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Biotech Licensing: Being Upfront about Upfront Payments

Monday, February 9th
3:15 pm - 4:20 pm
East Foyer

Licensing deals allow big companies to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit of their smaller counterparts and to fill in their pipelines without having to do the upfront work. Likewise, these sought-after alliances give the small companies the non-dilutive capital and scientific validation that they crave. This panel will focus on recent deals that were characterized by especially impressive upfront payments. Business development professionals from some of the companies involved in the past year’s licensing deals will discuss how they successfully forged these deals, how they and their licensing partner calculated the deal terms and upfront payments that they did, and whether their deals serve as realistic benchmarks for future licensing around the industry.

Moderator

Panelists

Who's Who

Barbara Yanni; Ms. Yanni is Vice President and Chief Licensing Officer of Merck & Co., Inc.  She leads the Corporate Licensing group which is responsible for negotiating agreements to acquire compounds, programs and new technologies to complement Merck's research programs and pipeline.  She works closely with her scientific colleagues at Merck to ensure that the company has access to discoveries that will enhance Merck’s ability to bring new medicines to the market.  She and her team have played a major role in the significant increase in Merck's external relationships in recent years.  In the past five years, Merck has executed almost 240 significant licensing transactions in all stages, from technologies and early research collaborations to Phase III development candidates.  Before joining Corporate Licensing, Ms. Yanni was Executive Director of Corporate Development at Merck where she negotiated acquisitions, divestitures and other business arrangements.  She has also worked in other positions in Merck’s Finance area including Financial Evaluation and Analysis, Treasury and Tax.  She joined Merck in 1985 as Domestic Tax Counsel after working as a tax lawyer for several years at Bristol-Myers and in private practice.  She graduated from Stanford Law School and Wellesley College.  She also holds a Masters of Law in Taxation from New York University.

Garry Menzel, PhD; Dr. Menzel join Regulus in August of 2008 as Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Finance.  He had a long and distinguished career on Wall Street in which he ran the global biotechnology practices for Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.  He joined Goldman Sachs in 1994 and was a founding member of the Healthcare Group in 1996.  Dr. Menzel became a Managing Director in 2002.  He joined Credit Suisse in 2004.  During this time he served a broad range of biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients around the world, raising capital and negotiating merger agreements.  Prior to his career on Wall Street, Dr. Menzel was a strategy consultant for Bain & Company, working on a variety of operational projects in Europe and Asia.  Dr. Menzel earned a B.Sc. with Honors in Biochemistry from the Imperial College of Science & Technology in 1985, a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge in 1988, and a M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1994. He is an Associate of the Royal College of Science.  Dr. Menzel serves as a director on the board of the Institute for Systems Biology and is an executive board member of the Epilepsy Therapy Project, where he chairs the Business Advisory Committee.

Ben Bonifant; Mr. Bonifant has been a management consultant for nearly 15 years, helping leaders of global pharmaceutical and biotech organizations and decision makers in large private equity funds. His perspectives on developments in the life sciences market are frequently published in industry and strategy journals, and he is a frequent guest lecturer at some of the nation's premier universities. Mr. Bonifant earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

J. Donald deBethizy, Ph.D.; Dr. deBethizy is a co-founder of Targacept, Inc. and has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since its spinout from R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in August 2000; he has also served as Targacept's President since its inception in 1997.  Previously, Dr. deBethizy held positions of increasing responsibility at RJR, including Vice President of Product Evaluation, Research and Development, where he was responsible for development, regulatory affairs and market introduction of reduced risk products.

At Targacept, Dr. deBethizy continues to play a key role in development of a portfolio of clinical stage novel small molecules targeting central nervous system diseases, and in developing business relationships with AstraZeneca, Aventis, Dr. Falk Pharma and GlaxoSmithKline.  Dr. deBethizy led Targacept’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) in April, 2006, raising $45 million; during Targacept's years as a private company, he was instrumental in raising $123 million in venture capital.

Dr. deBethizy co-authored Innovation That Fits:  Moving Beyond the Fads to Choose the Right Innovation Strategy for Your Business published by Prentice Hall. He is also the author of numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters. Dr. deBethizy was recognized by Ernst & Young as Emerging Company Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002 for his leadership in founding Targacept. In June of that year, Targacept was also the subject of a Best Practice case study article in the Harvard Business Review entitled Spinning Out a Star.

Within the Winston-Salem community, he is currently on the board of directors of the Piedmont Triad Research Park, United Way of Forsyth County, and Winston Salem Chamber of Commerce, and on the Board of Visitors of Winston-Salem State University. He has also served on the boards of Forsyth Technical Community College Foundation and Piedmont Triad Entrepreneurs Network (PTEN). Dr. deBethizy was recently elected to the Emerging Companies Section Governing Body of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). In December, 2006, he joined the Board of Directors of LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals.

Frances K. Heller, JD; Ms. Heller joined Exelixis in September 2008 as Executive Vice President of Business Development. Ms, Heller has more than 15 years of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry experience. From 2003 too 2008, Ms. Heller was Head of Strategic Alliances at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR), the global research organization for Novartis AG. In this position, she negotiated transactions around promising early-stage assets to accelerate NIBR’s drug discovery and development efforts. From 2001 to 2003, she served as Vice President of Corporate Development & Legal Affairs at Signature BioScience, Inc., an oncology drug discovery company, where she oversaw partnering and licensing activities. From 1998 to 2001, she had been Corporate and Intellectual Property Counsel for Celera Genomics, where she was head of the legal department and responsible for corporate and business transactions and gene discovery collaborations. Prior to 1998, Ms. Heller had various positions in business development, licensing, marketing and intellectual property management. Ms. Heller is a member of the California State Bar, is licensed by the US Patent and Trademark Office and received her JD degree from the Golden Gate University School of Law, her MA in biology from American University, and her BS in biology from Tulane University.