A Chat With Celgene’s George Golumbeski
Summary
Trusting Your Partners: A Chat With Celgene’s George Golumbeski Xconomy New York — It’s no secret that biotech IPOs, for the first time in at least 10 years, are suddenly white hot.Before going public, that company struck a $250 million strategic deal with Celgene to develop targeted cancer drugs based on Epizyme’s work in epigenetics.“We tend to be looking a little more for things that could be transformative, truly step-ahead therapies, not just incremental gains,” says George Golumbeski, a molecular biologist by training, and Celgene’s senior vice president of business development since 2009.GG: Celgene is the only company I think I’ve ever been in where one didn’t have to fight a battle about how much [resources] we are going to devote to external [sources] versus internal [development].Big companies tend to say ‘we’re paying the bills and for heavens sake we’ll have the final say.’ I think the first couple of these that we did, we probably held our breath a little bit, but it’s actually worked out brilliantly.