Partnering: the answer to funding lower-priority clinical trials?

By necessity, biopharma companies allocate their development resources to assets and clinical trials that promise the best return. Building on common sense and sound business practice, pharmaceutical companies are proficient in prioritising their development dollars. However, the downside of that equation is the opportunity cost of not progressing lower-priority clinical studies.

The value of development assets is based on potential future revenue. The limiting factor to that value is the patent expiration date associated with it. This means any critical path trial that is delayed postpones registration and reduces the value of an asset because the period during which revenue can be earned is shortened.

The cost of funding a clinical trial today can cost biopharma companies upwards of $100 million.¹ Global pharma businesses that spent the last decade building a robust pipeline of early stage compounds and indications are now faced with a wide portfolio of potential assets without the resources to fund their development. The result? Drug makers that have made the investments necessary to ensure strong R&D pipelines are now losing billions each year in potential revenue as promising new therapies are sitting dormant, waiting for their patents to expire.

Innovative strategists in Big Pharma are exploring a new way to claw back some of these costs and expand the number of new therapies that go through to the development and clinical trial stage. In a word, partnerships. Working with CROs, universities and patient advocacy organisations, drug makers can find investors who see their compounds and indications as valuable assets, and are willing to provide the capital and share the risk involved in getting a promising new therapy through the development stage, regulatory approvals and launched to market.

Companies interested in partnering to fund lower-priority drug trials should consider this investment roadmap to begin exploring the possibility of partnerships to fund lower-priority drug trials (Figure 1).