How I got here.
16 years ago I boarded a plane to LAX to spend the summer working at Amgen - (then) the world’s most valuable biotech company. Shortly after takeoff the plane was struck by lightning. What a jolt that was. Turns out it was only the beginning of 6 electrifying years working towards improvement in human health.
Halls I’ve walked.
Experience.
CV Therapeutics (acquired by Gilead Sciences)
I joined CVTX in January 2008 to co-lead our Investor Relations function. I crafted the company’s news releases, scripted quarterly earnings and strategic transaction conference calls, maintained the company’s investor presentation, planned our annual meeting, reviewed and updated our securities filings, and spoke daily with our buy and sell-side analysts trading and covering our company’s stock. During my tenure, CVTX cleared two regulatory milestones in the US and one in the EU. We generated over $250M of non-dilutive cash and following a bidding war, ultimately sold the company for a nearly 3x premium to the market cap of the company when I joined 16 months prior.
Some transactions I covered:
Deloitte Recap (part of Deloitte Investments)
I joined Recap as a Senior Consultant in December 2009 following the sale of CV Therapeutics to Gilead. Recap developed a reputation for housing the world’s most robust set of public and confidential information about licensing, joint-venture, royalty, and M&A activities between academic, biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies.
We used this proprietary knowledge base - much of which was obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests to the SEC - to become trusted advisors to business development executives within leading biopharma companies.
Some of my responsibilities included:
Creating new deal records for newly announced transactions capturing metrics including upfront payments, royalties, milestones, co-promotion rights, and governance structures
Preparing comparable analysis to support our efforts as an Expert Witness in landmark IP litigation (ie: RNAi)
Speaking at conferences and training courses (ie: QB3)
Serving on Deloitte’s Regional Advisory board
Thought leadership.
“I don't think you can reduce this simply to consolidation in the industry.” The supply of drugs also depends on forecasts of future demand and relationships and contractual issues between hospitals and suppliers, Meyer adds. “There are too many other factors to just boil it down to the pharmaceutical companies' fault.”
— Weaver, J. A shortage link?. Nat Med 17, 761 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0711-761b
The latest agreement underscores GSK's interest in nucleic acid–based therapeutics notes Lindsay Meyer, a senior consultant with Deloitte Recap, San Francisco. She highlights GSK's recent alliances with Regulus of Carlsbad, California, and Prosensa, of Leiden, The Netherlands, and earlier with Santaris in Hoersholm, Denmark. Isis, however, stands to benefit more than other companies that have licensed their RNA-based therapeutics to GSK, Meyer believes.
— Weaver, J. GSK's RNA splash. Nat Biotechnol 28, 539 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0610-539b
Citizen science.
On September 11, 2011, I was hiking with a group of friends when I suddenly lost all hearing in my left ear. I was 25 years old.
For the better part of a week, I went from ENT to ENT, trying to understand what had caused me to become spontaneously deaf with the “pop” of my ear. I became very well acquainted with my audiologist at Stanford. My frequent hearing tests provided the "data” for making treatment-modifying decisions. When do we taper oral steroids? How many injections should we try?
In parallel I began my own independent investigation using free iPhone tools. As the Explanation of Benefits forms began rolling in, I was shocked to discover how much my frequent-flying at the ENT office was costing my insurance company.
This culminated in a talk (video above) at the Bay Area Quantified Self meetup where I read out the results of my self-tracking experiment.
Education & training.
I completed an interdisciplinary ‘Science-Business’ program at the University of Notre Dame. This pre-professional program enrolls a few dozen students with career interests in STEM-based industries. My independent research focused on the landscape for innovation in Pharma and the dynamics contributing to insider trading on the basis of scientific study results.
Lab Sciences
General Chemistry I + II
General Biology I + II
General Physics I + II
Ecology
Geology
Science Electives
Biostatistics
Embryology
Medical Physics
Medical Ethics
History of Western Medicine
“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.”
(At right, CV Therapeutics Investor Science Day; January 2008)