Washington Editor

WASHINGTON - Most CEOs, researchers and investors in the drug and biologics industry would agree that often it takes 100 ideas to find one or two drugs that actually work.

So in this highly competitive field, how's a small biotechnology company supposed to get the attention of a large pharmaceutical firm when it comes time to find a partner?

Representatives from three large pharmaceutical companies - AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, of London; Merck & Co. Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J.; and Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., of Nutley, N.J. - answered that question in various ways Tuesday during the opening session of the BioWindover partnering conference in Washington.

The pharmaceutical industry, said Lee Babiss, vice president of preclinical research at Roche, realizes the relationship with biotechnology is intimate and incredibly important, "and we are not so arrogant to think that we can do it on our own."

Babiss went on to explain Roche's business strategy for collaborations with companies such as Trimeris Inc., of Durham, N.C. That partnership resulted in the successful development and FDA approval of Fuzeon, a first-in-class fusion inhibitor for HIV-1. (See BioWorld Today, March 17, 2003.)

Back in 1999, Trimeris senior managers Dani Bolognesi and Tom Matthews were looking to partner T-20 (Fuzeon), and managed to snag the 50-50 development deal (U.S. and Canada) with Roche. Babiss said Roche's streamlined business process, complete with one committee designated to select collaborations, enables the company to enter deals in 60 to 90 days. (See BioWorld Today, July 13, 1999, and June 20, 2001.)

Today there are many more companies out there like Trimeris, including South San Francisco-based Tularik Inc., whose lead candidate is T67, a small-molecule compound that binds irreversibly to B-tubulin, an anticancer drug target. (T67 is in a pivotal Phase II/III trial for liver cancer.)

Following the 90-minute panel session on partnering relationships between biologics and drug companies, Jack Anthony, senior vice president of business and commercial development for Tularik, told BioWorld Today that it's not impossible to "go it alone" when you're a small biotech, but it is a matter of deciding what you want to be when you grow up. "Do you want to stand at the mailbox and wait for a royalty check?" he said. "Launching a product is no small feat, so there is a tradeoff. When small biotechs go for a deal, they must have a clear idea of what they really want, and they must be flexible."

But on the other side, there's a lot of competition out there. When Anthony entered the biotechnology field in 1989, he said there were probably about 400 companies. "Today, globally, from the two-man shop to the company with thousands of employees, there are probably 5,000 companies."

So, in order to get on the radar screen of large pharma, Anthony said you have to have a quality program with compelling data, and you must be able to fill the needs of the large pharmaceutical company.

For example, Jan Lundberg, head of global discovery research at AstraZeneca, commented on some of the company's interests to include predictive response markers in chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases.

He went on to say AstraZeneca has interest in other technologies as well, adding that the biotechnology industry oversold the genomics revolution. "One big mistake was to assume that the genomics revolution would deliver drugs in one or two years. We have paid millions of dollars to biotechs that haven't delivered."

Speaking of money, Tony Ford-Hutchinson, executive vice president, worldwide basic research of Merck, said the amount of money Merck has spent on external collaborations has dramatically increased over the years. Nevertheless, the company has the ability to predict targets and kill compounds when they need to be killed.