Angelos Georgakis
@angelosgeo
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Executive Coach to Biotech Leaders • Author of the Biotech Leader’s Handbook • Tweets on: biotech, CEO excellence, high-performing teams, culture
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Biotech folks, it's here!! 📚🚀
I'm thrilled to announce that my book, The Biotech Leader’s Handbook is now available on Amazon!
If becoming a better leader and building a high-performing team matter to you, this book is for you!
You have given my work on biotech leadership
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He 5X'ed AstraZeneca's productivity from pre-clinical to phase III completion and transformed the company's R&D strategy, culture and approach to innovation.
I spent hours researching Mene Pangalos.
10 key principles from his leadership playbook:
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Gmail was a startup within Google.
And its creator, Google's
#23
employee Paul Buchheit, a real founder.
Gmail received a lot of resistance from Googlers in the early days.
Here's the story and 7 Lessons from Gmail's founder: 🧵
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Bench scientist to biotech CEO is a brutal transition.
6 key mindset shifts for the biotech leaders of tomorrow:
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The founder and former CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Joshua Boger, was once asked: "What does it take to be a good leader in a pharmaceutical company?"
Boger said, "Pharmaceutical discovery and development is the most complicated activity that humans do.
Going to Mars is easy,
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BIOTECH IS A TEAM SPORT
When George Yancopoulos, the Cofounder and CSO of Regeneron, was a postdoc at Columbia and received a faculty position offer, the Department Chair took him out to dinner and said:
"I want to be clear with you about one thing. Once you start your own lab,
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7 Must-Read Books for the Bench Scientist Turning Biotech Leader/CEO: 📚 🧬
1. From Breakthrough to Blockbuster
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These investors rejected Steve Jobs.
But they all "funded" him as a group paradoxically...
If you're a founder, read this.
These lessons are as relevant today as they were in 1976 when Apple was a fledging company. 🧵
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He made Eli Lilly the most valuable drug company by market cap.
His company was acquired by Lilly and within 8 years he became Lilly's CSO.
He took brave bets in areas no one was willing to go for patients—and he won.
8 principles from Dan Skovronsky's leadership playbook:
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Biotwitter, I've discovered a hidden gem!
The business of biotech: the players, the numbers, the challenges.
10 key insights for biotech leaders:
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Jan Skvarka took Trillium Therapeutics from a $16 million market capitalisation to a $2.26 billion acquisition by Pfizer in only 2 years and in the midst of the pandemic.
The story and 6 lessons on biotech strategy, culture, and success. 🧵
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Biotech leaders, LOTS of inspiration from Len and George at Regeneron here: 🧬😍
"Didn't get our first drug approval for 20 years... didn't become profitable for almost 25 years... up until then, financial analysts used to mock us as the definitive example of scientists not
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"Drug discovery is an insanely complicated activity; what makes a great leader in our industry is the ability to hold a team together for a very long time."—Joshua Boger, Founder of Vertex
11 Strategies for Motivating and Holding a Biotech Team Together for a Long Time: 🧵
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Aspiring Biotech CEOs coming out of academia:
Here are some words of wisdom from people who have done it before...
"I'm a huge believer that recently minted PhDs—or MDs or MBAs for that matter—who want to go into biotechnology, should work at a more established biotech
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"Why do you love biotech?"
When Stelios Papadopoulos, aka the Godfather of biotech, was once asked this question, he said:
"What intrigues me the most is this whole process of taking a casual idea in the lab.
Sometimes you sit with a cup of coffee and you say, gee, how about
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Everyone in biotech should read this book.
8 insights for those who want to succeed and have an impact in this beautifully unique business:
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George Church on the founder-led biotech movement:
"The student/postdoc is more motivated, more knowledgeable, and more capable of getting a technology out into the public, where it can do some good... 1/4
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Seems like tech is in love... 🧬💘
"Where do I think the next amazing revolution is going to come? And this is going to be flat-out one of the biggest ones ever. There's no question that digital biology is going to be it." — Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia
"Biology is the next big
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Biotech friends, I've spent the last couple of days reading everything I could find about Henri Termeer.
Whenever you need a little motivation in your arduous journey, please read the story of this man.
It will do your heart good.
