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Rubin combines interests in business and science
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“It’s an opportunity to contribute to discovery,” says BioFortis CEO Ethel Rubin of her career at the firm’s offices in Columbia.
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Many researchers have ideas to change the world, but getting them to market almost requires a Ph.D. and an MBA.
Ethel Rubin split the difference and hired a good chief executive officer to help run BioFortis Inc., a 5-year-old information technology company catering to the biotech industry.
Born in Toronto, Rubin married an American and finished her education in Rochester, N.Y. She got her start as a technician in an organic chemistry lab but learned quickly she “wanted to be the boss.”
After three years teaching at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Rubin started a company licensing technology from one of her peers.
LabMatrix is a database designed specifically to track hundreds of thousands of bits of genetic data, matching that information to the subjects it is drawn from and the physical and other characteristics those genes regulate.
She also chairs the Baltimore Planning Committee for Women in Biotechnology.
Q So you have a Ph.D. What does it take to get your ideas outside of the institution and launch a successful business?
A Scientists by tradition are introverted. Highly analytical and perfectionists. Very few of them have a global concept of what it means to start a company.
I tell Ph.D. candidates, “Everything you present, your information, defending your thesis, you’re working in sales and marketing.”
But asking for money, negotiating deals, that’s a different story. Find someone who does this well.
There’s nothing wrong with coming up with an idea, putting together a management team, then stepping back and taking a seat on the board.
Q How difficult was it to break into biotech?
A This town, this state is a very supportive environment for biotech. We broke even just last year, so we’re making it.
We had it a little easier than most lab-based biotechs, because we’re not so cost intensive. Just operating a lab can cost more than $10,000 a month.
Q Do you think you’ll ever want to go back to lab work?
A I’m very proud of my skills and discoveries and the research that I’ve been able to pass on. It was just time to move on after 15 years in the research side.
I don’t think I’ll ever go back, though I’d like to start a business with more of a lab component.
khille@baltimoreexaminer.com
