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“Before seeking advice from Mike Holbrook at MSBDC’s Central Massachusetts office at Clark University, we had struck out four or five times in our attempts to secure a start-up bank loan,” remarks Massachusetts entrepreneur, Samuel Massoni. Massoni and his wife, Jennifer, own the six-year old biotechnology firm, New England Peptide, Inc., a manufacturer of custom peptides-proteins, for use in medical and technology research. “Mike’s advice to us was pretty straightforward: tone down your income projections for the banks!” Massoni recalls. “Mike knew exactly what projections they would buy and -what do you know—with Mike as our advisor, we succeeded the first time out, landing an SBA-guaranteed loan from Fleet.” Massoni notes that his projections initially were too high—four times above the bank’s expectations—because he was playing by his industry’s norms. In New England Peptide’s sector of the biotech industry, over 80% of start-ups are bankrolled by venture capitalists. “They are generous with their money but expect windfall profits,” Massoni continues. Just as critical, they often insist on a great deal of control over the businesses that they fund. “I’ve had conversations with venture capitalists who refused to even look at us for less than half ownership in our firm,” he confesses. For the Massonis, control over New England Peptide couldn’t be more important. “When an outsider owns 50% of your business and expects windfall results, it changes the way you treat your customers and your employees”, Massoni insists. (The firm’s ten employees—the Massonis included—are chemists.) “New England Peptide is all about service. Jen and I are production experts. Our customers know that they can talk to either of us directly within five or ten minutes.” Those customers include hundreds of pharmaceutical companies and university medical research laboratories throughout the United States, and in England, Mexico, Sweden, Poland and China. Prominent clients include DuPont, Pfizer, BASF, Bristol Myers Squibb, Harvard, MIT and Tufts. The Massonis met in the mid 1990s when they worked for QCB, a fast-growing peptide manufacturer in Hopkinton. By 1998 they were engaged; before that, both had moved on to different firms in their industry. “All the while, we had a running conversation of how much better product quality and service we could give customers by doing things our way—with strong quality systems and direct customer contact,” notes Massoni. The couple got their chance in November of 1998, when they pooled together personal savings and family money. After working with Holbrook to refine their business plan and secure their loan, New England Peptide was ready for rapid expansion. Because of the high level of quality and service that the company is able to offer its customers, New England Peptide, Inc. has grown quickly and Massoni expects the company to continue growing. “Our products are extremely important to scientists and our market is growing rapidly,” observes Massoni. The company has recently moved to a new, custom built facility in Gardner, MA to increase its service levels and position itself for the future. “Peptides are complex, but extremely scalable. Cancer and AIDS research offer us tremendous opportunities, but the entire area of synthesizing human proteins to fight disease has limitless possibilities. Scientists have mapped the Human Genome; now they’re doing the same for the even more complex protein analog—the Human Proteome. That means fantastic new opportunities for medical research and New England Peptide. Jennifer and I are grateful to Mike and the MSBDC for helping us secure the resources that will enable New England Peptide to make the most of that future.”
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