It will help you understand why you chose this
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Biotech leaders, here's how you attract the best talent without trying too hard...
Wise words from Amgen's former CEO, Gordon Binder:
"When George Rathmann interviewed me for the position of chief financial officer, he made no attempt to sugarcoat the seriousness of Amgen's
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Biotech founders/CEOs, there's always someone willing to bet on you...
"The first deal we did was with Merck in 2003. That was a very small *starter* deal, $7.5 million upfront, driven by Steve Friend who had a real passion for this space and the science. These early deals are
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Biotech leaders, here's what it takes to truly innovate. 👇
Wise words from the Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, Noubar Afeyan:
"Scientific innovation is heavily limited by reasonableness.
How can you expect extraordinary results from reasonable people doing reasonable
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Biotech leaders, always start with unreasonable bets, but then be nimble, and follow the data.
1. Noubar Afeyan says, "Scientific innovation is heavily limited by reasonableness. How can you expect extraordinary results from reasonable people doing reasonable things?
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I spent over 100 hours researching and reflecting on 70+ interviews with biotech founders.
7 principles these founders all agree on:
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Teamwork makes the biotech dream work!
15 principles for building and managing a multidisciplinary biotech team:
(a mega 🧵)
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Listening to
@tailopez
explaining Charlie Munger's 25 cognitive biases. OMG. I can't handle the value of this one recorded call. Every word in that 2-hour recording is worth $1m. I pressed pause to let everybody know. Going straight back into it. Blessings.
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@harjtaggar
Whereas true A players want to hire A+ players.
"Build a team that makes you feel uncomfortable so that you have to raise your game to be with them." —
Brian Chesky
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A Biotech CEO's Most Important Job
"At the heart of strong leadership is the ability to command teams, to build community, to build teamwork, to build communication across executive committees, senior leadership committees, boards... It's the ability to stabilise teams and the
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"Biologists and scientists are an angry crowd.", said Nvidia's Jensen Huang at the
@RecursionPharma
JPM24 event.
That's also my experience working with you guys. You're VERY angry, and that's the most beautiful thing about you.
I'll explain, but first, here's what Jensen said:
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Drug development is a game where you can do everything right and still lose...
If you find this hard to accept, read on. 🧵
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“Biology is the next big thing. If I were young today, I would do biology.” — Eric Schmidt.
(Q&A with
@johncumbers
)
ps:
@paulg
also mentioned biology as being the next big thing next to AI and fusion energy.
pps: So
#Biotwitter
is it our confirmation bias or it’s true? 😃
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Biotech founders:
You are Olympic decathletes!
🏃🏋️♂️🏊♂️🤾♂️🏇🏄♂️🤺🤸♂️🏌️♂️🏄♂️🎽
1. Scientist
2. Drug developer (this is nothing to do with academic science btw)
3. Entrepreneur (product, market, commercialisation)
4. Politician (building and maintaining relationships, networking)
5.
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Luba at Kojin Therapeutics said a beautiful thing about what makes a great leader in biotech:
"One thing that leadership books don't mention, and probably one of the key ingredients for a real leader, especially in biotech and life sciences, which is a difficult industry is very
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Biotech Leaders: Let Your Scientists Go with Their Passions
When Joshua Boger started Vertex in 1989, the original business plan was to focus on antivirals except HIV.
"The reason we said antivirals except HIV was not because we were anti-HIV, but because of the perception
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The most powerful feeling you can feel as a biotech leader is that of working together with your good people on the hardest problem that can save lives.
You don't have to be FDA-approved to feel that feeling; you don't have to raise millions, get into the clinic, or be acquired
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Biotech founders:
Humility is probably the most critical quality for success in your arduous journey of bringing breakthrough medicines to patients.
10 fellow biotech founders talking about humility and why it is important: 🧵
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🚀Coming soon: All my most loved articles and guides on biotech leadership in a single book! 📕
Boy, have I written a lot this year! Endless hours of researching, writing, editing, re-editing…
And now, putting all these writings into a book hasn’t been easy either!
I wasn’t
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Biotech leaders who want to revolutionize drug discovery and create new modalities: 🧬💊
This is the quote
@JMaraganore
closed his fireside chat with at Ginkgo Ferment last week.
