#3 - Mark Tebbe, Entrepreneur in Residence at Atlas Venture

Slice of Life Sciences Real Estate

Introduction:

Welcome to the third episode of Slice of Life Sciences…This week we will take our conversation from the Life Science real estate industry and focus more so on the ins and outs of managing and running a biotech company. Without further ado, Mark Tebbe, Entrepreneur in Residence for Atlas Venture, whom has had an illustrious career as a serial entrepreneur focusing on drug discovery and management in biotech/pharmaceutical industry with a broad experience involving drug development, operations, and international assignments. Mark has worked as both a consultant and full time at multiple biotechs including 3 years as co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Quench Bio focused on severe inflammatory diseases, 3 years at Quartet Medicine as head of drug discovery focused on peripheral neuropathic pain, 3 years at Forma Therapeutics as Vice President of Medicinal and Computational chemistry building the group and delivering on a broad portfolio of cancer targets, and many more.

Background:

I always find it interesting to learn about personal / educational background;

• Where did you grow up? Who/what were the major influences in your early life?
• Did you have a passion early on or did it evolve as you got older?
• Where did you go to college and what did you decide to study there? (Notre Dame)
• Did you decide get your PhD right after undergrad? (Stanford)
• Throughout your years at Notre Dame and Stanford, did you develop relationships with mentors that helped you think about what you wanted to do / what would give you a sense of fulfillment?
• Was entrepreneurship an itch you wanted to scratch at a young age or did this come later in your career?

Professional Career:

• Your first job after receiving your PhD was at Eli Lilly as an Organic Chemist in the area of Infectious Disease and early on you were chairman of a team of ca. 10 people (PhD’s) responsible for all ID targets and the lead generation strategy taken toward these targets. Were you responsible for the organization of the team as well? What were some take ways / lessons on how to build and lead a team that you took with you later on in your career?
• At Eli Lily you moved to various locations, including, North Carolina and Hamburg Germany, leading chemistry efforts, being directly responsible for overall operations, budget/communication issues across global sites, and redefining site leadership structures; Tell us a bit about how your experiences led you to the major milestones and how your role progressed at Eli Lilly over the years.
• After 16 years at the same company, the size of Eli Lilly, with well-rounded exposures, you relocated to Cambridge, MA and joined companies that were much earlier in their lifecycles. How did this move come about?
• What were the main differences and challenges you faced with your transition to FORMA and Quatet Medicine? Was the experience working at a large pharma company for so long invaluable for these new endeavors?
• The first company you co-founded was then Quench Bio, which was an Atlas portfolio company. You were the Chief Technology Officer for Quench focusing on the chronic aberrant activation of the innate immune system. How did the founding of Quench come about and what was the inspiration? I imagine a whole new set of challenges and lessons came from being an executive and founder so from these 3 years, what is the best advice you would give other biotech founders? Were the similarities in anticipating challenges and being proactive in solutions from your earlier career experiences or did this prove to be a very unique, all around experience?
• Taking us to the present, you are an entrepreneur in residence at Atlas Venture while working as a consultant in the pharmaceutical industry to optimize business strategies. We’d love to hear what you are working on and what excites you the most about where you are in your career now.
• How large is your current team and what is on the horizon in the coming years?
• Is the ability to ‘build’ the most exciting aspect of being an entrepreneur versus working at a large corporation or is something else the main driver for you?

General:

• Managing a team and a company must take an incredible amount of trust to hold everyone accountable and keep everyone engaged. What are the best methods of empowering colleagues and attracting/retaining talent that you’ve put to practice?
• How do you self-assess throughout the different stages in your career? Have failures been as valuable as successes?
• How often to you have dialogues with other industry leaders, mentors, etc. to help you think through challenges and topics that are top of mind for you, whether specific or general?

Personal:

• Being a serial entrepreneur, how do you balance your life with your profession?
• What do you do during your free time?
• How important are the connections and relationships you’ve built throughout your journey in biotech?
• If you look back on your career, what is one thing you’d wish you could tell a young, green Mark Tebbe?

Produced by Slice of Media, Inc.