Bioshares summit to discuss bypassing big pharma

Several Australian biotechs are bypassing big pharma and bringing their own products to market. Is this the start of a wider trend, and is this approach preferable to the age-old outlicensing model?

This is one of the themes of this week's Bioshares Biotech Summit, to be held in Queenstown, New Zealand on Friday and Saturday.

At the summit, QRxPharma (ASX:QRX) COO Ed Rudnic and Pharmaxis (ASX:PXS) CEO Alan Robertson will lead a panel entitled Bypassing the “Pharmocracy”. The panel will focus on recent efforts by Australian biotechnology companies to launch their products directly, through their own or a contract sales force, or to negotiate licensing deals with mid-tier pharmaceutical companies.

Mid-tier companies appear more hungry to fill their product pipelines, so their smaller reach compared to big pharma may be counterbalanced by more favourable licensing terms.

The panel will discuss the challenges, benefits and reasoning behind bypassing the established model of drug discovery and outlicensing to a major international pharmaceutical company.

Bioshares co-editor David Blake gave the example of Tissue Therapies, which have been using contractors for all their sales activities in the European market.

QRxPharma itself negotiated a sales alliance with Actavis for its dual-opioid pain formulation MoxDuo in the US, and Blake said Rudnic will likely detail the company's reasons for deciding to take this path.

Another panel will concentrate on market dynamics. Executives from Bluechiip (ASX:BCT), Cogstate (ASX:CGS), Nanosonics (ASX:NAN) and Pacific Edge will discuss common close-to-market or in-market challenges, and how to overcome them.

In total the summit has around 130 confirmed attendees, including 35 executives representing biotechnology companies. Investors and representatives from some New Zealand government agencies will also be present.