Put this quote on your wall and live by it every single day.
I understand that it may be
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@gharik
Book recommendation: Most of my findings came from the book Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston (
@jesslivingston
). Insane book. So much value for founders in there. A must-read.
Hope you enjoyed it. Back to the top:
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All my biotech CEOs/execs have struggled with this one thing:
Team Efficiency and Speed.
• How do I make my team go faster?
• How do I create urgency?
• Iteration speed is slow.
12 tools for building a high-performing biotech team:
(a mega 🧵 - DM me for the 10-page PDF!)
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Biotech leaders:
Having a multidisciplinary team and doing real multidisciplinary work are not the same thing.
Bragging about your ultra-diverse team means little if they never debate or challenge each other.
8 principles for real "mud scientist" work: 🧵
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3. Reward your Scientists for Killing Hypotheses.
"Are your scientists asking killer questions to try, not just to validate, but *invalidate* your hypothesis?
We celebrate good kills every day. We are passionate about it!
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Biotech folks, I'd love to hear your perspective on the below by the GOAT Stelios Papadopoulos.👇
I'm not an expert in clinical development strategy, but to me as a mathematician and ex-IB, this makes perfect sense:
"Let's say a company has 1000 scientists and you can have 20
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Biotech Leaders, Making a Drug is Not Enough!
Joshua Boger, the founder of Vertex Pharmaceuticals writes about his mentor Henri Termeer:
"Henri reminded me and challenged me and mentored me in the conviction that making a drug is not enough and building a company is not enough.
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These 10 biotech founders have raised more than $350 million in VC funding.
Here's their top fundraising advice to rising founders:
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On this day, exactly a year ago,
@JMaraganore
shared with me a profound insight: "The biggest challenge in bringing new breakthrough medicines to patients is not science or money, it's people".
Since then, this quote has been on my corkboard and will remain there forever to
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You guys coming out of academia to build a biotech...
Don't make someone a cofounder just because of their technical expertise, academic accolades or the years they worked at big pharma just to fill your pitch deck with fancy logos.
Choose a cofounder who's going to fight by
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Biotech founders, this is what this graph shows to me:
Now may not be the best time to get a term sheet but…
Now is definitely the best time to build relationships with investors.
ps: I wrote *may*
pps: patients need you now as much as in every “current economic environment”
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@tailopez
There is an old video in which Tai reveals the deepest secrets of a good life. That one is worth more than all his programs together (Tai said that). He was in a kind of hypnosis state in that video. I'll find it and share it with you guys. Promise.
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Biotech Leaders, Stay Close to the Patients—Ideas for Inspiration
This is the Patient Wall at Agios Pharmaceuticals, adorned with the faces of people that Agios has helped throughout the years.
It serves as a reminder to everyone at the company that their work affects and saves
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Biotech folks, you ask me why I wrote a book on Biotech ∩ Leadership…
Because, first, I fell in LOVE with you guys! You won me over! Big time.
The people in this community, the hard problems, the thin chances of success in drug discovery, the meaning, the potential for
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Biotech leaders, don't forget to recruit your "counterbalances" into your team. ☯ 🧬
In biotech, we talk a lot about "complementary skills", i.e. science vs business, bio vs tech, clinical vs regulatory vs commercial etc.
That's only one aspect of diversity in team building.
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When two passionate biotech CEOs and fierce competitors come together again fueled by their love for patients...
The narrative revolves around
@JMaraganore
and
@DrStanleyCrooke
, former CEOs of Alnylam and Ionis Pharmaceuticals.
JM: "When we were preparing for our IPO in early
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I coached 120+ founders over the last 9 months.
Here’s how I fell in love with founders and became a founder coach.
+ some inspiration for those who are yet to "fall" for those you really want to serve.
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10 Fundraising Tips for Biotech Founders/CEOs. 🧬 💰
(a mega 🧵)
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2. The 5R Framework.
"Based on the data that we analysed, we found five things that would improve the probability of running a successful programme.
The 5Rs may seem pretty obvious, pretty intuitive, yet actually quite difficult to execute on consistently."
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I talked to another KILLER biotech founder who's struggling to raise during this tough environment...
