Big Pharma concludes M&A is not the new R&D

With large firms seeking synergies to drive down R&D costs, merger and acquisition deals can aid in the transfer of technical knowledge, scalability and reduce time to market. However, previous M&A periods have not alleviated the productivity crisis. While short term gains emerge from these deals, in the mid- to long-term, R&D innovation, organic growth, and internal drivers are still key facet's behind creating a successful company and providing an organization with sustainability.

The debate rages on at the Next Generation Pharmaceutical (NGP) Summit (currently being held in Florida, USA) where industry players such as Jeffery Nye, chief medical officer at Johnson & Johnson, Reinilde Heyrman, vice president of clinical development at Daiichi Sankyo, Oscar Laskin, VP of early development at Celgene are leading the debate, joined by Ann Wang, VP of clinical operations at Human Genome Sciences which has recently seen a surge of 277% in its stock price owing to the continuing success of its Benlysta (belimumab). This drug is being developed for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by HGS and UK drug giant GlaxoSmithKline under a co-development and commercialization agreement entered into in August 2006 drug.

The NGP Summit clearly illustrates that the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry is in a state of transition. M&A, reorganization, consolidation and portfolio changes are being evaluated in order to maintain growth centers in the face of a myriad of serious challenges. Companies such as Millipore, Definiteness and PPD were called by the committee to share their thought leadership amongst over 50 of the worlds 'big Pharma' leaders.