Vital Signs - Oct 2022

Hi Gang!

Life is back!!! It has been so fun to run into you at various events around town! For the first time – maybe ever – people are actually looking forward to JPM in January :)

We are getting a lot of questions about the market, so I figured it’s time for another Vital Signs (or as some of you dubbed this, “that COVID-newsletter-thing you’ve been doing”).

In no particular order, here are a few things our biotech & digital health teams are seeing right now:

• The biotech “nuclear winter” felt pretty frosty over the summer (insert misattributed Mark Twain quote here), but we’ve seen encouraging signs of life over the past two months. That said… our advice is, Keep ‘er steady, cowgirl. We’re not out of the woods yet.

  • No, that doesn’t mean there are scores of amazing leaders on deck, but people are listening. Lots of “tire-kicking” happening. Lovely to have those conversations, but also time-consuming. We continue to rely heavily on our network to help with ideas and referencing (thank you!).

• CBOs are the new CFOs. Our team completed 64 CFO searches in the COVID years (!), but with the IPO window mostly closed, attention turned to BD leaders to focus on non-dilutive sources of capital.

• Management teams are under a lot of pressure. Many first-time C-suite leaders need guidance, so we have been very involved in coaching and other talent development efforts.

  • Many early-stage companies don’t have CHROs, so the board and CEO need to be very dialed into company culture issues (this is not always a sweet spot of CEOs in our business).

  • In addition, VCs are over-boarded, unable to focus deeply, and willingly rolling off boards; there’s an eagerness to recruit independent board members with strong operating backgrounds to support the management team.

• Candidates are showing more aversion to risk. Clients are showing less decisiveness. Time is the enemy of done in a search process, so we caution against too much analysis-paralysis and/or overloading interview panels and putting candidates through obstacle courses. You will lose the candidate.

• “We need to recruit a CEO who can immediately raise $40M.” Right…you aren’t alone. ;)

Do these trends resonate with you? What else are you seeing?

From the Community

• OUTbio hosted an inspiring panel discussion at RRA’s offices last week. Pictured below are Andrew Hindman (CFO, Theravance Biopharma), Laurie Hill (GC, Altos Labs), Vas Bailey (Senior Partner, ARTIS Ventures), Nancy Vitale (CHRO, Omada Health) and moderator Matt Fust (man, myth, legend). Hugs and wine from Equality Vines were free flowing, and a few tears were shed. #STEMgays now trending. Thanks for that, Vas.

I hope to see many of you at BioComm’s Second Annual CEO Summit in Sonoma next week.

• We are sponsoring the UCSF Health Hub’s Digital Health Awards, which will culminate in the Grand Finale event at HLTH. If you are going, please keep an eye out for Bizzy Balaraman and Noel Auguston!

• My colleague Nick Roberts and I are hosting a biotech CFO roundtable in a few weeks – topics include navigating the market, 2023 planning, managing the board, partnering with the CEO. (Ping us if you are interested or want to nominate your CFO!).

• And of course, we will be together again at JPM. [No! Rain! No! Rain!]

I will close with a great tweet from organizational psychologist Adam Grant: “There are 4 reasons to meet: to decide, learn, bond, and do. If it doesn't serve one of those purposes, cancel it.”

Be well and see you soon!

Jackie