TMT Year Book 2022-Startups: Upstarts

James Halstead's commentary appeared in a Legal Business article about how lawyers can meet the needs of high-growth companies amid falling valuations and faltering public markets.

From a founder’s perspective, success may not always be about money. ‘From just a financial viewpoint, the success points are selling to big pharma or getting to market, but for a lot of these companies, the founding scientists have a genuine desire to get the knowledge out into the world and hopefully deliver some therapy or treatment which is actually positive. I wouldn’t say just because their company doesn’t end up with a big exit they haven’t succeeded. If they managed to progress their science, it might be that somebody else can come along and learn from them how they developed it and take it forward,’ said James, regarding life sciences companies.

"In life sciences we don’t have the same doom and gloom outlook that some areas do," noted James. "Certainly not compared to an area like fintech, if you look at the challenges those companies are having. The reason is that the time required to take a drug from the labs to the market is so long, that the short-term ups and downs of the macro-economic environment are somewhat less influential."

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