风险投资经常被称为学徒行当，原因是，经验很重要，而且积累经验需要时间。但成功的企业能把经验带来的智慧转化为自身的记忆，或者融入自己的记忆之中，并在这个过程中总结出哪些东西可行，哪些不可行。2007年，我们曾和我们的生命科学行业投资团队共同编制了一份清单，详细说明了当时我们在生物科技领域的投资所带来的教训。最近我们又回顾了这份清单，也重温我们的思路。

    从2000年起，我们投资了近60家生物科技企业，所以我们可以考虑较多的负面问题，同时把我们观察到的结果一并拿出来和大家分享。

    下文是对这些教训的总结，非常简单扼要。从宏观层面看，许多内容都相当乏味，其中的见解也并不是非常深刻。但通过实际操作，每项投资都从想法变成了行动（不作为则会带来问题）。为免于伤及无辜，我删掉了大多数公司的名称。同时，所有这些要点基本上都来自于实战经验，而不是闭门造车。

    1. 管理、管理、还是管理。 初创型生物科技公司的成功主要依靠管理团队，这不是什么新鲜事。风投的原则就是，在发展初期找到合适的创业者和管理者是关键所在。但对刚刚起步的生物科技公司来说，做到这一点往往并不容易。

    • 处在不同阶段的生物科技公司往往需要不同的管理团队，而且实际上许多处于萌芽状态和起步状态的生物科技企业并不需要首席执行官(CEO)。这些公司受科技左右，需要很棒的首席科学官(CSO)来为它奠定基础，还需要负责业务开发的董事来帮助它建立整体愿景。完成这项工作后，它们才需要找到一名非常出色的首席执行官。在发展初期把一名参与公司设立的CSO任命为CEO会带来不必要的冲突，那就是在招聘未来CEO时需要这位CSO让贤，而这会被看做是降级，会很尴尬，而且是原本可以避免的情况。让负责开发业务的创业者在早期填补CEO的空白也会造成这样的局面。让CEO一职从一开始就处于空缺状态可以避免随后出现的尴尬场面，或者至少能尽量降低尴尬的程度。

    • 管理不善时，董事会往往会开始负责公司的运营。随后就会出现恶性循环：在第一季度董事会议上，管理层认为自己服从于董事会并因此追逐某一个目标；而在第二季度董事会议上，董事会说他们觉得另一个目标更好，而管理层则认为自己所做的符合董事会的要求；到了第三季度董事会议，董事会就会觉得公司缺乏方向并因此感到困惑，接下来就是一片混乱。这绝不是一个良性循环，当然也不会这么简单。好的董事能够指明方向，实施监管并提供建议，而好的管理层则能过滤董事会的反馈，把它转化成为公司战略方向的一部分。这是一个均衡而有张力的有利局面。关键在于，不要让董事会干涉选择哪些项目这样的日常事务。但在这里，一个重要的细微差别是，某一个活跃的董事会或者某一名活跃的牵头投资人在初创型企业的起步阶段扮演代理CEO的角色非常普遍，而且这是个好现象（特别是在考虑到上文所述要点的情况下，那就是科技导向的初创型公司最初并不需要正式的CEO）。

    • 迅速调整管理层几乎总是正确的选择。以往，即使知道管理层运转不良，我们对高管的调整也总是不够迅速。相信直觉很重要，如果你觉得管理层成效不佳，实际情况很可能就是如此。在负责这家公司的投资团队看来，高管的情况可能也是这样。此外，如果在结束一笔新投资时出现了实质性的管理问题，情况就不太可能得到改善。我发现在结束投资前往往值得向现有团队说明对他们的预期和可能采取的行动。感觉并非一帆风顺时就要结束投资，然后立即解雇CEO。

    Venture capital is often called an apprenticeship business because experience matters and takes time to accumulate. But successful firms are able to translate and transfer experiential wisdom through institutional memory, which involves codifying what works and what doesn't. Back in 2007, we did this with our life science team by pulling together a detailed list of "Lessons Learned" from our existing biotech portfolio. We recently went back and revisited that list of reflections.

    Since 2000, we've invested in nearly 60 biotech companies, so we've had a reasonable 'n' to think about and inform our collective observations.

    Below is a very distilled and rather sanitized summary of our "Lessons Learned." At the macro level, many of these are rather prosaic and not very insightful, but practical reality of each deal is where insight becomes actionable (and inaction causes issues). To spare the innocent, I've dropped most of the company names, but all of these points were largely informed by experience in the trenches not abstract thinking.

