BROWN BIOTECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT GROUP
Brown Biotechnology Investment Group
Brown Biotechnology Investment Group serves as a unique opportunity to enrich the academic experience of students interested in the intersection of healthcare and business. With a membership of varying academic backgrounds, BBIG fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and prepares Brown students for careers in healthcare through exposing them to healthcare investing. BBIG seeks to build an ecosystem of undergraduates and alumni to provide current students interested in healthcare with mentorship and a better understanding of future career opportunities. Through close collaborations with professors, graduate students, and various undergraduate organizations, BBIG utilizes different perspectives and backgrounds to achieve above-average returns.
Investment Criteria
The healthcare sector promises tremendous innovation that will yield life-changing therapeutics for a variety of diseases. While the pace of change continues to accelerate, there is strong potential for above-average returns. While BBIG recognizes that healthcare is a particularly volatile industry with challenging investing dynamics, we pursue a principled investment strategy and leverage the strong backgrounds of our members to achieve superior returns:
Quality Science
We look for assets with compelling efficacy and favorable tolerability. We pursue a rigorous due diligence process to evaluate the strength of the clinical data with respect to the competitive landscape and the market's expectations to identify assets with leadership potential in their given therapeutic area. Our research analysts peruse databases and publications to identify uniquely innovative and effective therapeutics; this enables BBIG to source companies from a bottom-up approach.
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Diversification
We seek to manage a diversified, balanced portfolio comprised of stock across the healthcare sector to mitigate risk and yield stable returns. Our portfolio is comprised of companies of varying market caps and volatilities. By diversifying our holdings across different therapeutic areas, BBIG can avoid overexposure to any subsector and weather potential bear markets.
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Financially Viable
Given many companies in biotech are precommercial or have negative earnings, revenue projections tend to be one of the primary financial indicators. BBIG identifies companies with favorable revenue growth and projected blockbuster drugs. While some companies in our portfolio are precommercial and have not yet generated revenue, we also invest in more mature healthcare companies with stable financials. Important metrics we value are healthy revenue growth, high earnings margins, favorable competitive dynamics, and patent protection.
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Timing
We monitor upcoming catalysts to the company's stock price to evaluate the appropriate timing for an investment. Relevant inflection points such as data releases, earnings reports and healthcare conferences can have a significant impact on the stock price and are closely monitored. While we are a long-only investment fund, we consider important strategic and financial factors to develop a thesis about our investment horizon and the proper time to enter.
Portfolio
Team
Connor McDermott
Co-President
Connor is a senior double concentrating in Biology and Economics. While working in a lab at Weill Cornell Medical College, he gained experience with neuroscience and stem cell research. Connor previously covered healthcare as a summer investment analyst at Crescent Capital and specialized in high yield and mezzanine credit. Last summer, he worked in healthcare investment banking at Leerink Partners and will be returning after graduation.
Elaine Tran
Co-President
Elaine is a senior double concentrating in Economics and Biology. She has experience performing investment research on high yield companies and focuses on healthcare services, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. Elaine also has experience conducting biomedical research and plans to attend medical school after graduation.
Isaiah Bryant
Portfolio Manager
Isaiah is a senior concentrating in the Computational Biology - Computer Science track. Last summer, he worked as a Summer Associate at the Boston Consulting Group. Isaiah is exploring opportunities at the intersection of consulting, research, data science, translational bioinformatics, software development, product management and life sciences entrepreneurship.
Taylor Pullinger
Executive Board Member
Taylor is a senior concentrating in Biology on the Biotechnology/Physiology track. She has done genetic engineering research as a member of the 2016 Stanford-Brown iGEM team, and is currently working on neural tissue engineering research in the Hoffman-Kim lab at Brown. Taylor plans on pursuing her Ph.D. after graduation and hopes to have a career at the interface of science and business in the biotechnology industry.
Justine Potemkin
Executive Board Member
Justine is a senior double concentrating in Biology and Economics. She has previously worked in drug development at Pfizer and in a healthcare consulting role in Beijing. Justine is interested in clinical innovation, pharmaceuticals, finance, and entrepreneurship. She will be working in investment banking this summer.
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Waylon Jin
Executive Board Member
Waylon is a junior concentrating in Applied Mathematics and Economics. He has experience with biostatistics research at pharmaceutical companies such as Teva and Shire. Next summer, he will be interning in the sales and trading division at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
