PharmaDeals Review Business Commentaries
Dr Fintan Walton, PharmaVentures’ CEO, provides monthly comment on topical biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry issues. Includes access to Fintan’s commentaries broadcast on PharmaTelevision.
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Boehringer and Ablynx to Partner Again
From issue 88 of the PharmaDeals Review (2007-10-01)
The latest in a string of deals into which the Belgian company Ablynx has entered is one with Boehringer Ingelheim signed on 7 September 2007. The global strategic alliance between the two companies is for the discovery, development and commercialisation of up to ten different therapeutics based on Ablynx’s proprietary technology. This is the sixth collaboration that Ablynx has formed with a major pharma, and, for this small university spin-off company which has existed for only 6 years, signifies the potential of its technology: Ablynx is one of only a handful of firms pioneering miniature antibodies, or Nanobodies®, as they are termed by Ablynx. The article looks at Ablynx’s mini-antibody platform and pipeline, and discusses the deals the company has made, including the two with Boehringer, as well as GlaxoSmithKline’s recent acquisition of rival company Domantis.
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Delivering Success from Seed Capital Investment
From issue 88 of the PharmaDeals Review (2007-10-01)
This feature looks at the approach taken by Oxford Technology Management (OTM) to making and managing investments in start-up and early-stage technology-based businesses with high growth prospects. It takes its content from a PharmaTelevision interview in which Fintan Walton, CEO of PharmaVentures, talked to Dr Matthew Frohn, Director of OTM. The topics discussed include: Venture Capital Trusts (which are unique to the UK); OTM’s requirements for investee companies – which include locality, appropriate technology mix and the associated range of product timelines; reasons for failure and success; and the future development of OTM’s investment funds.
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Technology Focus: New Frontiers in Transdermal Drug Delivery Systems
From issue 88 of the PharmaDeals Review (2007-10-01)
In this article adapted from PharmaVenture’s Spring/Summer 2007 Drug Delivery Report, Murat Karabiyikoglu looks at transdermal drug delivery (TDD) systems, which, although they have a relatively short regulatory history, have become a proven technology over the past two decades. The benefits of and challenges facing TDD systems are examined, along with the various approaches that have been taken – which include using formulations that increase skin permeability, packaging drugs into particulate carrier systems, and increasing skin permeability by physical means, such as electroporation or the use of micro-needles. The progress that has been made in three areas, pain management, diabetes management and vaccination, is outlined, and some of the deals that have been made in these areas are noted.
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Targacept and GSK: Power and Paradigms
From issue 87 of the PharmaDeals Review (2007-09-01)
Another month, and another billion-dollar deal which doesn’t involve a company being bought. The company which is currently blazing the billion-dollar R&D deal trail is global giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which is signing and managing a number of mega-value alliances through its novel strategic unit, the Centre of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD). The latest is a US$1.535 B deal with Targacept in the CNS area. Although at first glance this might seem to be the dream scenario for a budding biotech, closer inspection of a number of major deals signed through GSK’s CEEDD suggests that companies are making hard sacrifices in return for the potential returns that are being offered through the CEEDD alliance model. This article asks whether the economics of these early-stage deals represent a new paradigm in biotech deal making, looking in particular at the Targacept deal and the whole CEEDD approach.
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Siemens and Dade: A Symptomatic Consolidation
From issue 87 of the PharmaDeals Review (2007-09-01)
The medical diagnostics industry has seen a wave of M&A activity in the past year, and this trend looks set to continue. This recent activity has highlighted the intense pressure on the companies competing to remain the big players in the industry. The latest of several high-profile acquisitions was the US$7 B purchase of Dade Behring Holdings by Siemens Medical Solutions USA. This acquisition will give the new combined company total sales of over US$4.2 B: US$1.7 B from Dade and US$2.5 B from Siemens (based on 2006 figures). Siemens will therefore become the second largest company in the diagnostics industry, leap-frogging Abbott Laboratories, which had sales of US$4 B in 2006, but remaining behind Roche, whose Diagnostics Division made sales of US$ 7.2 B in 2006. This article discusses the rationale of the acquisition, and the high price paid in relation both to Dade’s turnaround from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002 and the current active state of the diagnostics acquisition market. It also sets the deal in the context of others made recently in the diagnostics industry, and discusses the likelihood of future diagnostics acquisitions.
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