Sebastian Gensior

The concepts of fat-tailed distributions and black swan events, as popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in seminal work "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" (2007), have indeed become critical for understanding risk and uncertainty in various fields, including finance and drug development. Taleb's

Drug discovery operates at the intersection of science, technology, and uncertainty. Despite advances in high-throughput screening, computational modeling, and clinical trial design, the industry remains vulnerable to black swan events—rare, high-impact phenomena that challenge traditional methodologies. The stakes are immense: late-stage clinical failures, regulatory surprises, and supply chain disruptions

If you’ve read this blog—ramblings, thought-leadership, or the digital equivalent of shouting into the void—you might be under the impression that I’m a grumpy old man. A professional curmudgeon. A pessimist with a newsletter. Well, I’ve got news: I’m not old. I am, however,

1. Pricing and Reimbursement Pressures 1.1 Early Pricing Negotiations * The New Reality: * Payers and HTA bodies, particularly in Europe, are scrutinizing clinical trial data earlier * Example: In the EU, HTA bodies involved in the Joint Clinical Assessment (JCA) may assess early efficacy data to predict pricing feasibility. Similarly, the

For biotech companies, the IPO is like a debutante ball—a grand public coming-out party where you hope to dazzle investors with your scientific brilliance and unshakable potential. In Europe, however, this glittering spectacle often ends up feeling like a poorly attended cocktail party where guests are reluctant to take

Venture capital and private equity thrive on numbers—IRRs, TVPIs, MOICs—each acronym an attempt to quantify success in an industry where most real outcomes won’t be known for a decade. Naturally, fund managers need a way to show they’re winning, preferably before their portfolios actually deliver returns.

There are many books about how to make money. There are far fewer about how people actually lose it. What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars, by Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan, is part confessional, part autopsy, and entirely brilliant. And for those of us who live in the biotech

There are very few finance books that you can read without needing a double espresso or a minor existential crisis halfway through. But George Schultze’s The Art of Vulture Investing is one of them. It’s a book that doesn’t just make a case for distressed investing—it

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into drug discovery is reshaping pharmaceutical development, prompting regulatory bodies to adapt their frameworks to ensure safety and efficacy. Both the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are actively developing guidelines to address the complexities introduced by

Venture capital, like any industry where past success is difficult to verify, has a long tradition of being economical with the truth. For those unfamiliar with the phrase, “being economical with the truth” originates from British political double-speak—often meaning to leave out inconvenient details while still technically telling the