Click here for Part I

A biotech industry leader helping fund the next generation of entrepreneurs

Rick Birkmeyer is the CEO of CD Diagnostics and a managing partner at Leading Edge Partners. An accomplished executive and entrepreneur, Dr. Birkmeyer is also the founder of Strategic Diagnostics, a biomedical firm he started in 1990 and built into a multimillion-dollar public company listed on NASDAQ. His current company, CD Diagnostics, provides physicians with analytical tools through corporate partnerships, developing immunoassays to improve patient outcomes. In his role at Leading Edge Partners, Dr. Birkmeyer helps invest in early-stage companies in Delaware and the surrounding region.

Rick Birkmeyer spoke with citybizlist publisher Edwin Warfield for this interview.

EDWIN WARFIELD: How were you able to grow Strategic Diagnostics, Inc. so quickly?

RICK BIRKMEYER: The story of how did SDI grow is really one of corporate partnerships. When one looks at my background, one sees that I do not have any sales or marketing experience—a big part of that is because I cannot remember anybody’s name—right, John?

For me, it is always difficult to do that sales and marketing piece, so very early on when I started SDI, and this is followed through with CD Diagnostics, is I have decided to use corporate partners to grow, where we bring our technological and manufacturing expertise to the game and the corporate partner really brings the sales or marketing expertise. That combination makes a very strong combination, because you have companies like DuPont, which introduced the APS reductase test, or the test for the Conoco Oil. Our current partner is Zimmer Biomet. They have 4000–6000 sales reps throughout the world, so it gives us a very rapid reach in orthopedics.

To answer your question on the financial history of Strategic Diagnostics: we were one of those small biotech companies that were fortunate. We were profitable and growing, and had a proprietary product that had patents on it. I presented at the Mid Atlantic Venture in 1992. That was the first time I ever knew what venture [capital] was and presenting to them. I got off the stage and I had about 20 venture firms that were interested in investing in Strategic Diagnostics. At that time, we were using Arthur Andersen to do our audits and I went to them and said, “Who in this area is good at environmental, and who is good at science?” And they recommended DSV Ventures and Edison Ventures with Rick Defieux, which ran their environmental group. So, rather than interview a whole bunch of people, we went to those two. We never even had a business plan, and we were able to successfully raise our preferred A. Now, clearly, I am not recommending to anybody not to have a business plan, because to do it again and having had the experience of a venture capitalist now, I won’t look at something unless they have a business plan. But that was in the 90s, and money was a little more readily available.

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