Jeff Behrens, Founder, CEO, Scholar - The Gap in Biotech Funding

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How to fund scrappy biotech startups is foremost on Jeff Behrens’ mind. He was CEO if a startup that raised $20 million in funding but not one cent from VCs. An invaluable interview for anyone thinking of starting or investing in a life science company.

Highlights include:

• Jeff Behrens Studied Philosophy at Harvard but Stumbled Upon Entrepreneurship: Renaissance Man for the 21st Century
• MIT/Harvard Medical School Collaboration, HST, is Discussed
• Siamab Therapeutics
• Siamab Pursues Therapies Based on the Work of Ajit Varki on the Weird Sugars on the Surface of Cancer Cells
• Siamab Did Not Go the VC Route, I Took a Scrappier Approach to Funding from Other Sources
• Ovarian or Pancreatic Cancers Are Tough to Fight; Siamab Targeted them Based on the Unique Sugars on the Outside of the Cancer Cells
• Creating Lethal Molecules that Attack only the Cancer Cells
• Standard Chemotherapy Is a Carpet-Bombing Approach, Doing Harm to Healthy Cells
• Jeff Behrens Has Started and Run Companies but He has an Unusually Thoughtful Approach to the Work
• VC Are Making Large Bets on “Big-Idea” Companies, Leaving More Targeted Startups Struggling for Funding
• More Targeted Approaches May Be Promising but How Do They Get Funding?
• The Early-Validation Trap
• “So, I think there's an opportunity, there's some funding available, but I think there's a real need for more attention and more creativity around sort of those next stages of how we take those ideas forward”.
• Sal Updates Us on Portfolio Company SQZ Biotech
• How Jeff Behrens Went from Philosophy Major to Entrepreneur
• “…my roommate said at the time, "You're really a business person. Why don't you just make this your thing."”
• Built Telluride Group to 35 Employees & It Got Acquired by a Fidelity-Backed Group
• “And we had enough money from that exit to be able to support that so I started thinking what would I be interested in learning about the life sciences…”
• “…but in biology, it struck me, we just don't know what we're doing. It's just it's hard”.
• “…who makes more money, drugs, devices, healthcare IT or other healthcare investments?”
• Unusual PhD Program for Business People at Lausanne’s EPFL
• “…how often do angel-funded companies go on to raise venture capital?... in tech companies that’s true only 8% of the time…”
• “…only about 4 to 5% of biotech firms start in angel land and then transition on to venture land.”
• Venture Capitalist in Life Sciences: “…have evolved their model dramatically from 10, 15 years ago. So, they're doing much larger rounds. They are syndicating a lot less. They're taking more of the early equity, and most importantly they're creating companies.”
• “...companies that are born out of this model start... They are born with $50 million…”
• Crucial Question for Biotech Entrepreneurs: “…how you get to that pharma exit without needing the venture money?”
• Capital Efficiency Is Growing in Biotech
• How LabShares Newton Came About
• Tenancy in Shared Labs Has Low Turnover Since It’s Not Easy to Get Your Lab Up and Running
• A Discussion of Meenta as Part of the Trend Towards More Capital Efficiency in the Life Sciences
• Jeff Behrens Urges Entrepreneurial Postdocs to Spend Time in Large Companies to Learn How they Work, Before Venturing Out on Their Own
• “One of the few ways you can get to know pharma is working at pharma for a while.”
• Savran Technologies as an Example of a Scrappy Life Science Startup
• “…memo to founders. When you're offered money, take it. You will need more than you expect.”
• Different Paths of Lives Well Lived – The Life of Joe Tosti
• Getting into Business Alongside Your Spouse
• “It's not easy working with your spouse…And you're never far away from the company and all those things.”
• Having His Wife as His Co-Founder Was Key to the Success of Jeff Behrens’ First Company
• “I think there is this unsolved problem of funding, not the first steps of an entrepreneurial scrappy biotech, but sort of the next steps.”