Adviser and Business Mentor to Bioscience SMEs and Startups
Apologies for the radio silence over the past 18 months. My work life took an interesting turn and I’ve been swamped ever since setting up both a new venture capital firm and a new TechBio startup. I’m back blogging now, and from a different perspective – no longer just a retained adviser, interim CBO or board member for startups, but also a startup CEO and venture investor.
Continue reading “New chapter in my career”
At long last, I have now started serious work on my new book for startups: The Bioscience Startup Journey. Two chapters are already written. And I’m now recruiting beta readers who’ll help me write the book in an agile development way.
Continue reading “Announcing My New Book for Startups”
Does your startup ride a megatrend? When evaluating a bioscience startup, my first filter is often whether that aspiring business will exploit one of the megatrends sweeping through the bioscience and healthcare sector.
Continue reading “Bioscience and Healthcare Megatrends that Startups Cannot Ignore”
This blog post highlights two common misconceptions that bioscience startups often have with respect to their new venture’s business models. These misconceptions can lead to poor decisions that result, at best, in resource-wasting delays before a self-sustaining enterprise is established, and at worst, in their venture’s premature demise.
Continue reading “Two Common Business Model Misconceptions”
What’s my business model? Who do I partner with? How do I scale up? These are typical strategic questions a young biotech will regularly face as it evolves from its initial Seed stage through its Series A, B and C funding rounds.
Continue reading “Business Models for a Young Biotech”
I was inspired to post this article after someone said to me, “The drug development skills learnt in big pharma translate naturally to the biotech world … you just have a smaller budget”. While the technical skills are essentially the same, I feel strongly that the context and mindset in which they are applied are fundamentally different. This article highlights three ways in which “smart” small/medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) conduct drug development.
Continue reading “3 Drug Development Principles for Smart SMEs”
Many new biotechs start off as virtual companies. But at each stage of development, you always end up asking whether you should stay virtual or build your own in-house wet labs. What are the pros and cons of being virtual? And is there a more pragmatic “semi-virtual” approach?
Continue reading “Should your Biotech be Virtual?”
As the 2015–16 English Premier League football season ends, I reflect on the lessons that smaller/medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can learn from Leicester City’s unlikely victory. In addition, to the usual lessons on how an underdog can triumph over much bigger competitors, I explore three other important lessons that are less obvious.
Continue reading “Lessons from Leicester City’s success for Bioscience SMEs”Why are success rates in pharmaceutical R&D so low? And unlike many other industries where technology has accelerated R&D, why has the productivity trend in pharmaceutical R&D been worsening over the past few decades? As the reasons are not obvious, I thought it would be illuminating to many of my blog readers if I summarized the key findings of the most influential studies and papers investigating the root causes of the pharmaceutical R&D productivity crisis. Full references to all the papers mentioned are provided at the end of this article.
Continue reading “Root Causes of the Pharmaceutical R&D Productivity Crisis”
Pfizer’s proposed Hospira acquisition is the latest in a long line of deals that have moved generic drugs into the mainstream of Big Pharma corporate strategy. Once seen as threats eating away at their expensively-built revenue streams, generics now have a distinct role in many Big Pharmas’ business models.
Continue reading “Generics have come full circle for Big Pharma”
Robert Thong 