Movie night with RA Capital’s scientific cartographers
by Alyssa Larson, Cristina Montero, Kate Moreau, and Monica Stanciu
Alyssa Larson, Cristina Montero, Kate Moreau, and Monica Stanciu are TechAtlas Associate Directors. Scientists by training, their primary responsibilities are to drive internal and external strategic and diligence initiatives and oversee the workflow and professional development of TechAtlas Associates.
February 17, 2022
Note that this post captures a snapshot in time. Current job responsibilities for TechAtlas Associates may differ from those described below. See the RA Capital website for the most up-to-date FAQ on our Associate position.
A biotech executive walked into RA Capital’s offices a few years ago for a meeting with one of our portfolio managers. With some time to kill before others arrived, they talked about how the executive was agonizing over which dog to get now that he and his wife had given in to their kids’ incessant pleas for one. “Oh, we have a map for that,” said our PM.
By map, he meant one of our TechAtlas mind-maps. Anyone who has been through our offices has probably seen them. Usually, these are giant representations of all the drugs in development for, say, lung cancer or psoriasis. But in this case, it was dogs.
Our Graphics Team mapped out every major dog breed and created what are actually five giant, detailed dog maps that allow anyone to choose a furry friend based on the kind of home they have, tolerance for shedding, allergies, barking, etc. Whether you’re debating whether to get a German or Dutch Shepherd or trying to select an atypical antipsychotic, we have a map for that.
That day, the biotech executive left our offices having narrowed things down to a choice between a mini schnauzer and a Dachshund.
Want to hear more about TechAtlas? This strange half-cancer half-canine mapping team? Ok, we’ll tell you.
TechAtlas is the think-tank division of RA Capital. We’re all employees of one firm, but TechAtlas has its own name and swag because we wanted to make it clear that its job is distinct from that of the investment team.
Members of TechAtlas work closely with the investment team and our portfolio companies to put data into context, identify breakthroughs, and develop conviction about how to solve particular problems given what we know of all the different technologies in development. Whether or not an investment decision emerges from the analysis is up to the investment team, but TechAtlas is there to dispassionately analyze the facts.
TechAtlas tracks the development of thousands of drugs, devices, and diagnostics across hundreds of companies. They keep our team ready to recognize a breakthrough that might merit an investment, even if it's been a while since there’s been one that’s caught our eye in a particular disease area. When COVID struck, though it had been a while since we had invested in a respiratory vaccine company, we had maps of the flu vaccine space that guided our COVID-related investments.
We asked the TechAtlas leadership team how they go about that daunting undertaking of tracking the entire spectrum of biotech innovation. And because we know they like a challenge, we asked them to include a movie reference in each answer. And, in TechAtlas tradition, we’ve included BLATTs (bottom lines at the top) summarizing the answer to each question.
How did TechAtlas come to be? What makes it unique?
BLATT: TechAtlas was started in 2012 to help the investment team visualize competitive landscapes because it’s a lot easier to have confidence in a particular chess piece when you see the whole board.
Kate: TechAtlas (or the proto-version of what we know today) began in 2012, around the time that RA Capital began broadening its investment strategy to extend to private companies. That kicked off an effort to systematically understand – and visually communicate – the complexities of the competitive landscape across all human disease in order to identify and inform investment decisions.
Since then, TechAtlas has grown from two Clark Kents (Clarks Kent?) doodling on paper maps lining the walls of our office to ~25 scientifically trained Super Associates who work alongside our investment team, Venture Partners, and portfolio companies to vet investment ideas and put data into context. Those Associates are augmented by a whole Justice League with powers ranging from graphic design and writing to software development and data science.
When our investment team meets a new company and wants to know how it compares to all other technologies, past and present, aimed at the same problems, they pull in members of the TechAtlas team.
Here’s such a recent exchange:
“Help, help! I need context! I’m not feeling maximally decisive because I don’t have context!”
TechAtlas Associates swoops in, landing in that superhero one-knee on the ground pose, then standing, cape waving “Did someone ask for context!?”
