Not Like it Used to Be

May 15, 2012

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In a Q&A-style interview, Stratatech Corporation President Russ Smestad tells the Wisconsin State Journal that his career path — entering the biotech industry on the ground floor and moving up to start his own company — "would be difficult to replicate today." Smestad was hired by Cetus Madison in 1982, a time when "the biotech industry was really being formed," he says. "It was not like one could hire people already with a track record in this space."

Now, as president of Stratatech and chief operating officer of Biotech Profiles, an online database he launched to track Madison-area biotechs, Smestad says the industry looks much different. "There have been a lot of acquisitions of what I call mid-tier companies. The large companies are prospering; the small companies are stable; but our mid-tier is getting smaller," he says. These days, he adds, "it is tough for any early-stage biotech company."

Huh, not like it was 30 years

Submitted by Biotreker on Tue, 05/15/2012 - 13:42.

Huh, not like it was 30 years ago; go figure...

Thank you so much for

Submitted by Jeff.Rosner on Tue, 05/15/2012 - 21:53.

Thank you so much for publishing this article. It has rocked my world...NOT!

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The Cystic Fibrosis Interactome

Sandra Pankow is currently a research associate in John Yates' lab at Scripps Research Institute, studying protein-protein interactions involved in cystic fibrosis.

"I'm interested in trying to understand genetic diseases from a systems biology point of view," she says. "I've found that proteomics is the ideal tool for this because it gives the researcher the possibility to investigate thousands of proteins at the same time rather than just having to guess which one or two you should look at."

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