The Daily Start-Up: Dealing Drugs, One At A Time
VCDispatch, WSJ.com
Scott Austin, November 13, 2009

This morning’s roundup of the latest venture capital news and analysis across the Web:
Drug Dealing - There’s a new strategy being employed by some biotech start-ups: Rather than toil for many years developing a drug and bringing it to market, companies like PanGenetics are looking to carry drugs in their pipelines only so far. The Dutch company just sold the rights to one of its two clinical-stage antibodies to Abbott Laboratories for as much as $190 million. As VentureWire reports, PanGenetics’ strategy is based on the idea that early-stage products can be developed better by small, motivated and dedicated companies - otherwise they could get lost amid the bureaucracy of a big pharma. But once the drug candidate passes proof-of-concept, the need for nimbleness gives way to the importance of deep pockets to finance late-stage trials and bring it to the market. We wrote about another start-up doing this - MediQuest - although that company is actually distributing the proceeds to its investors rather than plowing the money back into development like PanGenetics.

Two’s Better Than One - Jobs and Wozniak. Allen and Gates. Hewlett and Packard. The ideal founding team, says serial entrepreneur and angel investor Naval Ravikant, “is two individuals, with a history of working together, of similar age and financial standing, with mutual respect. One is good at building products and the other is good at selling them.”

A New Series - Raising a Series A round of funding? Sim Simeonov offers some helpful tips on how to negotiate a better deal. He’s a former venture capitalist who now runs FastIgnite, a consultant for entrepreneurs. An interesting note from Simeonov: If you’re raising money from a larger fund, don’t be afraid to ask for a few hundred thousand dollars or even more than a million if you can justify it. “Because for larger funds, cash is not scarce. Partner time, however, is very scarce,” Simeonov says. “A partner at a larger firm may be more than happy to give you more capital to extend your runway and minimize risk.”

Open Office Hours - I was always told in college to take advantage of professors’ open office hours. They give you access to busy teachers who can help with a project. The same might be said here: Chip Hazard, a partner at Boston venture firm Flybridge General Partner, is holding “open office hours” for entrepreneurs on Dec. 9. If interested, you can find the details here to reserve a 20-minute slot.

More Than A Vacation Spot - Barbados, the Caribbean’s easternmost island, is known for its majestic beaches, friendly people and its abundant sugar cane. The only relation to venture capital are the investors that sip pina coladas at the high-class resorts there. But now Barbados, whose population is about the size of Anchorage, has its own venture capital fund, backed by the country’s government. They’re not looking to invest only in sugar or rum distilleries, either.