The IPO Road Show ... from NO

Editor's Note: In the previous issue of The Scientist (12[20]:7, 14, Oct. 12, 1998), we published the first part of an excerpt from NO by Carl Djerassi. We met the chief protagonist of the book, an Indian scientist named Renu Krishnan, who has developed a drug called NONO-2 and a delivery system called MUSA. Guided by Martin Gestler, a hard-charging expert on biotechnology start-up companies, Krishnan has left academic research to found a company called SURYA. The previous extract described t

Written byCarl Djerassi
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Editor's Note: In the previous issue of The Scientist (12[20]:7, 14, Oct. 12, 1998), we published the first part of an excerpt from NO by Carl Djerassi. We met the chief protagonist of the book, an Indian scientist named Renu Krishnan, who has developed a drug called NONO-2 and a delivery system called MUSA. Guided by Martin Gestler, a hard-charging expert on biotechnology start-up companies, Krishnan has left academic research to found a company called SURYA. The previous extract described the preparation of an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for the fledgling company. In this part, we follow the progress of the "road show," where the IPO is presented to potential investors. We meet I.C. Cantor, a flamboyant, Nobel Prize-winning chemist and chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the new venture, who is reluctantly persuaded to join the road show. According to Djerassi, the passage involving Mother Teresa described in ...

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