PERSPECTIVES

The most important financial decision a business makes is not how to raise capital — it is how to allocate it. In biotech, every asset competes for finite capital. In growth-stage companies, every initiative competes for limited management attention. The discipline of deciding what not to fund is worth as much as any individual investment decision.

In most PE-backed businesses, pricing is managed through sales convention rather than financial discipline. A 1% improvement in price realisation has a disproportionate EBITDA impact. Structural pricing architecture is often the fastest value-creation intervention available in the first year of ownership.

Scaling companies must apply the same business case rigour to AI ROI that they apply to any commercial investment. The companies that win are those that govern well — with structured investment cases and clear benefits tracking — not those that move fastest.

Licensing economics are shaped by timing, leverage, commercial assumptions and how well a company has framed its own value. The financial architecture built before a partnership discussion is as important as the deal terms negotiated within it.

A CFO who earns the founder’s trust through honest financial communication, clear commercial logic and the ability to translate complexity into decisions. That trust is built through the quality of the thinking, the honesty of the forecast, and the willingness to say clearly what the numbers mean.