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May 14, 2009
Goldman Sachs: Out Of the Drug Funding Business Already?
Posted by Derek
Late last year, I wrote about a possible new way to fund drug discovery, a private-equity model that seemed to be in the works at Goldman Sachs. The driving force behind the idea seemed to be Jon Symonds, former CFO at AstraZeneca.
Well, as the InVivoBlog noted yesterday, Symonds has suddenly decamped to Novartis. He’s press-released as their new CFO (after the current one retires), which makes you wonder what’s happened to that drug funding plan. Given the current environment for new financing schemes, and for banking in general (not to mention the current environment at Goldman Sachs), has the whole idea just been shelved?
As the In Vivo folks go on to say, financing clinical candidates in this way isn’t necessarily a bad idea – it just might be a bad time to try it out. There are a lot of issues to be worked out, but it’s looking more and more like no one’s going to be working them out any time soon. . .
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1. Daniel Newby on May 14, 2009 9:06 AM writes...
It is an especially bad time if you just lobbied yourself into underwriting the National Health Plan.
Permalink to Comment2. Teuta9 on May 15, 2009 12:53 PM writes...
Too bad if it has bit the dust - there are precious few attempts at trying anything different going on in Big Pharma at the moment.... "scorched earth" economics aside.
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