Cal Ripken: A Biotech Role Model
by Michael Shulman
BiotechBlitz
Forgive the lack of posts last week, but I've been on the road. It was less my speaking engagements at the San Francisco Money Show than vacation time with one of my twin 15-year-old sons -- my baseball player son. (His brother is a lacrosse player.)
We walked the wharf, ate some of the best dim sum in the U.S. (at a restaurant called Yink Seng), discovered two tea-tasting stores in traditional Chinatown, had great sushi and watched the syringe man, Barry Bonds, hit a home run to the raucous cheers of the home-town delusional -- my son’s highly visible Stanford baseball hat even made the ESPN highlights.
And we both think Barry Bonds is a disgusting mockery of baseball.
And then there's Cal Ripken, who is a world apart, and did it the right way.
Before the Nats came to D.C., we made many visits to the Orioles' Camden Yards and were in the stands when Ripken hit his 400th homer. If not for 9/11 and the re-scheduling of games, we would have been in the stands for his last game.
The only baseball I ever caught in the stands was a Ripken foul ball -- which he signed (since there is possibly no more fan-friendly player) -- and my sons attended his camp -- with mom and dad paying more than double the regular rate for the the week Cal was actually at the camp the boys got to hit batting practice off of the Hall of Famer. My left hitting son said he could to pitch to lefties.
And yes, there is relevance between Cal and biotechs, as he is a role model for how to manage a biotech company and how to invest in one.
Ripken came to work every day. He's the iron man who shattered a record no one thought could be broken -- 2,632 consecutive games. He was never a lunch pail player -- he was an all star, has a World Series ring and so on -- but work was what it is all about. Not flash, not a super homerun season, not a special chair in the clubhouse, not grand juries and mistresses, just work -- excellent work, sometimes great work, often clutch work, but work.
And that is what you need to look for in biotech companies.
* Not companies living on press releases.
* Not companies rushing to get an FDA approval with a flawed trial design and middling trial results.
* Not companies looking to become billion-dollar outfits overnight and refusing to hook up with larger marketing partners.
* Not companies paying their executives excessive salaries and bonuses even though they are years away from revenues.
* Not a GPC Biotech (GPCB) asking for a drug approval using a trial with primary endpoints never before seen by the FDA.
* Not a Dendreon (DNDN), reacting to a failure with Provenge by rushing to get a new application in that may not only fail but may forever kill the drug.
Look for the Ripken companies -- more like BioCryst (BCRX) bringing in a CEO with operations experience, and having lined up marketing partners and Uncle Sam to take it through its next stage of development as a company.
Successful biotech investors will look for the steady and reliable leadership doing the work that it takes to make a company successful. It is work, and even if we strive for the 10-to-1 or the 100-to-1 payoff, it's not done by rolling the dice on rumors, incomplete information and guesswork. It is about building a portfolio, accepting risk and volatility, riding it out if you believe in the company, and avoiding the temptation to trade.
Forgive the piety and pedantic tone, I really believe this.
And let me tell you why this works and use my sons as an example. My baseball son played rec league ball for eight years, never summer ball, never All Star ball, always worked very hard, took practice seriously, made himself a catcher and a very fine hitter.
He began ninth grade at a very serious sports high school, went to the winter workouts, the team was thin because of seven graduating seniors, and after returning from spring training in Florida (yeah, really -- this is high school!), was the starting varsity catcher. 88 mile an hour fastballs, soon to be Division I pitchers, nasty curve balls, serious baseball.
Why? To quote his coach, he was a coach’s kid, took everything seriously, worked hard every inning to improve his game. My lacrosse son is a goalie and had never played before eighth grade. He played middle-school lacrosse as if he were born to do it, went to high school, rode the bench due to a lack of intensity at practice and a queue of players in front of him.
He did not sell off – he joined a weekend league, playing up to four games each Sunday, has been in and out of lacrosse clinics from Johns Hopkins to lessons with the Notre Dame goalie and is totally re-dedicated to hard work this fall.
Yeah, I'm proud of them both, but not for their achievements so much as their work ethic and dedication. It's the Ripken way. And as investors, we should all do the same. Hard work pays.
BiotechBlitz is a regular contributor to BioHealth Investor
_____________
BiotechBlitz
Forgive the lack of posts last week, but I've been on the road. It was less my speaking engagements at the San Francisco Money Show than vacation time with one of my twin 15-year-old sons -- my baseball player son. (His brother is a lacrosse player.)
