Partnering up

Mark Strobeck is the Vice President of Business Development within R&D at GSK’s Center of External Excellence for Drug Discovery (CEEDD). He has a PhD in pharmacology and after about five years in the venture capital industry, moved to GSK two years ago to help start the new drug discovery division. His primary role and responsibilities are to go out and find opportunities for the division and help bring those opportunities through a due diligence process, negotiating a collaboration with the partner to bring that relationship to completion.

Aim

The aim of the CEEDD is to provide GSK with alternative scientific and drug discovery approaches. One way in which the CEEDD do this is by partnering with other companies to capture the innovation and the efficiencies that exist within biotech companies. Strobeck says, “The CEEDD is an organically grown drug discovery program in that it exists outside of the organization, through a network of business development relationships, and we’ve created a drug discovery portfolio from target to clinical proof of concept that exists and resides within the hands of our partners.”

Strobeck goes on to say that the CEEDD feel that through their partnerships they are able to capitalize on the efficiencies that exist within their partners businesses.

Risky business

Partnerships can be risky as is drug discovery itself. According to Strobeck, the way the CEEDD overcomes a number of the traditional pitfalls normally associated with partnerships is through the team’s collective experience. He explains that the CEEDD have a small team of very significantly experienced pharmaceutical professionals that evaluate these relationships and help steer the relationships, “at the end of the day it is largely our partners who are taking their own programs forward.”

Balance

Strobeck points to the initial establishment of a relationship as key to being successful in working with another company. He says that the CEEDD have found that by being available if the partner needs them and to even help provide experiences that GSK themselves have had in drug discovery. However, it is crucial, from Strobeck’s perspective, to stay out of the partner’s way and allow them to continue to progress with their program rather than create additional steps of bureaucracy that prevent the program moving forward. “It is striking the right balance that is really important in setting up and establishing a successful collaboration.”

Science plus management team

Strobeck cites the most important thing to look for when considering a collaboration with another company is that that company produces first class science. He also says that it is important that the potential company have good management teams. For their model to work the CEEDD need to work with professionals who have significant drug discovery and development experience, and in addition, significant partnership experience. “We very much look at management team and fit. There needs to be a good working relationship between the two parties and we spend a lot of time evaluating as well as establishing that.” Strobeck goes on to say that they the CEEDD will also look for companies that have had successful partnerships in the past or have a track record of lucrative partnerships.

Big deal

In August 2006 GSK and ChemCentryx entered into a strategic alliance to discover, develop and market novel medicines that target four chemokine and chemoattractant receptors for a variety of flammority disorders. The deal cost $1.5billion. Strobeck explains the importance of the deal was due to the strong scientific expertise that resides within ChemoCentryx and after coming through a review process of over 100 potential companies it seemed to be a leading candidate for a partnership. “From our perspective this was the largest relationship we’ve put in place to date. It gave us access to the latest stage compounds that we have been able to access to date, and it gives us access to the leading chemokine company in the world.”

Was it worth $1.5billion? “The partnership is certainly worth $1.5billion,” says Strobeck.

Success

GSK’s CEEDD is an interesting concept, one that seems to be catching on in the pharma industry. Many companies are faced with the same challenges within R&D from patent expiries to product failures and diminishing productivity. “Everyone is looking for new and innovative ways in which to influence their pipelines and although we were certainly not the first ones to think about this over time, depending on the success of this model, I think it may lead others to do this as well.”

Future

Strobeck says that the CEEDD will continue to try and access innovation and efficiencies that exist within the biotech model. He also believes that the CEEDD’s role in virtualization will have an important role in the way that R&D organizations are set up in the future, “ this notion of virtualization will over time have role within R&D organizations. There is no way R&D organizations will become completely virtualized but it will certainly have a role and an impact.”

“It is striking the right balance that is really important in setting up and establishing a successful collaboration”

“at the end of the day it is largely our partners who are taking their own programs forward”