Joe Turner

Joe Turner came to MCDB in 1973, when it was only 5 years old. At that time, Joe says, it was not at all a laid-back department. Keith Porter, the first MCDB chair, had an academic approach that was very intense. Keith had recruited a great group of young faculty, mostly from Stanford and Harvard, who shared Keith’s intensity. Larry Gold, Mike Yarus , David Hirsch and Larry Soll were all here, so it was a very exciting and growing department. Joe, by his own admission, was as a great student, but one who lacked the skill set needed to become a creative scientist. Joe said he’s a great observer of people, but a lousy observer in the lab. Joe admits he does not have the ability to go from a known fact and move forward. “ You have to want to synthesize.” Joe believes that creating new knowledge is completely different from learning in a classroom.  It is very important to get actual lab experience to find out whether or not it is a good match for one’s temperament and skills.

Joe recalled that his lab experience at CU had an important impact on his career. He worked in Prof. Dick McIntosh’s lab and this experience convinced him that he had no talent as a researcher. Ultimately he concluded that he hated lab work and never did, and never would do, anything of note in the lab. “I worked very hard and hated every second of it.  I don’t want this to come out sounding in any way as a reflection on Dick – it wasn’t. Dick’s personality and the stimulation he provided actually kept me plugging along despite my own limited abilities as a scientist.”  It took Joe two years and Dr. McIntosh’s departure on sabbatical to accept that he did not want to get a PhD. When he left CU, he began interviewing for entry-level research and manufacturing positions with drug and chemical companies such as DuPont, but he got no offers. Hence, Joe decided to build on his strength in academics and enrolled in an MBA program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was there he started to thrive. Business was the perfect fit because it played to his strengths.

After his MBA, he worked for Eli Lilly in for more than 10 years. During this period, he lived in Indiana, California, Taiwan, and Switzerland. In Switzerland, he ran a $150 million trading company for Eli Lilly, and traveled a great deal. This was heavy travel to exotic and sometimes uncomfortable places like North Africa, Asia, the old Eastern bloc countries, and Iraq. Joe said, “I don’t know many people who did business in Iraq at that time – but I am one of them.” 

Tired of the travel and looking for a more entrepreneurial experience, Joe left Eli Lilly and returned to Denver and joined Cortech as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The company was then four years old and was focused on sepsis. He was brought in to help with the IPO, and it was intense, even without the travel. Joe says, “Building companies is all-involving and draining.” He calls himself a professional manager who works well with entrepreneurs because he employs professional managerial techniques that facilitate the entrepreneurs’ success. His talent is dealing with the biotech scientific folks who are fundamentally mavericks, and he can talk to them in ways one might not expect from a CFO. Joe is a good team builder. His understanding of the science often helps in working with investors and helps him talk with the researchers and technical managers.

The 1990’s brought a great deal of optimism in biotech companies. They believed modern understanding of the molecular pathways involved in disease progression and the new technologies that came out of molecular biology, such as DNA cloning and monoclonal antibodies - techniques that only a few companies such as Amgen and Genentech were able to employ at that time - would give them more success than the traditional pharmaceutical companies. He said, “We believed in our own message of probable success, and our investors were eager to hear that message.” 

Joe’s experience is broad and he has worked for, or served on the boards of biotech companies who focused on drugs for septic shock, the central nervous system, stroke, cardiovascular disorders, oncology, and aesthetic dermatology. As the CFO of several publicly traded companies, both pre- and post- IPO, his background and skills have allowed him to talk to investment bankers as well as the big investing institutions. He has developed skill in answering their questions, whether financial or strategic, and can talk to the analysts on both the buying side and the selling side.

Joe believes that it is essential for a company’s success for the CEO and CFO to find a business model that will work. They also must balance focus and persistence in continuing to pursue a strategic direction fraught with known difficulties with a sense of when to kill a program and move on. To succeed, a biotech company needs to function as a learning organization. Key players in the company have to be very familiar with successful business models, with the competitive environment, with regulatory changes and with advances in academic research.  The organization must find ways to incorporate this learning into its strategies, programs and operations.