Adviser and Business Mentor to Bioscience SMEs and Startups
What’s my business model? Who do I partner with? How do I scale up? These are typical strategic questions a young biotech will regularly face as it evolves from its initial Seed stage through its Series A, B and C funding rounds.
Continue reading “Business Models for a Young Biotech”
Many research-stage biotechs and other small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) prioritize partnerships with Big Partners or in Big Disease Indications without sufficient consideration of other options. But SMEs need to consider other factors when deciding who to partner their assets with and how. As do large pharmas partnering with SMEs
Continue reading “Is Big Always Best?”
Earlier this week, I spent three stimulating days at the 6th annual Strategic Alliance Management for Pharma conference in Barcelona from 18th to 20th April 2016. In this blog post, I highlight those sessions and insights that I personally found most interesting and valuable.
Continue reading “Conference Impressions from Strategic Alliance Management for Pharma 2016”
The trend of multinational pharma companies partnering with academia and small biotechs continues unabated. But given the additional risks inherent in such collaborations, how many of these partnerships will eventually lead to innovative new medicines?
Continue reading “Hidden Risks for Pharma Companies Collaborating with Academia and Small Biotechs”
Are the best project leaders for partnered projects th same as those with strong established track records of success in internal projects? The answer is, “Yes, but …” as I shall explain in this blog post
Continue reading “Attributes of a Good Project Leader in an R&D Partnership”
Partnering assets with large pharmaceutical, diagnostic or medical device multinationals is a critical part of the business model for many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the life sciences. But does it make sense for an SME to have a clearly defined partnering strategy or should it be opportunistic?
Continue reading “Strategic Asset Partnering for Bioscience SMEs—Planned or Opportunistic?”
Alliance managers are a critical component of how an increasing number of biopharma organizations manage their R&D and commercial partnerships. But many participants in collaborative projects or ventures do not fully comprehend nor appreciate their role. Having led a workshop last month at the very stimulating Strategic Alliance Management for Pharma conference in Barcelona, it struck me once again how varied the understanding of this important role is even amongst practitioners. Not that this variation matters of course as long as the role adds value, especially given the diversity of the underlying alliances. Nevertheless, I thought it might be useful to at least summarize in one article all the important potential elements of the role.
Some companies manage their important collaborators and alliance partners as if they were strategic suppliers. But this does not always make sense for every commercial and R&D alliance in today’s networked business world. In this article, we outline how the approach adopted for alliance management has evolved from the strategic sourcing and supplier relationship management paradigms, and discuss in more detail why it needs to go well beyond those roots in certain circumstances.
Continue reading “Do you Manage your Alliance Partner like a Supplier?”
I regularly get asked about the difference between a “collaboration” versus an “alliance” in the business or scientific domain, and also between “collaboration management” and “alliance management”. This is a short blog post to clear up the confusion.
Continue reading “How does an Alliance differ from a Collaboration?”
Collaborations between pharmaceutical or medical technology companies with academic research groups exhibit certain distinctive features not present when these industry players partner with each other. We look at some of the unique challenges and opportunities thrown up in these situations.
Continue reading “Ensuring Successful Industry-Academia Collaborations”
Robert Thong 