PRESS RELEASE: Swiss HLG 2019 Winter Conference

 „Capture Deal Value – When and How?“

The 2019 Swiss Healthcare Licensing Group (HLG) Winter Conference focused on the topic “Capture Deal Value – When and How?”

The pharmaceutical industry is facing increasing challenges to cope with the quickly changing world economy. The requirements in healthcare are becoming ever more demanding considering the higher standard of data, financial investments and time, let alone governments` cost-containment measures getting more restrictive.

Both new and innovative molecules in the pipeline and growing access of patients to drug treatment especially in emerging markets are at the same time positive signals though. It seems that the pharmaceutical industry still finds room for creative ways to explore and implement new business models keeping pace with current changes in the healthcare environment.

Over three days, nearly 100 delegates from Switzerland, Europe, the US and Asia gathered in the Gruyère region to explore current and future innovative ways when and how to capture maximum deal value.

Conference Director, Ragip Ziyal with the active support of the entire Swiss HLG Board, gathered a global forum of high caliber speakers not only from the healthcare and consumer industry but also governmental initiatives to capture the maximum value for assets in the best manner and at the right time by (I) learning how synergies may be exploited for example during M&A transactions, (II) discussing the need for strategic access to new technologies and (III) looking at new players such as new public and public-private funding schemes as well as patient and non-profit organizations to support R&D funding.

Prior to the start of the conference, Marie Petit, Villiger Valuation Expert, and Partner orchestrated an interactive workshop to understand “Value of Sciences vs. Value of Cash” and so to decrypt the reasons behind using rNPV or VC methodologies to value projects or biotech companies.

In her opening keynote, Allison Jeynes-Ellis, CEO Avillion LLP, excellently set the scene by providing an innovative model on how the drug development, as well as the commercial risk, can be shared whereby Avillion is funding the clinical programme and receiving returns upon regulatory success and providing off-balance relief to the pharma partner.

The second day started with four distinct speakers exploring how synergies may be exploited in the pharmaceutical industry. Thomas Hafen, CEO Bühlmann Labs outlined the opportunities but also challenges when capturing value with point-of-care diagnostics.  Tim Schlange, Chief Marketing Officer at Lohmann Therapy Systems (LTS), followed with a focus on leveraging synergies between pharma and CDMO through innovative transdermal/-mucosal delivery technologies. Dominique Doyen, Director Business Development at 4SC underlined how partnerships can result in a business model at biotech along with Jochen Hurlebaus, Head of Central R&D Services, Innovation & IP at Roche Diagnostics who rather concentrated on accessing new technologies and thus securing value by getting access to digital innovation.

In a dynamic panel discussion, Ton Berkien, CBO at Nuevolution and former Head of M&A Emerging Markets at Takeda, Charles Hoare, Managing Director and Head of European Healthcare at Stiefel, Jordi Sabé, Founding Partner at Evolve Healthcare and former SVP Corporate Development at Almirall and Roberto Tracia, Partner at Oaklins Binder, all with a total of more than 80 years experience in international M&A transactions shared their view on synergies, which may be seen as one of the major motivators for M&A. They also discussed  key success factors and challenges during the integration of assets post-M&A.

The topic capturing value through the strategic access to new technologies dominated the second half of the second day. Sascha Bucher, VP and Head of Global Transactions at Roivant Sciences highlighted Roivant`s ecosystem built on entrepreneurial biotech companies, the so-called Vants, a unique approach to source talents and to deploy technology to strive for efficient R&D and commercialization. Matthias Essenpreis, CTO at Roche Diagnostics described the dependency on external innovation, Roche Diagnostics being as the global leader in in vitro diagnostics and how dedicated processes were established to cope with this very challenge.

After a full day of inspiring presentations and the panel discussion, the delegates enjoyed a typical Swiss Fondue Dinner in an authentic Swiss barn nearby. It was a perfect setting to network with peers and exchange personal and professional experiences.

The last day of the conference focused on innovative financing in the pharmaceutical industry, starting with David Hughes, Senior Global Programme Head at Novartis` Anti-Infectives Global Health Development Unit. David gave an overview of publicly-funded models like EU`s Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) or US Government`s Biomedical Advanced R&D Authority (BARDA) established to close gaps in some key disease areas targeting anti-microbial resistance and neglected tropical diseases. Marc Gitzinger, CEO at Bioversys focused in his speech on financing and deal-making in the antibiotic market, which seems a broken economic model where initiatives established both the so-called “Push” funding and “Pull” mechanisms to fix the economic model for novel antibiotics. Finally, Stefan Fischer, National Contact Point (NCP) at Euresearch stressed the importance of public bottom-up funding like the Horizon 2020 financing opportunities for innovative SMEs with game-changing and market-creating innovations and technologies.

The outstanding closing keynote, delivered by Ernst Hafen, Professor of Systems Genetics at ETH Zurich and the President of the Biopark Zurich-Schlieren, the value of citizen-controlled health data. Ernst thereby underlined that we have to regain control over our data thus our digital self-determination and reduce our dependency on multinational data companies, which may determine our faith in the future.

The Swiss HLG Board sincerely expresses its thanks to the presenters and the attendees for the lively discussions and interactions. Without them the success of the Winter Conference would not have been possible. Please find below some images from the conference. Please click on the image to view it in its entirety. (Please click on the image to view it in its entirety and or a slide show.)