    1. Management, management, management. It's not news that the success of a biotech startup depends largely on the management team. This is an axiom in venture: getting the right group of early entrepreneurs and executives around the table is critical. But this is often not easy in early stage biotech companies.

    • Different management teams are often required at different stages of a biotech, and the reality is that many seed- and early-stage deals don't need a CEO. They are science-driven companies that need great Chief Scientific Officers to build the fundamentals of the story, and a BD executive to help build the broader vision. It's upon that progress with which a company can recruit a great CEO. Putting a founding CSO in as the CEO early on can create unnecessary conflict: having the conversation about a perceived "demotion" to CSO when hiring the future CEO is uncomfortable and avoidable. Same goes for putting the lead BD entrepreneur in as CEO early on to "fill the role". Keeping the role vacant in the beginning prevents future discomfort, or at least minimizes it.

    • With weak management, boards often begin to run companies. And then it's a vicious cycle: At the 1Q board meeting, the management thinks they are responding to the board so they chase after XYZ; then at the 2Q meeting, the board says they think chasing ABC is a better idea, which the management does thinking it’s being responsive; and then at the 3Q meeting, the board wonders why the company has no direction and chaos ensues. Never a good cycle, but of course it’s not as simple as this. A good board is able to provide direction, governance, and input, and a good management is able to distill that feedback and integrate it into the strategic direction of the company. It's a healthy balance and tension. But keeping the board away from whiplashing the "day to day" program choices of what to "chase" is key. An important nuance is worth mentioning here though: an active board chairman or single lead investor playing the role of an acting CEO is very typical in an early stage startup, and is a good thing (especially given the point above about not having a formal CEO in a science-led startup at the beginning).

    • Making management changes quickly is almost always the right answer. We historically have not moved fast enough to make senior management changes even when we knew it wasn't working. Trusting one's instincts is important: If it feels like it’s not working, it probably isn't. And the team working in the company probably sees the same thing from their view of the executives. Further, if real management questions are present at the closing of a new investment, it's unlikely to improve. I find it's often worth being explicit about this with the existing team before the closing to lay out expectations and possible action plans. Closing the deal and then firing the CEO immediately after doesn't feel like the high road.

    • 有时我们会为了表面上的好理由而贻误时机（比如：“我们就要达成业务开发协议，不想在这一过程中改变现状”），而实际情况往往证明这些都不是什么好理由（比如：“这项协议一直都没有付诸实施”）。迅速摆脱束缚几乎也总是正确的选择。

    • 招聘时别只看履历，要聘用真正的人才。生物科技行业中许多人的履历都很不错，要么是参与制造了了不起的药物，要么是参与过漂亮的投资退出行动，但这些实际上都不能决定他们到底是怎样的人物（至少和他们自诩的人物相比相去甚远）。当然，在我们聘用的履历非凡的CEO中，有相当一部分并没有在我们的初创型企业中成为优秀的领导者和经营者。仔细核实以往他们做过的实际贡献是背景调查和聘用的一个重要组成部分。有时，书面文字和实际工作出现落差是因为尽管过去作用重大，但从大公司转到小公司是个艰难的过程；另一个原因是他们以往的成功更多的是靠运气，而不是技能，而重复好运的难度很大。

    2. 你不能选择自己的出身，但能选择自己的投资伙伴。最终实现退出的生物科技投资中，绝大多数都需要1,500万美元（9348.75万元人民币）以上的风投资金，而平均投资额则接近6,000万美元（3.7395亿元人民币）。这就是说大多数投资都需要至少三方组成的风投财团，而且投资方往往超过三个。这为出现混乱局面埋下了很大的伏笔。我们观察到的情况是：

    • 大型财团往往运转不良，我们会设法避开这样的财团。财团越大，参与议事的人就越多，对孰轻孰重的不同理解就越发分散注意力。投资人的退出倾向不同（长期投资，还是尽早转让），资本偏好不同（节约资金，还是倾囊投入），对管理团队的看法不同（换还是不换），同一领域中利益不同（同一项投资让有些人赚钱，让有些人赔钱）。

    • 投资者目标不一的害处可能和管理不善一样大。这一点毫无疑问，而且基于上述原因，大型财团中投资者目标不一的可能性较大。最优秀的管理团队会努力让投资财团中各位成员的目标保持一致，并且会为了在战略、愿景、财务和退出等问题上保持一致而与董事会进行开放性的探讨。

