Paul Walker - NEA Venture Capital, Geron Portfolio Manager

[kmall]

Paul Walker - NEA Venture Capital, Geron Portfolio Manager

https://www.nea.com/team/paul-walker#companies


Paul Walker
Partner, Co-Head of Healthcare
Healthcare
US
Growth
Seed/Early


How would you describe NEA’s public market investing strategy?

It’s similar to our private investing strategy. We look to partner with great management teams who, despite being in charge of publicly traded companies, need a longer term view to appreciate their value. We try to look past near-term catalysts and calendar year returns and focus on extraordinary outcomes that take several years to develop.



Why does this long-term investment strategy appeal to you?

I’m a contrarian at heart, so I love the idea of partnering with companies who’ve had a setback but are still committed to seeing it through, or are jumping into overlooked areas that, with patient capital, have the potential to become big in the long term.


"...focus on extraordinary outcomes that take several years to develop."


".....are jumping into overlooked areas that, with patient capital, have the potential to become big in the long term."



*Something to think about as we're now under 40 trading days until 6/14 -Kmall

[Bigfun]

Thanks for the post kmall!

Interesting that a majority of the companies in the life sciences portfolio have been acquired...
https://www.nea.com/portfolio?category=life-sciences

[kmall]

Bigfun - I think it's important to focus on who has invested in Geron over the long term. Many of these investors are highly experienced in not only investing, but also extremely knowledgeable at the science behind many of these "Life Sciences" investments.

On another note, I've come across about a dozen or so of the latest Key Account Manager positions that Geron advertised for several months ago. Approximately half of these latest employees that I've come across were previously employed by Janssen. Most have extensive experience in sales with multiple Big Pharma in the Biotech industry.

I'll leave the board one example.

Guillermo Ortiz - Key Account Manager, Geron Corporation

Hired - April 2024

Previous employers included: Janssen (7+yrs)*, Incyte (1yr 4mo), Biogen, Glasko SmithKline, Bristol Meyers Squibb, JNJ (8yrs 10mo)


Guillermo's last position at Janssen was:

Sr. Executive Sales Specialist Hematologic Malignancies Oncology


*Mr. Ortiz was employed at Janssen from 2013 - 2020..... there's a very good chance in his position at the time, Imetelstat would have been in his pipeline for sales


**Just a little something to consider as we're approximately 34 trading days from 6/16 -Kmall