The broad partnership to discover and commercialize drugs in vascular biology, inflammatory diseases, and oncology announced this month between GlaxoSmithKline and Exelixis recalls the halcyon big-deal era of 2000. But the new deal's objects, structure, and value confirm industry changes in the last two-plus years: a focus on compounds, not discovery-stage science; that Big Pharma's poor R&D productivity is becoming obvious even to its research leadership; and that the biotechs who can sign these kinds of deals combine a set of discovery technologies into a package that, theoretically, produces clinical compounds.
The broad partnership to discover and commercialize drugs in
vascular biology, inflammatory diseases, and oncology announced
this month between GlaxoSmithKline PLC
and Exelixis Inc. [See Deal] recalls
the halcyon big-deal era of 2000—when in a similarly
structured transaction Novartis AG and
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. hooked up
in a kinase target compound deal potentially worth $800 million
[See Deal].
But the new deal's objects, structure, and value confirm industry changes in the last two-plus years. First, like Novartis/Vertex, GSK...
