Jennie Mather, CEO of the three-year-old startup Raven Biotechnologies, is the first to admit that she doesn't fit the mold of the ego-driven mad scientist or the button-down CEO. She's laid-back and often wears colorful, flowing outfits embellished with ornate antique jewelry, like the cameo necklaces she collects. What's more, she got a relatively late start as an entrepreneur. Dr. Mather founded Raven at the age of 50, after 25 years as a scientist, including 15 at Genentech, where she was the biotech company's first female staff scientist. "I wanted to make the science happen and get [anticancer] drugs to people, but I also wanted to create a company that people love to come to work at," says Dr. Mather, who named the company after an Inuit creation myth. "That required starting the company myself."

Many biotech companies seek anticancer drugs by examining the DNAs of cancer cells and normal cells for differences that new types of drugs could take advantage of. Dr. Mather, who developed a new way to grow and work with cells while at the National Institutes of Health from 1975 to 1978, takes a much more practical approach. She looks at the surface of the cell, the primary docking point for drugs and diseases. This eliminates the laborious DNA step, making it quicker, more direct, and rational--at least theoretically. "Raven basically turns the genomics approach upside down," says Tom Baruch, a Raven director and general partner at the VC firm CMEA Ventures, an early investor.

The strategy seems to be working. Raven has 30 proprietary stem cell lines, out of which 20 potential antibody drug targets have emerged. (An antibody is a protein made by white blood cells in response to a foreign agent in the body.) One of these antibodies is in preclinical development.

ImmunoGen, a Raven partner and biotech company that also develops anticancer drugs, is already paying modest amounts to use three of Raven's antibodies to screen for ovarian cancer. Within a year, Raven expects to generate more significant licensing revenue and payments from additional partners for hitting product-development milestones. Tens of millions in additional royalties could roll in once its anticancer drugs hit the market--years down the line in the best-case scenario. In the meantime, Dr. Mather is working with architects on plans for a new office building that will hold up to 200 employees; she has also been raising a $30 million third round of funding.

Dr. Mather began her first round of fund-raising in January 1999. Despite having little experience raising capital, she secured an invitation to the Hambrecht & Quist annual life science conference, a meeting ground for savvy biotech investors and promising startups. Within a few months, she had pried open the funding market for biotech startups, raising $2.3 million from family, friends, and former colleagues.

The luminaries who ponied up included the late Robert Swanson, a former venture capitalist and a Genentech cofounder who has been recognized as a pioneer in the commercialization of DNA technology. Investors were no doubt as impressed with Dr. Mather's experience as with her dedication: she vowed to work for free for the first year, supporting herself with income from Genentech stock.

But Dr. Mather is no martyr--she started paying herself a salary in January 2000. By that time, she had managed to raise another $20 million in funding, from firms including U.S. Venture Partners and Hambrecht & Quist Capital Management.

Though Raven's investors were enthusiastic about its business plan, Jonathan Root, a general partner at U.S. Venture Partners, was skeptical about whether the first-time founder was CEO material. Two years later, he's convinced that she's the right person for the job. "She's very capable from a managerial standpoint and understands the consequences of discovering a drug and then turning it into a product," he says.

Several of Dr. Mather's Genentech colleagues followed her to Raven--more than half the company's 45 employees hail from Genentech, including the vice president of research and development, Gordon Vehar. Coworkers say it was Dr. Mather's practicality that convinced them to join. "Jennie is a very proud person, but she also knows what she doesn't know," says Don Perryman, Raven's chief business officer.

An area in which Dr. Mather's experience falls short is selling collaborations to pharmaceutical company partners, one of the few activities she hadn't tackled in her varied roles at Genentech. But, says Mr. Baruch, she's found a way around that. "From day one, she's been bringing in people who will make her successful in that area," he says. In addition to ImmunoGen, Raven has signed several unnamed partners.

Many of Dr. Mather's Genentech colleagues also flocked to Raven because of her science credentials. Her groundbreaking work in cell cultures in several projects with the NIH included developing a way to grow cells in fermenting chambers, a process that is now widely used to grow multiple types of cells. As a result, cells can be grown more cheaply and in much larger quantities than with old methods, says Dr. Mather, making drug development and manufacturing more efficient.

That pedestrian-sounding development is nothing short of revolutionary, says Cynthia Robbins-Roth, a biotech consultant. It makes it possible to see how drugs will affect actual cells. "In biotech, you can do all the test-tube work you want, but if you can't relate that to what's happening inside the body, you're screwed," says Ms. Robbins-Roth.

In 1984, Dr. Mather's respected work at the NIH led her to a young Genentech, which at the time was knee-deep in science but had no product on the market. There were lots of blue-sky opportunities and "there was a constant struggle to refocus," she recalls of her early days at Genentech.

Dr. Mather helped develop the company's cell-culture production processes, leading project teams in everything from drug development to manufacturing. Within a few years, she became the company's first female staff scientist, honing her managerial chops in the vice president-like role. After a stint like that, Dr. Mather says, nobody at Genentech was particularly surprised when, in 1999, she announced her decision to leave the company and start Raven.

Still, jumping into the volatile world of startups isn't easy. Dr. Mather will have to maneuver Raven through the hundreds of potential trouble spots that could derail its progress (approval of the company's drugs by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is the most obvious). Her journey is also just beginning: Raven claims it has a faster, more efficient way to discover new drugs, but the biotechnology field is full of failed startups that banked on a similar strategy.

One thing Dr. Mather has in her favor is that she has worked at one of the most successful biotech companies in the world. She understands how the business should work, and she has what many young biotech CEOs lack--experience, patience, and enthusiasm. "The challenge of crafting the technology and growing the company has gotten to be rather fun," she says.

Sources From:RED HERRING 2002