Novartis' Competing Venture Funds Pursue Lower-Cost Innovation

As biotech deal prices skyrocket, pharma's trying to get in on the ground floor, hoping for a bargain. But innovation-for-less is tough to engineer, and not everyone agrees on how it can be nurtured--and who is best placed to do the nurturing. Novartis now has two competing groups pursuing lower-cost venture-based paths to innovation. Neither, apparently, wants much to do with the other.