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Friday, March 22, 2013

AstraZenecas Solution

AstraZeneca is laying off 5050 human beings. Five thousand and fifty people who came in to work each day to do what they were hired to do, can all stay home now. The board says these people weren't providing value. What can we say about the board?

The board has decided to write a check for $240 million dollars for mRNA drugs. There will now be an unknown amount of human beings showing up to work each day doing what they were hired to do. Their job will be to make the case that Moderna Therapeutics has value.

The AZ board gathered with their investors to discuss their plans for the future. They will be:
Dramatically simplifying the business, improving productivity and building a culture that supports long-term success.
The biggest killer of real science within the industry is the need for scientists to be productive. There needs to be a laboratory of professionals who only provide science. People with job security and long term value. The production of scientific evaluation is different than R&D drug development production. Let the long term scientific lab employees offer up their opinions with no external pressures.

Why will Moderna not bring value to the investors in AZ? Because no one will be testing the validity of this small biotechs claims. No one will question the boards decision to pay $240 million dollars without any scientific verification of the claims made by the biotech company and the due diligence committee at AZ. They will fail. RNA anything will fail. We have zero appreciation of the subtle existence of this nucleic acid and how it is regulated. We think we can improve on DNA and RNA function? Without knowing how it works? We are arrogant and we have to pay the price for our misunderstanding of our limits.

Form a science organization that functions outside of your R&D groups. Let them advise the leadership by using the scientific method to augment the corporate C level executive method. You will find that science is your friend.

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