Exelixis/GSK: Using Project Financing to Accelerate R&D

Productivity in biotech is a better problem to have than its opposite-but paying the higher-than-expected development costs makes it still a problem. Thanks to a variety of new project financing sources, and a particularly clever approach to amending its alliance with GlaxoSmithKline, Exelixis is fact trying to turn research productivity into a source of non-dilutive capital.

Productivity in biotech is a better problem to have than its opposite—but it's still a problem. Yet thanks to a variety of new project financing sources, and a particularly clever approach to marrying them with Big Pharma alliances, it is in fact possible to turn research productivity into a source of non-dilutive capital.

By mid- 2004, George Scangos, PhD realized his company was facing a major financing crunch. The CEO of Exelixis Inc....

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