As pharmaceutical companies look to load the pipeline with
licensing deals and acquisitions, biotech firms are positioning themselves to be on the receiving end of deals. Two of those firms are Jennerex Inc. and Gen-Probe Inc., which on Tuesday added new dealmakers.
Biotherapeutics firm Jennerex hired industry veteran
Samatha Miller as vice president of corporate development. In a 20-year career, Miller has been involved in executing over 30
partnerships and licenses with companies including GlaxoSmithKline plc, Eli Lilly and Co. and
Johnson & Johnson. Meanwhile, former investment banker
Eric Tardif has joined the biotech firm Gen-Probe as senior vice president of corporate strategy. Tardif was most recently with Morgan Stanley's healthcare investment banking group.
As The Deal's
Alex Lash reported recently, with pharma companies downsizing their R&D operations, they're increasingly taking partial stakes in biotechs with promising drugs in development. With news this week that Pfizer is
cutting its research staff by 8%, it's a trend we should see more of in 2009.
- Suzanne Stevens
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