In the Spring of 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when there were real fears of a global downturn, PharmaVentures predicted that despite the forthcoming challenges, licensing and partnering would remain steady during 2020. With the year behind us, we are revisiting our deal closing predictions to see if they have held true.
The last few years have seen a rise in nationalism and populism across the world. In 2016, the US voted in the populist Donald Trump on his promise to ‘Make America Great Again’. In 2018, Hungary re-elected its national conservative prime minister Viktor Orbán with the slogan ‘ For us, Hungary is first’. And in 2019, India re-elected its Hindu nationalist ruler, Nehendra Modi, and the UK elected (with a large majority) the Eurosceptic Boris Johnson on his pledge to ‘Get Brexit Done’. Other nationalist world leaders retaining their support base include Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel, and Rodrigo Duerte in the Philippines.
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Even though medical diagnosis can be traced back to ancient Egypt in the 26th century BC (Edwin Smith Papyrus by Imhotep), in vitro diagnostics (IVD) as a field really started to take shape from late 20th century. Significant investments and research have been funnelled into early diagnosis of cancer with new products including next-generation sequencing, liquid biopsy and companion diagnostics, whilst payers are increasingly demanding biomarker stratification to justify the use of expensive drugs. Time and time again, the healthcare industry is buzzing with new ideas on how to use next generation diagnostics to achieve “smart healthcare,” but to date, this has not been realised. Yet, the unmet needs remain with ballooning healthcare cost, aging society and changes in disease trends.
At PharmaVentures, a data room is used as a location to store essential documents that are needed during an M&A or Divestment transaction. It is an essential part of the due diligence process which interested buyers access prior to closing a transaction. We routinely use Virtual Data Rooms (VDR) from third-party providers of which there are many. All provide similar functionality but three essential features are the ability to permission document access to an individual user level, feedback on user activity, and a copy of all activity that took place in the VDR as an audit trail.
Haematological malignancies are types of cancers affecting blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of blood cancers: leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. Of these, the most common blood cancer types include non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and multiple myeloma (MM). In the US, a newly diagnosed blood cancer patient is reported every three minutes, and new cases of blood cancers account for approximately 10% of all new cancer diagnoses. Also, an estimated 1.3 million people in the US are either living with or are in remission from blood cancer. Scientific and technological advances have led to a significant improvement in five-year relative survival rates for blood cancers, having more than doubled for lymphoma and more than quadrupled for myeloma and leukaemia over the last 50 years.
As you are aware PharmaVentures is a sector focused advisory firm and we are at the forefront of deal-making activity in the pharmaceutical, biotech, medtech and service sector industries such as CROs and CDMOs. Given the current backdrop and challenges facing companies executing live transactions or contemplating entering acquisition or divestment processes, we thought it may be useful to share with you our thoughts on the current deal-making environment and what we see in the ‘trenches’ of ongoing processes for our clients.