Insight Desk
History
Begun in 2000 at the LES annual meeting at Toronto, “Feeding the Pipeline” workshops have proved very popular with Licensing Executives, and for good reason. Despite the fact that the late-stage product shortage is an accepted fact of life to those in Licensing, the severity of the problem is not necessarily appreciated to the same degree by their management. The inventory estimates developed in 2000 have been used to provide a “wake up call” for senior management as to the difficulty of the product hunt. Beyond documenting the problem, the presentation and discussion consider strategic alternatives to the maddening stampede within the context of today’s transformational industry trends in the big pharma, specialty pharma and biotech sectors.
Current Workshop
FEEDING THE PIPELINE VIII
Over the Gap and Beyond?
Presented at the LES Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada
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the Presentation in PDF format
Past Workshops
FEEDING THE PIPELINE VII
Clearing the Innovation Bar
Presented at the LES Annual Meeting, New York, NY, Sept. 10-14, 2006
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FEEDING THE PIPELINE VI
Licensing Outside The Comfort Zone
Presented at the LES Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, Oct. 16-20, 2005
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FEEDING THE PIPELINE V
Dealing for Mutualism
Presented at the LES Annual Meeting, October, 2004 - Boston, MA
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Ed Saltzman’s Feeding the Pipeline presentations began in 2000 to document the limitations of Big Pharma's intense stampede for an incredibly shrinking number of late-stage product opportunities. Over the years, Ed’s presentation has evolved to examine the ever-increasing strategic challenges and responsibilities faced by Pharma and Biotech Licensing Executives. This year’s presentation, Feeding the Pipeline V: Dealing for Mutualism will consider the role of L&BD executives within the current context of unprecedented challenges to the industry.
Pharma’s foray into specialty markets is, at once, encroaching on a territory largely occupied by biotech, creating an imperative for the development of new win-win deal structures with biotech, and forcing consolidation within the biotech sector. Franchise focus to gain competitive advantage across the discovery-development-commercial spectrum will be paramount to success and survival.
Feeding the Pipeline V: Dealing for Mutualism will consider (1) current conditions and trends within the biopharmaceutical industry complex; (2) challenges and opportunities presented by instabilities within the complex, and by trends and realities such as pharma’s gravitation into specialty areas and biotech’s lead product dependence; and (3) the implications for remodeling and deal making within and among both sectors.
FEEDING THE PIPELINE IV
A Licensing Complex
Presented at the LES Annual Meeting, September, 2003 - San Diego, CA
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in PDF format
Ed Saltzman’s Feeding the Pipeline presentations began in 2000 to document the limitations of Big Pharma's intense stampede for an incredibly shrinking number of late-stage product opportunities. Over the years, Ed’s presentation has evolved to examine the ever-increasing strategic challenges and responsibilities faced by Pharma and Biotech Licensing Executives. This year’s presentation, Feeding the Pipeline IV: A Licensing Complex will consider the role of L&BD executives within the current context of unprecedented challenges to the industry’s established business models.
It is well recognized that Big Pharma (as well as the handful of companies constituting Big Biotech) are mired in an R&D productivity funk. Patent expirations on mega-billion dollar drugs loom for many of the large pharmacos, and the blockbusters to replace them are nowhere to be found. At the same time, the dismal situation in the financial markets has prompted the reorientation of much of Biotech into a drug discovery and development mode, wherein rapidly dwindling cash is committed to advancing one or two drug candidates through mid-stage trials. Not surprisingly, the time to market and risk associated with such programs has led investors to demand a more rapid path to commercialization, thereby forcing biotech companies to look outward for product licensing or acquisition opportunities. Once in the hunting ground, they invariably meet up with their Pharma counterparts, and all roads seem to lead either to dust or to astronomic valuation multiples. Meanwhile, Specialty Pharma continues to pursue its “serial product acquisition model,” hoping to acquire more of Big Pharma’s so-called “non-strategic” assets to drive growth, despite the increasingly common wisdom that such products are limited in supply.
The next 5-10 years will be characterized by tremendous ferment within the Pharma-Biotech-Specialty Pharma complex as existing business models are necessarily repaired, rebuilt or replaced. Feeding the Pipeline IV: A Licensing Complex will consider: 1) foundational instabilities in the various business models within each of the various industry sectors (Big Pharma, Biotech, Specialty Pharma; 2) reactions within and among each of the sectors, which is driving the demand for products at all stages of development, and 3) the implications for remodeling and deal making within each individual sector, as well as for the entirety of the complex.
FEEDING THE PIPELINE III
Re-Defining Opportunity Value in Late-Stage Licensing
Presented at the LES Annual Meeting, September, 2002 - Chicago, IL
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The number of legitimate late-stage product opportunities available for licensing with revenue potential attractive to big pharma is startlingly small. As a result, blockbuster patent expirations and barren internal late-stage pipelines continue to provoke a feeding frenzy for any opportunity that clears the bar, often regardless of strategic fit. The result is a "Theatre of the Absurd" production in which hundreds of pharma licensing buyers find themselves forced to play starring roles, squeezed on stage between a handful of increasingly demanding biotech sellers and their own senior management, which continues to ratchet up the pressure to land “The Big One.”
FEEDING THE PIPELINE II
Building and Sustaining Therapeutic Franchise Value
Presented at the LES Annual Meeting, October, 2001 - Palm Desert, CA
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FEEDING THE PIPELINE I
Alternatives To The Late Stage Product Stampede
Presented at the LES Annual Meeting, September, 2000 - Toronto, Ontario
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in PDF format
Feeding the Pipeline: Alternatives to the Late Stage Product Stampede was a popular presentation and workshop conducted by Ed Saltzman, President of Defined Health, at the annual meeting of the Licensing Executives Society, held September 9-16 2000 in Toronto.
The presentation reviewed and evaluated various alternatives to the intense competition for late stage blockbuster products. Specifically discussed were in-licensing of earlier stage compounds, "next generation" co-promotions, biotech acquisitions and broad-scale franchise development.
