Minerva 2004: Discovery

John R. Wells; Benjamin  Weinstock

Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2020

Minerva 2004: Discovery

by John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

Abstract

After nearly five years in operation, Doctor Cynthia Bamdad, founder and CEO of Minerva Biotechnologies Corporation (Minerva), was reflecting on the company’s next steps. In a few short years, she and her small team had managed to develop a nanoparticle process for testing new drugs that was orders of magnitude faster than traditional approaches. Using this process, they had discovered the mechanism that caused 96% of all breast cancers and identified families of small molecule therapeutics that were effective in blocking this mechanism in live cells in the laboratory. Moreover, Bamdad did not think it would be long before the company could offer an early warning diagnostic for breast cancer, which would allow less invasive treatment of the condition. The company had filed several families of patent applications in support of these claims, but the challenge was funding. To date, Bamdad had relied on Federal Government grants and angel investors to fund the research, but the next steps would require much larger investment. Should Minerva seek to commercialize its drug development technology to help fund the riskier steps of drug development? Should it focus on a diagnostic which would make current treatments more effective? Should it license its small molecule therapeutics to one of the many well-funded companies seeking cures for cancer? Or should Bamdad raise capital to support tests in mice in order to reach the Federal Drug Administration IND (Investigational New Drug) application stage of drug discovery? This would allow clinical trials in humans, which would require more capital, but an IND would increase the value of Minerva’s intellectual capital substantially. What should Bamdad do?

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Biotechnology Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

9 pages

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Citation:

Wells, John R., and Benjamin Weinstock. "Minerva 2004: Discovery." Harvard Business School Case 721-389, September 2020.

In 2010, amid a flurry of new discoveries, Cynthia Bamdad, founder and CEO of Minerva Biotechnologies Corporation (Minerva), raised $6.6 million to test her new cancer drugs in mice. It had been more than 6 years since she had announced that she and her small team at Minerva had identified the mechanism that caused 96% of all breast cancers and had discovered a number of small molecule drugs and antibodies to block it. Funding the next stage of development had proven very difficult, but, undeterred, Bamdad had raised enough to keep her laboratory open and continue her research work. In the process, she made the startling discovery that the “cancer” mechanism she had discovered was an integral part of the production of all human embryonic stem cells, and that cancer was a result of this mechanism going awry. As a result, Minerva developed the ability to produce high-quality stem cells, which opened up a whole range of new commercial opportunities for the company, including advanced therapeutics and processes for growing and replacing human cells of all types. However, resources were limited. Where should she focus her efforts?

Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2020

Minerva 2020: Clinical Trials

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

In March 2020, Dr. Cynthia Bamdad, founder and CEO of Minerva Biotechnologies Inc. (Minerva), was reviewing the first results of human clinical trials for the company’s novel CAR-T drug therapeutic, one of the first ever to target solid cancer tumors. The results looked promising.
CAR-T therapeutics were a new field attracting a lot of scientific interest. They involved genetically re-engineering a patient’s T-cells, a key element of the human immune system, to attack the cancer. The first CAR-T treatments for cancer were developed for the relatively small field of blood cancers, 7% of all cancers. For instance, early pioneer Kite Pharma Inc. (Kite) developed a treatment for a special type of lymphoma that only affected 7,500 patients a year. Still, the financial interest was huge, and Kite was acquired by Gilead Sciences Inc. in August 2017 for $11.9 billion. Similarly, Juno Therapeutics Inc. was acquired by Celgene Corporation for $9 billion in January 2018.
Minerva’s therapeutics targeted 96% of all breast cancers and 46% of prostate cancers, a market that was orders of magnitude larger. After 21 years, Bamdad believed that Minerva was on the threshold of something really big.
Should Bamdad sell the business and work within a larger organization? Or should she IPO and continue to develop the company’s long-term pipeline of therapeutics and diagnostics?

Keywords: biotechnology; strategic decision making; Entrepreneurship; Health Testing and Trials; Decision Choices and Conditions; Strategy;

Citation:

Wells, John R., and Benjamin Weinstock. "Minerva 2020: Clinical Trials." Harvard Business School Case 721-391, September 2020. View Details

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