Are you a new life science CEO? Would it help to have a temporary “Special Consultant to the CEO” to help you and your management team turn around your struggling early-stage life science company?

I’m an Experienced Early-Stage CEO. I’ve started seven companies. I’ve been there and done what you’re trying to do. I’ll work with you and your team for a finite amount of time (for a period of three months max) so that you can effectively package your skill sets, your technology and your company in preparation for the next several steps in the funding chain. The goal is to give first-time CEOs – as well as other key start-up personnel -- the kind of outlook for what’s in store that can only be gotten from sitting “behind the desk” and being “in the line of fire.”

Here are just some of the questions serious early-stage investors ask. Together we can find the right answers.

The Team

Can the CEO sell? Does the team have skin in the game?

What are management’s credentials? Is there a single businessperson in the group?

Passion: Do the principals have fire in the belly?

The Business

Does management view this as a business?

Has management gone out into in the marketplace to determine customer interest?

Have the sales projections been made from the bottom up?

The Technology And The Marketplace

Does the company / product have an unfair competitive advantage /proprietary technology?

Does management have respect for the competition? Where’s the competitive matrix?

Is there a segmented market target? How does the competition meet the needs of the marketplace?

Are the company's pricing and structure realistic/competitive?

Does everybody have a clear picture of what the playing field looks like, and is everybody agreed on how to attack the market?

Financials

Based on the projections, is this a business or a lifestyle?

Is the newco’s pre-money valuation reasonable?

Economic Sacrifice: What kind of overhead are we talking about? Fancy office space?

How realistic are management’s financial projections? Too bold? Too wimpy?.

The “Coaching Process”

My job begins with an assessment of your business assets (technology, data, IP, skill sets, cash on hand, regulatory positioning, strategic partnering arrangements / opportunities, etc.). These are likely to vary significantly from one entity to another. Next we’ll consider the asset constellation. What value currently exists, and what needs to be shored up? The following topics are just some of the issues we’ll address as they apply to you:

Funding

• How do successful startups get funded? We’ll consider targeting tips, and what to look for in a funding source, including how to negotiate the offer.
• Who actually funds what? Let’s look at Friends and family; Angels and VC’s: their respective business models, what each looks for; the roles each group plays in transforming a technology into a commercial success.
• We’ll address the importance of Lenders. Traditional lenders offer solutions, too. What’s possible, given your individual set of resources? Can you swing SBA financing?
• Have you exhausted all the area’s available Institutional Resources? (Examples: BioAdvance, Innovation Philadelphia, BFTP, incubators, science centers, SCORE, university entrepreneur centers… what they offer.

Structure

• We’ll also take a look at your extended corporate family: Who’s your lawyer? Corporate? IP? Good choice? Bad choice? Does he/she provide strategic patent bracketing advice? How about regulatory? Do you have a solid regulatory strategy? Do you have one you can trust to guarantee adequate protection for the commercial life of your IP? If not, what can you do about it? The bottom line is that you need to know your IP better than your IP law firm knows your IP. Because your IP is likely to be the heart and sole of your company’s value going forward, we’ll focus on issues surrounding the importance of IP and having a solid regulatory strategy -- importance of proper record keeping, what investors look for, intellectual property protection, NDA’s, the truth about patents – myth vs. reality. What do strategic partners look for -- composition, process, use?
• Strategic accounting practices: Tax tips and profits interest if you’re an LLC. Lessons learned about how to incorporate.
• Building the Company/Building the Story/Building Value and the importance of grant funding. One way to avoid dilution is grant funding, but how difficult is it to get a grant? How long does it take? What are the spending restrictions? Are they worth it?
• The importance of effective networking; how it can enhance vision and cross-pollination.

Market & Exit Strategy

• What’s your target market? What’s the upside? What’s the downside? Investors need to understand how savvy you are about going to market. Have you done a credible market assessment? Have you talked to the people who are going to use your technology? What are they looking for? What kind of resistance will there be for you or your acquisition candidate to overcome? What’s the competition? And there’s always competition. All of these considerations need to be addressed by your marketing research. Is your Business Plan also a Marketing plan?
• Exit Strategies: Licensing, M&A, Partnering, getting acquired – What acquiring companies look for; the need to target your business plan and the economics of getting there.
• Company Valuations - the importance of structuring terms for angels, for VCs. We’ll explore valuation myth vs. reality, including what to look for in different rounds; the need for valuation techniques and structuring terms.

The Pitch

• Entrepreneurs as CEO’s create and make presentations to angels, institutions, VC’s and strategic partners. Who makes the presentation? Whom do you pitch? Who’s capable of funding your company? You need to tailor your pitch.

Credentials of the Consultant

H. Donlon Skerrett is the Chief Executive Officer of NanoScan Imaging. He is an accomplished entrepreneur and the overall visionary responsible for advancing NanoScan’s corporate objectives. Previously he was the

Managing Partner of Corporate Development Advisors, a senior-level healthcare consulting practice and prior to that founded and ran several companies.

Selected Accomplishments

Founded NanoScan Imaging to manage the preclinical/clinical development of N1177, a breakthrough X-ray contrast agent capable of changing the way we look at cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Raised $1.7 million in capital contributions from friends and family.

Negotiated over $2 million in preclinical development programs with Mount Sinai School of Medicine and other high-visibility academic medical institutions and corporate sponsors.

Commissioned breakthrough study which showed that NanoScan’s breakthrough imaging technology could be used to diagnose vulnerable plaque and vascular inflammation.

Established strategic relationships with several key diagnostic and therapeutic pharmaceutical candidates, as well as three of the top four global diagnostic equipment leaders.

Turned around PCCI; pioneered outreach format, offering high-level consulting expertise to help early-stage life science companies (Pharmaceutical Consulting Consortium International).

Repackaged Corporate Development Advisors; re-staffed 19-member M&A consulting group to provide full-service consulting to the healthcare/life science marketplace.

Turned around high-end DME company; rewrote business plan, hired ad agency; negotiated strategic alliances; developed magalog and kiosk links to drug super store outlets (Majors Medical).

Arranged for nearly $300,000 to fund start-up operations, purchase THE FAN Magazine; created companion cable TV show, Unsportsmanlike Conduct (BreakAway Sports).

Co-founded Washington, DC Association to unify industry’s approach toward interactive marketing by bringing major players together to share a common vision (Interactive Advertising Council).

Directed creative and account management functions with P&L for 50-person, $30 million+ ad agency; improved operations and morale through inter-departmental team building (Kingswood).

Spearheaded TV Guide’s strategic shift to category advertising promotion; targeted new marketing approach produced a record $534 Million in advertising revenues in the first year.