Being Where You Need To Be
We are now one year into a financial meltdown that was symbolized by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. For many of us in the technology sector, this has been an “annus horribilis”, or as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II remarked on 24 November, 1992, marking the 40th anniversary of her Accession: this “is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.” The period from September 2008 to September 2009 has produced challenges for biotechnology companies that could only have been imagined in the halcyon days of the last extended bubble, which drove house prices sky high and allowed many company executives to buy one or two extra BMW’s for their maids. Those days are well and truly gone, or at least for now. Living in the NOW, as Eckart Tolle of Vancouver, BC, exhorts us to do, means that the dramatic challenges in keeping our companies afloat are a daily experience. For some of us, it is a 24/7 experience that lingers like a bad hangover on a Sunday afternoon. In my work, I travel extensively and talk to a lot of people, from many walks of life. Recently on a trip to Amsterdam I came across something that helped me to better understand the greatest challenge that faces biotech companies in September of 2009 - namely, how to get to where they need to be, and once there, to just be - to get on with the work that inspired their business. Amsterdam is not the most obvious place to consider the strategic issues that biotechnology companies face, and certainly it was unexpected to gain this insight as a result of visiting a unique institution in the city: the Poezenboot, or “Cat Boat.” The Cat Boat is the only animal sanctuary in the Netherlands that literally floats. A refuge for stray and abandoned cats, the Poezenboot has a unique location as a houseboat in Amsterdam’s picturesque canal belt. It was founded in 1966 by Henriette van Weelde, who found a feline family sheltering under a tree opposite her house in Amsterdam’s Herengracht canal. She took them in, and then more and more, until her house was completely filled. Eventually she found a solution to such overcrowding - a barge to house the cats. My friends and I were treated to a behind the scenes tour of the Poezenboot by volunteers who showed us their various charges, from newcomers to long-term residents. We noticed a female cat resting outside the boat, occupying a vantage point to survey the scene. Her name is “Puss.” I asked about her history and was told by the curator that she has lived happily on the boat for some time, and that she is the leader. She has a “boyfriend” on-board - a male cat named “Boots” that has been fostered out three times, to different locations in and around Amsterdam. Each time, Boots would return, sometimes after an absence of several weeks, to rejoin the feline family and spend the night with Puss, in their shared basket. Eventually, the volunteers decided to let him stay. They remarked that Boots was where he needed to be. At a meeting with Jan Wisse, President of the Netherlands’ Biotech Association (NIABA), with more than 70 members, representing the majority of Dutch biotechnology companies, he remarked that the majority of his companies have less than 12 months’ funding. They do not know where they will be in September 2010. The rush is on to secure more funding, from mergers, acquisitions, partnering deals, private placements, and so on, just so they can have a place to call their own - to be where they need to be. This is an unsettling situation, to be forced by outside conditions to look for new means of support. Many of them will attend our 17th Annual BioPartnering Europe (BPE) conference in London, October 11-14, which is Europe’s first and most productive biotech-pharma partnering event. Many industry leaders will join me there. At that meeting in Amsterdam, we were joined by Karen Chandler-Smith of the BioIndustry Association (BIA) in London, who indicated that UK biotech companies face a similar situation. There is talk of consolidation, of smaller companies merging to make fewer, but larger companies, that will be more competitive. They are all trying to become something else, something new, something different, to survive in an ever-changing world with rules that seem outdated soon after being posted. BIOTECanada has publicly stated that 75% of Canadian biotech companies face empty coffers in 12 months. This is a real problem right now. What is to be done? The solution is simple. Know where you need to be and go there. For biotech companies this means know what you need, and it better be more than money because money cannot solve all problems (although many people think it can). The partnership model offers the best template possible for weathering tough times, and partnerships offer the stability that is needed to be as productively creative as possible. There are always advantages in partnerships, and now is the time to build up existing ones, to develop new ones, and to imagine ones for the day after tomorrow. Use your network daily. Talk to people. Ask questions. Listen. Learn, and be flexible. Partnership offers a great opportunity to grow and develop.
Puss and Boots know a thing or two.
Dr. Robert Lee Kilpatrick - Biotech Gadfly
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RESOURCES Poezenboot: http://www.poezenboot.nl/?taal=uk NIABA: http://www.niaba.nl/html/index.php BioIndustry Association: http://www.bioindustry.org/ From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “Gadfly” is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, while at the same time being accepted as a description of honorable work or a civic duty.
