What stops a promising platform from becoming an investable company? Kevin Walton, CEO of Baseimmune, has watched this from both sides, first as an investment banker and now running a 23-person biotech through a strategic pivot he led himself.
He and Nick Capman get into beachhead decisions, why most preclinical teams run their experiments in the wrong order, how to keep a distributed team aligned when the CEO is an ocean away, and what investors actually weight when science, team, execution, and strategy are all on the table.
Some of what comes up:
Run the experiment that could kill the program first, before the supporting package exists
Accumulating incremental data feels like de-risking and mostly isn't
Pick fast and cheap on a CRO and you'll pay for it twice
Build culture from where you actually are, not from where you'd like to be
Write decisions down, name one owner, and accept that ambiguity compounds faster at distance
Hire a scientific advisory board that will argue with you
Science gets you the meeting. Team, strategy, and execution decide what happens after
About Kevin Walton
Kevin Walton is CEO and a board director at Baseimmune, a London biotech developing active immunotherapies for fibrosis with IPF as its lead indication. Before Baseimmune he held corporate development and business development leadership roles at Moderna, StrideBio, Curis, and G1 Therapeutics, following a start in investment banking and consulting. He holds a law degree from Duke University School of Law.
About The FDA Group
The FDA Group helps life science organizations rapidly access the industry's best consultants, contractors, and candidates. Our resources assist in every stage of the product lifecycle, from clinical development to commercialization, with a focus on staff augmentation, auditing, remediation, QMS, and other specialized project work in Quality Assurance, Regulatory Affairs, and Clinical Operations. Learn more: https://www.thefdagroup.com/
