Ventiv's European Vision: Sometime--Not Yet
Executive Summary
As Ventiv Health learned the hard way, CSOs contemplating establishing new European businesses, or expanding existing ones, must confront the reality that while development and marketing can be increasingly global, sales remain stubbornly local. Swimming against that tide--even as it ebbs--makes the notion of a Europe-wide CSO far from practical.
You may also be interested in...
Getting Late Stage Products Early
Thanks to its speedy deal with Zentaris (a subsidiary of Degussa), two-year old discovery-based start up Ardana Bioscience has leaped into the clinic with a phase II product. Now it's planning more late-stage deals, hoping that investors who typically ignore early-stage companies will finance a commercially focused organization with a track record of in-licensing the right drugs.
AureoGen Biosciences Inc.
Formed by Kalamazoo-based Pharmacia alumni, AureoGen Biosciences Inc. is genetically engineering cyclic peptides to create second-generation, resistance-proof anti-infective and anti-fungal therapeutics.
Pain Therapeutics
Pain seems as close to a sure bet as the pharmaceutical industry has to offer. Forecasts call for the worldwide analgesic market, already $38 billion in 2002, to grow at a 20% annual clip, nearly doubling to $75 billion by the year 2010. For new drug developers, pain also has the advantage of offering clearly definable endpoints-less pain-and a relatively short duration for clinical trials. No surprise then that more than 200 companies have a hand in developing or marketing pain therapeutics. Among them, the three young companies profiled here-AlgoRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Algos Therapeutics Inc., and TheraQuest Biosciences LLC.