Steve Dickman is CEO of CBT Advisors, a life sciences consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. CBT Advisors works on product positioning and corporate strategy; communications and fund-raising materials; and market analysis based on research and expert interviews. Clients include public and private pharma and biotech companies as well as life science venture funds.
Mr. Dickman publishes an industry blog, Boston Biotech Watch, that tracks industry, VC and technology trends.
Before founding CBT Advisors in 2003, Mr. Dickman spent four years in venture capital with TVM Capital. There, Mr. Dickman’s deals included Sirna Therapeutics, sold to Merck in 2006 for $1.1 billion. Earlier, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, a freelance contributor to The Economist, Discover, Science, GEO and Die Zeit and the founding bureau chief for Nature in Munich, Germany. Fluent in German, Mr. Dickman received his biochemistry degree cum laude from Princeton University.
Recent posts
The buzz from day one of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco earlier this week was the announcement on Sunday night by Roche that it was acquiring a majority... Read more »
This post was co-authored by Sultan Meghji.
In biotech’s early days, telling a story to a wide audience used to be part of the path to success. Founders would share a... Read more »
The pharmaceutical industry needs better scientific models for testing drugs before they get to the proving ground of human clinical trials. Current lab dish models and animal testing models are time-consuming,... Read more »
Foundation Medicine, the Cambridge, MA-based cancer diagnostic company, reminded me of the 2000 genomics bubble when it went public this week. The company sold its IPO shares at $18, and the... Read more »
The new landscape for venture capital investing does not seem to leave much room for classic company formation. Investor after investor has shut down or moved beyond startups into what seem... Read more »
Just because a biotech company has landed a high-profile chief executive, does that mean its product is going to work? I’ve been asking myself that question in the wake of... Read more »
What convinces investors that a drug discovery company is likely to bring products to the market, and rewards to shareholders? It comes down to just a few things: Proprietary biology. Confident... Read more »
The sad endgame in the acquisition of Complete Genomics (NASDAQ: GNOM) came last week: having failed to create a sustainable business, CGI was put up for sale in June of... Read more »
For anyone wondering about the value that can be added by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to the drug discovery and development process, look no further than Stromedix. This venture-backed company... Read more »
Can drugs that supposedly “activate” a controversial target—sirtuin proteins—stop or even reverse the aging process? A new report this week said “No.” According to this report, published Wednesday night in Nature ... Read more »
This post was co-authored by Rich Whalley, an associate at CBT Advisors.
What could Google do if it had access to everyone’s health data?
You’re probably already thinking a few things:
1.... Read more »
To: Chris Viehbacher, CEO, Sanofi Aventis
From: The Boston Biotech Community
Re: Making the Most of the Impending Merger
Dear Mr. Viehbacher,
In the heat of the discussions regarding... Read more »
