The FACCSF Life Science Committee organized on May 27th 2009, the “Alliance Management” conference at Gilead Sciences, Inc. in Foster City. Norma Watenbaugh, from the Phoenix Consulting Group moderated the discussions between Xavier Avat, Director of Alliance Management at Gilead; Christophe Degois, Consultant; and Dr. Benner from OncoMed on “Maximizing your chances for success. Perspectives from big, small and global life sciences companies”.

Strategic alliances are vital for biotech companies, as a key to share risks and rewards.

Follow up:

In order to build effective partnerships, Gilead strives to manage three key levers of Alliances: strategic alignment, execution and operating with a collaborative mindset. From a strategic perspective, Gilead and its partners focus on keeping incentives aligned, which includes building and revisiting periodically the common vision for success that we share. Gilead also wants to understand what is driving its partners and more generally try to develop a solid understanding of its partners’ portfolios and key financial metrics. Operational execution is the other lever for success. It relies on implementing robust, yet flexible and nimble alliance infrastructures, engaging Executive champions who will help build internal as well as external alignment and Alliance Managers whom activities – most of them behind the scene - contribute to effective collaborations. Yet success remains greatly dependant on people and a collaborative mindset that creates an environment of trust is primordial.

The Alliance between OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, a small biotech company and GSK was driven by the fact that two of the four candidate selection compounds discovered by OncoMed went through Phase II. The alliance agreement structure was milestone driven. Indeed, the two companies share 50/50 development costs through Phase II but GSK pays 100% Phase III development costs and commercializes.

According to Christophe Degois, Biotech Executive with a extensive experience with high profile companies such a PDL, deciding what it is important for your company, doing your own due diligence on potential partners and visiting them, working closely with your financial and legal department have to be done before the alliance’s deal. The negotiation has to include certain obligations for your partner as audit rights and has to be as pessimistic as possible. Then comes the alliance management which can be improved by planning for internal resources to bring partners on board, organizing regular meetings with your partners, supporting your partners in key events and identifying synergies.

The Life Science Committee is looking forward to organizing its next conference in October and hopes that it will attract as many people as the Alliance Management conference did.