GTC Biotherapeutics (fka GTCB)

[DewDiligence]

I think your analogy, which is often promulgated on biotech-investment message boards, is misguided.

True, when Big Pharma negotiates to license a drug, they tend to be hard-nosed on the terms dealing with economics and operations/control. However, Big Pharma do not typically decline to consummate a deal that incorporates the desired terms in order to squeeze the prospective partner into yielding still-better terms. Such a negotiating tactic would incur a large risk of losing the deal altogether to another suitor. Moreover, if “squeezing” were to hurt the prospective partner financially, it could backfire on the squeezer by lessening the productivity of the eventual partnership.

GTC’s partnership negotiations are (IMO) taking a long time because:

1. The terms are unusually complex insofar as ATryn has multiple potential indications with widely disparate addressable markets;

2. A prospective partner pulled out in March or April; and

3. A gap remains between what GTC thinks ATryn is worth and what the prospective partners think Atryn is worth.