Five Questions With Boston Biotech Leaders, Part 1
Summary
I’ve been doing some unscientific polling of Boston’s biotech leaders this week at the industry’s biggest investor event, asking a series of five standard questions to get a feel for their thinking on how their companies will persevere.Tomorrow, I’ll have another installment with comments from Alkermes Chairman Richard Pops and CFO Jim Frates and Sirtris CEO Christoph Westphal.Here are the highlights: John Maraganore, CEO of Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Xconomy: What was the single most valuable lesson you learned from the last big biotech bust (the genomics-driven crash of 2001 and 2002), and how will having those battle wounds help you carry on today?You probably recall that many companies said, ‘Innovation is dead, let’s repurpose failed molecules in biotech,’ and ‘let’s see if the pig we just bought can fly.’ That became the venture investing model in that period.Josh Boger, CEO of Cambridge, MA-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Chairman of the Biotechnology Industry Organization Xconomy: What was the single most valuable lesson you learned from the last big biotech bust (the genomics-driven crash of 2001 and 2002), and how will having those battle wounds help you carry on today?