Bay­er-owned AskBio will shift fo­cus to­ward its dog­gy­bone DNA in re­struc­ture with Touch­light

The year was 2018, and AskBio CEO Sheila Mikhail want­ed 100% con­trol­ling in­ter­est in a joint ven­ture with Touch­light. The com­pa­ny was in ne­go­ti­a­tion with an un­named Big Phar­ma for a col­lab­o­ra­tion that would have pro­vid­ed it with enough cash to make that a re­al­i­ty. Af­ter 18 months of ne­go­ti­a­tions and agree­ments in place, the Big Phar­ma deal fell through, and so did Mikhail’s Touch­light am­bi­tions.

Run­ning a biotech is no dif­fer­ent than man­ag­ing a fam­i­ly’s fi­nances, she said. You have to stick to a bud­get.

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