Temperatures outside Nomura bank in London climbed into the high summertime registers as six biotech executives in dark suits filed into windowless rooms. The men were immediately segregated into two groups and told they had two days to turn a university spin-out into a billion dollar public company. Oh, and the two groups were competing against each other in a biotech "wargame," and would be observed and analyzed by industry experts.
In one room, the executives from the United States took their seats: Bruce Carter, CEO of Zymogenetics; Clive Meanwell, CEO of the Medicines Company; and Tim Rink, retired CEO of Aurora Biosciences Corporation. Sequestered away in another corner of the bank, their British counterparts congregated: Nigel Burns, Chairman of Cell Medica; Eliot Forster, CEO of Solace Pharma; and Neill MacKenzie, co-founder of Oxford BioMedica.
Sponsored by the Bioscience Futures Forum, a government-launched organization run by industry leaders, the wargame ...
