Interview with Richard Kivel of MIT Enterprise Forum and Rhapsody Biologics

Having served as the CEO of a few biotechnology and life science companies, Richard Kivel is a seasoned business executive who also serves as a Board member in several life science companies in the US, Europe and Asia. Not only is he involved in business, but Richard also spends his time with entrepreneurial organisations like the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. As Chairman of the Global Board of Directors of the MIT Enterprise Forum, Richard will be speaking at the Singapore chapter event tonight. We managed to get him to take out some time out of his busy schedule to give us a short interview.

You have started quite a few companies, are a speaker, lecturer at the MIT Sloan School and champion entrepreneurship. How would you describe your career and life so far?

I have been very fortunate to be part of some great companies and great teams. My passion is working with entrepreneurs, building companies and creating value for the founders, team and investors. My work in biotech and at MIT Sloan allows me the opportunity to work with both great entrepreneurs and up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

What are the most promising things in biotechnology right now?  What tools or methods do you use to identify and commercialize these promising ideas and technology?

Biotech and life sciences in general are changing so quickly that they create tremendous opportunities if you move fast. The biggest shift we are all aware of is the personalization of medicine and treatments using genomic and genetic data. My new company Rhapsody Biologics is one of the players in this field. We focus on modifying vaccines to make them work better, while other interesting companies are focused on cancer and other important disease areas.

If you can identify an opportunity in this field move fast.

How differently is biotechnology approached by various countries?

Biotech is not much different in most any modern first-world country. What is dramatically different is the way patients are treated. Access to care, drugs, imaging, general diagnostics and the regulatory rules are vary tremendously from country to country.

Do you see differences in the level of the development of biotechnology across various countries?

From a “research and development” perspective, countries with the best people and access to technology win. Everyone else falls behind.

If an entrepreneur wants to start up a biotech company, where in the world is the ideal place to do so?

The best place has traditionally been the US and more specifically the East (Boston) or West Coast of the US. More recently we have seen new hubs of innovation in entrepreneurship emerging in other parts of the country and world. Singapore is clearly one of those growing hubs of innovation and a great place to live.

Biotech in Singapore is amazing. The workforce here is world class, the education systems are outstanding and the government has existing and new programs in place to support technology development and creation and the labs are state of the art.

Programmes like those at A*STAR, Exploit, and SPRING are great. Recently the Government of Singapore announced another $450M to support public private partnerships for companies focused on innovation and also sizable tax incentives for firms investing in R&D.