仓促扩张：生物创业公司的头号杀手

    3. 依托合作关系快速扩张。生物科技公司往往被合作带来的优势迷惑，因此过早进行扩张：他们在自己平台上大展拳脚，然后还拓展自己的组织和足迹，尝试进行更多项目的研发——这一切都加快了烧钱的速度。简而言之，他们往往错误的把合作关系看成不需要付出代价的跑道延长线，不幸的是，如果作为金主的合作伙伴终止这段关系，这些生物科技公司瞬间就会失去平衡，不得不大举裁员。在公开市场上，Alnylam与诺华公司（Novartis）、Targecept与阿斯利康（AZ）之间的合作最近都已搁浅。

    尚未上市的公司资金更为紧张，遇到这种事情就更要痛苦得多。此种策略——大举烧钱开发内部项目，而不是打造跑道——并非没有成功可能，如果该公司足够幸运，能够用合作伙伴提供的资金开发一些有趣的资产，那就没问题。可是，这需要极佳的运气（我想对所有生物科技公司来说运气都不可或缺）。另一种发展策略是真正根据合作关系的需要而拓展公司，我们投资组合中的Vitae公司这方面就管理得很不错。它最近一次融资还是2004年的事情，此后利用与勃林格殷格翰集团（Boehringer Ingelheim）的合作协议延长了跑道，同时有选择地推进内部项目。Plexxikon同样很成功，多年来都无需筹集资金，后来被日本第一三共制药（Daiichi）以超过8亿美元的价格收购。

    4.没有取得重大成果就过快扩张。以新药批准为例，大型制药公司都希望，在某种很有前途的新药获批后的第二天，就能拿出产品来，让销售渠道发售。如果FDA以“完全回应函”（CRL）拒绝批准，这些公司也能承担损失。可对资金紧张的生物科技公司来说，这种模式恐怕不行，在新药获批之前就迅猛扩张的小公司一败涂地的可能性很大。几年前的Vicuron，还有Adolor和ARCA都是典型，它们都在新药获批前就招聘了销售人员，结果未能获批，不得不裁掉大量员工。

    遭殃的不仅是销售人员来说，这些企业（尤其是小公司）的资本集约度也会大受影响。狂妄自大、过度乐观是这一错误的典型起因，不幸的是，董事会经常放任这种事情发生。Horizon Pharma（我们投资的另一家公司）最近做得就很不错，这家公司的新药Duexa于2011年4月份获批，在此之前，它们始终将全职员工控制在20人以下。该公司现在已经上市，正在拓展销售与市场组织。

    过早扩张的反面正是我们Atlas风险投资公司创造的“P/B/S”概念，这指的可不是磷酸盐缓冲盐水（Phosphate Buffered Saline），而是“验证/打造/拓展”（Prove/Build/Scale）。也就是先小作投入，验证某种假设，然后略微追加投资，测试该项目，并想清楚何时该花钱缔造一家公司，等等。我们的种子期投资多数都是为了验证各种想法，而缔造企业需要有合作伙伴（我们往往在这一阶段就退出）。扩大规模则需要运作正常的资本市场，在目前的市场状况下，这一点很难实现。

    过早扩张可能扼杀企业及投资，在下次投资热潮中，最好把这一点铭记在心。

    本文作者布鲁斯•布斯是Atlas Venture的合伙人，他的博客地址是http://lifescivc.com/。

    译者：小宇

    3. Building too fast on back of a partnership. Biotechs often get seduced in premature scaling by the siren song of partnering: They do a big deal on their platform, and then expand their organization and footprint, and try to work on more projects – all increasing their net burn. In short, it's often an illusion that the partnership actually brought non-dilutive runway extension to the company. Sadly, when the sugar daddy partner terminates the deal, the biotech is left way out of balance and has to RIF its staff. In the public markets, this has recently happened to Alnylam with Novartis and Targecept with AZ.

    It's much more painful for private companies with weaker cash positions. This strategy – of aggressively funding internal burn rather than buying runway – can work if the company is lucky enough to develop some interesting assets with the free cash from their partner. But there's alot of luck involved (true of all of biotech, I guess). The alternative is to truly scale your organization to the partnership. Our portfolio company Vitae has managed this reasonably well. It last raised equity in 2004, and has used its pair of deals with Boeringher to extend its runway while selectively advancing internal projects. Plexxikon was similarly successful; hadn't raised equity for years before it was bought for more than $800 million by Daiichi.

    4. Building out before a big outcome. Drug approval, for instance. In Big Pharma, having product to sell into the channel the day after approval is the goal for most blockbusters; in the event of a CRL rejection, they can eat the costs. But in cash-strapped biotech, this tends not to work. Small companies that build out aggressively before an approval more often than not get crushed. Vicuron a few years back. Adolor. ARCA. All hired sales reps prior to a pending approval, failed to get approval, and had to RIF large numbers of their employees.

    This is not only tragic for those sales folks, but it also exacts a huge tax on the capital intensity of these businesses (especially the small ones). Hubris and excessive optimism are the typical causes of this one, but sadly Boards still let this happen. Horizon Pharma (another one of ours) recently did it right – kept the company under 20 FTEs through approval of its new drug Duexa in April 2011. It's now public and working on the sales & marketing organization.

    The counterpoint to premature scaling is what we at Atlas coined P/B/S. No, not Phosphate Buffered Saline. It's "Prove/Build/Scale." Thinking through small bets to prove a hypothesis, slightly more to test the programs, when to spend to grow a company, etc. Most of our seed investing is done to prove concepts. Building requires partners (which is where we often exit). And scaling requires functioning capital markets so rarely happens today.

    Premature scaling can kill companies and investments. Worth keeping that in mind for the next budget cycle.

    Bruce Booth is a partner with Atlas Venture. He blogs at http://lifescivc.com/.