    • 风投技能之外的经验能在初期真正提升董事会的实际价值。我们深信，起步时引进独立董事会给初创型企业带来极大帮助。比如，让制药公司Vertex前总裁兼研发业务主管维基•萨托进入计算机辅助药物探索公司Nimbus，尽管当时董事会的规模超过公司本身，但这是一项正确选择并大大提升了Nimbus的实力。

    3. 较为务实的预期有利于尽职调查。避免在生物科技行业蒙受损失的最佳途径就是别向生物科技公司投资。这个行业比较复杂，针对科技、项目、团队、计划、专利等方面的尽职调查至关重要。

    • Sometimes we've delayed for apparently good reasons (e.g., "we were close to a BD deal and didn't want to rock the boat during the process"), which more often than not turns out to be poor reasons (e.g., "the deal never got done"). Ripping the bandage off quickly is almost always the right answer.

    • Don't hire for the resume, hire for real talent. Lots of folks in biotech have good resumes, were part of stories with great drugs or great exits but didn't actually shape them (or at least no where near as much as they think they shaped them). We've certainly hired our fair share of great paper-resume CEOs that didn't translate into excellent leaders and operators in our startups. Diligencing the specifics of their actual contributions in the past is an important part of reference checking and recruiting. Some of the disconnect between paper and practice is that the transition from large to small companies is hard despite great past roles; others is that their past success was more luck than skill and repeating luck is a challenge.

    2. You can't pick your family, but you can pick your co-investors. The vast majority of biotech deals require >$15M in venture capital to get to an exit, and the average is close to $60 million. This means that most deals require syndicates of at least three VCs and often more. This creates a lot of potential for entropy. Our observations:

    • Big syndicates are often dysfunctional, and we try to avoid them. The bigger the syndicate, the more cooks in the kitchen, the more distracting the differing priorities become: Different exit preferences ("go long" vs "sell early"), different capital appetites (capital-sparing vs pushing money into a deal), different views of a management team (change vs no change) and different disease area interests (one made money on eye-deals, another lost money on eye-deals).

    • Misaligned investors can cause as much harm as weak management. This is undoubtedly true and, for the reasons stated above, big syndicates increase the odds of misalignment. The best management teams work hard to keep their investor syndicates aligned and maintain a continual open Board dialogue about that alignment on strategy, vision, financing, exit, etc…

    • Experience beyond the venture skill set can add real value on early stage boards. We are big believers that bringing great independent directors into deals early can be a huge help for startups. For example, getting former Vertex president and head of R&D Vicki Sato involved at Nimbus, even when the board was larger than the company, was the right thing to do and a great addition.

    3. Diligence would benefit from more realistic crystal balls. The best way to not lose money in biotech is to not invest in biotech. It's not a simple business, and deep due diligence around the science, programs, team, plan, patents, etc. is critically important.

    • 大多数药物探索公司最初的首轮融资计划都过于乐观，而且都未能实现，因此融资要体现出这个因素。几乎所有处于探索阶段的初创型公司在设立之初都会在宣传时说：“30个月后我们将推出一种研究型新药（IND）”。根据我们的经验，将计划付诸实施后，采用新的化学方法研制IND需要36-48个月。就连完美执行的计划也可能无法实现预定目标：制药公司Avila的BTK项目在该公司设立42个月后才提出IND申请，比首轮融资计划预计的时间晚了12个月。考虑资金和时间要求时，将几乎必然出现的耽搁和失误包括在内很重要。这里的第22条军规是，如果一名创业者宣传说在48个月内可推出IND，投资者就会反应平平，甚至是Atlas这样的初级投资者。这就造成大家都提出过于乐观的计划并将这个期限定为30个月。在尽职调查初期坦诚这一悖论及其周围的问题是一个非常好的选择。

    • 自行展开一手资料尽职调查。针对一项新投资建立财团后往往会出现所谓的泳池效应，即每位家长都认为其他家长会小心照看孩子，结果造成没有人这样做从而出现不好的情况。伟大的风投公司XYZ承诺实施投资并不意味着它进行了完善的尽职调查。我们经历一番波折后发现，不同的公司以及同一公司的不同合伙人往往会进行程度不同的尽职调查。共享顾问和专家没问题，重要的是直接和他们进行对话，只听一位风投伙伴说“那个叫约翰什么的前研发负责人认为这是有史以来最热门的项目”还远远不够。

