The Next Big Thing
Retrotope
We shortened this case study to accommodate for humanity’s collective inability to focus for long periods of time. For the Full Monty, click here.
dna: missionary
The Challenge
When caught between a rock and a hard place, how to establish a scientific beachhead in the pharmaceutical industry with a new approach to fighting disease.
Making the leap from potential Next Big Thing to actual Next Big Thing can be a particularly fraught exercise, especially in the astronomically expensive, our-way-or-the-highway pharmaceutical arena. More often than not, researchers, scientists, and Big Pharma will have nothing to do with you or your big idea. Retrotope Inc., a privately held clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, faced that problem in its goal to change aging as we know it and put an end to the ravages of degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
The company has been advancing a revolutionary unified theory of aging and degeneration that could result in dramatically new approaches to fighting disease. It also has created a new category of drugs that both treat degenerative diseases and improve the quality of life as people age, therapies that are capable of producing monumental change in the medical and pharmaceutical fields.
That was exactly the problem.
In addition to the fact that Retrotope’s go-to-market story was long and complicated, given that what the company offers is both new and unfamiliar, it faced skepticism from pharmaceutical executives and investors. Not to mention that the company’s formula—which relies on a chemical workaround that uses broad-stroke methods to counteract degenerative conditions rather than eliminating specific problems at their source, the medical research community’s preferred method for combating disease—was seen as threatening to standard operating procedures. Retrotope also needed to overcome the perception that the company’s outside-the-box solution and stunning results and were too good to be true, a perception that had tainted the company with the dreaded “whiff of snake oil.”
The Aha!
It was immediately apparent that Retrotope was a Next Big Thing Missionary, one that had developed a drug platform that could change and enhance the lives of millions. The issue was how to get that message out and at the same time overcome baked-in resistance to the company’s raison d’être: essentially, how to recast the company’s narrative about its disease-modifying therapy so that it would be more appealing to investors, clinical trial participants, and the press.
We created first a visionary positioning statement focused on the theory, not the drug—Retrotope is leading the advance of a revolutionary new unified theory of aging and degeneration that can result in dramatically new approaches to therapy—and then a narrative that outlined how the theory is based on three groundbreaking discoveries (see Retrotope case study[LC1] ). We knew that the company also needed a story that encompassed a wide community of experts who would lend credibility to Retrotope’s groundbreaking theories and solutions and shift attention from the company as a lone voice shouting into the wind.
The Results
Retrotope has been using the new narrative on its website and with investors and the press. It also organized a successful roundtable with 30 scientists representing a variety of disciplines from both universities and pharmaceutical companies to discuss ideas about a new unified theory of aging.
By providing a living example of conducting science in both old and new ways, Retrotope is inching its way toward the Holy Grail of having its drug accepted as a horizontal drug that, like aspirin, can be used to treat a variety of conditions—in this case, many of the symptoms of disease and aging.
The Next Big Thing
The Full Monty
The Challenge
When caught between a rock and a hard place, how to establish a scientific beachhead in the pharmaceutical industry with a new approach to fighting disease.
What could be better than being part of the Next Big Thing? Who wouldn’t want to have a piece of a Next Big thing company—an Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix, or Salesforce—right on the cusp of its takeoff?
Making the leap from potential Next Big Thing to actual Next Big Thing can be a particularly fraught exercise, especially in the astronomically expensive, our-way-or-the-highway pharmaceutical arena. More often than not, researchers, scientists, and Big Pharma will have nothing to do with you or your big idea.
Retrotope Inc., a privately held clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, faced that problem in its goal to change aging as we know it and put an end to the ravages of degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. To achieve that objective, the company has been advancing a revolutionary unified theory of aging and degeneration that could result in dramatically new approaches to fighting disease. It also has created a new category of drugs that both treat degenerative diseases and improve the quality of life as people age.
Retrotope designed a new drug by making a tiny change to linoleic acid, a common and essential nutrient regularly ingested in food, after observing that a small alteration greatly fortified cells against lipid peroxidation, the damage that causes many diseases. According to the company, its therapies are capable of producing monumental change in the medical and pharmaceutical fields.
That was exactly the problem.
In addition to the fact that Retrotope’s go-to-market story was long and complicated, with its most compelling aspects buried beneath often daunting scientific terms and data, an even bigger issue was that what the company offers is both new and unfamiliar. As a result, said Dr. Harry J. Saal, chairman of Retrotope’s board of directors, it faced deep skepticism from pharmaceutical executives and investors who viewed Retrotope as too risky a venture.
Skepticism is a barrier Next Big Thing companies often face. Ridicule and scorn in the face of something new is nothing new. (Just consider Digital Equipment Corp. founder Ken Olsen’s 1977 famous misfire: “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.”) Retrotope faced neither scorn nor ridicule; perhaps worse, no attention was paid to the new theory at all. In fact, getting a meeting with the right people at the right investment firms was proving to be a significant barrier. Without other companies doing—or at least talking about doing—something similar, it was as if Retrotope were operating in a vacuum. “VCs don’t want to invest in an industry where there aren’t multiple companies to choose from,” said Saal. “There’s a sense that it’s just too weird and thus too risky.”
