The August Edition of Life Science Leader has a summary of a panel discussion. The article is available here, and is well worth the time to read it if you are involved in in- or out-licensing.
We won’t steal the author’s thunder by providing a lot of detail from the article. However, there are three points made by the panelists which we found extremely interesting.
Probability of Licensing Success
One panelist from Roche made the following point:
The Roche partnering team…[we] screen between 2,000 and 3,000 projects…perhaps 200 go into due diligence…Roche executes about 50 partnering deals per year.
Life Science Leader, August, 2018
In other words, Roche executes deals on roughly 2% of all projects they screen.
This is roughly the same number we’ve heard and read in other sources. Certainly less than 5% of all projects reviewed result in any sort of transaction.
So if you are a company seeking a multinational partnership, the odds are heavily against you unless you run a really good process…and even then the chances are high.
We suspect that the many of the 2,000-3,000 projects are screened very quickly because they are not an obvious fit for Roche. In other words, a number of those “projects” are submitted to Roche by companies who have not checked to see if Roche is even remotely interested in those therapeutic areas or stages of development.
Regardless, it is our belief that if you are out-licensing, and if your asset is on the edge of what a company like Roche might be looking for, then it behooves you to try.
The reality is that public statements describing what a company is looking for may not always reflect what is being discussed internally.
Organizational Complexity and Pace
Several panelists made comments about Big Pharma organizational complexity, and the resulting pace of communication relative to that of a much smaller company:
With Big Pharma there tends to be an inherent structural disconnect when it comes to speed…
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All of us can get frustrated with the slowness of any large organization. Large multinational pharmaceutical companies are no different than large multinational companies in other industries.
Obviously some level of patience in required. But, importantly, if you are a 10-person (or less) company trying to deal with a multi-thousand employee company, it is important to have an organization structure and maturity to recognize this reality, plan accordingly, and manage expectations (especially Board of Directors) accordingly.
International Partnerships
The panel discussion was focused on international partnerships, and again we encourage you to read the entire article. A few interesting items:
- China was described as the “Wild West” with lots of bio dollars, yet with challenges regarding respect for contracts;
- Brexit will change things; precisely how remains uncertain. What most people agree on is that European subsidies (grants, etc.) to the UK will be reduced significantly.
- Japanese companies are “extremely reliable…quality of certain biopharma components (i.e., medicinal chemistry) is fantastic.”
Again, it is a good article, packed with some interesting insights rarely seen in a summary of a panel discussion. Do check it out.
Attending BIO-Europe in November? Join us for a Pre-BIO-Europe gathering on Sunday, November 4, from 5 pm to 7 pm.
We will meet at the Mikkeller Bar, which is world-famous for its hand-crafted brews. And it’s only 1 km away from the official Opening Reception at City Hall.
Space is very limited, so grab a ticket (it’s free to attend) and have a few beverages and laughs with us before the conference.