Dear Friends and Colleagues

The biotech financing drought, combined with increasing externalization of pharma R&D, should be creating an ideal climate for successful deal-making. Yet executing partnerships between biopharma sellers and buyers remains incredibly challenging. In summer 2011, we surveyed nearly 80 senior business development executives to find the keys to executing mutually satisfying deals.

We are pleased to share the survey results with you, as recently published in IN VIVO, the Business and Medicine Report from Elsevier Business Intelligence, and in a two-page highlights summary.

Links to download the PDFs are below.

Bridging The Gap Between Sell- And Buy- Sides In Biopharma Business Development	Survey Highlights from “Bridging the Gap Between Sell- and Buy-Sides in Biopharma Business Development”

Key themes from our analysis:

1. The importance of honest communication that explicitly outlines how a potential partnership fulfills the strategic goals of both buyers and sellers is vital, and should occur from the start of the partnership dance.
2. In parallel with communication, comes relationship-building, which begins long before companies are ready to sign a partnership, and necessitates sellers identifying big pharma champions in R & D or commercial groups.
3. Before momentum can really build towards executing a deal, however, both parties often need to do a reality check, with buyers compromising on the quality/quantity of data that is realistically available to ink a transaction, and sellers adopting a more rational view of their product’s market potential.

We held a webinar to discuss the survey results on November 29, 2011. To watch a recording of the webinar, click here.

We would be happy to discuss the survey results with you, as well as our firm’s capabilities, expertise, and recent transactions. Feel free to contact any of the LWP team.

All the Best,

The Locust Walk Partners Team