    4. 超模和投资模式：情人眼里出西施。生物科技领域有许多不同的投资模式，而大多数公司都有自己的首选。一些公司善于进行上市后私募投资（PIPE）和使用后期资产，但这不是我们所涉猎的领域，因为我们倾向于早期创新，同时渴望一直从事能给我们带来回报的工作。十年来我们采用过多种模式，并从中吸取了一些教训：

    • 尽早介入让我们能塑造目标公司的DNA。无论是最前沿还是最尖端，我们实施过的一些最佳投资都来自亲自动手来创建合资公司的模式。这是本博客一再提到的主题，因此暂不累述。

    • 如果可以按重大里程碑事件为界分批投入资金，那就应该这么做。通过节流资金，投资者不仅可以监督科技的去风险过程，还可以观察管理团队的执行情况以及如何实现其提出的目标，这和前者同样重要。以前，未分批的大规模融资曾多次烫了我们的手。我们无法很频繁地将资金划分为很小的批次，最理想的情况是恰当地把它设计为9-18个月为一个投资批次。

    • 后期“机会主义型”或投机型医药投资的风险往往比看上去要大得多。之前我曾更笼统地谈到过这个主题（见此处）。我们对此有亲身体验，因为我们以前曾被这种投资的美丽表象所吸引。从2003-2005年，我们一直没有处理好风险较低、经过重新配置的后期资产，比如Ivrea、ARCA、照隅（Shogoo）、Newron、Xytis和Nitec。我们从中得到的主要教训是避开这样的公司。从2007年初开始，这些公司已经在我们所有的新投资中销声匿迹了。

    • Most drug discovery companies fail to deliver on their overly-optimistic initial Series A plan, so factor that into the financing. Almost every new discovery-stage startup comes in with a pitch that says "in 30 months we'll have an IND." Unless you have your lead scaffold in hand now, you're not likely to get there in 30 months. In our experience, it takes between 36-48 months to get to an IND around novel chemistry when the plan hits reality. Even a superbly executed plan can fall short: Avila's BTK program filed its IND 42 months from the start of the company, 12 months later than forecast in the Series A plan. Factoring in the almost certain delay and slippage is important when thinking through capital and time requirements. The Catch-22 here is that if an entrepreneur pitches a plan for 48 months to an IND, even to an early stage investor like Atlas, it's likely to receive a lukewarm reception. This leads to overly optimistic plans from everyone that 30 months can do it. It's very healthy to have a frank conversation about this paradox and the issues around it early in a diligence process.

    • Do your own primary diligence. Often when syndicates form around a new deal, the proverbial summer pool effect happens: Since every parent thinks other parents are diligently watching the kids, no one does and bad things happen. Just because great VC firm XYZ is committing to do the deal doesn't mean they did great diligence. We've learned the hard way that different firms, and different partners in the same firm, often do varying degrees of diligence. Sharing consultants and experts is fine, but having a direct dialogue with them is important: taking a fellow VC's word for it that "former head of R&D John Doe thinks this is the hottest program ever" is simply not sufficient.

    4. Super models and investment models: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Lots of different investment models work in biotech, and most firms have their favorite. Some firms have done well with PIPEs and later-stage assets, but it's just not a space we've engaged in given our early stage innovation bias and the desire to keep doing what works for generating returns for us. Our experience with different models over the past decade has led to a few lessons for us:

    • Going in early allows us to shape the DNA of the company. Whether it turns out to be the bleeding edge or leading edge, some of the best deals in our portfolio over time have come from the roll-up-your-sleeves model of venture creation. This is a recurrent theme on this blog, so I'll leave it at that.

    • If you can tranche the capital into a deal around important milestones, you should. By metering in the money, an investor can monitor not only the derisking of the science, but equally important we can observe how the team executes and delivers what they claim. We've been burnt repeatedly in the past on the big raises that weren't tranched. These can't be anorexic high frequency tranches of funding, but appropriately designed 9-18 month tranching is optimal.

    • Later-stage 'opportunistic' or spec pharma deals are often much riskier than meets the eye. I've riffed on this theme before more generally (here), but we know this first hand because we've previously been seduced by their siren song. We've not done well with low-risk repositioned late stage assets like Ivrea, ARCA, Shogoo, Newron, Xytis and Nitec from the 2003-2005 period. Our big takeaway lesson was to avoid these type of plays, and you won't find them in any new deals since early 2007.

