Atlantic: Epitomizing The "Virtual" Firm Concept

The phrase may have become hackneyed in recent years, but new company Atlantic Pharmaceuticals appears to have redefined the concept of the "virtual" company. For all that, the firm offers a portfolio of technologies which rivals that of companies many times its size, and if chief executive Jon D Lindjord is to be believed, there is plenty of room for more.

Atlantic comprises a core management team of just three individuals; Mr Lindjord himself, Stephen Miller (vice president and chief medical officer) and Margaret Schalk, senior director of project management. Other aspects of the business are incorporated into subsidiary units, managed by the core team with other key individuals, usually the leader of the laboratory which holds rights to the technology, elected as directors of the relevant subsidiary.

Strategy Atlantic's near-term strategy is to assess technologies available for license and generate funding by forming corporate partnerships, after demonstrating "proof of principle." Almost all aspects of the business (eg legal, regulatory etc) is out-sourced in order to optimize resource allocation to the subsidiary units, Mr Lindjord told the Marketletter in a recent interview; this means that Atlantic can probably best be described as a "virtual venture capital" organization.