BioPartnering and Julia Child
Recently I saw the film “Julie/Julia” which is about the life of the famous chef and teacher Julia Child, and a modern woman (Julie) who commits to preparing all the recipes in the book “Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Volume One” in one year. The film is very enjoyable and I recommend it highly. Afterward, it occurred to me that partnering is a lot like cooking, in that various distinct ingredients are required to make a delicious meal, or successful partnership. To compare two merged biotech companies, or a licensing deal between a big pharma company and a small biotech company, to boeuf bourguignon may seem to be a stretch of the imagination. Yet for this dish to be successful at the dinner table, it is necessary to have the right ingredients added at the proper time, according to specific conditions. This is exactly how to create successful life science company partnerships. Life science partnering, or “BioPartnering”, which is a term first used by our company TVG in 1993 at the world’s first meeting dedicated to this function (BioPartnering Europe), has now become one of the most important ways that biotech and pharma companies can grow in 2009. It is now widely accepted in Europe, North America and Japan that BioPartnering deals make sense. But we must be wary about taking things for granted, as Julia Child found in 1950 when she contemplated creating a French cookbook for Americans. The problem she faced was that French cooking relied on having servants to do much of the preparatory work, and most Americans then, as now, did not have servants to rely upon. She had to create a new interpretation of French cooking, for servant-less Americans, and this is her first great innovation. In the world of BioPartnering, 25 years ago, it was uncommon for European and American/Canadian pharma and biotech companies to partner. Most people spent their entire careers working for the same company, especially the larger ones such as Merck, Pfizer, and others with household names who have since merged and disappeared from our lexicon. TVG had to work closely and carefully with life science companies to help demonstrate how BioPartnering could drive innovation, increase efficiencies and effectiveness at pharma and biotech companies, over the past 20 years. Over time, BioPartnering became a primary driver of innovation in this industry, and in many ways has used partnering more effectively than any other industry. It may be argued that the computer industry and the automotive industry would have changed much faster if partnering had been incorporated as dramatically as in the life science industry. The decline of companies such as GM and Chrysler, are examples of a mind-set based on “not invented here”. Looking ahead, this blog will carry my personal views on what BioPartnering is, how it is being practiced, and how specific BioPartnering deals are driving innovation around the world. As I travel in Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, Australia/New Zealand, I will present and analyse these trends. From a US, European or Japanese perspective, where there is a sense among the chattering classes that we are world leaders in technology innovation, I share a word of caution. The rest of the world is catching up, has caught up, and in some cases moved ahead in many crucial areas of innovation. There are huge opportunities contained in this situation for everyone. As I write this blog on August 28th, 2009, I am faced with a task not unlike that which faced Julia Child in 1950: to redefine a body of knowledge and specific practices (in her case French cooking) for a new audience much in need of guidance. In my case, to show that BioPartnering is now a global phenomenon and here to stay. It will find unique applications in India, in China, Brasil and Russia and everywhere else where life science entrepreneurs are to be found. I look forward to sharing my observations with you as a “biotech gadfly”.
Dr. Robert Lee Kilpatrick- Biotech Gadfly TVG LLC
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “Gadfly” is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, while at the same time being accepted as a description of honorable work or a civic duty.
