Clinical trials can fail, regulators change their minds, manufacturing might run into an unsolvable glitch, and venture capital might dry up. Given all the risks small biotech companies face that are outside of their immediate control, might it be safer to just work for a more stable, revenue-generating company? Maybe! But before you rule out jumping into a small biotech, consider the pros and cons.

RA Capital’s TechAtlas team is currently accepting summer internship applications for 2023. Three of last year’s interns - Drew Biedermann, Ross Chikarmane, and Gabe Fox - are now permanent members of the TechAtlas team. Read their perspectives on their internship experience.

We asked ChatGPT some of the most common questions with which we see our elected representatives struggle. Does NIH invent drugs? What are profit margins like in the pharmaceutical industry? Will lowering drug list prices via imposing price controls on pharmaceutical companies lower patients' out-of-pocket costs? Find out what AI thinks.

Our year-end wrap of the site’s most popular articles of 2022 reflects a challenging year for the biotech sector, featuring tumultuous markets and the shifting drug pricing policy landscape. But those pieces also reflect the ingenuity, hopefulness, and opportunity that is inherent in drug discovery and development.

Thanks to the selfless efforts of a handful of smart and dedicated volunteers from a few tech transfer offices (TTOs), law firms, and investment firms, the fraught process by which technology licenses are extricated from universities is getting a significant upgrade.

Outgoing Forma Therapeutics CEO Frank Lee talks with Rapport about bringing a patient-centric mindset to a biotech steeped in science and Forma’s acquisition by Novo Nordisk.

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.