On top of a large partner adding some level of credibility to what a small-cap biotech is doing, the track record of buyouts in these instances is presumably another reason to look for small-cap biotechs that have legitimate partnerships instead of focusing on those that do not have any drugs in their pipeline partnered or those that otherwise have less well-known partners. (Obviously there are plenty of exceptions to this where small-cap biotechs with no partners eventually land big name partners or get bought out. I'm hoping CLDX becomes one such exception as it's one of my largest holdings now.)