Evolution of Biotech CFOs

PE: How has the role of biotech CFOs evolved in recent years, in terms of capital scarcity and increasing investor expectations?
Smith: The CFO has to be the voice of the investor on the leadership team. Everybody should have it in mind, but it always the CFO has to be that conscience and has to always think about returns on capital. Doesn't have to think that they have to be returned, that capital has to be returned tomorrow, but always has to think about the potential for the return on capital of the enterprise. And that's something that I've was that was instilled into me a long time ago in my career, and I always take it very seriously. Sometimes, I think in pharmaceuticals and biotech, people treat return on capital as an automatic output of clinical and regulatory success. So therefore it's out of their control. And what happens is, if you are successful in the clinic and in the regulatory environment, you are approved, that's when the return on capital question really comes in and have you over invested to get to where you are relative to the opportunity? That's one question. Second question is, can you execute on the opportunity in a capital efficient way, or is it going to be too expensive to to support it? So there's a great deal of thinking that needs to go into to, you know, generating a return on capital. I had a mentor once who said, you know, investors are kind enough to give us money, and then they're rude to think that they would want it back.