Franklin M. Berger

Biography

  Berger started his consulting practice, FMB Research, in 2003 after leaving J. P. Morgan Securities, Inc. as head of biotechnology equity research. His clients were exclusively biotechnology industry participants including major biopharmaceutical firms, mid-capitalization biotechnology companies, specialist asset managers and venture capital companies. Assignments included business development, strategic advisory/financings, partnering and royalty acquisitions. Past mandates included PDL BioPharma, Inc., Intra-Cellular Therapeutics, Inc., Serono, Merck KGaA, Threshold Pharmaceuticals, Valeant, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (incomplete list). He currently serves on the board of four public biotechnology companies: Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc., Immune Design Corp., Bellus Health, Inc. and ESSA Pharma, Inc. Previous public company board service included 11 years with Seattle Genetics, Inc., seven years with VaxGen, Inc. (vaccines/biodefense) and Aurinia (previously Isotechnika), based in Canada. He also serves or has served on private biotech company boards including Atreca, Inc., Alzheon, Inc., Caprion Proteomics, Inc. (sold July 2012) and ViroChem Pharma, Inc. which was purchased by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for $400 million in 2009. Mr. Berger has led multiple M & A analyses resulting in >$1 billion in transaction value. As a senior portfolio manager on the buy-side, Mr. Berger worked at Sectoral Asset Management as a founder of the small-cap focused NEMO Fund from 2007 through June 2008. Franklin reduced his consulting practice commitment during his full-time employment with Sectoral Asset Management. Mr. Berger spent 12 years in sell-side equity research, most recently as Managing Director, U.S. Equity Research, J. P. Morgan Securities, Inc., from May 1998 to March 2003. During his five years at J. P. Morgan Securities, Inc., he was involved with the issuance of over $12 billion in biotechnology company equity or equity-linked securities. The majority of these transactions were lead-managed and book-run by the J. P. Morgan Biotech Team. He was associated with several notable financings in the biotechnology sector including the Genentech IPO, the largest biotechnology IPO financing ever executed, the first large Celgene Corporation financings as well as several large-cap biotechnology companies in their rapid growth phase. His team covered 26 publicly-traded biotechnology companies. Mr. Berger began his career as a sell-side analyst at Josephthal & Co. in 1991, subsequently moving to Salomon Smith Barney in 1997 serving as Director, Equity Research and Senior Biotechnology Analyst. Institutional Investor Magazine ranked him on J. P. Morgan’s All-Star Research Team. The Wall Street Journal selected Mr. Berger as the No. 1 ranked biotechnology analyst in its All-Star Analyst Survey in 1997 and No. 2 ranked in the WSJ’s 2000 Survey. In 2000, he became a Founding Fellow of the Biotechnology Study Center at New York University School of Medicine. Mr. Berger received his MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1975; Johns Hopkins University conferred both his AB and MA degrees in 1971 and 1972, respectively.

Research Interest