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  Subject:   "So You Want to Start a Biotech Company?"

  Sponsor:   XOMA Corporation

  Date:   Monday, April 17, 2000

  Time:   3pm - 4pm

  Location:   Center for Integrated Systems Extension (CISX) Bldg., Room 101 [look for it in a campus map]

So You Want to Start a Biotech Company?

Patrick J. Scannon, MD, PhD
Chief Scientific Medical Officer
XOMA Corporation

For a few years now, you have been working hard, getting grants and
publishing on a novel and potentially important medical research
area; maybe along the way you convinced the university to file a
patent or two. You've done a little consulting on the side and,
after seeing that company, you know  you could do it better. You've
even bounced your ideas off of colleagues down the hall and, more 
cautiously, your mentor; you're somewhat encouraged because at least
they didn't laugh in your face. Maybe you are thinking about asking
one of them to join you. In short, you think you have a concept.

Being from Stanford, it is statistically impossible that
you don't know someone who, at a minimum, knows someone 
who has started a high tech or biotech company and is now, shall
we say, living the better life (certainly better than you). If you 
actually know someone who has started their own company, you have
likely thought "well, if he/she did it, it can't be that hard...
can it?".  Along the same lines, being from the Bay Area, you are likely
to be married to/related to/acquainted with/living not far from and/or
have gone to school with/met at a party/found the card of/heard a talk
by/run over the dog of someone  (not necessarily in descending importance)
from the venture capital community. In short, you think you're connected.

If you have a spouse or a mother with whom you are on speaking terms,
you have probably put off sharing your ideas for now, at least until
you've "firmed up your thoughts". After all those years in school and
now that you finally have a real  job, you reckon there is no need to
create needless and premature insecurities. In short, you think you
are considerate.

When you put all these ingredients together, you realize that you are
seriously thinking of starting your own biotech company.

If you have found yourself enmeshed in any part of this scenario, or
are just dreaming about it, now's the time to find out about joy and
pain, great times and times for despair,doors that open and ones that
don't, good people and not so good people, incredible rewards for
successes and miserable consequences for failures and more that,
guaranteed, you will encounter to varying degrees upon entering this
uniquely American phenomenon.  No matter how talented and famous you
are in your area(s) of expertise, come and learn the bad news of how
poorly prepared you will be for the job and the good news of how, with
a little (actually a lot) of hard work, you can, in fact, get your
dream company started. Now's your chance to stop thinking about it
and start doing something! (or at least enjoy an hour of sleep in a
dark room)

 Event history: Submitted by erlinda on 20-Mar-2000;

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