As a research associate for Gerard Klauer Mattison in New York City, Reddoch has to know "everything there is to know" about nine companies. "Anytime they release news we interpret it and tell how it affects our ratings," he says.

Those ratings take the form of recommendations to buy, hold, or sell the stocks of one of those companies. They then package that information and offer it free to portfolio managers, who in turn may place trades through the company and generate a commission.

To get the skinny on those companies he's been assigned, Reddoch spends time reading annual reports and financial documents. With those documents as a background, Reddoch tours labs and manufacturing plants, and meets with corporate executives. He says financial analysts like him rarely talk to company scientists during these visits, because financial analysts often don't understand the vagaries of basic science, so corporate representatives shield them from the day's latest experiments.

"You have to remember that all of this information is given a spin. . . . If the analyst doesn't understand that 19 of 20 experiments don't work, they might think the company's lead drug candidate is dead."

He also spends time talking with physicians and leading scientists to get impressions of a company's technology or drug candidates, and he occasionally serves as an in-house liaison between corporate scientists and coworkers trained only in business.

Days are hectic. Each morning, Reddoch meets with the senior investment analyst, his boss, to discuss the previous day's happenings. If there is news about any of the companies he covers, they discuss it and decide whether or not to change their buy, hold, or sell recommendations. If they decide a change is in order, they have another meeting with the company's sales force - all before Wall Street opens for business at 9:30 A.M. Eastern Standard Time. If a call by a salesperson piques the interest of a portfolio manager, Reddoch may get a call later in the morning for more details.

Still, no one's a true expert, he says. "We can only know so much - we can know everything there is to know about a company and think it looks great, but if a drug fails in a phase III trial or the FDA rejects a drug, there's no sustaining that company's stock price."

John M. Rice

Not all jobs are on Wall Street. After joining Battelle Memorial Institute (Columbus, Ohio) as a virologist in the late 1970s, John M. Rice gradually moved into management and strategic positions, and is now director of medical technology at Senmed Medical Ventures (Cincinnati, Ohio). Senmed serves as a venture capital arm for many large companies, seeking out investment opportunities and putting money into a select few. Rice's primary role at Senmed is to seek out medical devices and diagnostic technologies that could be commercialized, so he spends a good deal of time visiting universities, attending scientific meetings, and reading the literature. "I've built a fairly broad network of . . . thought-leaders in the field of medical science," he says.

Hobnobbing with creative scientific minds is the most fun part of the job, he says, but it has its drawbacks, too: "It can be frustrating because there's a lot of ego involved."

Once Rice identifies a promising technology, Senmed either helps license it to an existing company, or builds an entirely new company around it. But before it can do that, Rice and others must perform due diligence - that is, they must consider the science, the people, the marketing plans, the intellectual property position, and all of the other factors that suggest whether a venture will succeed or fail. "The difficult thing can be jumping from molecular biology, to physics, to patent law [in the same day], he says."

The investing environment is very different from the laboratory's daily routine of testing hypotheses and moving on the next question. Business decisions are based on a series of choices that determine in what direction you next go. To get ahead, "you have to think strategically, not tactically."

A day starts anywhere between 7 and 9 A.M. ("I vary it purposefully") and ends around 6 P.M., followed by an hour or so of catching up on reading and email. The money is good. Rice makes about two to three times what he made as a scientist, but the rewards aren't all monetary. "It's a nice combination of being close to a lot of good science, and seeing the science get translated to products."

Not all paths lead directly from the lab to investing circles. Roger Wyse started out as a researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and eventually moved into academic administration, serving as a dean for Rutgers University and before joining Burrill and Company (San Francisco, California) as managing director of the agricultural biotechnology branch.

As a venture capital arm for corporations, Burrill helps small companies develop partnerships, and helps larger companies spin out technologies or departments into new companies. It also operates a family of life sciences venture capital funds, including an $85 million agricultural biotechnology fund, which Wyse manages.

Wyse has three major responsibilities, and all three demand part of a typical day. Although the ag biotech fund has $85 million in capital, Wyse still must make presentations to investors - including major corporations, banks, and financial institutions - to continue to increase the size of the fund.

Like Rice, he also spends time searching out new technology and investing opportunities. "If you hear about somebody starting a company or a great technology at a university, or there's a good company that is getting ready to [raise additional money], you encourage them to submit a business plan to you so that you can evaluate it," he says. With the business plan in hand, Wyse must spend time reviewing the plan, visiting the company, evaluating the management team, and getting scientific experts to evaluate the technology.

Negotiating deals between companies can be especially tricky for someone who has grown up professionally in the relatively isolated laboratory environment. "You have to be able to put a deal together, and be creative about structuring the new relationship - sharing of the technology, the revenue streams, and how the technology is paid for, so that the partnership is consistent with the growth in value of the small company and yet meets the needs of the large company," Wyse says.

"It's a lot of instinct - though you do your due diligence. . . . The problem is, scientists [who invent a technology] don't always make good managers. Some can make the transition, but usually it's very difficult."