If oral and written communication skills are not your strength, stay away from business development! And shy introverts need not apply. You'll be eaten alive at the negotiation table if you don't like to speak up and counteract your counterpart sitting across from you. The art of negotiation can take several different forms, ranging from bluffing to putting all your cards on the table. The key in my mind is to be honest and fair, and to negotiate in good faith, with true interest in striking a deal.
One thing that initially attracted me to the business development field was the unique opportunity it affords a scientist to make use of his/her hard-earned degree in the sciences. In addition, it allows you to play a part in the business aspects of your company or university. My experience (bias?) has taught me that it is easier for a Ph.D. trained scientist to pick up the business aspects of this job than it is for an M.B.A. type to pick up on the subtleties of the science. After all, we all have to balance our checkbooks and negotiate for cars. On the other hand, how many of your non scientist friends have ever done a Northern Blot? Analytical skills are needed to fairly, quickly, and accurately evaluate a vast variety of scientific proposals, to uncover new research opportunities, and to analyze the business aspects of a deal.
I feel privileged to have seen the biotechnology field from both sides of the coin: from the lab bench of a biotech company to the wheeling and dealing as part of business development at a large pharmaceutical company. I believe that this past gives me the perspective to see how different aspects of a deal are important to different parties and how it is vital to satisfy the major needs of both parties. It has added to my ability to be creative in structuring alliances that are workable for both sides of the agreement.
My Evolution
I didn't plan to leave the lab and become a dealmaker. It just sort of happened. After busting my hump at lab benches next to autoclaves, after labeling an infinite number of Eppendorf tubes for endless sequencing reactions, after a variety of battles with 32P, after extraordinary moments of joy with successful experiments and new hope after failures, I never planned to throw in the lab coat and its associated rewards for a tie. It just happened. Suddenly, I was dealing in the millions of dollars instead of plaques, telling people about the merits and flaws of their research from a commercial instead of a scientific perspective, and wading through buckets of biotech hype. And, to quote Maxwell Smart, loving it!
As a Ph.D. molecular biologist, I had been at the bench for a couple of biotech companies before I decided that I had been here and done that once you've cloned a few genes the excitement can wear off. Especially when they now make kits for all the cutting-edge work I used to perform! Before I traded in my pipette man for a Mont Blanc pen, I had no idea what was involved in business development.
Even as a researcher at a small biotech company where everyone knew each other and their functions quite well, the business development guys were just part of the typical biotech "dog and pony show" that was constantly staged to keep the company afloat and me with a paycheck. Quite honestly, as with most jobs, you really don't know what it's all about until you do it. I was pleasantly surprised to find my true calling.
How Do You Get Here?
Getting into this racket is not necessarily easy. Most large companies and biotech firms justifiably require that you have experience in order to hire you. That said, one way to join the ranks of business development is to work at the lab bench within a company so that you develop a strong positive reputation. Such a "known quantity" can parlay that reputation to gain the confidence of company management and to secure a business development position.
I would rather train a competent scientist from within my company who possesses other desirable personal and professional characteristics than to hire an individual form the outside about whom I know very little (how much do you really learn in a one hour interview?). This allows me to mold them in such a way that they perform their business development duties in a manner and style of which I approve.
I also have a strong bias toward making these choice opportunities available first to people who work within my company. Given the small size of this function within most companies (large pharma companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb employ about from 4 to 5 people in EST and another 6 to 7 in licensing, whereas most small biotech companies have no more than 2 people in similar functions), you must choose and develop your team very carefully in order to be effective!
An alternate mechanism for joining the business development club is to pay your dues at a university technology transfer office rather than working your way up via the bench. Most major universities have an office that employs individuals who are responsible for the out-licensing of university technology to large and small companies. Because universities generally pay less money and the deals are most often less complicated in structure than biotech deals with big pharma, this is a prime training ground for learning this trade.
A few years of experience in this environment gives you the training to make the leap to an industrial position. Once you have completed some deals at a biotech or pharma company, you join the elite few business development people who actually have experience in the field. At that point, you can write your own ticket. You will find that the headhunters, the best source of such positions outside of word of mouth, will be calling you on a regular basis! Salaries for novices in the industry fall in the range of $50,000 to 75,000 (again, universities pay less) and seasoned professionals can make far in excess of six figures.
In line with the hype involved in the biotech industry, salary is not necessarily correlated with one's experience or abilities in this field. I have taught Business Development 101 to many a biotech novice/idiot who made more money than I did (Gee, who does that make the idiot?). I once had a rule that I would not do a deal with a biotech company whose business development person drove a better car than I did (I was driving a 4-year old Ford Taurus at the time). Rather than giving up doing deals at all, I have since relaxed this rule.
In conclusion, a position in business development gives you the opportunity to use your scientific training and creativity without being anchored to the lab bench. It provides the opportunity to travel, to attend scientific and business conferences, to learn about the business aspects of the pharmaceutical industry, to explore scientific areas well outside of those that your research focused you on, and to make new acquaintances in one of the most fascinating industries available to you as a scientist. Although it may on a few rare occasions frustrate the hell out of you, the rewards far exceed the negatives. Now go out there and do a deal!
