Consultant’s View
BY ALEX BOUR
The number of cell & gene therapy (C>)-based treatments in development have increased significantly over the last two decades and can be expected to continue, driven by the modality-specific market potential and the breadth of applicability across indications.
Although early innovations in C> have been spearheaded by small biotechs, Big Pharma quickly followed suit with major deals to jumpstart their own in-house programmes. Whilst this means that deal volume in the space may slow in the medium-to-long term, their value may continue to increase as Big Pharma’s search for high value disease portfolio lynchpins also continues. Big Pharma’s competitive edge over biotech market entrants will be most evident in how it deploys its in-house capacity and capabilities to accelerate time to market or acquire complementary therapies to strategically bolster its portfolios.
New biotech entrants to the C> space therefore need to remain vigilant of Big Pharma and other biotech competitors alike, but for different reasons. Other biotech companies pose an inherent threat as they seek to manage their relatively smaller budgets to maximum value. Biotech C> companies may benefit from tracking competitors’ earnings calls and general corporate communications, senior/executive hires and overall headcount, and funding plus general deal-making activities. Monitoring Big Pharma deal trends and appetite for specific C> modalities will also provide valuable directional intelligence on which fellow biotechs might be next up for a landscape-shifting deal.
Big Pharma players in C> face identical CI challenges, but often with the additional need to monitor competitors’ portfolios where there is significant overlap in pipeline and portfolio strategies. In addition to competitive intelligence tracking, Big Pharma players may also benefit from monitoring for business development purposes, ensuring regular updates on key landscape events and catalysts to inform potential M&A activities.
As the cell and gene therapy space continues to grow and expand, so will the need for a well-organised and well-resourced CI function to ensure successful and sustainable growth for Big Pharma and small biotech players alike.
