The End­points 11 is back: Nom­i­nate your fa­vorite biotech for our an­nu­al re­port on the most promis­ing star­tups in the world

Ed­i­tor’s note: Nom­i­na­tions are closed. Our hon­orees will be an­nounced in Sep­tem­ber, and if you’d like to at­tend our event in Boston you can reg­is­ter here.

To­day, the End­points News team — 54 FTEs and count­ing — will be cel­e­brat­ing our sev­enth an­niver­sary. And like every year on this date, I make a note that it’s time to get start­ed on this year’s End­points 11.

The big dif­fer­ence this year? I’m get­ting a lot more help from a big­ger ed­i­to­r­i­al staff. Specif­i­cal­ly, Ryan Cross, An­drew Dunn and Kyle LaHu­cik are step­ping up with Ex­ec­u­tive Ed­i­tor Drew Arm­strong to help se­lect and pro­file the 2023 edi­tion of our an­nu­al re­port on some of the most promis­ing pri­vate biotechs out there.

Step one: Here’s the nom­i­na­tion form. If you know of a pri­vate biotech com­pa­ny that fits the bill for the End­points 11, please fill it out and send it in. The more col­or you of­fer, the bet­ter. But every­one will be con­sid­ered.

In case you’re not al­ready fa­mil­iar with the list, here’s what we’re look­ing for: pri­vate biotechs with great sci­ence, out­stand­ing lead­er­ship, en­vi­able back­ers and a sol­id shot at mov­ing the di­al on the de­vel­op­ment of new med­i­cines. As I can tell you from about 18 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in se­lect­ing up-and-com­ers, not all of these com­pa­nies are go­ing to make it through to the Mod­er­na side — one of my more in­spired picks. Biotech is far too risky a field to ex­pect every con­tender to come out with a ti­tle win in Phase III.

And we’ve all seen plen­ty of promis­ing com­pa­nies go up in smoke in the last cou­ple of years, along with the roughage that was nev­er go­ing to sur­vive any­way.

What is es­sen­tial is a plan to swing for the prover­bial fences: Go big or go home.

Step two: We’ll spend the next few weeks putting to­geth­er the list, then set out to write the pro­files. Of par­tic­u­lar note, we’re plan­ning quite the gala cel­e­bra­tion on Sept. 20 at the State Room in Boston. We’ll be ex­tend­ing in­vi­ta­tions to all our win­ners, cur­rent and past, to join in the awards cer­e­mo­ny. It should be quite a time.

The dead­line for nom­i­na­tions is Ju­ly 15. I hope to hear from you soon. In the mean­time, here’s our first End­points 11 to give you some ideas. Some got bought out. Some made it big. Sev­er­al are still la­bor­ing in the R&D trench­es. It’s a re­al­ly good group. And we bid adieu to Co­di­ak, which gave it a good try be­fore top­pling its king.

If it wasn’t risky, it wouldn’t be biotech.