Changing environment making biotech a more attractive partner for Big Pharma

In a review of the current macro-economic environments pressuring the biotechnology industry in light of a slow-paced economic recovery, South Africa-based consultancy RothmanResearch.com says that this is making the biotechnology sector an ever more attractive partner for Big Pharm.

It points out that, in March 2009, US President Barack Obama repealed the Bush era ban put on stem cell research. This deregulation allowed the biotechnology industry to once again take up its cutting-edge research targeted at creating new treatments. It is these new treatments, like the growing popularity of gene therapy, that are drawing attention towards the biotechnology sector from its bigger sibling the pharmaceutical industry.

With billions of dollars in brand-name drug patents scheduled to come off the books and be replaced by generics during the next few years, Big Pharma is restructuring the way it does business. With few revolutionary medicines anticipated to come to market, these companies are looking to acquire or work together with biotechnology companies as a means to produce new treatments that will pad their bottom line.