Though the biopharmaceutical industry closed out the second quarter of 2015 with a 32 percent increase in VC investment when compared to the quarter previous, the second half of the year seemed to indicate that the biotech bubble might soon pop. During such times such as these, wouldn’t it be nice to know what biopharma investors are actually thinking? Well wonder no more. Having had the opportunity to attend an invitation-only event focused on biopharmaceutical R&D, what follows is a behind the scenes glimpse of what VCs look for when engaging with biopharmaceutical company heads of R&D. In part one of the four part series, Seven Secrets VC Investors Want Biopharma Heads of R&D to Know, we overheard four VCs standing around a water cooler sharing their thoughts as to what Big Pharma is doing correctly in terms of R&D management. Here in part two we reveal biopharma VC secrets around communication and reconciliation.
Secret Number Two — How does communication with Big Pharma guide your investments?
“When their team is open to having a dialogue and tells us they are looking at a company working in a particular area, it is like the gleam in a professor’s eye when stating a hypothesis,” one VC analogizes. “You are tasked with trying to figure out what the stated hypothesis means. Should we invest in an opportunity because they like it, or should we invest because they don’t? To get another data point I like to ask the head of R&D or BD, ‘For you to invest in this, what will it have to look like for you to turn this into a partnership? What stage will it need to be for you to want to acquire us?’”
