Celgene's M&A Dealer - "The Best Career Decision I Ever Made."

By Rob Wright, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
Follow Me On Twitter @RfwrightLSL

From The Cutting Room Floor: July 2015 Issue
Read the full magazine article: Celgene: Mastering Partnering & M&As To Build Its Next Generation Of Assets

For George Golumbeski, the key to becoming good at BD is learning by doing. “I was once asked, ‘What books can one read to learn about negotiations?’” he says. “Forget it. You’ve got to get in there. Hopefully you have somebody who can show you the ropes. And, you are probably going to mess up a few times.” Celgene’s SVP of business development wasn’t always so confident in his business acumen or necessarily trying new things. After completing his post doc in molecular biology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, he started his career as a scientist at Promega Corp., maker of research reagents in Madison, Wisconsin. “I was hired to run an R&D group, which interestingly enough, had two major collaborations — one was with a Japanese company, and the other, a university,” he recalls. “About two and a half years in, I was approached about running licensing and business development. It had been done by three executives in their spare time. That was the joke, because working at Promega back then was like drinking from a fire hose, and nobody had any spare time.” According to Golumbeski, Bill Linton, who is still Promega’s CEO, wanted somebody who understood the science to professionalize the function. “He wanted me to do it because I knew the science, and he thought I had done a reasonable job with my two collaborations.”

Fortunately, Golumbeski recalls Linton being very patient. “When this was put to me, I must have pondered the position for six weeks,” he laughs. “To Bill’s credit, he didn’t hassle me. Then, one day, the best technician in my group pulled me into a meeting to discuss a problem she couldn’t solve.” He remembers Promega having a beautiful cafeteria with large glass windows and a view of the woods. As this technician was talking to Golumbeski, he discovered, halfway through the conversation, that he had been staring out the window, looking at the trees, not having heard a word said. The experience was an epiphany. “That night I went home and told my wife, ‘I’m a little nervous about no longer being a scientist, but I think I’m a bit bored,” he shares. “I went in the next day and said ‘I’ll do it,’ and that was probably the best career decision I ever made.”