Financing Pharma: Creative Ways Companies Are Funding Risk
Even the biggest companies now have to make lots of choices about what to develop and commercialize. Private equity looked, for a time, to be an interesting source of capital – but that’s apparently disappeared. But some biotechs and pharmas have crafted some interesting potential solutions to the dilemma.

Can emerging markets fill in pharma’s revenues/growth gap?
A review of alliances and acquisitions in emerging markets with a follow-on panel representing specific deals made.

Corporate VC: Encouraging innovation…creating optionality.
As biotechs’ financing options dwindle, corporate VC becomes a much more powerful business development tool. Along with the equity they purchase, pharma can now get options on products – the ability to pay for assets once they’ve got real evidence of their value. But oddly enough, corporate VC deals are also looking good for the founding investors, providing likelier exits with still-substantial returns.

In-Licensing from Established Pharma: Has It Worked?
The remarkable turnaround approval of Vanda’s iloperidone highlights a still-popular but hardly proven strategy – in-licensing drug-company development-stage cast-offs. But while a number of in-licensers have seen good investor returns by selling their companies before their products have been approved, it’s relatively rare to find start-ups who have successfully developed in-licensed products. So does the strategy work? Should companies pursue it – and when?

The pieces of health-care reform that really matter to biopharma.
It’s big, it’s complex, lots of it doesn’t apply to your job – but key parts will change how you’ll choose among R&D candidates and then how you’ll develop and commercialize them. We’ll pick apart the reform proposals to show where and how they’ll be important to you.

• Follow-on biologics: How the rules will play out in the market – and how they’ll affect innovator drugs and innovator strategies.

• Evidence required: Cost effectiveness? Comparative effectiveness? What evidence will FDA, CMS, NICE and other policy groups and payers require from you to get your products to market – and paid for.