Common Pitfalls
Common Pitfalls
Concept and gestation:
- Scientific founders can sometimes forget that they are running a business and not a lab. It is important to use the seed capital to drive the enterprise, and not just the science, forward.
- Conversely, it is possible to rush a compound from discovery into the next phase - preclinical and expensive IND- (investigative new drug) enabling studies - without adequate understanding of the basic biology underlying the putative action of the compound, thus increasing the risk of an early failure.
Infancy:
- Inadequate management of dilution.
- Inattention to the need for skilled business leadership in addition to gifted scientific skills.
- A rush into a premature licensing transaction with a legacy pharmaceutical company, resulting in loss of control of the compound and an inadequate financial return.
Maturity:
- Designing and running clinical trials based on...
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Sam Hall is an Associate and Alastair Wood is Managing Director at Symphony Capital New York, NY.
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