At a recent meeting of Washington biotech executives and scientists, an entrepreneur addressed the gathering and lamented a local “valley of death” -- a reference to the difficulty that scientists have in finding money to take their ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace.His concern was not new, but it pointed to a hole in the state’s biotech community. Biotech startups, which are heavily capital dependent, need venture capital firms -- with their connections and big pocketbooks -- to finance research and ultimately get products to market.
