Stories That Shape the Trillion Dollar Biotech Industry with Dan Budwick
Read time: 4 min
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How do Biotech companies raise millions of dollars just based on a concept? How do they convince physicians and patients to try an unproven treatment? Dan shares what it takes to build a successful brand based on hope.
Dan Budwick is the founder and CEO of 1AB, a communications agency focused on early stage Biotechs – helping them tell stories and build their brands. He cut his teeth in the world of media relations, working with the top journalists and brazen CEOs to bring the most important stories to the public.
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In this episode, we cover off on a variety of tips and topics:
Weathering the failures of science with brand
Simplifying the scientific story
The compounding power of relationships
Social media as a vital channel for communications
Integrity and ethics in the world of biotech
How to build a company where people love to come to work
KEY LESSONS
Withstand inevitable failures by building a trusted brand
The world of Biotech is ridden with failures. It’s a natural outcome when the boundary of science is pushed to its limits, exploring, and uncovering potential cures and treatments that can conquer devastating diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Dan has seen his fair share of hard times.
“I was with a company who had phase three clinical data failures and have had to make layoffs and go back to the drawing board. And it's tough. They’ve poured their heart and soul into it.”
Trust is built through the way data and evidence is announced. The keyword Dan said was “tempered optimism”, you never want to come across as chest beating, because you never know when things can go south.
“Sometimes it's just about the way that you make an announcement…sometimes you just have to state things straight and walk away and keep your head down and keep going. I was talking to a client this morning about an interview that they were doing, and this is what we talked about, just play it straight, state the facts. The data looked great but just don't make too much of it. Tempered optimism is a good way to approach things.”
“You're playing ultimately a very long game. And so your reputation with those guys as being a straight shooter when things are great, but things are not so great, I think goes a long way towards really solidifying those relationships and, you know, being seen as those people that those reporters need to call”
And a big learning from Dan was that companies need to start building trust and cultivating ambassadors before they need them. Don’t wait until there is some big announcement to reach out to journalists and reporters.
“We have clients that have invested a lot of time over the years ahead of those milestones to establish and cultivate those relationships. They look at media, the way they, they look at investor relations. It's a process. And those are the ones I think that have ultimately benefited the most.”
Simplify the scientific story to reach a broader audience
In the world of biotechnology, the science can get really complicated and it might seem counter intuitive, but some founders are worried that a simple message can come across as simplistic. Dan was adamant that if the science is too complex, no one will know their story and they will miss out on reaching a broader audience and gaining that momentum.
“Honestly, some of the content was so dense that you would read it and pass out like three sentences in… find ways to grade it up or grade it down depending on the level of technicality of the audience”
“The use of a great on point analogy is powerful. We've also had clients that totally bombed on analogies and it's actually been really embarrassing…having the right one can really bring things to life in a way everybody can understand”
As a communications and brand professional in the health care world, you don’t have to know everything about the science, but it does require that you know enough to be able to explain it. Dan talks about his approach.
“Take me through this like I'm a dog <laugh>, like I'm a small animal. These people that we work with day in and day out are some of the most brilliant people within their line of specialty. But you still have to put it on a website. You still have to put it in a press release. You have to be able to see it in an article and have it make sense. So it does require you to break things down.”
Invest in the compounding power of relationships
When Dan started his company, 1AB Media, he immediately had a few clients. How? He had developed amazing relationships over decades of working with in the Biotech industry.
“Oh man. I am not here without my relationships… my time at Pure, the relationships that I built within that Cambridge ecosystem and what that did for me”
He recalled when it all began and how the importance of relationships was ingrained in him by his first boss.
“In 1999, my first boss gave me the best piece of advice I've ever gotten. We want to move you into health care. And he took an envelope and he slid it across the table at me. I opened it up and I saw a green Amex with my name on it. And he said, I want you to go out and I want you to form relationships with every reporter that covers health care. I want you to get to know everything there is to know about them. I wanna know what they like, what they don't like, what their editors expect of them. I wanna know if they're married or single. I wanna know what sports teams they like. I wanna know what gum they chew.”
Building relationships is often not a priority for those early in their careers and that’s a missed opportunity. If you start investing in it early, it will pay dividends over time.
“You can be the most junior member on a team. It doesn't mean that you can't develop relationships because the person that you have a relationship with within that company who may also be young is gonna grow up and is gonna go somewhere and is gonna be somebody.”
Conclusion
The power of stories and communications is palpable and it’s especially evident in the world of Biotech where investments are made when there are no products and requiring many years for a treatment to get to market. The flow of billions of dollars - all based on how well the stories get told.
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