The TechAtlas team of experts allows us to be indication-agnostic and nimble as a firm, enabling us to wade into and quickly evaluate any area of biotech where we see potentially compelling innovation. Once we invest, our companies often have to make their own decisions regarding which programs to prioritize and which indications to pursue. So TechAtlas is constantly running projects to help our portfolio companies make better informed decisions about where to spend their time and money.
Have a Tyk2 inhibitor? We’ve mapped out where one is likely to work and which pharmas are most likely to be interested in acquiring it. That doesn’t mean we’re going to be right… just that we can offer a data-driven analysis to enrich the odds of being right and rapidly change the assessment based on new information. We’ve been told that’s helpful. Maybe not as helpful as punching an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, but still useful.
Ten years is a long time. How have things changed since the beginning?
BLATT: Our expertise and portfolio have broadened together.
Cristina: TechAtlas and the RA Capital investment team are like Bonnie and Clyde; where one goes, the other follows. As RA’s investment strategy expanded (from public companies to crossover opportunities to earlier-stage private investment to new company creation), so did the scope of TA’s work: From building our foundational frameworks and knowhow to understanding and contextualizing innovation via our maps, we help the investment team gain or maintain conviction in our investments.
This has not always been easy. Maintaining and expanding on 135 maps across ~100 indications/capabilities whilst trying to keep up with the explosion of new companies and technologies that has entered the biotech sphere in the last decade is no small feat! The rapid expansion of RA’s investment strategy and AUM has meant that Associates constantly need to juggle and reprioritize projects to allocate bandwidth to the most impactful opportunities, but it also provides opportunities for collaboration.
TA’s also become a training ground for future members of our investment team and testing site for data analysis techniques. We continue to develop on all fronts; even the maps that have been with us since the beginning are being revamped and digitized.
135 maps sounds impressive! What’s on them and what’s not?
BLATT: Therapeutic landscape maps are detailed infographics that make it clear which drugs are complementary and competitive relative to one another and which are more or less likely to impact the future standard of care. They do not consider the valuation of a company, how well capitalized it is, how much capital it will take to develop a drug, the experience of management teams, or other such company-specific information that’s not rooted in biological principles but may be important to an investment decision.
Alyssa: First I should mention that we have several map types. If you wanted to map tools in a toolbox, then a Therapeutic map would have all the tools that might fix a leaky faucet. A Capability map would include just the different wrenches and all their uses. We also have what we call Strategy maps which lay out the pipelines of a given big pharma and lay out the threats they face and possible opportunities for in-licensing or acquisition.
But the whole point of TechAtlas is that sometimes it’s best to show, not tell. Take a look.
Our Parkinson’s map is a good example of a Therapeutic map. And check out our immuno-oncology capability map (which is really just a portion of IO since we track cancer vaccines, CAR-Ts, and other modalities on separate maps). Throughout COVID, we published maps of COVID vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics almost in real-time, updating them every few weeks.
A cool thing that we realized early was that allowing a new person the time to focus on one area allows them to, within a few months, really master a landscape and to recognize a good data set from a weak one. Once a person has experienced the decisiveness that comes from knowing a space that well, they know what level of mastery to aspire to when they expand to others. The alternative to one of these maps would be a document hundreds of pages long, so when you’ve made a map from scratch and fully understand it, it’s like you can see the Matrix.
RA TV: Behind the Scenes at TechAtlas
Hear first hand what it’s like working at TechAtlas from two of our Associates.
It is up to the mapmaker to determine which differentiations between technologies are most important and where they should be introduced in the map structure. Imagine there are four drugs that treat Biotech Investing Fever. All have different mechanisms of action but each has very similar efficacy and safety. In that case, route of administration would likely be a key differentiating factor, and a drug that requires five injections into the brain every day would be separated from those drugs that are simple daily oral pills.
