The leader of a pioneering biotech company in the siRNA space weighs his options for scaling production capacity in advance of an anticipated commercial launch. Operational complexity and relative merits of in-house manufacturing versus a contractor model are discussed.
When Bruce Wayne hired Anthony Starks, he thought he had hit a homerun by getting the most brilliant and passionate scientist-leader in the field to be his CSO. But a few months in, Wayne and Starks begin to clash over crucial forward-looking decisions about the direction of the company. As CEO, Wayne needs to make tough decisions about how to manage his passionate but increasingly unpredictable CSO.
Bristol Myers Squibb, a multi-national pharmaceutical company, is seeking to globalize its R&D strategy while managing costs. It has formed a joint venture with an Indian company, which has worked well, but now faces a strategic decision on how and whether to continue.
As the head of the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research in China, En Li was shepherding a $1 billion R&D investment in China. So far he had been able to attract a large number of Chinese-born but US-trained scientists to play a critical role in establishing the site. How sustainable was this strategy, and what were the key things he had to do right to establish a globally integrated R&D unit in China?
Sym-Bio, an entrepreneurial Chinese diagnostic company with a product line in infectious disease testing, has agreed to be acquired by PerkinElmer, an international corporation with businesses in neonatal testing, life science services, and environmental health. Sym-Bio wants to accelerate its growth and competitive position in China through this strategic move, and PerkinElmer seeks to broaden its access to the Chinese marketplace, leverage the cost advantages of operating in China, and tap into the talent pool of young Chinese scientists. Strategic and operational integration of Sym-Bio into PerkinElmer is explored through the lens of the founder and CEO of Sym-Bio and that of the acquiring company.
Dr. John Mendlein, CEO of Adnexus Therapeutics Inc., (Adnexus), a private biotechnology company, must decide whether to pursue acquisition talks with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) after a successful six month collaboration or continue with Adnexus' planned IPO.
In June 2003, Harvard University and MIT announced an unprecedented partnership to create a biomedical institute, The Broad Institute. The culture of the Broad centered on science, and those involved considered it to be at the edge of the scientific frontier. In just four years the Broad had made many important scientific contributions to the bio-medical field. These included understanding genetic alterations in cancer; building an RNAi Consortium to better understand the role of every gene in the human body; creating an integrated database that mapped the connections among drugs, genes, and diseases; and cataloging inherited genetic variations of Type 2 Diabetes. Opportunities for additional important scientific advances beckoned but would require both funding and physical space. The Broad Institute's leaders, including Altshuler, Director of the Program in Medical and Population Genetics, and Golub, Director of the Cancer Program, needed to decide how big was too big. How many projects could the Broad productively support? What happened when the Broad outgrew its physical space? Altshuler and Golub knew that the Broad had made tremendous strides in the past year. It had minimized barriers and attracted many young scientists who viewed the Broad as an exciting place to do research. That success made the question of how to balance the priorities of growth and the preservation of the culture that had made everything possible all the more important.