Live from Paris: Roger's dealmaking overview

Everyone was feeling a bit fuzzy this morning

Day two of our Euro-Biotech Forum opened up this morning with Roger Longman's dealmaking overview. One of the topics that Roger touched on was the increased specialization of biotech companies along the development continuum: Phase III specialists, proof-of-concept specialists, and--perhaps getting back to biotech's roots--discovery specialists.

The idea is to latch on to a particular and finite piece of the so-called value chain where investors can take advantage of an inflection point. Thanks to some of the astounding deal values we heard about yesterday this specialism is increasingly popular and undeniable profitable (when products work out--of course it's also a cheaper means of finding out quickly when they don't).

Below is a quick snapshot of the upshot for some of the discovery shops out there. Of course not all discovery companies opt-out at IND; some hang on to considerable upside. But the very idea that biotechs can subsist, and even thrive, as pure drug discovery purveyors recalls what seems to be a different, pre-FIPCO era.

Drug Discovery Pays