During the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, lenders and service providers struggled to assess the creditworthiness of small companies; even well-established small firms were hit with high interest rates and onerous collateral requirements.
While working as a principal scientist at the biotechnology company Chiron in the 1990s, our team published and presented at a furious rate on our inventive combinatorial chemistry methods. It was a highly competitive field, and we had to conceive, reduce to practice, and file patents on our intellectual property (IP) before anyone else did.
When working with first-time life science entrepreneurs, I often coach them on making the difficult transition from academia to industry, and on the importance of creating a place where people can work hard on things they love. Starting a company requires intense, dedicated focus and suppression of nearly all else. It isn’t easy to comprehend the magnitude of that—and most of us do not know what to expect before we take the plunge.