Rod Wong, founder of RTW Investments, breaks down his framework for assessing management teams in life sciences companies.
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“I put things in three basic buckets. Low percentage of the time management that is so stellar. That you think they can take a very marginal product, right? They can sell ice to an Eskimo, and there's drugs like that. And they can find a way to get it across the finish line and make it commercially successful. And there's certainly drugs like that. Then the other extreme, also a low percentage of management teams, is those that will screw it up. The execution, and that's extremely frustrating for analytically oriented people. And then the middle bucket, which is most, which is that you have Good management, solid management, knows what they're doing, and it's really about supporting them just to maximize the odds”
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PredictionNot checkable as stated
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