Celata Bioinnovations

John R. Wells; Benjamin  Weinstock

Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2020

Celata Bioinnovations

by John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

Abstract

In December 2019, Jon Hu (HBS ‘19) and Dr. Samantha Dale Strasser, co-founders of Celata Bioinnovations, were raising $1 million to launch their company. They had founded Celata less than six months earlier with the aim of redefining the drug discovery process. Celata’s platform used novel data types and a unique data integration process to generate hypotheses about proteins that were involved in the formation and progression of disease. They believed the platform was better and faster at identifying actionable biological targets, increasing the speed of discovery and reducing the chances of failure, promising to lower costs and bring drugs to market more quickly. Their platform had achieved proof of concept during Strasser’s PhD research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), when it helped identify and validate a target related to Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) in mouse models. However, full validation wouldn’t come until their platform was used to develop a drug that successfully treated a disease in humans, a process that could take several years. In the first instance, Celata’s platform was best suited to identify targets for cancers, inflammatory diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases, which collectively presented a global market opportunity of over $200 billion. However, Hu and Strasser were debating which opportunities to pursue. Should they try to improve the efficacy of current drugs or go for brand new opportunities, indications for which there were no solutions on the market? And if they focused on the latter, should they just look for large market opportunities or include “orphan” diseases, for which there was a relatively small market? Should they look for small-molecule drug candidates or include large-molecule biologics in their search? And where should they operate in the drug development pipeline? At one extreme, they could sell potential drug candidates to established pharmaceutical companies; at the other, they could “go full pharma” and build a new pharmaceutical company themselves.

Keywords: drug development; drug discovery; Drug Trials; Pharmaceutical Companies; Pharmaceutical Company; Pharmaceuticals; therapeutics; Biologics; biotech; biotechnology; biopharmacy company; biochemistry; technology commercialization; technology companies; Drug Testing; Startup; start-up; Startups; start-ups; Startup financing; strategic decision making; strategic decisions; strategic evolution; FDA; Food and Drug Administration; clinical trials; disease management; market attractiveness; Market entry; market opportunities; Health Disorders; Technological Innovation; Technology; Commercialization; Business Startups; Finance; Decision Making; Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Opportunities; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

10 pages

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Citation:

Wells, John R., and Benjamin Weinstock. "Celata Bioinnovations." Harvard Business School Case 720-427, January 2020.

This is the first case in a three-case series on Bulb Energy Ltd. It is followed by “Bulb 2017: Launch” (719-441) and “Bulb 2018: Rapid Growth” (719-442). It describes the foundation of Bulb, a renewable energy supplier entering the highly competitive UK market in August 2015. Founders Hayden Wood and Amit Gudka were hoping to capitalize on the hundreds of thousands of customers switching their energy provider each month, by promising excellent customer service, a simple, low-price tariff, 100%-renewable electricity, and services to reduce energy consumption. At the time there were only about 250,000 households on renewable tariffs, typically paying a high price for the privilege. Gudka and Wood were convinced that many more households would opt for renewable energy and turn it into a mainstream product if prices were more reasonable. Their goal was to sign up more than 23,000 properties by March 31, 2017 to reach breakeven, and then grow to more than 69,000 properties by March 31, 2021. On Friday August 21, 2015, Gudka and Wood sent out a batch of 1,400 emails to friends and family, encouraging them to switch to Bulb. They waited anxiously for the first sign-ups.

This is the second case in a three-case series on Bulb Energy Ltd. It comes after “Bulb 2015: Foundation” (719-440) and is followed by “Bulb 2018: Rapid Growth” (719-442). It describes the launch of Bulb, a renewable energy supplier entering the highly competitive UK market in August 2015. By the end of March 2017, Bulb had grown to supply 29,311 properties, well ahead of its Launch Plan of 23,166 and beyond the point of breakeven. It had been a slow start, and growth had been volatile, reaching a rate of over 3,000 new members per week at one point, putting severe strains on service levels. Founders Hayden Wood and Amit Gudka had been forced to change many aspects of their plan and defer launching value-added services to help customers reduce energy consumption and create Bulb's vision of distributed generation. Now, the company was generating profits; enough to grow, but not at the level of the original plan. Should the founders scale back on their growth ambitions and delay adding services until they reached the scale to support them? Or should they seek more funding and accelerate growth?

Supplement | HBS Case Collection | December 2018 (Revised July 2020)

Bulb 2018: Rapid Growth

John R. Wells, Benjamin Weinstock, John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

This is the third case in a three-case series on Bulb Energy Ltd. It follows “Bulb 2015: Foundation” (719-440) and “Bulb 2017: Launch” (719-441). After a wild and volatile year, Bulb, a new entrant in the UK residential energy market, ended March 2018 with 329,127 properties, 1.2% of the total residential energy market. This was 150% ahead of a plan for 130,000 properties and almost ten times the size the founders, Amit Gudka and Hayden Wood, had imagined in August 2015 when they first launched. Bulb was now one of the top 12 energy suppliers in the UK. Gudka and Wood were convinced that if they reinvested all their profits in growth, they would reach 500,000 properties by March 2019, and reach more than 1 million by March 2021. This would mean postponing the launch of a range of value-added services they had included in their original Launch Plan, but it could make Bulb number 7 in the industry and the first real challenger to the UK's "Big Six" leading energy suppliers to pass the one million-member mark. Was it time to seek more funding to really challenge the Big Six, making renewable energy mainstream? And did it make sense to delay value-added services to support energy conservation, distributed generation, and the switch to electric vehicles, or should they seek funding to support these initiatives too?

Keywords: rapid growth stage; green energy; start-up; customer acquisition; customer churn; Customer Engagement; Electricity; resources; growth strategy; B-Corp; Renewable Energy; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Working Capital; Customers; Growth Management; Finance; Decision Making; United Kingdom;

Citation:

Wells, John R., and Benjamin Weinstock. "Bulb 2018: Rapid Growth." Harvard Business School Supplement 719-442, December 2018. (Revised July 2020.) View Details

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