We walked the wharf, ate some of the best dim sum in the U.S. (at a restaurant called Yink Seng), discovered two tea-tasting stores in traditional Chinatown, had great sushi and watched the syringe man, Barry Bonds, hit a home run to the raucous cheers of the home-town delusional -- my son’s highly visible Stanford baseball hat even made the ESPN highlights.
And we both think Barry Bonds is a disgusting mockery of baseball.
And then there's Cal Ripken, who is a world apart, and did it the right way.
Before the Nats came to D.C., we made many visits to the Orioles' Camden Yards and were in the stands when Ripken hit his 400th homer. If not for 9/11 and the re-scheduling of games, we would have been in the stands for his last game.
The only baseball I ever caught in the stands was a Ripken foul ball -- which he signed (since there is possibly no more fan-friendly player) -- and my sons attended his camp -- with mom and dad paying more than double the regular rate for the the week Cal was actually at the camp the boys got to hit batting practice off of the Hall of Famer. My left hitting son said he could to pitch to lefties.
And yes, there is relevance between Cal and biotechs, as he is a role model for how to manage a biotech company and how to invest in one.
Ripken came to work every day. He's the iron man who shattered a record no one thought could be broken -- 2,632 consecutive games. He was never a lunch pail player -- he was an all star, has a World Series ring and so on -- but work was what it is all about. Not flash, not a super homerun season, not a special chair in the clubhouse, not grand juries and mistresses, just work -- excellent work, sometimes great work, often clutch work, but work.
And that is what you need to look for in biotech companies.
* Not companies living on press releases.
* Not companies rushing to get an FDA approval with a flawed trial design and middling trial results.
* Not companies looking to become billion-dollar outfits overnight and refusing to hook up with larger marketing partners.
* Not companies paying their executives excessive salaries and bonuses even though they are years away from revenues.
* Not a GPC Biotech (GPCB) asking for a drug approval using a trial with primary endpoints never before seen by the FDA.
* Not a Dendreon (DNDN), reacting to a failure with Provenge by rushing to get a new application in that may not only fail but may forever kill the drug.
Look for the Ripken companies -- more like BioCryst (BCRX) bringing in a CEO with operations experience, and having lined up marketing partners and Uncle Sam to take it through its next stage of development as a company.
Successful biotech investors will look for the steady and reliable leadership doing the work that it takes to make a company successful. It is work, and even if we strive for the 10-to-1 or the 100-to-1 payoff, it's not done by rolling the dice on rumors, incomplete information and guesswork. It is about building a portfolio, accepting risk and volatility, riding it out if you believe in the company, and avoiding the temptation to trade.
Forgive the piety and pedantic tone, I really believe this.
And let me tell you why this works and use my sons as an example. My baseball son played rec league ball for eight years, never summer ball, never All Star ball, always worked very hard, took practice seriously, made himself a catcher and a very fine hitter.
He began ninth grade at a very serious sports high school, went to the winter workouts, the team was thin because of seven graduating seniors, and after returning from spring training in Florida (yeah, really -- this is high school!), was the starting varsity catcher. 88 mile an hour fastballs, soon to be Division I pitchers, nasty curve balls, serious baseball.
Why? To quote his coach, he was a coach’s kid, took everything seriously, worked hard every inning to improve his game. My lacrosse son is a goalie and had never played before eighth grade. He played middle-school lacrosse as if he were born to do it, went to high school, rode the bench due to a lack of intensity at practice and a queue of players in front of him.
He did not sell off – he joined a weekend league, playing up to four games each Sunday, has been in and out of lacrosse clinics from Johns Hopkins to lessons with the Notre Dame goalie and is totally re-dedicated to hard work this fall.
Yeah, I'm proud of them both, but not for their achievements so much as their work ethic and dedication. It's the Ripken way. And as investors, we should all do the same. Hard work pays.
BiotechBlitz is a regular contributor to BioHealth Investor
_____________
posted by Nico at
7:55 PM
1 Comments:
You are so correct. Both in society and in biotech companies, it's so rare to see models like him.
Pressure to go public, to reach milestones, to expand ahead of healthy rates along with a fat cat/entitlement mentality is all too common. And, more often than not, leads to failure.
I'm writing anonymously as, sadly, my company exhibits these qualities.
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