When Worlds Within Our Ecosystem Collide

When Worlds Within Our Ecosystem Collide

During a dinner several years back, my host, a noted high-tech hedge fund manager, unwrapped and showed me a painting he had bought that morning.  Curious about his taste in art, I asked, “What is it about this painting that speaks to you and where do you intend to display it in your home?”

Re-wrapping the painting, he replied to my second question: “In a temperature-controlled vault I have in the basement.”  And, to the first: “The dealer has a good track record of picking young artists whose works rapidly appreciate in value.  I figure I can sell this in 5 years or less with at least a 10X cash-on-cash return.”

Peering at the painting, it was evident to me that the artist had diligently studied the Masters and had perfected her craft over years of effort.  She would have produced many failures in her quest to provide illuminating, new ways of seeing the world.  They were the crucible in which she forged this painting, a painting whose value lay in its ability to enrich for us, its viewers, our shared human experience.  

Had my dinner host noted any of this when he purchased the painting and then shut it away from view?  And, if he didn’t, what then? What gave me the right to be critical of his approach to art?  He clearly knew how to make money from art far better than I.  While, from my perspective, he seemed to know to perfection the work’s price while failing utterly to appreciate its worth, he might equally see my view as lacking in a form of sophistication: his deployment of capital in the art market could be seen as far more essential to sustaining the role of the artist and art in society than my studied appreciation.—Perhaps all one can say is: when it comes to art, he and I clearly inhabit two different worlds. 

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That dinner came to mind when, recently, I read that an activist hedge fund had taken an equity stake in a biotechnology company led by its deeply respected founder, and that the hedge fund had nominated its Chief Investment Officer to the Board of Directors of the company to "participate in discussions to maximize value for shareholders."

It has become a commonplace to speak of the “biopharmaceutical ecosystem.”  It comprises scientists, clinicians, biotechnology entrepreneurs, analysts, venture capitalists, X-over investors, hedge fund managers, managers of research university and medical school OTLs, and executives of mature biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.  These co-inhabitants share drinks and stories at the same conferences and read each other’s tweets and blogs. It is taken as a given that each member plays a key, interconnected role in the ecosystem.  In this framework of interdependence for survival and thriving, all inhabitants play a critical role; it makes no sense to speak of one being more worthy than another.

The committed biotechnology entrepreneur and the activist hedge fund manager of whom I read co-inhabit this biopharmaceutical ecosystem, just as, extending the trope, my dinner host that evening and I co-inhabit the “art ecosystem.”  

“Ecosystems” are; as such, they are value neutral.  “Worlds” are created; as such, they embody the defining commitments and values of their creators.  

For most of us who ply our daily trade in the biotechnology ecosystem, we find ourselves—at times seamlessly, at others with tension—moving between and amongst our different worlds. Indeed, for many of us, it is the challenge of integrating the differing demands, commitments, and logic of these different worlds that most appeals to us.   

But, sometimes, integration is not an available alternative; sometimes, two of our worlds collide head on.  

When they do, it falls to each of us who co-inhabit the biopharmaceutical ecosystem to choose a world to claim as our own.  The choice is deeply personal: 

• ·       A world in which price and short-term financial return are the sole measures of worth.

• ·       A world which finds its value in a commitment to a better life for patients, the flourishing of employees, and the building of sustainable science-driven enterprises devoted to making important medicines for those in need…and, thereby, a world that provides an opportunity for meaningful financial returns to similarly minded, long-term investors.