Full Description
Preserving the Promise: Improving the Culture of Biotech Investment critically examines why most biotech startups fail, as they emerge from universities into an ecosystem that inhibits rather than encourages innovation. This "Valley of Death" squanders our public investments in medical research and with them, the promise of longer and healthier lives.
The authors explicate the Translation Gap faced by early stage biotech companies, the result of problematic technology transfer and investment practices, and provide specific prescriptions for improving translation of important discoveries into safe and effective therapies.
In Preserving the Promise, Dessain and Fishman build on their collective experience as company founders, healthcare investor (Fishman) and physician/scientist (Dessain). The book offers a forward-looking, critical analysis of "conventional wisdom" that encumbers commercialization practices. It exposes the self-defeating habits of drug development in the Valley of Death, that waste money and extinguish innovative technologies through distorted financial incentives.
Contents
Innovation Meets the Translation Gap
Chapter 1. Stop the Madness and Cure Something
Chapter 2. Into the Valley of Death
Chapter 3. Clinical Promise ≠ Investment Practice
Chapter 4. Velcade, a Biotech Success Story
Chapter 5. Biotechnology and the Future of Pharma
Chapter 6. Why Pharma Should Care About the Valley of Death
Chapter 7. Porter's Five Forces and the Market for Angel Capital
Chapter 8. Out of the Frying Pan: The Fire's Not So Great Either
Chapter 9. Getting to Australia
Translation Gap 1: Universities Don't Make What Companies Need
Chapter 10. When Is an Experiment Ready for the Valley of Death?
Chapter 11. Unintended Consequences of Applying for a Patent
Chapter 12. What if It Doesn't Actually Work?
Chapter 13. Building a Better Mousetrap
Translation Gap 2: Good Innovation Is Not Always a Good Investment
Chapter 14. Due Diligence and Angel Incentives
Chapter 15. What Is Value?
Chapter 16. Angels at the Crux of Invention
Chapter 17. Investment: A Nuanced Decision
Chapter 18. Ready for a Long-Term Relationship With a Science Experiment?
Chapter 19. Investing in Hockey Sticks
Chapter 20. Harps for Angels
Chapter 21. Connecting Innovation to Investment
Translation Gap 3: Technology Transfer Wastes Money and Innovation
Chapter 22. Mitigating Supplier Power
Chapter 23. Preventing Speeding by Closing the Road
Chapter 24. Breaking Old Habits
Epilogue
Chapter 25. Epilogue: Why We Do This