At some point, he asked me, "What do you think? Is it worth it?"
I said, "I don't know. YOU have to answer this question, not me. Tell me then, is it worth it?"
He said, “It
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Every biotech CEO should read this book…
A CIA publication!
Because biotech is like international politics.
There are so many players and each player has their own agenda for their own reasons.
Investors, pharma, regulators, Wall Street, policymakers...
The biggest mistake
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Biotech leaders, you have only ONE asset.
"In our industry and the kind of work we do, yes, there's science, but at the end of the day, the only asset I have is my team. We're not some big company that has assets such as a big manufacturing site, inventory, and this and that...
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@ToniVerse
It's easier to judge and tell others "what they do wrong" than ask for what we want. Asking for what you want takes courage, you're willing to appear vulnerable.
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@gharik
bonus pic: The day when the drive that had everyone's email stopped working. Paul took apart the hard drive and transplanted electronics from another drive. No data was lost!
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But when it was clear that Gmail was the real deal, the invitations became a hot property.
@gharik
who was responsible for new Google products said, "The invitation-only launch was hailed as one of the best marketing decisions in tech history, but it was unintentional.”
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@gharik
3. He created the first version of Gmail in one day.
Buchheit: "The lesson I learned in terms of my own psychology, was that it was important that I always have a working product. The first thing I do on day one is build something useful, then just keep improving it."
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If biotech is a team sport, the CEO or manager must be a master coach.
If I had to recommend just one book to aspiring master coaches, it would be this one.
20 key ideas from one of the greatest CEOs and management teachers: 🧵
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For scientists coming out of academia to build a biotech company: 🧬
Here's the most critical mindset shift you have to make. ↓
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GIVEAWAY — Twitter friends, I’ve received so much love from you lately so I decided to give away my book Emotional Edge!
To be a great leader, the first person you have to learn how to lead is yourself. This book is about self-leadership…
To be able to understand your people’s
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Biotech CEOs, your job is not just to raise money.
Fundraising is all-consuming. It becomes a critical mission for the CEO.
"I am responsible for all these people. I must succeed. They trusted me with this mission."
You tie your whole self-worth to a check. "No check? I'm a
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Biotech teams:
"The pharmaceutical industry is an information industry", said the famous management guru Peter Drucker.
4 qualities for winning in an "information industry":
First of all, what Drucker meant was that the pill you get may cost a few cents to make but its real
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One of the biggest realisations from my work with biotech leaders...
Your job becomes 100x easier, simpler, more effective, more enjoyable—and less stressful and draining—when you start making decisions like this:
Is this going to help the patients?
Does this serve the
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My BD and drug discovery mentor, JPM mentor, fitness mentor, life mentor! And most importantly, one of the nicest people in our industry. What a delight to have worked with you my friend. I’ve learned so much from you. Reach out to Rich, say hello! He’s special!
@drrichjlaw
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Soooo many insights for biotech companies in this live
@BiotechCH
last week... 🔥
8+ Key Takeaways for Biotech CEOs:
1. Remain private or go public?
Private means you don't have a perceived value of your company that's hanging over your head when you're negotiating with
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Great biotech teams have conflict.
And every conflict is a chance to strengthen and unite the team.
My 5-step "multidisciplinary" framework for turning conflict into trust:
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"I don’t think that most people understand that we are really in the hardest business in the world. There are over 5,000 biotech companies, just in America. The number of drugs approved every year is usually around 20 to 40. Most companies start with one idea. If you have just
I went to Tarrytown and got existential with George Yancopoulos, Regeneron's cofounder and chief scientific officer.
We talked about the future of genetics, problems with GLP-1's, and why he thinks humans are "just like bacteria in an Erlenmeyer flask"
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Biotech leaders: How to Ignore the Noise and Play the Long-Term Game.
@ldtimmerman
asked
@daphnezohar
on the Long Run: "It's been 15 years since you started. Now you have a few things to point to but how did you get through those linear times when capital was not abundant and
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Biotech CEOs of public companies, be mindful of the local minima trap! ⚠️
The perceived value of a biotech company will have a lot of local minima like in the graph below.
A local minimum can be the result of many things:
• clinical trial failures
• portfolio optimisation
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First-time biotech CEOs, please do yourself and myself a favour and apply to the Termeer Foundation NOW!
