Biotech startups are notoriously high-risk ventures, and most of them fail. What sets apart the ones that succeed? “If you can stay true to your mission, and you’re committed and resilient, and you’ve got the right kinds of people, you will find success,” says Gregory S. Moss, Esq, Chief Corporate Strategy and Legal Officer at Evommune, a three-year-old company advancing therapies for patients with chronic inflammatory diseases. “The best way to de-risk is to have people who have been there and seen it before.”
Moss, who in a decade at Kadmon served in leadership roles in the process of the company’s acquisition by and integration into Sanofi, offers five insights into turning a startup into a long-term winner:
1. Start with the hiring process
A successful team needs people who are mature, who have resilience, who know how to ride out the topsy-turvy moments and persevere. It’s about more than skill sets — it’s understanding people’s personalities. At Evommune, Moss says, the hiring process is very slow. “We make sure the vetting process is significantly more than just looking at people’s resumés. It’s really trying to understand their personalities.”
2. Build company culture
At a successful startup, employees are motivated by a passion for making an impact on patients’ lives. Over time, people transition in and out, but they share a core mentality of working together and seeing the mission through to completion. It’s also about people being motivated to come to work because they enjoy it and have fun with each other — they take their work seriously but don’t take themselves too seriously.
3. Pay attention to both science and strategy
Be aspirational in your science and cultivate relationships with academic institutions. At the same time, be pragmatic about distilling the science into an executable potential drug development program.
4. Stay true to your mission
Your mission can be to get a drug approved and into the hands of thousands of people who need it. Be open about how to get there. The journey to that destination might pivot in various ways, even including handing the drug over to a different company. But knowing who to advance the ball to is essential to success in biotech — and as long as you reach the destination, it’s a success.
5. Foster communication
A culture where people can set their egos aside and understand the perspectives of other team members sets successful companies apart. That includes scientists challenging each other, as well as having conversations with nonscientific teams. Everyone has the same goal. Scientists being able to explain their work to nonscientists is an integral part of growing a company to the point of being a science-based organization, not just a company with a science department. Communication also means spending time with investors, helping them understand the team, their vision and strategy, and the character of the people.