    • 生物科技行业不会经常出现快车道，除非它通向垃圾堆。迅速获得美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）批准或短期内实现并购利益的承诺大多都是空头支票。我们曾听到过的类似承诺包括“这是退出前的最后一次融资”或者“二期临床进展顺利”，目的是在我们知晓结果前筹集到资金。2005年前后，这种后半程宣传让我们蒙受了两次损失，那就是Ivrea和Proprius。它们的产品均已进入二期临床，但受试验方案等令人困惑的变量影响，二者的结果都变得完全无法解读。迅速进入三期临床的道路至此戛然而止。现在我们更愿意把重点放在可持续的价值创造上，因为这个主题要可靠得多。

    • 通过吸收带有各类风险或处于各种临床阶段的资产来实现多元化往往会破坏价值（这个主题以前我也提到过）。用处于二期临床的授权资产和一个临床前项目组建一家公司并不明智，因为产品所处的阶段与其价值并不对称：二期临床项目需要消耗资金并且预示着公司的未来，而临床前资产的价值可能随之上升，也可能随之下降。

    此外，即使资产处于类似阶段，它的价值一般也会存在差异。如果所加入的第二项资产没有第一项资产那么吸引人，而仅仅是为了让管理团队派上用场，那就会让人觉得是滥用资金；应当通过其他途径来使用管理团队（比如在其他所投资的公司担任兼职）并将摊薄资产的门槛保持在非常高的水平。这是我们在5年多前得出的结论，它促成了我们的投资模式，即针对单一项目，以资产为中心，比如Stromedix的单克隆抗体STX-100。这一结论和医药行业的外部化趋势造就了我们的Atlas Venture Development Corp。

    • 超薄虚拟模式（ultra-lean virtual model）非常好，但有局限性。比如，如果没有自己的生物实验室来进行特定工作，就难以组建大型生物科技公司（不过也可以说在这方面我们还没有真正犯过错误）。给我们带来教训的是虚拟模式在其他经营领域的局限性。如果初创型公司的核心创业者很少，那么在不停止或放缓研发的情况下进行融资或业务开发就会非常困难。对于一个人员较少的管理团队来说，配合多家医药公司或多名潜在投资人派来的大量专家进行全面尽职调查所牵扯的精力让人难以置信。迅速找到把精力集中在业务开发方面的办法很关键。如果能通过业内人士组建一个强大的财团从而无须融资，由此产生的益处也会让人不敢相信。在那些较倾向于虚拟模式的投资中，我们当然很注意这一点。

    5. 律师是必要的反派。我们还回顾了在法律、知识产权和签署协议方面的经验，目的是看一看是否能从中吸取教训。要成功完成投资，好的法律建议显然非常重要，特别是在防止不利态势恶化方面。

    • 专利对生物科技行业来说很关键，所以要在投资前对知识产权进行深入的尽职调查，不可草率。它帮助我们避免了一些投资失误。我们在知识产权方面只出过一次大的纰漏，它改变了一家公司的发展轨迹。那是2004年，Dynogen还有几个月就可完成规模为5,000万美元（约3.11625亿元人民币）的第二轮融资（未分批进行！），这时出现了一项意料之外的专利，使该公司的主打产品——用于治疗膀胱过动症的复方制剂DDP200项目受到了影响。从某种角度来说我们还是幸运的。但在投资前，知识产权尽职调查应排在首位。我们发现，拥有最佳知识产权实践策略的生物科技公司通常每过几年就会聘用外部公司来进行知识产权审计，以确保自身经营没有缺陷。

    • 对关键投资，投资者应详细阅读合同。和上述尽职调查类似，盲目相信董事会其他成员已经读过关键的投资文件，这不是什么好的策略。事后才发现意外之处会让人很痛苦。我们曾多次遇到这种情况，结果也让人不舒服。

    • Quick flips in biotech don't happen often, unless it's a flip to the trashcan. Promises of quick FDA approvals or near term M&A interest are most often empty claims. We've all heard the "this is the last financing before an exit" pitch, or "the ongoing Phase 2 is going well" in order to close a financing before opening the envelope. This latter pitch burnt us twice in the mid-2000s: Ivrea and Proprius both had inherited ongoing Phase 2s, both of which readout as completely uninterpretable due to protocol issues among other confounding variables. So much for the quick path to Phase 3. We'd prefer to focus on sustainable value creation as the thesis is much more credible.

