Perhaps everyone should be so green. With help from his partners, Axel Ullrich, an important early scientist in Genentech, the San Francisco-based biotechnology firm, and Stephen Evans-Freke, a former investment banker turned biotechnology entrepreneur, Schlessinger built SUGEN Inc. In 1999, the colossal pharmaceutical company Pharmacia Corp. acquired SUGEN for $720 million, even before it had marketed its first drug. Schlessinger went on to help found a second company, Plexxikon, based on the structural genomics discoveries of cofounder Sung-Yo Kim at the University of California, Berkeley, but he has learned some lessons on the way. "In order to prevent the mistakes I made in the past, I created checks and balances," Schlessinger says.
Creating such safegaurds begins with negotiations for the final deal--when the scientist-inventor tries to sketch terms that supply abundant cash for development and provide the inventor reasonable profits. Many fledgling inventors end up like Schlessinger--dissatisfied with the corporate ...