I have the honour to be one of the mentors at the Termeer Foundation.
The support you'll get as a Termeer Fellow is incredible: Events, presentations, peer-to-peer sharing,
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🔥 fundraising advice to biotech founders by
@RecursionChris
🔥
Don't worry about which coast they're on, whether they're tech or bio, or how much dilution you're taking.
You're picking partners.
Do you want to work with this person side by side every day?
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20 REFERENCES!!!🤯🤯🤯
When
@JMaraganore
asked
@BarryGreene
to provide references before hiring him to lead oncology at Millennium back in 2000, Barry gave John 20 references and said, "These 12 are going to gush about me, these 3 will probably say good things, and these 5 are
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299 biotech companies went public between 1979 and 1996 in the US.
Of the top executives of those companies, 81 came from Baxter International.
Henri Termeer was one of them.
How did Baxter's culture breed exceptional biotech leaders? 🧵
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@simocristea
Simona, here’s the source from
@NucleateHQ
. A must watch discussion panel with postdocs who built companies with their advisors. A lot of great insights in there.
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A biotech founder said to me: "I want to push the limits of what we thought was possible. I'm less inspired to make incremental improvements for existing drugs or markets."
I'm super bullish on these founders, you wanna be by their side... investors, talent, partners, everyone!
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Biotech in a story:
A Zen master was out for a walk with one of his students when they noticed a fox chasing a rabbit.
"According to an ancient saying the rabbit will escape", said the master.
"Not so", replied the student, "the fox is smarter and faster."
"Nevertheless, the
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I've read John Maraganore's essay "Reflections on Alnylam" a few times.
12 key lessons from building and leading an iconic biotech company. 🧵
PLUS: A ChatGPT-4 analysis of 80+ comments on the essay. 🤖
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@gharik
The 7 key lessons from Paul Buchheit's success that apply to all founders:
1. All he needed was two believers.
Buchheit: “Larry and Sergey were always supportive. A lot of other people were much less supportive.”
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With my good mentor
@JMaraganore
at
#JPM
! I wouldn’t be where I am, had it not been for your support, guidance, and love, John.
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Biotech leaders, 6 key insights from my leadership work with you: (a long 🧵)
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@GergelyOrosz
yes, it's indeed a speed run of massive culture change and the interesting thing is he's doing it in public, the world can experience that cultural change. pro strategy for changing culture. ps: here's sth from his biography that I;ll never forget around culture, WFH, etc.
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I asked someone in a big biopharma company, "What has been your most profound realisation since our last conversation?"
His answer: "Just realised how a multidisciplinary approach can help with the execution of a project. We've been working on this project for a year and once a
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When Buchheit had this idea about Gmail back in 2001, everyone at Google was obsessed with search.
The idea of doing something like email was strange.
"Gmail was controversial internally", in Buchheit's words.
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@gharik
2. He built for himself.
Buchheit: "The company was a little bit email crazy. I got 500 emails a day. I wanted to search my email. Then, other people found it useful too".
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A biotech CEO told me, "We're working on x. This is a very big market, and it's sad."
And without thinking I said, "Why is it sad? This is good."
The CEO replied, "Well, it's good for us, and I hope we succeed, but it's still sad that so many people are suffering from x."
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Biotech CEOs:
Don't let the macro/fundraising environment dictate the vision of your company.
The macro environment will always be a forever-changing thing.
Don't build your company "for the current environment".
You build for the patients; patients need you now, tomorrow and
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Biotech CEOs/Management Team:
I understand and empathise with you when you're getting pulled all over the place by your board and investors.
Here is my 6-Step Framework towards feeling more empowered and less overwhelmed.
Step
#1
— Understand
First, you have to understand
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In Buchheit's words, "to make it reliable you had to keep several copies for each user and backups. And you needed a lot of machines and systems without requiring an army of people to maintain it."
That's why they controlled early growth by launching it invitation-only.
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1
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Is it biotech or techbio?
The problem is not the answer but the question itself.
We don't have time for this kind of questions!
Such questions are proof that we need to do more work on culture and collaboration in our industry.
Every second spent on threading the [biotech vs
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