Friday, April 11, 2008

Understanding Yesterday's Millennium Pharma Deal

The acquisition yesterday of Millennium Pharmaceuticals by a Japanese firm for $8.8 billion is a big deal -- the biggest ever in the Massachusetts biotech industry.

The Globe's Jeff Krasner has some really solid analysis of Millennium's saga, which began with a lot of lofty predictions about the power of genomic information. Krasner writes:

    Nobody did more to raise those unrealistic expectations than Mark J. Levin, Millennium's cofounder and longtime chief executive. In December 2001, he told Technology Review that Millennium would use genomics to become wildly successful. He said: "Over the next five to 10 years, our goal is to become a company that's leading the world in personalized medicines, a company that is leading the world in productivity, a company with a value of over $100 billion, a company that has five to 10 products on the market that are making a big difference in people's lives, a company with the strongest pipeline in the entire industry."

    But beyond building lavish headquarters and striking licensing deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Millennium, the company didn't produce. Its two cancer-fighting drugs, Campath and Velcade, came about the old-fashioned way: Millennium bought the smaller companies that developed the drugs. Millennium has since sold its rights to Campath to Genzyme Corp.


In a column from last August, I talked about Millennium as a font of big picture, deal-making CEOs for smaller biotechs, including Alnylam, Infinity, and Tempo.

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Friday, September 14, 2007

Third Rock Caps First Fund at $378 Million

Third Rock Ventures, the newest life sciences venture firm in town, has finally put out the press release announcing its new fund: $378 million.

The IN VIVO blog talks to partner Kevin Starr about the firm's focus. From that post:

    The six general partners—including former Millennium CEO Mark Levin—expect to hold key management positions at these start-ups during the first year or so. They’ll negotiate the deals, set up the shop, do the hiring, etc., etc. to assure these companies get off to the right start. “We’ll be the start-up team,” says Kevin Starr, the former chief operating officer and chief financial officer at Millennium. The partners will serve CEOs, heads of science, whatever is necessary “to make sure these companies are built the right way, have the right cultures, hire the right people, and do the right partnerships. We are going to get involved in a hands-on way.”


And Forbes also has a piece, which is pretty critical of Millennium as an investment and as a company. Matthew Herper also talks about Third Rock's strategy:

    Part of the new venture fund's approach will be to closely manage start-ups. Other VCs are backing dozens of companies a year, but Third Rock will only look at a few biotechs, each getting a few tens of millions of dollars. At that rate, it will take the fund several years to invest all the money that it has.

    Another strategy: Third Rock won't raise $50 million or $100 million worth of venture capital for a single biotech before bringing the company to the public markets, private equity or selling out to a larger drug maker. These deals are just too dilutive. Better to follow the Millennium example and start generating revenue through partnerships early.


Last month, I noted in the Globe:

    Greylock Partners of Waltham offered an assist in getting Third Rock into orbit, investing some of its own money and introducing Levin to several investors; Greylock's Bill Helman was one of the original investors in Millennium. Levin himself was a VC with Mayfield Fund in California before starting Millennium.

    "Life sciences is an area of pretty mediocre returns for venture capital," says Helman. "They have a strategy for breaking out of that." Levin didn't respond to calls seeking comment.

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Sunday, August 26, 2007

Today's Globe column: 'Why biotech CEOs need to think like Steve Jobs'

Today's Globe column deals with the importance of being able to sell a big vision in life sciences -- especially when a start-up is trying to pioneer a new area of science.

Among the CEOs I mention as "poster child" communicators are several alumni of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, including John Maraganore of Alnylam, Steve Holtzman of Infinity, and Alan Crane of Tempo Pharmaceuticals. Then you've got Christoph Westphal of Sirtris, and Josh Boger of Vertex. All these guys have elements of Steve Jobs' ability to communicate something ambitious and exciting -- something that is sorely missing among tech companies in New England right now.

The video clip features Alan Crane explaining how Tempo is using nanotechnology to engineer a new kind of cancer drug.



Finally, a few quotes that didn't make it into the edited piece....

“Someone who is a great storyteller can win people over with relatively little substance,” says Michael Gilman, formerly executive vice president of research at Biogen Idec. “But other people tend to be rubbed the wrong way by it.”

“The scientist in me is never going to make assertions that I don’t think I can back up with data,” says Gilman. “That’s just the way I’m wired. If you promise too much and disappoint, it’s not good for you in the long run.” Gilman founded Stromedix, Inc. of Cambridge in 2005, licensing a product that Biogen Idec had started to develop. It’ll begin trials later this year.

“Companies undergo a brutal and challenging transition when they’re forced to be evaluated on the merits of their products,” says Steven Dickman, CEO of the consultancy CBT Advisors. Dickman worked with Alnylam in its early days...

That transition hasn't quite happened yet for all of the companies I mention in the piece; while they've got drugs in clinical trials, none are yet on the market.

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