    • Company diversification by adding assets across risk or clinical stage often destroys value (another theme I've mentioned before). Forming a company with a Phase 2 in-licensed asset and a preclinical program isn't smart due to the stage and value asymmetry: the Phase 2 program consumes the capital and dictates the future of the company, dragging the preclinical asset either up or down.

    Furthermore, even if the assets are of similar stage, they typically aren't of similar merit. Adding a second asset to a story that's not quite as compelling to the first just to make use of a management team feels like the wrong use of capital; figure out other ways of leveraging a team (e.g., part-time roles at other portfolio companies) and keep the bar for asset dilution very high. These observations 5+ years ago led to our asset-centric investment model around single program entities, like Stromedix's STX-100 focus. Our AVDC initiative was born out of this observation in conjunction with Pharma's externalization trend.

    • Ultra-lean virtual models are great, but they have their limitations. For instance, big biology plays are hard to do without your own wet lab to do the bespoke work (though it’s fair to say we haven't really gotten that wrong yet). Where we've felt some pain is around the constraints of the virtual model on other operational elements: when you have only a few key entrepreneurs in a startup, it’s very hard to go on the road for fundraising or BD without stalling or slowing the work on the R&D front. It can be incredibly distracting for a lean team to enter full due diligence with an army of experts from multiple pharmas or potential investors. Figuring out how to focus the BD campaign quickly is essential, and if one can avoid fundraising by having a strong insider syndicate that's incredibly helpful. This is certainly something we are mindful of in our more virtual plays.

    5. Lawyers are a necessary evil. We also looked at our legal, IP and deal-making experiences to see if there were lessons here. Getting good legal advice is clearly very important to successfully navigating deals, especially in preventing bad outcomes from becoming worse.

    • Patents are critical to biotech, so don't skimp on doing deep IP diligence before investing. This has helped prevent us from doing some bad deals. We've only really had one big IP blow-up that changed a company's trajectory: within months of the Dynogen $50 million Series B closing in 2004 (no tranching!), a unexpected patent appeared that impaired the lead DDP200 program. So in some ways we've been lucky. But IP diligence goes beyond doing work before an investment; we've found that biotechs with best practice IP strategies often have an IP audit by an outside firm every couple years to ensure they are on strong ground.

    • For critical deals, investors should read the contract details. Similar to the diligence point above, trusting that others in the boardroom have read the critical deal documents isn't always a great strategy. Having a surprise appear after the fact can be a painful realization. We had this happen multiple times with uncomfortable outcomes.

    • 无论聘请多少律师和会计，医药行业的结构性投资都会有较长的酝酿时间。不要认为你能大大加快这一过程。如果一家大型医药公司告诉你他们正在剥离一部分资产，而且让你看了初步清单，你可以认为，这项工作需要10-20个月左右才能完成，特别是在资产剥离涉及整合细节复杂的结构性回购的情况下。在酝酿过程中还需要和手续繁杂的大型政府机构打交道，同时建立复杂的交易结构。

    虽然在回顾以往教训时我们没有出现如梦方醒的感受（希望实际情况就是如此），但我们发现，每隔几年就回顾一下这些教训，同时加以补充对我们确有帮助。而且在开展新的投资，迎接相应挑战的过程中，我们确实会把这些教训拿出来，时不时地互相轻轻敲打一下，以便彼此提醒。

    作者布鲁斯•布斯是信息科技和生命科学投资公司Atlas Venture合伙人。他的博客地址是www.lifescivc.com。

    译者：涛

    • Structured deals with Pharma have a long gestation time, no matter how many lawyers and accountants are in the room. Don't assume you can speed them up too much. When Big Pharma XYZ tells you they are spinning out some assets and they show you the initial list, assume it's going to take something in between a human and a pachyderm pregnancy to get to the closing, especially if there's a structured buyback with complex consolidation details included. This gestation just comes with the territory of large bureaucratic organizations and complicated deal structures.

    While we've had no major "Ah-ha" moments in reviewing our Lessons Learned (wish it were that easy), we do find that revisiting and updating them every few years is helpful. And during our champion and challenge process for new deals, we do bring up these lessons to gently bludgeon each other once in a while.

    Bruce Booth is a partner with Atlas Venture. He blogs at www.lifescivc.com