Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[sox040713]

Time Will Kill Your Deal…but in Deal-Making, Timing is Everything (Part Two)

As you would expect, all potential buy-side pharma partners for this Phase 2 program were interested in the upcoming EOP2 meeting, but from two very different perspectives. The first, a more conservative view, was that if we (partners) were going to in-license the candidate and bring it through to approval, for what specific development program and associated cost would we be committing our organization? So, we (partners) will wait until after the EOP2 meeting before we can proceed to submit a term sheet for a potential deal. The second, a more aggressive view, was that if we (partners) were going to in-license this candidate and bring it through to approval, then we need a seat at the table at the EOP2 meeting so that we can participate in discussions with FDA to help shape and influence the path to marketing approval.

With the upcoming EOP2 meeting providing a critical regulatory milestone during the partnering process, we capitalized on the event with potential partners who had adopted the aggressive view, and kindly informed those companies who had been doing diligence that, “if they’d like a seat at the table for the EOP2 meeting with FDA, then term sheets are due by X date, and full contract must be executed by Y date”. This strategy put us in the very fortunate and enviable position of negotiating term sheets and contracts in parallel with three pharma partners along a very aggressive timeline (< 1 month). In the end, the final contract was executed just 12 hours prior to (the night before) the EOP2 meeting. Remember, passage of time will kill your deal, but utilizing milestone events during partnering can accelerate deal discussions dramatically. Pharma can move quickly when the situation requires it.

https://www.locustwalk.com/time-will-kill-your-dealbut-in-deal-making-timing-is-everything-part-two/

P.S. Credit to SitTight for finding this article.