So I'm a undergrad student wanting to pursue my dreams of starting and owning a pharmactical company, however, I dont know how or where to start. I am asking advice to those who know how I can make this all happen since I'm in my prime time to work on it. Any advice, suggestions, commentary, or help is appreciated
start off with a compounding pharmacy. That is the only way that I know of someone getting into the pharma business. You could also start a pharmacy.
big pharmaceutical companies are impossible to start, patents, labs and researchers are expensive. It would be like saying you want to start a new railroad company.
>>1015510
pretty easy tbhonest. you just need to endure 4 years of undergrad and 7 years of grad school, come up with a novel idea for a drug, and then somehow convince a financier to loan you the millions of dollars to build a laboratory and make a product... and then that product has to go through literally years of FDA trials and simultaneously 1) be effective 2) not kill or harm people and 3) have a market.
>>1015521
Then why are there so many started by entrepreneurs? For example, the infamous Martin shrekli which as far as I know started up a small one, Turning.
>>1015523
Jeez..
>>1015534
there are two kinds of people.
1. is like you. you hear all that and think that's too much work or it's impossible
2. is not like you. they hear all that and think "worth it."
>>1015543
But sometimes it's not worth it. And knowing when it's not is a good skill to have.
Anyways, pharma industry, impossible OP.
The way the industry works is they spend HUGE sums of money to invent and test 500 drugs at once.
Of those 500 drugs, 495 will be useless. That is an acceptable loss. The profit from the other 5 will more than make up the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS lost on the other 495
If Phizer has a 1% chance of a new drug being worth money, what makes you think (even with the milliosn and millions of capital that you have somehow gotten to test 1 drug) that you can do better than 1%?
>>1015543
there are two kinds of people
1) idiots who are completely divorced from reality and who post dumb platitudes like this
2) people who realize that starting something as capital intensive as a pharmaceutical company is a pipe dream at best, and that chasing the tenure track academia dream would be more realistic than the bullshit being spouted in this thread
>>1015551
Look all you need to do is raise a few hundred million in capital from the tooth fairy and then it is a perfectly viable idea
>>1015555
and that's presuming that the person in question is smart enough to create something worthy of that sort of funding.
I understand, so basically this idea is completely unrealistic in any scale.
>>1015568
i mean, it might be realistic. but it's nothing something you actively seek it. it's more or less an added consequence of being really smart, having an incredible streak of luck to come up with a revolutionary idea, and having the academic pedigree and connections to finance this idea.
tl;dr focus on getting through undergrad and maybe think about going into grad school.
The first reply in this thread is the only one worth reading.
perhaps the first interesting thread I've seen on /biz/ so far. Also first reply seems most viable
Move to the SF Bay Area.
Apply for SBIR and NIH grants to get started.
Talk to VC's once you get some preliminary results.
>>1015550
chemist here.
just saying that 500 possible candidates probably came from a million compound plus library from combi chem or testing out new reactions. There's a whole subfield in medicinal chemistry called SAR that focuses on this. companies like DE Shaw research and some departments at Pfizer specialize in using pchem and molecular modeling to bring the total number of candidates down but. this shit literally takes decades to work.
Okay so instead of starting a pharmaceutical company what if you started a pharmacy? How can you start one during or close after you finish your undergrad? Assuming money isn't a problem for startup costs, like a few million (2-3)
>>1017002
Independent pharmacies are really a thing of the past outside ethnic (Apteka) or tiny rural towns. Basically everything else is owned by Caremark or Walgreens. Unless that is your plan.
Walgreens will offer you 75 cents on the dollar for all your stock that is outside 3 months from expiration. 25 cents on the dollar for stock inside 3 months, and a flat 2.50 per customer
>>1017022
Im in Canada, 2 of my dad's friends own 5 pharmacies (Dundas, Hamilton, Ancaster, Hamilton, Dundas)
But too afraid to ask them lol
Still checking this threat time to time. Thanks for your commentary, and I mean ima try my best to do it, might or might not make it but atleast ima try. I'm currently taking part of a pharmacologal research lab and trying to find something useful to be able to publish, and proceed from there. If I don't make this dream happen ill probably work on a pharmacy start up as next choice. Also, here is another question, is a biotech start up just as difficult?
>>1017022
>Independent pharmacies are really a thing of the past outside ethnic (Apteka) or tiny rural towns.
This is true. I can confirm that independent pharmacies have it rough (bookkeeper here). You can't compete as well with the large companies, which do move into smaller areas. You have to beat them with customer care and small innovations that they either can't do or will adopt as soon as they hear about it. Most small pharmacies make mid-tier wages. Most pharmacists could easily make more working for someone else. And you also have to have retail store hours, so it's more work in a lot of ways. There are very few very successful independently owned pharmacies. But there are some. You just have to know how to run a business (and a retail business at that) to do well. Suppose you could branch out into an online thing, but god, I don't want to think about the red tape and legalities. Anyways, in our town, of the two most successful independent pharmacies, one has been in business for-fucking-ever so they have loyalty and the other one runs as a coffee shop as well (old people love coffee and drugs). Walgreen's and CVS has taken every unique offering the smaller stores had here, and incorporated the idea into their own business model.
>>1015532
>Then why are there so many started by entrepreneurs?
Anyways, my impression of pharmacists creating their own drug companies only came from when a pharmacist was an undergrad and used school resources and their research thesis to create the drug. If it was promising in the school research setting, then they could get financed as an independent company through school hook-ups or whatnot. I don't think I've heard of someone creating a drug outside of an educational institution or working for a big pharma company. Correct me if wrong, though, but that's just my understanding.
>>1017002
Depending on the country you have to be a pharmacist to own a pharmacy. You should look into starting businesses that you are actually familiar with
