At RA Capital, we love our TechAtlas team and the super detailed Landscape Maps they create to help us understand what can otherwise be an overwhelming amount of information. These maps explain the comparative strengths and weaknesses of as many as hundreds of competitive and complementary technologies, drugs, devices, and diagnostics in various stages of development for a particular disease or condition. Think of them like medical treasure maps that lead to the most promising technologies and companies in any given disease area. You can probably understand why we can’t afford to do all that work and just publish the maps freely for the whole world to study.

Then COVID came along.

The RA Capital team has developed short, insight-rich courses on a variety of advanced topics relevant to the business of biotechnology. Our goal is to examine and teach practical and theoretical concepts fundamental to the biotech industry that aren't being presented anywhere else.

“Remember how in love we were in those early days when we first met?” Sarah Reed, RA Capital’s General Counsel (and RApport’s most popular satirist), waxes poetic about her rocky relationship with our collective ex: the office.

When I received detailed communications about my companies on a regular basis, I found I was both more likely to remember what was going on when it came time for the next board meeting and less likely to continually call my CEOs to figure out the bottom line. “Board love notes’ are a win-win.

Lining up spring break plans for this month? If you’re anything like us, you’re probably looking for a good book to bring along. Welcome to the RApport Bookshelf, where we compile what we consider the most essential reads in biotech and health care.

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.

Ah, the American Old West. Where the buffalo roamed, cowboys fought, and Coke still had cocaine. A LOT of things had cocaine. Only the most vigilant and educated physician or pharmacist could hope to keep harmful or useless drugs off their shelves. And if we can still find physicians prescribing ivermectin for COVID today, imagine how hard finding reliable information must have been back then. 

As a Swede who has lived in the United States for ~25 years, I’ve experienced two very different healthcare systems. As a child and young adult, I took free (or nearly free) healthcare for granted. However, when I left Sweden to pursue a graduate degree in the US, I was shocked to realize that the system here is very different. I learned new words like ‘deductible’ and ‘copay’ that were not previously part of my vocabulary.

GentiBio CEO Adel Nada discusses why biotechs should build organizations that allow the kind of “good” failures necessary for striking into the unknown and forming the foundations of success. To do so, we must foster cultures that prepare us for, and prepare us to learn from, the field’s inevitable setbacks.

The biotech job market is hotter than ever and it’s not likely to cool down in 2022. So if you’re thinking about joining the Great Resignation and jumping into a new role at a biotech startup, it’s crucial to learn how to think about valuing competing equity offers.

In case you missed it (or if you’d like to send a link to a colleague), we’ve compiled a list of RApport’s most popular stories of 2021, along with a few things we’ll be reading over our end-of-year break.

As the Omicron variant looms over this holiday season, an increasing number of companies are pushing back return-to-office plans (again). What does this mean for all of us? Another year of Zoom. And, Zoom, after spending almost two years “working” on your platform, I have some notes.

Growing emphasis on ESG may be a net positive, but how do individual companies allocate resources toward tracking, reporting, or implementing additional practices when those resources might be better spent on their core business that is inherently ESG-focused?

RA Capital teams swept first and second place in Inner City Weightlifting’s “2021 Fittest Company Challenge.” How’d we do it? Because our teams embodied so many of the values that make RA Capital great.

Covid has flooded a barren vaccine startup landscape with capital. And that has revealed some valuable lessons for investors, company builders, Congress, and the public.

The story of Alexander Fleming is a popular one. As it should be - it’s a good story about one of the most important discoveries in medical history, penicillin. But most people only know the first act of the play.

LENZ Therapeutics CEO Eef Schimmelpennink spoke with RApport about how last year’s acquisition of Pfenex by Ligand gave him a chance to seek out a new challenge, the benefits of breaking the mold, and helping 120 million Americans ditch their reading glasses.

In biotech - an industry where companies live or die by the success of a lead asset - how much impact does a successful management team have? And more broadly, how should we define success? Is it a matter of stock price? The ability to drive an acquisition? Do your employees even like you as a person?

Given the seemingly endless supply of COVID-19-related content, it has sometimes felt like I was passively binging on round-the-clock coverage that was more distracting than edifying. So what might I have missed while I was absorbed in COVID? As it turns out, quite a lot.

Interest in life science technologies and tools is accelerating with the advent of CRISPR and other aspects of synthetic biology. The ability to have a capital efficient way to advance these innovations is very attractive and will help drive innovation.