Executives and investors also perceived the company’s formula—which relies on a chemical workaround that uses broad-stroke methods to counteract degenerative conditions rather than eliminating specific problems at their source, the medical research community’s preferred method for combating disease—as threatening to standard operating procedures, and perhaps even to careers. That put an interesting spin on the typical Next Big Thing hurdle. Whereas Missionaries such as Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk probably heard (and ignored) comments such as “Don’t waste your time, it can’t be done,” what Retrotope faced was more along the lines of “Don’t waste your time, that’s not how we do it.”
What Retrotope found was that even when potential investors were interested, they quickly got caught up in the issue of what the company was doing to address the perceived cause of a specific disease rather than what it was doing to avert the dysfunction. Retrotope was taking a different tack. Instead of working to eliminate specific diseases altogether, it was focusing its efforts on shutting down the ability of free radicals to do the damage that results in disease (not to mention aging).
Saal points out yet another layer of resistance that Next Big Thing companies such a Retrotope must overcome. “Imagine you’re a foundation that has been giving grants for research of disease X, and for the last 10 years you’ve been giving grants in order to tackle the problem a certain way. Then someone comes along with a different approach. One reaction is to say, ‘Wow, a breath of fresh air, let’s try it!’ But another, more common reaction is to respond, ‘No, that’s not the way we do things.’”
As a result, when Retrotope was looking for partners among large drug firms, its proposals tended to hit a wall. “Our business development people would meet with their business development people, and we’d hear, ‘Oh, it sounds really interesting.’” But that was nearly always the kiss of death for the proposal. That “really interesting” deck was at some point sent for review to scientists wearing precision-medicine blinders that left them unable to absorb, much less envision, the Next Big Thing.
Retrotope also needed to overcome the perception that the company’s outside-the-box solution was too good to be true, a perception, according to Saal, that had tainted the company with the dreaded “whiff of snake oil.” Further, Retrotope was seeing results of 100 percent efficacy, data that also seemed too good to be true.
An enviable problem, but a problem nonetheless. Retrotope knew that in addition to finding a way to reframe the issue of an outside-the-box drug bucking the scientific norm, it needed to rid itself of that snake oil whiff.
The Aha!
It was immediately apparent that Retrotope was a Next Big Thing Missionary, one that had developed a drug platform that could change and enhance the lives of millions. The issue was how to get that message out and at the same time overcome baked-in resistance to the company’s raison d’être: essentially, how to recast the company’s narrative about its disease-modifying therapy so that it would be more appealing to investors, clinical trial participants, and the press.
We created first a visionary positioning statement focused on the theory, not the drug—Retrotope is leading the advance of a revolutionary new unified theory of aging and degeneration that can result in dramatically new approaches to therapy—and then the following narrative, which appears in some form on the company’s website:
Pharmaceutical startup Retrotope is changing aging as we know it so that people do not have to suffer the ravages of many degenerative diseases. The company is leading the advance of a revolutionary new unified theory of aging and degeneration that can result in dramatically new approaches to therapy—a theory based on three groundbreaking discoveries:
Many degenerative diseases that were originally thought to be disparate actually share a common weakness.
That weakness is one type of chemical bond that makes membrane fats susceptible to oxidation damage and loss of function. By strengthening that bond, we are able to prevent cellular damage.
Retrotope’s category of new drugs are composed of proprietary, fortified nutrients that treat degenerative diseases and improve life as we age. Human trials of the company’s first drug have shown promise in treating Friedreich’s ataxia—a rare, neurodegenerative, and fatal genetic disease—and preclinical data support use of the drug category in major diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and diabetic retinopathies.
Untangling accessible data and messages from reams of statistics and jargon, though crucial, was just the first step. We determined that Retrotope also needed a story that encompassed a wide community of experts who would lend credibility to the company’s groundbreaking theories and solutions and shift attention from the company as a lone voice shouting into the wind.
The Outcome
Retrotope has been using the new narrative on its website and with investors and the press. It also organized a successful roundtable with 30 scientists representing a variety of disciplines from both universities and pharmaceutical companies to discuss ideas about a new unified theory of aging. The goal was to create momentum behind a new way to look at medical problems so that it wouldn’t feel foreign when outside-the-box companies such as Retrotope set out to secure funding or partner with foundations, research labs, universities, and other companies.
By providing a living example of conducting science in both old and new ways, Retrotope is inching its way toward the Holy Grail of having its drug accepted as a horizontal drug that, like aspirin, can be used to treat a variety of conditions—in this case, many of the symptoms of disease and aging.
“We don’t want this to just be a Retrotope story, Saal said. “It needs to be a movement to look at science in a new way.” He envisions a brave new world of medicine in which patients can rely on a combination of therapies to treat disease, with researchers, investors, and others no longer wedded to the idea that there is only one way to do things. A world in which Retrotope is no longer the Next Big Thing.