Corporate venture firms are a well-established presence on the biotech funding scene, with the likes of Novartis and Glaxosmithkine’s SR One among the most active investors in the sector. However, the past few years have seen some different names crop up more and more: Pfizer, Celgene and Roche have noticeably stepped up their financing activity, a new analysis by EP Vantage finds.

Image: http://epvantage.com

By @SimonCocking. We had a quick chat with Peter Sandys, new chairman, Irish Venture Capital Association and managing partner, Seroba Life Sciences.

What is your background briefly?

Investment banking (Stockbroking, capital markets, M&A, equity investing and asset management. Trained as an accountant originally audit and tax).

Does it seem like a logical background to what you do now?

As regards VC, definitely. I did a secondment early on with 3i and then went on to do VC and BES investments. I also sat on the boards of many asset management companies. Some might question my credentials in being an investor in biotech, I do myself sometimes! It is complex but from the outset I’ve had good partners and advisers and one does pick up a bit over the course of 15+ years. 

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We built it, but they didn’t come. In another less-than-glowing analysis of Florida’s innovation economy, the Florida Research Consortium says the state lags in overall number of scientists and in the number of scientists publishing research.

“Taken as a whole, the data can be disheartening,” the report says. “Relative to other states, Florida’s research enterprise has not enjoyed the means necessary to profoundly impact the trajectory of the state’s economic performance.” 

Image: http://www.palmbeachpost.com

Bruce Booth, D.Phil., a partner at Atlas Venture, astutely observed earlier this year that two key resources fueling the growth of biopharma were until recently somewhat geographically spread among the 10 or so regions of the nation where the industry began to arise a generation ago.

“In recent years, this has changed—Boston and San Francisco are now the preeminent biotech clusters.  And their gravity in the ecosystem is only getting stronger,” Dr. Booth concluded in a March 21 post on his Life Sci VC blog. “Beyond having great science and the right ‘pixie dust’ in the local environment, two fundamentally important ingredients to the success of any cluster are capital and talent—and both are aggregating into the two key clusters.”

Image: Despite consolidation of capital and talent in the nation’s two largest biopharma clusters, all 10 regions ranked by GEN have significant assets that make them attractive to biopharma researchers, executives, and investors. (Wsvan/Wikimedia)

The White House’s American Technology Council and Office of American Innovation issued their long-awaited draft report Wednesday to President Donald Trump on the efforts needed to continue to modernize federal technology.

The report, required as part of the White House’s May 11 cybersecurity executive order, lays out “the current and envisioned state of Federal IT, and it provides specific recommendations to jumpstart a new wave of modernization efforts.”

“The enclosed plan incorporates the efforts of key Government stakeholders in identifying ways for the Government to enhance its cybersecurity posture, modernize the Federal IT enterprise, and create a more robust partnership between Government and industry,” the report says.

In this special conference edition of the SSTI Weekly Digest, we highlight the many opportunities conference attendees have to build their innovation economy by attending the SSTI 2017 Annual Conference. REGISTER TODAY to learn more about Building Bridges for a Better Future. 

By the time she graduated from college, Rachael Meleney had worked in and around dozens of early-stage startups. So when Duke University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight was looking for someone to start a behavioral economics and entrepreneurship lab, she was an easy choice.

“It's a blessing and a curse to have as much autonomy as I was given,” Meleney said. “On the one hand it was a really incredible opportunity as someone right out of school to be handed this program to figure out, but there was definitely a large learning curve for me not coming from a social science background.”

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The number of people making a living one 'gig' at a time is surging. We take a look at why — and the pros and cons — through the eyes of five Triad entrepreneurs.

Image: Pam Cooper in the guest house she rents out on Airbnb. - https://www.bizjournals.com 

At the age of 27, Andre de Haes raised 30 million euros ($36 million) for his London-based venture capital fund, Backed VC.

Now 30, he and his 29-year-old business partner Alex Brunicki are among a cohort of young investors that are having a greater say in how the billions that have flowed into European venture capital in recent years are spent.

But while younger investors argue that youth gives them a better understanding of what startups might resonate with their age-group, some founders, who recount frustrating meetings with inexperienced venture capitalists, fear an over-reliance on millennial investors’ intuition at the expense of know-how.

The Ministry of Science and Technology published two reports on Wednesday about China’s innovation status in 2016 and 2017. One evaluates the overall innovation capability, and the other is a detailed ranking and analysis of each province’s innovation conditions and resources, from funding to market.

