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Life-sciences make most of oil prospectors

Life-sciences make most of oil prospectors

Life-sciences make most of oil prospectors

Business is largely about opportunity, and making the most of it once it has been found.

Sometimes it takes a brave decision such as relocation to maximise the possibilities open to a start-up firm, with no guarantee of success as a result of it either.

One such situation was recently documented by CNN Money in an article entitled 'Heartland haven: Oklahoma City: Oklahoma City boasts cutting-edge biomedical start-ups, affordable living and gutsy venture capitalists'.

The piece focuses on a firm called InterGenetics, co-founded by 52-year-old entrepreneur Craig Shimasaki, who will have no doubt benefitted from the online PR generated by the article.

Originally based in San Francisco, a world-renowned hub for technologies of all manners, Mr Shimasaki took the brave decision of moving to Oklahoma City - not necessarily an obvious choice.

It was in 2002 that Mr Shimasaki founded InterGenetics, a life-sciences firm. It has won three rounds of angel investments totalling $10 million as well as $2.5 million from federal and state research grants.

An impressive 70 per cent of the $10 million was from Oklahoma-based benefactors, and it was this that was the opportunity Mr Shimasaki's business was looking for in the city.

Using the analogy of oils wells - the industry in which many of the Oklahoma investors operate – Mr Shimasaki understands that these people have an eye for business opportunity and financial speculation.

He told the news provider: "Oil speculators understand they may need to spend $100,000 each on 20 new wells. Nineteen will fail, but the 20th will pay them back fiftyfold."

Of course Mr Shimasaki believes - and hopes - that InterGenetics is that one successful well.

They did not strike it lucky to start with however, with the company's first major product – a genetic test to assess the risk of breast cancer in women - being blocked by an FDA rule change.

The rule change has since been suspended and Mr Shimasaki anticipates revenues of $1.1 million.

Of course, each business's relative opportunities lie in different cities and in a variety of areas, but if Mr Shimasaki is anything to go by, sometimes that opportunity is not always in the most obvious place.

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Life-sciences make most of oil prospectors

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