Differentiating factors (represented as branches on our maps) are based on clinical or preclinical data, literature, our own internal diligence, speaking with physicians to understand unmet need, probability of success for different classes, and more. As we plot different products on our maps, we begin to see groupings of drugs that are competitive (which are clustered together) and complementary (which might be spread out over different areas of the map).
The branching structure and associated text teaches a reader which approach within competitive classes we believe is the most compelling/investable. A finalized map illustrates 1) the basics of the disease area and all approaches to treating it, including current standards of care and products in development; and 2) the benefits and/or liabilities of different approaches based on our current understanding.
So with all of this background info in your back pocket, what’s it like to meet with a company and evaluate a pitch?
BLATT: If it’s a new company, it can sometimes be like meeting a movie star. They don’t know you, but you know a lot about them, and you have a million questions. If they have met us before, they know we’ve done our homework.
Kate: Hopefully companies don't think it's "10 Things I Hate About You," because for us it’s an exciting opportunity to brainstorm, pressure-test our assumptions, and advance our thinking about their company and the whole disease area.
While we only invest in a minority of companies we meet with each year, it’s a big part of the RA Capital culture to figure out what it would take to get to “Yes.” We even have a meeting every week that we call “Getting to Yes” where Associates present the companies they have been researching in a way that inspires others to see the potential in the technology. From there, the list of opportunities inevitably must be whittled down with rigorous diligence.
You’ve probably heard the saying “feedback is a gift.” It’s not always easy to give or receive, but we want our meetings to be a two-way street. We don’t just listen and absorb knowledge. When we think we can be helpful in drawing a company’s attention to publicly available information that can help them, we’ll offer our perspective. Sometimes we’ll pull up one of our maps and give them a tour. We want companies to walk away feeling they learned something because we hope they will want to come back and brainstorm with us some more.
These meetings aren't just about the company in front of us. We’re all members of a small, interconnected ecosystem, so every conversation can impact our view of the whole. Even when we don’t invest in a company right away, we know there might be an opportunity to invest in the future, and whether they fail or succeed, the people will likely come back around with other companies. We want the industry as a whole to succeed and that won’t happen if we don’t learn from each other.
TechAtlas Associates and the majority of our investment teams are all trained scientists, as are many members of biotech companies’ C-suites, so there are always a lot of scientists in the room whenever we’re meeting with a company. It gets really nerdy, which is how we like it.
So these maps help you turn scientific theory into a new company or investment?
BLATT: It takes more than just a map to make an investment decision, but they’re powerful tools that help our experts communicate and discuss their theories.
Monica: The maps are some of our favorite tools, but as with Batman, it’s the people that save the day, not the utility belt of gadgets, no matter how cool. Members of our investment team can pull up the maps for themselves, but more often they want to speak with the Associate (or team of Associates) who made it. We have a standing oncology team, for example, and shortly after the pandemic started, we assembled a COVID team.
Have you ever gone to a movie theater and, looking for a place to park, found one far from the entrance and wondered if you should keep looking for a better spot? Drive past that space and you might find it was the best available. Worse, you go back there after circling the lot and find that someone else has taken it! Now imagine the parking spot is an investment opportunity and you’re wondering if there’s a threat or better investment out in left field. TechAtlas shows you a map of the competitive landscape so that you know there’s nothing like that. So don’t hesitate. Take the spot. Make the investment. No, we can’t help with parking.
We also keep in mind that most ideas aren’t totally new. If you look, you’ll find precedents. Similar drugs that were tried and failed. We try to understand what was tried and why it failed so that we can apply those lessons to similar companies. Failure in biotech is inevitable, but there’s no reason to fail for the same reasons again and again.
By now we’ve seen so many oligo delivery challenges and studied so many COVID vaccine data sets, we’re pretty efficient at spotting something truly novel. Anyone can do it, it just takes time. So if we’ve already done the work by the time our investment team needs an answer, our team can reach a decision more efficiently. The answer isn’t always “yes” or “no”. Sometimes studying past lessons allows TechAtlas to help companies figure out how to succeed.
