The difficulties that the industry has experienced over the last few years, therefore, were not only inevitable. They were also necessary. There are certainly clear indications that the biotech sector as a whole has realised that to succeed it must, ultimately, spread its risk more carefully. If there is one area of the biotech market unquestionably in rude health it is that which encompasses start-ups and spin outs from academic and other research institutions. Of course, it is not necessarily the small biotechs that such firms are most interested in - although there clearly is a considerable amount of corporate and commercial work likely to be coming through.
Consolidation is the name of the game at the pharma end of the market too.
Although licensing and other commercial agreements with biotechs offer one solution to such problems, merger is undoubtedly high on the agenda too. Whether these vast multinationals can actually sustain the levels of growth they have been used to over the last decade or so is, of course, a moot point. It is arguable, even, that the distinction between pharma and biotech is an increasingly forced one and that commercial agreements within the lifescience sector are becoming so complex and entwined that it will shortly be meaningless to differentiate companies along these lines. Issues of the moment Ironically, one of the most interesting areas at the moment is one that centres on similar questions of definition. Borderline disputes, as they are called, have essentially grown out of technological convergence and arise out of the question of which kind of regulatory regime a product should be judged against.