Pharmaceutical and Biotech Seed Capital Investing with Bill Garner, M.D. (3 of 4)

Master Your Money

Question 3: What was your best day? There are priceless experiences. Like having lunch and a lot of drinks with Sir James Black who developed beta-blockers and drugs like Tagamet. Selling a bunch of stock from my couch in PR so I could fund several more deals. Question 4: Tell us about your first deal. What was it like? What was the most important lesson? Reputation is essential. I had cold called a NASDAQ-listed company about a merger and they took us seriously as their former general council and I had done a project at the Kauffman Foundation together. Question 5: Was your second deal any easier? Only slightly. Our clinical science was taking on a huge vested interest in the pharma industry. We had a way to do away with the side-effects, like risk of death, associated with the big asthma medications you see advertised on TV. We still got the company listed. Question 6: What about your 3rd deal? It was still not easy. But by this time there were a few investors who essentially said I have a bit of capital for your next deal. DMPI was retail IPO and now is finally on the NASDAQ. Question 7: In my mind, you are a real innovator using the Australian stock market to reduce the cost of issuing the pharma and bio pharma securities you take to market. Could you explain your reverse merger deals across the ASX? Well necessity is the mother of invention. Many people do this as well. Actually in the global economy companies look to stock exchanges as an alternate to VC funding. If your listeners only remember one thing from our discussion today, PLEASE remember that there is not just one way to finance a deal. Even if you live in The Valley venture capital is very unlikely to be the way you will finance your Start-Up. And that is OK! It can be a lot cheaper to be public ex-US.