaluating, writing reports or recruiting test subjects for clinical trials, your ship has come in!

Want more information? Contact Careersthatdontsuck.com.

SRI Conference Details:
November 5 – 6, 2007
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue , Menlo Park , CA -94025
$1,395 – General Registration + Workshop

For additional information, contact:
Carissa Stavrakos
Associate Producer
(516) 765-9005 x310
Email:carissa@ibfconferences.com

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