#73

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Product Licensing Deals a Mixed Picture?

Chris Dokomajilar, a Deloitte analyst, sees values of licensing deals down this year, with lower milestones but preserved upfront payments.  

 more -Fiercebiotech 

 Evaluate Pharma has counted only 189 product deals so far in 2012, compared to 669 for all of 2011.  Dividing the aggregate upfront by the number of deals, the average upfront is up 37% in 2012.  And the average total deal value is also up but only by 11%. 

PWC reports diagnostic deals are up in number in 2012.  more -PWC in FT 

However, I hear from big pharma and biotech that fewer deals may be getting done, but desirable assets are commanding really big deals.

My own experience (a small non-representative sample) suggests active deal making, with tough negotiations from buyers seeking real value.  

Amyloid trial in Alzheimer's fails; is intervention just too late?

An antibody to amyloid (licensed from Elan to Pfizer and Janssen) failed a Phase III trial in people with the higher-risk ApoE4 gene.  Additional trials are still to come and Lilly will also report on a Phase III trial with its amyloid antibody.   But was this a test of the amyloid hypothesis or was this just too late to intervene?   

A recent NEJM article suggests changes can be detected in autosomal dominant Alzheimer's patients many years before symptoms are apparent.

• 25 years before symptom onset--  amyloid-beta (Aβ)42 in the cerebral spinal fluid appeared to decline  
• 15 years before symptoms -- Aβ deposition, increased tau protein in the CSF and an increase in brain atrophy were detected.   
• 10 years before symptoms  -- cerebral hypometabolism and impaired episodic memory were observed.  
• 5 years before symptoms -- global cognitive impairment, as measured by the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Clinical Dementia Rating scale, was detected
• 3 years after symptom onset -- patients met diagnostic criteria for dementia 

These data suggest the process is long and earlier intervention will be possible.  

more- NEJM

Crowd-funding for biotech?

Crowd-funding has now raised over $10M for the cool e-paper Pebble watch.  NPR may use crowd-funding instead of pledge drives.  In a free white-paper, Scott Jordan discusses that the concept of crowd-funding donations to the worthy causes of biotech drug development.      

free white paper

VC funding and firms down, M&A up with big VC exits

• The dollar value of VC deals fell almost 52% during the second quarter from year-ago numbers (a high), with about $696.8 million invested in a total 90 biopharma companies during Q2 '12, compared with $1.4 billion in 129 deals during the second quarter of 2011, according to the quarterly MoneyTree Report.
•  First round investments fell nearly 79% since the second quarter of last year to $65.9 million in 14 deals -- the smallest numbers in a decade-from $313.7 million in 32 deals. more - GEN

Particularly disturbing for the longer term is the decline in number of VC firms and VC partners focused on biotech. 

more-Bruce Booth on VC numbers

If I can ever be of help with the partnering of your drug candidate or drug discovery technology, please just ask.  I work on a simple hourly basis and help with all aspects of partnering from shaping presentations, to making contacts, to evaluations and preliminary valuations, to negotiations.  

Sincerely,

Linda

Linda Pullan

1-805-558-0361
www.PullanConsulting.com 
lpullan@msn.com
linda@pullanconsulting.com