Novo-ZymoGenetics: The Next Roche-Genentech?

Novo Nordisk's decision to spin off ZymoGenetics in 2000 was 100% inspired by Roche's hands-off relationship with Genentech. The parent claims Zymo's R&D productivity has since increased; its recent ex-US deal with Bayer-Schering on recombinant thrombin proves that Zymo has certainly grown up and left home.

When Lars Rebien Sørensen, president and CEO of Novo Nordisk AS, was trying to figure out in the late ‘90s what to do with the company’s US bioinformatics and genomics subsidiary ZymoGenetics Inc. , he was "100% inspired," he says, by Roche’s hands-off relationship with Genentech Inc.

Roche-Genentech is held up as the industry’s most convincing proof that biotechs are more productive when left to operate largely independently, outside the rules and confines of bigger pharma. So...

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