| Topic Name: |
Healthcare VC |
| Message Name: |
Be careful !!!!! |
| Date Posted: |
07/16/2004 |
| In Reply To: |
That should of course read, I appreciate it, thanks for your responses.
Wishing everyone a good weekend. |
| Message: |
As a medical doctor within the UK, I offer you the following advice:
1. I do not want to sound negative but I think you are making a serious error if you are thinking about going to medical school to use it as a stepping stone to enter biotech VC. Only go to medical school if you want to become a doctor. Do not think: I'll go to medical school and become a doctor and then if I don't get into biotech VC, I will at least have medicine to fall back on. Doctors work very long hours within very high-pressure settings and have a large amount to responsibility, so naturally one really has to enjoy medicine to do it.
2. Even if you go to medical school your likely to find that you need a top-tier MBA to enter IB/VC/PE. Or alternatively you will need many years of experience as a medical doctor or within the pharmaceutical industry before you can get into biotech VC. Also take into account that for jobs in the pharmaceutical industry (where you will learn about the clinical trails process) you will need a couple of years of hospital experience. So don??t expect to get into biotech VC before you are say 38 (4 years medical school then 3-4 years hospital medicine then waiting for a VC job to come along).
3. Forget about the MSc you mention unless it is at a top-tier university. Any thing less then a top-tier university on one??s CV reduces the chances of entry to VC. ??Hometown?? university plus a new programme would be a very bad career move for you (I??m not kidding. Just being truthful).
You do not say what you are presently doing? So it is difficult to recommend what you do next?
Your best bet may be to do a top-tier MBA then enter IB or equity research post-MBA. Try to join a healthcare/pharmaceuticals/biotech group. Spend a couple of years doing this and then try to move over to biotech VC. I think this would be the safest option. The MD route to get into biotech VC sounds pretty foolish!!!
Comments from other welcome!
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