BATON director oversees business start-ups, expertise investments
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Aug. 31, 2007 -- The North Carolina Biotechnology Center has hired Rick Williams, an executive with more than 25 years of experience building companies and commercializing products, to lead a program aimed at creating new bioscience companies from North Carolina universities and research institutions.
Williams, 55, directs the Biotechnology Center's new Business Acceleration and Technology Out-licensing Network (BATON). BATON leverages $50,000 in Technology Enhancement and Acceleration Model (TEAM) loans from the Biotechnology Center with in-kind or contributed services from certified stakeholders such as law firms, banks and accountants to accelerate the commercialization of promising technologies.
"Rick brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in starting and running biotechnology companies and greatly understands the issues faced by start-ups," said John Richert, vice president, business and technology development. "Above all, he is passionate about giving back to our biotechnology community."
The Biotechnology Center established BATON and its related TEAM program to help the state's public and private universities and research institutions start companies based on patents derived from their faculty research.
BATON paves the way for new company spinouts by staging many of the essential start-up activities such as researching and creating business plans, identifying potential intellectual property and corporate law firms, developing a banking relationship and presenting the company to local angel and venture groups, thereby positioning the startups for future investment and growth.
As BATON director, Williams collaborates with technology transfer offices at universities and research institutions statewide to identify the most promising biotechnologies and to perform initial due diligence. He also evaluates TEAM stakeholder contributions, works with scientists to define their potential involvement with the new companies, presents the businesses to TEAM stakeholders and the investment community, and conducts technical and commercial assessments.
Working with the Biotechnology Center's five regional office directors and the regional advisory committees, Williams is helping to identify and recruit full-time CEOs to shepherd the start-up firms. He is also meeting with interested interim CEOs to link them with start-up firms' inception activities, providing an avenue for these entrepreneurs to expand their experience base while helping companies that need their skills.
Two new companies have already been launched as part of the BATON program: Provagen, from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University in Greensboro; and Sirga Advanced Biopharma from North Carolina State University. Provagen subsequently received a Small Business Research Loan from the Biotechnology Center.
In 1986 Williams left a corporate-development position at Merck and joined Genentech's sales force to introduce biotechnology to the U.S. medical community. As director of marketing and health economics, he played a pivotal role in assuring Genentech's long-term commercial success.
After leaving Genentech in 1995, Williams alternated between launching new businesses and taking writing sabbaticals to publish nonfiction books on American history.
From 1996 to 2000, Williams was an executive vice president at Amerisource Bergen and president of its ICS Lash division, which he set up to provide commercial-infrastructure and reimbursement support for emerging biotechnology companies such as Celgene, MedImmune and Sepracor.
Prior to joining the Biotechnology Center he served as chief business officer of CellzDirect, a venture capital-backed biopharmaceutical firm Williams and his CEO partner started in Tucson and relocated to Pittsboro.
Williams is a summa cum laude/Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in speech and hearing science.
The Biotechnology Center is a private, non-profit corporation supported by the N.C. General Assembly. Its mission is to provide long-term economic and societal benefits to North Carolina by supporting biotechnology research, business and education statewide.
EDITORS: A photo of Rick Williams is available on the Web at http://www.ncbiotech.org/assets/images/rick_williams_print.jpg
