Boehringer Ingelheim Office Hours
Our pioneering ‘Office Hours’ program has now mentored over 300 early-stage companies since 2015. The initiative launched in Boston and has now expanded to New York, San Diego and North Carolina. Office Hours is now also established across Europe in the UK, Germany, Austria and France, providing access to expertise and giving an industry perspective and feedback to emerging life-sciences businesses.
Please look at our ‘Grass Roots’ calendar for more information.
Senior professionals within the Boehringer Ingelheim organization work with life-science innovators in a consultative ‘roundtable’ setting, to increase their knowledge of how to progress their science along the value chain. Most importantly, there are no restrictions or conditions associated with Office Hours. This ‘no-strings attached’ policy encourages open dialog from both parties and has been an important contributory factor in the success of the program.
How to prepare for Office Hours
In advance of their meeting, participating companies are asked to submit some non-confidential background information about their technology, and up to five questions regarding their own programs and company where they would like to receive advice from the panel. This means the session can be tailored to meet the individual needs of each business. Typically, questions cover a range of topics including pre-clinical and clinical development, research strategy, business development and licensing.
Participating companies do not need to be strategically aligned with Boehringer Ingelheim’s own research interests, reflecting our goal of incubating novel science and technology even if it falls outside our core therapeutic areas.
What type of companies should apply for Office Hours?
While Office Hours is targeted to companies with pre-seed funding to series B financing, having preclinical assets, platform technologies or assets in the clinic, the team has also met later stage companies with marketed products. In addition, Office Hours can also be useful for academicians and technology transfer offices that want to understand how a pharmaceutical company would assess a program.
What participants say
Feedback from participating companies has been extremely positive:
“As a small biotech company, being able to get feedback, advice and mentorship through the Office Hours program has been incredibly valuable. Boehringer Ingelheim’s expertise and input, from both a scientific and business perspective, have helped shape our R&D and business strategies.” Rathi Srinvas, Co-Founder, Novopyxis.