Friday, December 15, 2006

www.formerscienceguy.com

I registered www.formerscienceguy.com and have a link here from my Cortex Search Inc. website. Let me know if it stands out enough. I apologize for not posting in two days, my Sony Vaio went on the fritz, and my other computers are dedicated to other functions. Im 90 % running again.

It seems awfully quiet out there, in the recruiting world. That's okay, I'm getting solice in the fact that our great country, Canada, has now allowed "the use of medical marijuana to two Toronto professors, the right to something that many students could only dream of -- access to specially ventilated rooms where they can indulge in peace." I guess this story from the University of Toronto's ,The Varsity summarizes one of the individuals, truly isolated in the Ivory Tower. Which now leads me to another company "only in Canada", which is Cannasat.

If you surf over to Cannasat and look at their news section, there is little on the science at Cannasat, lots of financials and advocate articles. Although, there is tons of evidence that THC does help chemotherapy patients, glaucoma sufferers, and pass the time at high school, Im still looking forward to this treatment to becoming more mainstream.

Perhaps, every workplace should have a "joint room" right next to the room where people with delirium tremens can go for a drink.

TT

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Starting a Biotech Company;Got an extra $10 Million; Poof, There Goes $20 Billion in Market Cap

Yesterday, I put out there that I wanted a list of biotech Venture Capital Firms that invest in start-up companies. The reason why I'm asking for your input is that I am helping an individual identify potential companies for which to purchase to help advance their own research.

All this talk about VC investments and biotech companies got my scientific juices flowing again, and two independent emails from two different colleagues involved in the biotech industry asking "when are we going to start a company" really got me excited about doing something different. I think starting in the new year, we're going to investigate this a bit further. So, if you got an extra $10 Million floating around and believe I can eventually help you cure a disease, develop a diagnostic tool, or just plain make you rich, get hold of me!!!

Personally, my scientific background is pretty solid, which would lend to the scientific part of a company in conjuction with my partners, but my ability to find great talent to augment such a company would be really handy...

A friend, Rhonda, started out in the world of Tocows (sp??) during the dot-com boom, and when that bubble burst she decided to go back to the world of biotech, which she studied in university before her MBA. Rhonda, in my opinion, is one of the most incredible networkers I have met. To get the job and make connections with individuals completely outside her employment circle of influence really impressed me. Not to mention she has referred quite a bit of business to me!! Trust me, she'll be the BD person in the new biotech company. I'm taking suggestions for a corporate name!!!

Im in the throws of about 4 or 5 searches right now, all at various stages. Some science positions, some regulatory affairs, some quality assurace. Cruise over to the Cortex Search Inc. website...

At a christmas party this weekend, a client and I were talking, and it came up the Pfizer's new blockbuster drug, torcetrapib, didn't make it through it's most recent clinical trials and resulted in a $20 Billion loss in market cap. I won't get into it, but a company with the hopes of that drug raking in over $4 billion a year staring in 2012, it came as a big blow, especially, with Lipitor coming of patent in 2010, which, by the way, brings in a measly $12 Billion. I won't address it here, but other blogs do, including the Pharma Marketing Blog...

TT

Monday, December 11, 2006

Blogger Speaking, phone deals, biotech deals...

It was warm here in Toronto this weekend, but a fun one. I am back into learning flight simming with the new MS Flight Simulator X program. Only a couple of crashes, but fun, from a technical point of view.

On Wednesday this week here in Toronto, the Toronto Venture Group is having an interesting speaker come in to speak, his name is Mark Evans.

Mark Evans is vice-president of operations for b5media Inc., which operates the world's 3rd largest blogging network with more than two million unique visitors a month. Before joining b5, Mark was a senior technology reporter with the National Post, as well as co-founder Blanketware Corp. I am very interested in hearing him speak as well.

Someone I know is capable of switching your phone services to a competitor for significant savings. She's here in Canada, but does work all across North America. As a recruiter I know the importance of your phone system, and I know she can help you. I strongly recommend investigating what she can do for your firm. Send her an email with FormerScienceGuy in the subject and she'll get right back to you. You can reac her at sales@maxxglobal.net.

One last thing today is that I am interested in creating a list of VC firms that specialize in investing in early stage biotech companies. Can we start a list and I'll post it here too.

