In this special student-hosted episode of the “Weinberg in the World” podcast, student host Seora Kim, a junior majoring in economics, interviews Keith Haan, the senior vice president at Roivant Sciences. Keith graduated with a major in Biological Studies. Keith shares his journey from studying biology and playing baseball at Northwestern University to working in a lab at the medical school, which influenced his career path. He discusses his research on B cell signaling and Epstein-Barr virus, and how his interest in biotechnology led him to the finance industry. Keith explains his transition from equity research to venture capital and portfolio management, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of his career! https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-haan-9886a069/ Transcript: Seora Kim:
Welcome to the Weinberg in the World podcast where we bring stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world. My name is Seora Kim, and I am your student host of this special episode of the podcast. I am a junior majoring in economics and minoring in data science and global health studies.
Today, I am excited to be speaking with Keith Haan, who is the senior vice president at Roivant Sciences. Thank you, Keith, for taking the time to speak with me today. Keith Haan:
Thank you, Seora. I'm happy to be here. Seora Kim:
Awesome. To start us off today, I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about your time at Northwestern as an undergraduate. What did you study? What were the impactful experiences for you that led to your current career path? Keith Haan:
I was an undergraduate major in biology sort of focusing on cell and molecular biology, but my experience at Northwestern was also shaped a lot by the fact that I played baseball for Northwestern. And as part of trying to figure out what to do for the summers, the athletic department does have reach out, and certainly when I was going there, had reach out to sort of help place students with internships that would be interesting.
And I ended up working doing research in a lab at the medical school a couple of summers. And I think that really influenced sort of where I wanted to go, and I ended up going and getting my PhD at the grad school down at the medical school campus. Seora Kim:
Awesome. That is amazing. Can I ask a little bit more about what kind of research you did at the medical school that helped you pivot? Keith Haan:
Yeah, so I worked in a lab that had two focuses. One was on B cell signaling and one was on the cellular factors that allowed Epstein-Barr virus to enter cells. So the two were sort of related. Epstein-Barr virus encodes some proteins that sort of co-opt B cell signaling, and so part of the group focused on that. And then another group of which I was part of really studied the host cell proteins that were involved in mediating entry of the virus to the cell. Seora Kim:
Amazing. That sounds super cool. And I was also wondering, were there any pivotal moments for your decisions that shaped your different parts of your journey in your career path? Because I know that you had several experiences before coming to Roivant Sciences. Keith Haan:
Yeah, so I would say during grad school, viral entry was a hot topic and was actually very topical for HIV entry and HIV treatments. And so, because some of those newer drugs were being studied in the clinic at that point in time, it sort of got me interested in the biotechnology field in general.
But I was also looking at the company and saying, "Hey, this is a company that I think I know well because I understand viral entry well. It's a publicly traded company. That is also interesting." And so, I think given the pace of where the biotech field, where it was going and looking at equities as a way to really be exposed to a lot of what the industry was doing, not just from a single company standpoint, but from an industry-wide standpoint, I got interested in biotech stocks.
Which led me into the finance industry starting in equity research, and then moving on in my career to being a partner at a venture firm, and then portfolio manager at a hedge fund. Seora Kim:
Awesome. That is super cool because I know that there's a lot of students at Northwestern interested in like economics or finance, but then also the bio side of things. So it's super cool to learn about your experience and how you combined biology as well as finance-related careers in your path and how you did biotech-related stocks equity research.
So can you share a little bit more about what you think was the most attractive elements in each part of those roles, like was the more interesting parts in equity research or venture capital's portfolio management, so the students can understand what are differences between those jobs? Keith Haan:
Sure. So I can start with the equity research first. It was my foray into finance, and that time was really sort of spent leveraging what I knew and what I had gained just in either biological insights and then translating that to how I thought value could be created from companies.
And obviously, at that point in time, there was a pretty big backfill for me in learning the financial building models. I mean, that was something that I had not done at Northwestern. So that was a very good learning experience to be able to combine both as well as to learn how stocks move independent of what you might consider to be an intrinsic value. So that whole learning experience I thought was very valuable.
And ultimately, I wanted to be able to, instead of being on the analytical side in equity research, I wanted to move on to being in a place where I could be deploying capital against those ideas. And where my initial interest was, it was sort of the earlier stage, probably earlier in the clinic or preclinical, which was more attuned to what I had learned in my background in my PhD, but also in the small company and the company formation.
And so, I chose to go to a venture capital firm where I thought I could really build on the skills that I had already developed in equity research. Seora Kim:
Definitely. So I think something that is really interesting is that you're focusing on biotech stocks or biology related financials. So can you share a little bit more about what is different between regular stocks or health tech stocks with biotech stocks? Keith Haan:
I think one thing that is different about the biotech sector in general is it is something that is, first of all, highly volatile. There can be very large price swings depending on whether the results from a clinical trial allows a company to move forward to the next step of the clinical studies or to get approved.
And when you are putting things in the human body, sometimes you get the results you are expecting and sometimes you don't. So there is a lot of volatility around just those stocks in general. And because of that, it is not something that a lot of funds will necessarily allocate a lot of time or people to, unless they have people that have deep experience doing it.
So it is, as opposed to funds that may have a lot of their portfolio invested in tech or other industries that are a little bit better understood, healthcare is a little bit [inaudible 00:08:22], and biotech in particular is a little bit different. Seora Kim:
Totally. That makes a lot of sense. And since you mentioned it requires a lot of knowledge and also because of the clinical trial stages, do you think that it's important for students who want to focus on biotech related finance roles to do bio majors or PhD? Or what kind of level of education would be required for these kind of roles? Keith Haan:
I think it is helpful, but I have sat next to incredibly intelligent and very, very good people from all different backgrounds. So I have sat next to people that have finance or econ majors and have sort of picked up the biology, the clinical aspects, or the regulatory overlay over time. And then, there are many people that I've worked alongside that have a biology or have a medical background that sort of supplement and backfill with the financial overlay. Seora Kim:
Definitely. So it's not necessary to have a bio background, but it can be a very diverse background and anyone who is interested can have a shot at this role? Keith Haan:
Yeah, I mean, if you are sort of interested in that nexus, you can come into it from various backgrounds. Seora Kim:
Perfect. That's amazing. That's great news for our students. And I guess going on with that, I wanted to learn a little bit more about your current company, Roivant Sciences. So can you maybe elaborate a little bit more on what are some of the current day-to-day in the job right now? Keith Haan:
Sure. So in my role, I lead the group that is responsible for the licensing and acquisitions at Roivant. So Roivant is a little bit unique in that the licensing and acquisition plays a very large role in our strategy.
So we look really industry-wide and where the innovation is, and a big part of where we find the innovation is external. And so, what we do is try to find collaborators and partner with those assets, and then found very nimble small companies that are really charged with bringing those forward in developing and commercializing them. Seora Kim:
Well received. So regarding this kind of business model, would you say your investment strategy or how you find these smaller companies be based on certain criterias or standards? Keith Haan:
Yeah, I mean, I think what we ultimately want to do is have something that we believe sort of meets our bar for having a reasonable likelihood of clinical and commercial success. And that can be we can get comfort with that in