What are the biggest misconceptions about the biotech industry?
The biggest misconception is that a very exciting new idea is going to translate into something that can be used by humans in a short amount of time. I remember how sad and upset I was at EntreMed when the New York Times reported in May, 1998, that angiogenesis technology was going to cure cancer. The next Monday, we had lines of people with macular degeneration and various cancers lined up to get us to give them something that would help them. In the meantime all of this was predicated on a mouse study. There was no product to offer them. It was so disturbing to see people who really needed something today and it wasn’t going to happen for 10-15 years. The other misconception is that there’s a lot of money out there for startup biotech companies. Right after the dot com bust, everybody pulled their money back. There’s a lot of money out there waiting to be deployed, but the financial industry itself has become very risk adverse. What is the biggest challenge of running a biotech compa
