The global biopharmaceutical sales reached USD 775 B last year, but growth has stagnated and R&D pipelines continue to thin despite aging populations and growing burdens of chronic disease. Globally large pharmaceutical companies have increasingly looked outside for new sources of innovation over the last twenty years. 

Many external R&D models have proliferated across the industry, ranging from full virtualization to big M&A to co-developing very early (preclinical) stage assets with startup companies. Clinical trial success rates have been consistently higher for externally sourced drug candidates. Four broad elements guide big pharma companies’ selection of assets and technologies to license-in (or not) – strategic fit, quality of opportunity, feasibility and competitiveness – all of which contribute to the long term potential economics of the opportunity. 

This talk will focus on: 
(A) how big pharma companies acquire technologies from small companies and university labs; 
(B) how startup companies with preclinical stage drug candidates or technologies can best position themselves for successful negotiations with large drug companies and for scaling their businesses.

Date: 25 June 2018 (Mon)
Time: 5:00-6:30pm
Venue: iDendron, 1st Floor, Knowles Building, HKU
Speaker: Laura Nelson Carney

Laura Nelson Carney, PhD, is an equity investment analyst at Capital Group, with research responsibilities for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in Europe and Asia. Prior to joining Capital, Laura worked as an equity research analyst covering Asia-Pacific Healthcare at Sanford C. Bernstein. Before that, Laura was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, a senior scientist at Merck, and a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College London. She holds a PhD in neurosciences from Imperial College London and a BA in human biology from Stanford University.

Registration : https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=56678