Media

Pharma frenemies (The Economist)

Novasecta provided perspectives for The Economist newspaper on signs of a new wave of strategic collaborations between pharma companies as an alternative to expensive and often wasteful M&A. Our perspective is that the recently announced collaboration between Merck and AstraZeneca in immuno-oncology is great for patients and the industry: working together rather than simply acquiring a company brings out the best in each company. Over the years we have been proactively catalysing such collaborations for many of our consulting clients as they seek better ways than M&A to build their R&D pipelines, as described in our white paper“Better Partnerships, the Alternative to M&A?”

Novasecta was cited several times in The Economist article, first John Rountree commented that the recent disappointing results from AstraZeneca’s Mystic trial “suggest it is still early days for immuno-oncology R&D, not that there is something wrong with the technology.” Then our research earlier this year into expensive M&A and the increasing trend in revenue multiples was cited, and John added later in the article that “working together is an effective way to mix laboratory talent and to bring medicines to patients”. To view the full article, click here.