Partisans of Death Valley

I have written a lot of critical words regarding Big Pharma model to simulate conduct development of new drugs. And I have also written a couple of words that the current environment is extremely profitable for those who has novel ideas and dire to challenge Big Pharma, those who can fight in Death Valley to transform these ideas in new concepts, products, treatments, approaches resulting hopefully to change the current paradigm. These fighters can be called as Death Valley partisans because they are struggling for development and commercialization of novel science behind the front line of Big Pharma, they suffer very much from the traps and mine fields arranged by authorities and Big Pharma in a form of hard rules and guidelines, they are waiting silently in low-budget ambush until they find the best situation to make a shot not having any chance for the second attempt. They have it pretty hard but they are waiting for the jack-pot. For awfully big rewards which has to compensate all their straggle. On the other hand I don’t think that the main motivator is money. Their creativity, their principles, the desire to make it happens, to internal demand to build something novel, useful and original are the main driving force for these men and women. They work hard and deserve to be prized.

And here is the nice description of how a business model of Partisans of Death Valley can look like:

"In the meantime, one biotech model gaining traction is the single asset, infrastructure-lite, development model, which deploys modest amounts of capital to develop a single compound to an early clinical data package which can be partnered with pharma. The asset resides within an LLC, and following the license transaction, the LLC is wound down and distributes the upfront, milestone and royalty payments to the LLC members on a pro rata basis. The key to success in this model is choosing the appropriate asset/indication – one where it is possible to get to a clinical data package on limited capital. This approach excludes many molecules and indications often favored by biotech, and tends to drive towards clinical studies using …"

So true! And I agree with the author:

"Amidst all this turmoil a couple of things remain constant. The pace of innovative research and discoveries by our talented scientists in the public sector has not slowed; and pharma’s need for promising compounds is more dire than ever. However, the way in which one reaches the other is in flux at the present time, presenting a challenge but also an opportunity. In its latest efforts, pharma seems to be trying to sidestep the richly priced acquisitions and licensing deals of previous years by cutting out the middle market and going directly to the source – with a recent trend for generously funded research collaborations being doled out to top tier universities. Whether pharma has the agility to stock its pipeline through this mechanism without relying on biotech companies seems unlikely."

Good luck, Partisans, I am playing on your side!