Feel the Pain

With the conference winding down, you can clearly feel the change in emotion throughout the halls, lobby and conference rooms of the St. Frances. What was once a vibrant and high energy crowd is now a dwindling group of tired and emotionally drained individuals. To navigate through the H&Q conference successfully, one needs stamina, good shoes and a strong posture. Call it coincidence, but the majority of companies I met with on Thursday were in the CNS field. My conclusion: The majority of

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With the conference winding down, you can clearly feel the change in emotion throughout the halls, lobby and conference rooms of the St. Frances. What was once a vibrant and high energy crowd is now a dwindling group of tired and emotionally drained individuals. To navigate through the H&Q conference successfully, one needs stamina, good shoes and a strong posture. Call it coincidence, but the majority of companies I met with on Thursday were in the CNS field. My conclusion: The majority of this year?s deal flow will come out of the CNS sector. The compounds companies want to see the most? in the words of Clubber Lang in Rocky III: ?I predict pain.? Although many companies want to acquire pain compounds, there are very few products readily available. This leads me to believe that companies looking to acquire pain products will likely search for early clinical stage or even preclinical products. The other theme I found interesting was that many biotech executives have expressed interest in acquiring reformulated compounds. The companies expressing interest have ranged from investors looking to start new companies to well established companies looking to diversify their pipelines. This probably isn?t a bad strategy considering there is less inherent clinical risk involved in developing reformulated drugs. Anonymous quote of the day: ?I love biotechnology because there is no other job in the world where I can invest my time building companies that will make my children live healthier and longer lives.?
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