According to the reports, China’s top five most-innovative municipalities and provinces on a scale of 100 are Beijing, 85; Shanghai, 84; Tianjin, 80; and the provinces of Guangdong, 77, and Jiangsu, 76. Last year, Shanghai topped the list with 84.57 points. 

Image: A Chinese team works on a cat food feeding machine at the finals in Beijing of a youth innovation contest this month. Two reports detailed the best cities for innovation. - http://www.nationmultimedia.com

The Top 3 Secrets for Making Your Activist Business Failure Proof Attend this webinar is you are an early-stage entrepreneur who is looking to make a difference in the world over the long term. Attend this webinar if you are further along your activist entrepreneur journey but aren’t seeing the results you expect. Maybe you’re even thinking of giving up. Do NOT attend this webinar if you are simply looking to get rich quick or get rich no matter what.

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When a hopeful entrepreneur asks me advice on beginning a startup, my advice is always the same: Don’t do it. It’s awful.

That is not the full truth. The reality is that it’s difficult to start and run a business. It’s a tremendous investment that takes time, effort and capital. Your focus is always on the business. Fantastic highs give way to horrible lows. It causes drastic mood swings (that might seem irrational to others) and extreme financial stress that few really understand. If someone one is going to make it, they won’t listen to my suggestion and will move full-steam ahead.

Running your own small business is the life, right? Being in control of your day and your destiny sounds great.

That’s the goal and the reason you decide to venture into business on your own, but a new Fundera survey of small business owners reveals small business ownership isn’t for the weak-willed or faint of heart. The life certainly comes with its hardships.

Image: https://smallbiztrends.com

These are tense times for foreigners who want to live and work in the U.S., due to President Trump’s aggressive remarks and stringent policies about immigration. But skilled immigrants who want to start companies in the U.S. are finding support in a group of venture capitalist investors who aimto ease their challenges.

The contention that America’s workers lack the skills employers demand is an article of faith among analysts, politicians, and pundits of every stripe, from conservative tax cutters to liberal advocates of job training. Technology enthusiasts and entrepreneurs are among the loudest voices declaiming this conventional wisdom (see “The Hunt for Qualified Workers”).

Two recent developments have heightened debate over the idea of a “skills gap”: an unemployment rate below 5 percent, and the growing fear that automation will render less-skilled workers permanently unemployable.

Image: https://www.technologyreview.com

As Michael Busch, the CEO of German bookseller Thalia, looked across the Atlantic at the U.S. book market in the mid-2000s, he had a dispiriting preview of what might happen when the full effect of the digital revolution hit his own shores. Even then, Amazon was taking significant market share in Germany. The picture looked bleak.

Billionaire and legendary investor Warren Buffett turned 87 years old on August 30. With a net worth of nearly $77 billion, "The Oracle of Omaha" is currently the fourth-richest person in the world — but he doesn't act like it.

His modest home in Nebraska is worth just .001% of his total wealth and he never spends more than $3.17 on his daily McDonald's breakfast.

To those who knew him from the beginning, Buffett's success comes as no surprise: He was picking out stocks at 11 years old and had amassed the equivalent of $53,000 in today's dollars by the time he was 16.

Image: wikipedia.org - Mark Hirschey - Work of Mark Hirschey

When business is ticking along, it is tempting not to question the status quo. There are plenty of adages to support this view. You’ll often hear management 101 advise to “stick to your knitting” or to follow a plan of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

But that’s precisely how businesses have been left behind. When the Ford Motor Company launched the Model T in 1908 there were already other automakers selling cars. Yet Henry Ford’s car stands out in history because Ford reinvented the way to build cars.

Once viewed as assistants, messengers or gofers, interns today are increasingly responsible for making measurable contributions to a company. And while some interns are not being paid for their contributions -- 42 percent this summer, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) -- others are bringing in impressive paychecks.

In fact, a recent report shows some interns make more than the average American worker, who earns $55,775 annually -- about $4,648 monthly -- before taxes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Released by jobs and recruiting website Glassdoor, the report highlights companies with the highest median monthly pay for internships as reported by U.S.-based interns on Glassdoor. If interns at these companies worked a full year, rather than a semester or other allotted time frame, they would make up to about $3,350 more per month pre-taxes than the average American worker.

Followers of this column may not be all that surprised to learn that China venture fund-raising has climbed to U.S. levels, checking in at $50 billion in 2016 if RMB funds are included in the total.

Or that China has its own fair share of unicorn-financed startups, 30 percent of them in e-commerce but also extending to tech-intensive big data, the sharing economy, artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

Image: https://www.forbes.com