Plus, I want to add this one line of script to see if it helps:

Technorati Profile



TT (till tommorrow)

Friday, December 8, 2006

Two days of blogging, two new contacts!!!

I started blogging two days ago, and in just this short period of time, I have been contacted by two individuals wanting to establish corporat relationships. If I started this a few years ago, perhaps I'd have a wider network today. No need to dwell, but look forward with a positive attitude.

Some things I see coming from this blog are the potential for new contacts, a way for me to stay updated (more frequently) on the goings-on in the industry - both recruiting and biotech and pharma.

Over the past 5 or 6 years, I have been working with an excellent client, Vasogen Inc. This company has an incredible executive team, strong science, and motivation that doesn't quit. You can check their science, executive team, etc., on their website. I have filled positions from executive, management, to scientific, and over the years have probably placed around 15 or so people there. To date, only 3 or 4 have left for various reasons, but all stayed long enough, so to speak.

Vasogen just raised another $20 MM in cash to continue their operations and ongoing research into both device and drug development, putting Vasogen leaps and bounds above and beyond most other Canadian biotech companies in raising ongoing funds. Vasogen is listed on both NASDAQ and TSX exchnges. I am currently engaged in a couple of searches for Vasogen, and I'll keep you posted.

Thursday, December 7, 2006

Wow, $40 Million for Xenon Pharma!!!

Working for myself, by myself, with just me and Rosie (my chocolate lab) has its ups and downs. August and December are probably the slowest months of the year, but it's fine. Still a couple of deals on the go.

Recruiting in biotech, as far as I can tell, is a bit different from other fields, especially when the head of a biotech company comes from IT and is trying to recruit top talent for top positions. In biotech and drug development, the transferrable skills that someone has would only be apparent to a recruiter that has, say, experience like myself. The biological and biotech research performed by many individuals has a variety of levels of understanding and applications, kinda like a a venn diagram, but enless you know how the two individual areas or functions add up, you would never deduce the overlapping areas. This is a dilemma I'm having with a non-biotech CEO who was incredibly successful in IT, but doesn't have a sniff how to recruit the best leaders to help a start-up biotech company, in my opinion.

Actually, even more interesting today, is that Xenon Pharmaceuticals, in Vancouver, signed a deal with Roche that could bring them $40 Million in various different avenues. Why are they interesting to me, Xenon that is? Xenon was founded by my PhD Supervisor, and a few others from my PhD days in Vancouver at UBC. Other people that I am very close with, are still instrumental in that company, leading either the executive or scientific team. It is kinda cool to see how this company grew from a couple people working in a lab, to a company with its own building, and my friends raising hundreds of millions of dollars over the years for biotech research. Surf over to the Xenon web page and see what kind of cool stuff they're doing here in Canada.

I did place a couple of people at Xenon a few years back, one is still there, the other is pursuing other interests, I believe.

I don't want this to be "another recruiting blog", but a different kind of blog, with a "me" and "biotech" slant (I believe blogging was started by one of the biggest narccicists (sp?) ever.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Hello and the start of a new blog

This blog is well overdue.

I'll start by saying the reason it is overdue is that I was encouraged to start a blog probably around 2 years ago by Jason Davis, who in my opinion is a proven visionary in the recruiting world. In the past couple of months Jason Davis has introduced me to a number of incredible individuals that I'm sure will come up in my blog over and over as it continues to grow.

In short, I am a "Former Science Guy", coined by Jason. I spent a ton of time in school getting a PhD in genetics, then was a scientist at the University of Toronto. In both positions I focused on understanding and hopefully contributing to curing brain diseases. Subsequently, as a result of many reasons, started Cortex Search Inc. For the past few years, I have been focused on doing search for clients that have less than 200 people. Some are public in the US, Canada or both. Big pharma recruiting just ain't any fun. I work for myself, by myself, out of my house in Toronto. I am neither a "big biller" nor "small biller" in terms production for Cortex Search. I truly enjoy working for myself, right now.

I hope to have a bit of growth in the next couple of years and may even hire one or two individuals to expand my business into the US markets.


This blog will give insight into my day to day stuff, recruiting, science, and other interesting stuff. I will also have links to interesting articles related to biotech/pharma or recrutiing, or both. And I might also throw in a few "off topic links as I get into this more.

For now, this is an intro, and will pick up tomorrow.