Mid-sized Players Dining Out on Big Pharma Leftovers

Big Pharmas are beginning to shy away from expensive licensing deals, at least until they begin to see returns on their existing blockbuster agreements. This reluctance is opening the door for mid-sized firms-particularly Europeans-to transform themselves through increased and more creative dealmaking. Moreover, the transition by traditionally in-licensing based firms like Spain's Esteve to out-licensers will accelerate the prominence of Europe's mid-sized players.

The middle siblings of the European pharmaceutical industry have traditionally had it tough. They're not big or liquid enough to get the stock market attention Big Pharma does nor are they as high-tech and investor-sophisticated as the biotechs. Instead, mid-sized players have often mired themselves into an investment netherworld by their ownership of slow-growing chemicals businesses and their inwardly focused family ownership and management.

But they have advantages, certainly over biotechs. Like plants that grow in the desert or fish that live miles below...

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