The Widening Gulf in Pharmaceutical Dealmaking

Executive Summary

The pharma-to-biotech dealmaking drought, which began in 1999, continues in 2000. Drug companies have been distracted by consolidation and by their focus on later-stage products; biotechs have found funding through the capital markets. Instead, there have been plenty of biotech-to-biotech deals--little cash changes hands, but each partner's technology enables the other to reach later-stages of development, and thus keep a higher proportion of the drug's upside, granted the other has the cash to develop it.