THE HOUSE BRAZERYEN: 18JUL2023 🐉
Lonely July Issue
Gm! Yes, we took July 4th off. MIND YOUR OWN BIZNASS.
[Welcome to Issue Number 35* of The House Brazeryen, where we break down the latest #startup, #biotech, and #ScientistCEO-related news for you fortnightly, in roughly 5 minutes. Brought to you by Brazen Bio, Brazen Capital, and brainsurgerydropout.]
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RE: “Be Content to Be Thought Foolish…”
by Shawn Carbonell, MD, PhD — “…and stupid.” [—Epictetus]
When I proposed developing the first clinical stage drug targeting beta1 integrin (about 15 years ago) the dogma in the field was that YOU COULDN’T! Most academics, journal and grant reviewers, industry scientists, consultants, and venture capitalists agreed that it would NOT be a safe approach.
They were wrong.
My drug passed extensive toxicology studies with flying colors and is now in human clinical trials.
Yet, there are STILL many people today who don’t believe it is possible to do what we’ve done. Recently, a collaborator was forced to spar with angry “Reviewer #2” because they—despite being well aware of the fact the fucking F-D-A gave our data their blessing (IND)—refused to concede the outdated dogma.
And how about the following sentiment in a 2017 review on integrins in cancer:
Whoops! They didn’t get the memo either. Although it was frustrating in the early stages—to be honest, I now kind of love it. What could be better than having potential competitors with their heads so far up their asses that it’s a fantastic moat? lol.
BRAZEN BREAKDOWN
The important nuance here is even I—myself—wasn’t 100% positive the nay-sayers were wrong until around FIVE YEARS AFTER I founded the company and had already raised and spent millions of dollars. In fact, a year before we started our tox studies, we learned of a spectacularly failed effort by a larger biopharma to target beta1 integrin. They had horrible, horrible tox in their primate studies. The WORST kind.
I could have quit at that point.
But, I didn’t. It wasn’t surprising to me at all that an inhibitor of beta1 COULD be dangerous. I knew the nuances of engineering the antibody to optimize for safety were critical and saw in their patent that they failed to incorporate even the minimal basic changes to the molecule to prevent a total tox shit show (TTSS).
The point is: stop trying to convince the unconvinceable (a GaryVee-ism). That time is better spent seeking and evangelizing your cause to people who are actually open to your POV and are willing and eager to help. Whether you’re ultimately right or wrong it’s the best way to keep your program moving forward towards success (and hopefully away from a TTSS).
VC CORNER: Ever Hear of a Term Sheet?
by Scott Alpizar, PhD — Confession time: I had an entirely different piece written for this week. But as I was looking it over, I realized I referenced a lot of things that I haven’t really discussed before. And the last thing I want is for you to be thinking “WTF does that mean?!” and need to go down a rabbit hole of Googling or asking ChatGPT as you’re reading.
So, I decided to pivot!
Now yes, I realize I did just set myself up for an article about pivoting, but that’s NOT where we’re going. (I’ll add it to the list of future topics…)
We’re actually going to talk about term sheets! To be more specific, an investor term sheet—which is different from the License Term Sheet that I’ve already talked about. And while I may not have mentioned it before, I’m sure the concept of a term sheet has come up somewhere in the newsletter before. Believe it or not, I haven’t committed every single issue to memory… yet…
So, let’s start with the basics. What’s a term sheet? It’s a summary of the terms (usually touching on financial, governance, and liquidation rights) that an investor is offering for their investment. They are typically non-binding and are intended to serve as a template for the more detailed final investment documents.
Getting a term sheet is definitely a good sign—it means the investors are serious about investing in your company. So, congrats!
If you want to get a glimpse of what to expect a term sheet to cover, you can check out a model term sheet on the NVCA’s website. There are also tons of others online.
BRAZEN BREAKDOWN
I’m sure right about now you’re also probably thinking, “wait, I’ve been reading a lot, how is there going to be room for a breakdown!?”
Well, there isn’t! There’s far too much to try to unpack in one issue anyway, so over the next couple of weeks we’re going to take a deeper dive into what a term sheet contains, what you should look out for, and more importantly, what you should consider negotiating!
Until next time!
😋 BRAZEN SNAX
🩺 First gen ChatGPT for clinical medicine… “MultiMedQA” is here(ish)
🧠 Do we need more amyloid-targeted Alzheimer’s drugs? [No. —ed]
💤 Nature journal finally discovers: “sleep improves productivity”
🤯 A great example of garbage in, garbage out published in JAMA HF
🐞 Genetic arms race in the war between plants and bugs
🧬 Which is a carcinogen: aspartame or processed meat?
👩🏽🎓 No shame in long ass PhDs? A perspective.
💥 Courageous statement: “leaders should err on the side of kindness”
⏰ TikTokCrak: How to become a brain surgeon (or whatever you wish)
🔪 CARVEOUT
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink is empirical proof for night owls to finally embrace being night owls… your life may literally depend on it!
🙏🏽 A DOSE OF GRATITUDE
We are grateful for Joshua Eckleberry, Principal at Solas BioVentures—and good friend of the BrazenVerse—who we met on TikTok a year ago!
🙃 BRAZEN MEME
✍️ FEEDBACK
Feel free to tweet all thoughts, questions, and insults to us. Bring it. No, really. COME👏🏽AT👏🏽US👏🏽BRUH👏🏽
And let’s continue the conversation on LinkedIn: @brazencapital and @brazenbio.