Peter Barrett, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School, where he teaches the second year MBA course, Lab to Market. He is also the faculty chair of the key advisory board of the Blavatnik Fellowship Program.
In addition to his work at Harvard, Peter is a Partner at Atlas Venture, an early stage life science venture capital firm. Since 2002, Peter has been involved in the creation of several novel therapeutic and drug discovery platform companies.
Prior to Atlas he was co-founder, executive vice president and chief business officer of Celera Genomics, which announced the first successful sequencing of the human genome in 2001.While at Celera, Peter led strategic alliances, acquisitions and business strategy and helped launch it as a public company in 1999.
Prior to founding Celera, Peter held senior management positions at Applera, most recently serving as vice president of corporate planning and business development. During his tenure, he ran several businesses and expanded the life science business through a series of licensing agreements, partnerships and acquisitions.
Peter is currently chairman of Obsidian Therapeutics, Zafgen (NASDAQ:ZFGN), Cadent Therapeutics and Synlogic (NASDAQ:SYBX) and sits on the boards of Indalo and Perkin Elmer (NYSE:PKI). He is also a member of the research council at Boston Children’s Hospital and the board of Living Independently Forever.
Peter received a BS in chemistry from Lowell Technological Institute (now known as the University of Massachusetts, Lowell) and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Northeastern University. He also completed Harvard Business School’s Program for Management Development.
Peter and his wife Mary live in Boston. They have 3 children and one granddaughter.
This Background Note provides essential information on funding deep technologies—those technologies that were inherently capital intensive, time consuming, risky, and potentially disruptive. Both dilutive and non-dilutive sources of investment are highlighted, along with concrete empirical examples and figures.
This case focuses on Nimbus Therapeutics, a biotechnology startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as its leadership team tries to determine the company’s long-term strategy. The startup’s founders structured Nimbus as a limited liability company, which has given it more flexibility when it comes to funding and development partnerships. Does the operating structure still makes sense as Nimbus looks ahead to the future?
This case looks at the deal-making process between Celgene, a large publicly traded pharmaceutical company, and Agios, an early-stage biotech company. The framework of a potential deal is explored and the potential road-blocks to Agios’ profitability are discussed. The relationship between a fledgling biotech company and an established pharmaceutical company as well as the expectations from both sides regarding their deal are examined.
Barrett, Peter, and Kareem Reda. "Celgene: Business Development and Distributed Research." Harvard Business School Case 620-014, September 2019.
View Details
Peter Barrett, Karim R. Lakhani, Julia Kelley and Kerry Herman
Using an overview of the emerging technology of Synthetic Biology, this case provides the basis for discussion on what questions one would ask in evaluating a potential investment in the field.
