The whole idea of “a pivot” goes back to the early 1600s. The French pivot meant a pin on which a wheel or other objects turns. For our context, similarly, we suggest a change in direction. The most apparent shift is occurring in the movement towards globalization and outsourcing. Leaders are aggressively balancing risk and rewards. Allow me to share the top evolutions.
- One size fits all blockbusters to tailored and personalized
- Regional to global to partnerships
- Vertically integrated to outsourced – we see this with expanded manufacturing footprints
- Tribal knowledge to intelligent systems and analytics
- Supply chains (controlled) to supply networks
- Documents and artifacts to metrics and decision-based models
Companies are pivoting from a hit something strategic for biotechnology to an “aim small, miss small” approach. Many companies are finding that acquiring partners is faster than making them. If we look at 2019 we see some clear patterns. The 2020 data is not consistent for many reasons.
- Bayer picked up BlueRock for $240M. Cell therapies are currently focused on neurology, cardiology, and immunology, with a lead program in Parkinson’s disease
- Boehringer acquired Amal therapeutics for $364M, Swiss biotech, focused on cancer immunotherapy and advancing first-in-class therapeutic cancer vaccines derived from its technology platform KISIMA
- Astellas acquired Potenza Therapeutics $165M, portfolio of novel immuno-oncology (I.O.) therapies
- Roche acquired Inception 5 for undisclosed amt., a drug discovery engine focused on developing innovative therapies in areas of high unmet medical need with small molecules. Official target of the program not disclosed.
- Thermo Fisher Scientific (instrumentation company) acquiring the testing supplier Qiagen (molecular diagnostics) for $11.5 billion.
- Molina Healthcare acquired the managed care company Magellan Complete Care for $820 million.
With Medicaid enrollment increasing, expansion of virtual health, broad adoption of home health, and remote work make targets that enable these functions more attractive.