The agenda of the Pharma Partnering Summit conference is put together carefully, after listening to the needs and requests of industry executives, CEOs, Vice Presidents and Directors in Business Development & Licensing, Alliance Management, Tech Transfer executives, specialists investors in the Life Sciences, corporate advisors and expert organisations in the sector.
Registration
Chairman's Address
Company Showcasing
Mid-Morning Coffee Break.
Lunch Break
Afternoon Coffee.
Panel Discussion 4
Mid-Morning Coffee Break
Panel Discussion 5
Closing Remarks
Afternoon Coffee
Networking.
The industry developments of the last decade have changed the shape of the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. With the consolidation of the pharma industry R&D productivity seems to be insufficient to support the growth. The underlying need for alliances on the part of ‘big pharma’ in order to fuel growth by ensuring access to new products, and optimizing drug development and commercialisation, seems to go from strength to strength. This has driven the number of alliances worldwide between pharma and biotech companies. At the same time, the total value of alliances has seen an explosion in growth, as big companies compete for the same assets. Alliances have surged to the point that most pharmaceutical companies see each other as potential partners; a remarkably different view compared to doing business a few decades ago. While access to new compounds and novel technologies drives most partnerships, sharing risk in development can be just as important a reason for partnering.
It is consequently no real surprise that, on average, around 30 per cent of the actual revenues of big pharma companies’ derives from products licensed many years ago. This number is projected to increase further, based on the recently licensed compounds now in development. Thankfully, the needs from big pharma are complementary to the partnering needs of biotechs. In a transaction though, the needs of each side can differ widely. Biotechs are small, have little cash and little (if any) revenue stream from product sales. A biotech would also have typically only one or two compounds or technologies to license out, and biotechs focus on development speed and minimum requirements, while pharmas by nature, focus on delivering the optimal profile for a product that can maximise commercial success. This is often the reason for ‘valuation discrepancies’ while a deal is negotiated, with the biotech believing that the compound is more advanced in development than the pharma company considers.
Interestingly enough, big pharma is not only looking to acquire rights to new compounds, but is often trying to find partners for compounds which have been prioritised out of the R&D portfolio and it is becoming increasingly common for very small companies to license compounds from very large companies. Even the largest pharmaceutical companies have certain limitations to their own discovery and development capabilities to bring new compounds to the market very effectively.
The market success of a licensed compound depends on the partner’s effort behind commercialisation. However, even though the strongest company in a field is sometimes the best, this is not always the case. The right partner would be the partner that will best serve the assets. The development stage of products plays an important role in the licensing process. The reasons for a product to be outlicensed, could vary substantially for a compound yet to be developed versus a product already marketed.
