Friday, August 31, 2007

Sticking it out, for now

Only one more over the side last week. One of our clinical staff managers didn’t appreciate evil VP’s decision that the new clinical staff will report directly to him and not to the clinical VP. We’re down one additional chemist after one of my colleagues severed a tendon in his hand with a broken flask. It sounds like he’ll be okay; but, he’s probably looking at a couple months of recovery and physical therapy.

As for me: I’m not going anyplace, at least for the time being. We have two IND applications into the FDA and our phase II clinical trial is moving along. Chances are, we will probably go public soon enough that it will be worthwhile for me to stay. If not, I’ll be fully vested in 687 days. I can get out then with enough shares to pay for the therapy I’ll need.

The ‘good’ news is that we are hiring RAs in chemistry. Not surprisingly, most of the candidates seem to be coming from evil VP’s former company. Things seem to be falling into place for his world-domination plans.

Just when the bay area job market was starting to look a little better, Sunesis and Amgen decided to flood the market with fresh meat. Layoffs in R&D always seem to make investors happy for some reason. The situation must be bad: Amgen’s stock hardly moved. I understand the drive for lower costs, but those employees are no longer around to stuff the pipeline. So did management screw up in the first place by hiring too many scientists? Or are they selling-out the future in hopes of shorter term gains? For Sunesis, I guess all it takes is one good drug to become an attractive buyout target for big pharma. Then all the execs get to sail off in their new yachts.