It’s the summer and that means one thing in the FierceBiotech office: it’s the time of year when we want your nominations for this year’s fiercest private biotech companies. Every year we want to see the brightest and the best that young biotechs have to offer.
I’m always asked what Fierce means: Webster’s Dictionary describes it as … no; it’s a little subjective on our part sure, but really, we want to see a company at the cutting-edge, taking genuine risks on next-gen science with strong teams and a strong corporate culture.
This year we’d like to broaden our geographic reach and see more from Europe and Asia—it’s not a U.S.-exclusive award, so please send us any great biotechs you know from around the globe.
And we tend to focus a lot on oncology and rare diseases; there’s certainly a lot of inventive, innovative and exciting science going on here, but there’s a lot of unmet needs in areas like mental health, antibiotic resistance, and diseases that affect the poorest parts of the global population. Innovation here is just as important and we’d like to see more in the Fierce 15 lists.
We also want to see great teams: You can have great science, but it needs an excellent group of talented executives and scientists to get promise into the clinic, and into the hands of patients. These don’t necessarily have to be big names from big companies: Track records of getting big and innovative R&D through the clinic will always impress us, whatever life science background you have.
And finally, corporate culture: What does this mean? Well, we want to see the exact opposite of Elizabeth Holmes and Martin Shkreli; I’ve always been in admiration of how much the top execs of former Fierce 15 winners care about their companies and their people; many have come out of retirement, even though they are financially set up for life, because of a passion project they cannot leave alone.
They instill that passion across the company and create a vibrant culture that allows everyone to row together and cross the tumultuous seas of life science R&D.
So what do you need to do? If you work for a private biotech (i.e., one that has not been through an IPO) or want to nominate one you know, put your details into the form below. Nominations form part of our process of assessing who will win the Fierce 15 in 2019.
Forms must be sent by Monday, Aug. 5, 2019; winners will be announced at the end of September.
Want some inspiration? See last year’s list here.
Have any extra questions/comments, please contact me at [email protected].
Ben Adams, senior editor, FierceBiotech.