The View from Both Sides of the Table

 

In any relationship, the ability to imagine yourself in the shoes of the other party is an invaluable skill.  Nowhere has this been more evident to me than in the job I’ve held for the last four years – in pharmaceutical partnering and business development. While common understanding and empathy aren’t always the first traits that come to mind when you think of a professional contract negotiator, these are indeed the lessons I continue to draw on to form successful partnerships. My own career path has been an amazing and somewhat accidental journey through both science and business, and it continues to teach me these valuable lessons in perspective over and over again.      

 

I was recently asked a fairly standard question about how I got interested in a career in science. I admit, I always cringe a little when I answer this because the truth sounds made up. The summer I was 12 years old, I read Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. It was a sci-fi novel filled with the promises of molecular engineering with real life applications.  I recall being so excited that I put the book down and told my dad I had just figured out exactly what I was going to do with my life (although, I don’t think he took it very seriously at the time). These ideas lit the initial scientific spark in me and set me on a path to becoming a molecular biologist.  

 

About 15 years later, after an undergrad in cell biology at the University of Connecticut and a brief stint as a lab technician at a major pharma company, I was wrapping up a PhD at the University of North Carolina. I decided the only place I wanted to do my postdoc was with Robert Lefkowitz at Duke. Lefkowitz was well known for his contributions to the discovery of G-protein-coupled receptors (for which he would later win the Nobel Prize in 2012). However, within a few hours of emailing my application package to Duke, I was summarily rejected. 

 

This initial failed attempt proved to be a critical juncture in my early career and offered me my first major lesson in perspective. After some encouragement from my PhD advisor, I decided to try again with Lefkowitz, and wrote him a letter explaining all the reasons it made sense to give me an interview. I approached it very pragmatically: my interview wouldn’t require him to pay any travel costs, nor did I need a lunch, and I explained that if after 15 minutes or so he felt his initial assessment was correct, he could dismiss me straight away without any reservations. Seeing the situation through his eyes, and showing him how he had almost nothing to lose by taking a chance on me must have made the difference, as Lefkowitz agreed to invite me for a full interview, and ultimately offered me the postdoc position. 

 

My time in the Lefkowitz Lab was particularly exciting, not just for the tremendous pace of discovery and chance to rub shoulders with some of the world’s best scientists, but also because it was there that I met life-long friends I would eventually co-found a biotech company, Trevena, with. Building this company, starting from just three guys with an idea and a grant, was a great experience that I reflect on frequently in my current role. I vividly recall feelings of uncertainty like “will we ever get funded?” while dealing with the rejection and criticisms from so many VC firms.  And later, once we were off the ground, the relentless pressure of hitting tranche-releasing milestones and the constant cycle of board meeting preparations. I see these pressures in the forefront of entrepreneurs’ minds, and I can relate to what they are going through. Later, Trevena’s board would require us to secure a big pharma partnership as validation of our platform, and I got my first taste of business development, from the sell-side. These experiences were foundational to understanding what potential partners are thinking when I meet them in my current role. Another thing that stays with me from my time at a biotech was how invigorating it was. Small companies, so dedicated to a singular hypothesis, must be zealous in pursuit of an idea. When I meet potential partners now, I love to see this same energy, passion, and excitement for science in their eyes.  For me to believe it, they have to believe it.  

 

About five years later, I decided to join a large pharma company, Boehringer Ingelheim, because I wanted to experience the other side of the table. It’s been a fascinating experience to simultaneously understand what the biotech may be going through and also opened my eyes to a whole new set of concerns the large partner faces that I never realized during my biotech days. I admit, I underestimated how the pharma BD person really is the champion of the small company, aligning and gaining support within that large organization. So now I try to make this point when we enter term sheet discussions with new partners.

 

Earlier this year, I started my new role as Executive Director, Head of Business Development & Licensing (BD&L), USA at Boehringer Ingelheim. I see it as my team’s duty to help bring the best scientific minds together to develop innovative medicines, so we can achieve the ultimate goal, which is to help patients.

 

As a private company, we’re able to approach partnering differently. One of my favorite parts of my job is something we call Boehringer Ingelheim’s Grass Roots Initiatives.  This is a three-part program where it’s our goal to connect with and help grow local biotech ecosystems, including:  

 

We do these programs several times a year in major U.S. biotech hubs and recently expanded the program globally to Europe and Asia.  I always enjoy meeting young companies and hearing their stories at these events, and I think back to my time as a startup founder and how valuable this would have been for me to have access to something like this back then.

 

Often at one of our Grass Roots events, an entrepreneur will ask me for the best advice that I can give to them.  I always say the same thing:  Focus on what it is that you do better than anybody else. Don’t try to do it all. Just figure out what your secret sauce is, what’s your value proposition, and then put all your effort there. If you can clearly define that, then please get in touch with me and we can talk further about partnering to develop the next generation of breakthrough medicines.