I recall a project where we boiled the ocean of nearly every possible cancer indication to help one of our companies decide how to get their IO cytokine to market faster because they were in competition with a large pharma. It was a full-court press for TechAtlas’s oncology team, and they were very much on the inside. A senior member of our investment team was also on the board. One of our Associates even went to work for the company, and it was a seamless transition because he was spending practically all his time helping them and knew everyone there. In the end, that company was acquired by a big pharma so we never got a chance to play out our strategy, but a few of us still track that program like it’s a favorite child we used to babysit.
So yeah, I guess investing in companies goes a bit beyond making maps.
Clearly you need more than a PhD in bioengineering to know if a company merits investment. How do you teach scientists about finance and business?
BLATT: It starts with understanding the science, but then we add lots of on-the-job training, case studies, and business mentoring to get our Associates up-to-speed fast on what it takes to appreciate a company’s value proposition.
Cristina: Sometimes I wish we could montage our way through it, Rocky style. You know, those scenes where he does some pull-ups, waves thick ropes up and down, chases chickens, becomes a one-man tow truck. And ta-da! He suddenly knows how to build an NPV model and negotiate a term sheet. Alas, no.
RA’s approach to biotech investing requires a strong foundation in basic science and the ability to critically analyze data. Science PhD programs do a great job of training people in these domains. So a key strategy for us is to leverage that strong scientific foundation coupled with the inherent curiosity of our incoming Associates, and layer atop that the training, tools, and opportunities they need to learn to think like investors.
The specifics of an Associate’s scientific background are less relevant. In fact, since we believe in diversification and breadth, our Associates spend the bulk of their time in domains unrelated to their pre-TechAtlas research.
We have an extensive onboarding program for new Associates that includes traditional training modules and workshops on basic financial concepts, but a lot of the learning is experiential. We throw our Associates into the deep end to be part of conducting diligence and participating in discussions on potential investments alongside members of the investment team to continuously hone their instincts.
For those reading this and getting job envy, can they join TechAtlas?
BLATT: You can apply to work at TA and learn more about the different positions on our careers page.
Alyssa: We’re looking for the A-Team of biotech. Mohawks, cigar chewing, helicopters… we don’t have those yet but we’re looking.
So yes, we’re hiring. Though before applying, I should point out that it’s not an easy process.
True to our roots, our application process involves evaluating a (mini) competitive landscape where we ask potential Associates to present a data-driven analysis of their top two picks from a list of assets in a given disease space. We like this exercise because it gives the applicant a peek into some of the core work that they will be doing as an Associate, while giving us insights into how robust and rational their arguments are for their choices.
After applicants complete this exercise, current Associates and Associate Directors who are knowledgeable about the assigned spaces analyze their assessment. If we find it rational and thorough, then we invite those applicants to defend their choices. “Picture it as your thesis defense... only harder," is what our website used to say, but we got worried it might have been scaring people off… Anyway, well-argued defenses often result in a job offer.
Once someone joins our team, the possibilities are endless! Every Associate's path is unique as far as working in different disease areas and meeting with different companies. But all focus on the fundamentals of evaluating science and learning investing concepts. We try to tailor opportunities based on the areas in which Associates are most interested in growing. Because our fund invests across the entire biotech spectrum, we have opportunities for those who want to explore company creation, team building, operations, public markets investing, and even management.
As Associates hone in on certain interests, Associate Directors (who are all former Associates) focus on skill development, helping Associates succeed in their roles. Many of our investment team members are former Associates who have risen through the ranks, while others have gone on to form their own companies. For example, Ben Dake had an idea while working as an Associate at TA and collaborated with RA’s Venture Team to build it into Aerovate Therapeutics, a publicly traded company where he’s now president.
If you’re really interested, check out our careers page. And since we can’t help ourselves, we’ve made a career map for anyone with a biomedical background who might not see themselves working in a hospital or academic setting.
What about that dog map?
BLATT: Here you go.
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