EXCERPT
Chapter 6: Are You an Entrepreneur?
“While there are many guides offering advice on being a successful entrepreneur, there are fewer resources available to help potential entrepreneurs think about whether it is the right career path for them. In other words, ‘How do I know if I’m an entrepreneur?’”
Who is the biotech entrepreneur? Is a biotech entrepreneur necessarily an accomplished scientist bent on improving human health by discovering a paradigm-shifting scientific insight? Some accounts of the industry certainly give that impression, and there have certainly been many biotech entrepreneurs who have been outstanding research scientists. However, the CEO’s task is far more extensive than managing scientific research projects, no matter how innovative or complicated they may be. A biotech company is an extremely complex business. It requires the application and coordination of scientific, regulatory, financial, and management expertise to operate effectively. Fundraising and communications capabilities, the ability to negotiate and manage business partnerships, problem solving skills, strategic thinking, and perseverance are all essential for the company’s success. So, while scientific knowledge is one critical aspect of building a successful biotech company, it is not the only one. This need for multidisciplinary leadership abilities helps explains why, as the industry has developed, individuals with a variety of backgrounds have ended up with overall management responsibility.
While there are many guides offering advice on being a successful entrepreneur, there are fewer resources available to help potential entrepreneurs think about whether it is the right career path for them. In other words, “How do I know if I’m an entrepreneur?”
To shed further light on the qualities and traits that are helpful for biotech entrepreneurship, we have developed a set of questions to help people consider whether they might find a career in biotechnology entrepreneurship fulfilling and a good match for their personality and inclinations. There may be other important considerations, but these represent a good place to start, and they are basically an entrepreneurial version of the Delphic Oracle’s injunction to “know yourself.”
Do you always think there is a better way to do things?
When biotech CEOs are not working to raise money, they often describe their jobs as creative problem-solving. Their companies are trying to succeed in the same task being pursued by the research deivisions of large pharmaceutical companies, but with a tiny fraction of the resources. Creativity is essential, and since the industry is subject to countless laws and regulations, that creative spirit needs to be channeled into pathways that will work effectively in a very carefully regulated environment.
Are you willing to take on just about anything, even if you don’t know much about it?
In a nearly constant state of having insufficient resources, biotech companies cannot afford to have staffs of experts in every possible area. Entrepreneurial employees need to banish the phrase, “That’s not my job,” and replace it with enthusiasm for the opportunity to learn – and master – something completely new and difficult whenever necessary.
Are you comfortable taking risks?
Success is not along a defined path, and obstacles are the norm. Many highly credentialed graduates have succeeded in their academic work by having a detailed and comprehensive understanding of a particular field, and they are used to seeking and finding the “right” answers. That is not always – in fact, not often – possible in biotech company leadership. Plans need to be made, and often changed, without adequate amounts of information being available, and many of those plans will go wrong usually in unexpected ways. For some, that opportunity to juggle many things in unpredictable environments sounds exhilarating; for others, it would be a highly unattractive way to devote countless hours each week.
Do you like to do new things, or do you prefer routine?
As with all of the earlier questions, there is no right or wrong answer, just the one that suits an individual’s preferences. It is not uncommon for biotech senior executives to find that their day goes in completely unexpected ways on a regular basis. Whether the surprises are good (the stock jumps up in a way that may lead to a new financing opportunity) or not (the FDA calls to place a “clinical hold” – that is, stop patient enrollment – on your most important product in clinical trials), there are a lot of them.
Can you accept rejection and failure?
Perseverance is a must in an industry with a 90% failure rate and a financing environment in which most potential investors (sometimes all investors) say “no” most of the time. Multi-hundred-million-dollar corporate alliances can, and often will, fall apart at the last minute after a year or longer spent in detailed negotiations. Being able to plot a course towards success is important, but it is just as essential to be able to figure how to bounce back from disappointment or failure.
There is no guaranteed formula for success as a biotech entrepreneur. However, potential biotech entrepreneurs would probably do well to be able to answer “yes” to these questions, and in fact, entrepreneurs in almost any field should probably be able to answer in the affirmative to most of them. Novel ideas, creative thinking, clever new approaches – the stock-in-trade of entrepreneurs everywhere – are an essential component of success. But, at the same time, all of that creativity needs to be exercised and managed in ways that will gain the support of the investors and regulatory bodies that are crucial to the company’s success. For example, carefully maintaining meticulous, detailed written records in full compliance with the impressively complex and comprehensive regulations established by the FDA and other similar bodies around the world is as important for successfully launching a new medicine as creating the product in the first instance. Managing this delicate balance in a constantly changing environment requires an exceptional level of adaptability as well as the ability to learn new things quickly. While no specific academic discipline can claim ownership of this skill, it is arguably one of the main benefits of advanced education. This could help explain the unusually high levels of education of the biotech leaders and the striking diversity of the educational and professional backgrounds of those leaders. Whatever their backgrounds may be, those who enjoy the type of environment we have described, and who are able to tolerate operating in a risk-laden environment of complexities and uncertainties, can find biotech entrepreneurship to be an exciting career path. They will have the rewards of working with a group of incredibly smart people who single-mindedly focus on building a successful business by bringing important new medicines to the patients who need them.
“Novel ideas, creative thinking, clever new approaches – the stock-in-trade of entrepreneurs everywhere – are an essential component of success. But, at the same time, all of that creativity needs to be exercised and managed in ways that will gain the support of the investors and regulatory bodies that are crucial to the company’s success.”
As we conclude this section on entrepreneurial characteristics, it is worth noting that there is very little research in this area, and that developing a better understanding of the relationship between personality traits and successful entrepreneurship is an important area for future study. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies that specifically examine such connections in the context of the biotech industry. Given the variety of the different tasks and stakeholders involved, it would be interesting for further studies to shed light on how certain qualities and traits (or lack thereof) affect the processes and outcomes of those interactions. For example, are some traits more effective in managing the company’s own board or shareholders versus negotiations with a potential licensee such as a large pharmaceutical company, or vice versa? As discussed in the references in the notes to this chapter, the vast majority of studies on the personality traits of entrepreneurs do not account for industry characteristics, and the performance measures are quite generic, if they are captured at all.
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This is an article that has been published by Oxford University Press in the book From Breakthrough to Blockbuster: The Business of Biotechnology by Donald Drakeman, Lisa Drakeman, and Nektarios Oraiopoulos, published February 14, 2022.