Pharma's old friends are new competitors

There was a time when fledgling biotech companies would toil for years to create actual drugs only to sell at least part of the profits to multinational giants in exchange for help on the commercial end. Biotech is good at inventing things, the thinking went, and pharma is good at selling them, so such a relationship seemed maximally beneficial.

But yesterday’s agreement between Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals pointed to a future in which a big pharmaceutical co-sign might not be so in demand.

Alynlam concluded its years-long relationship with Sanofi, the roughly $100 billion French drug maker, and instead aligned itself with Regeneron, signing exactly the sort of cross-cutting deal that used to only exist between small biotech and large pharma. The news was positively received, and there were even memes.

Interestingly, this comes about a year after Regeneron ended its own lengthy relationship with Sanofi, electing to go it alone after a decade of pharma-funded collaboration. That decade saw the rise of some drug industry middle children, biotech companies that grew large enough to work independently from the incumbent powers. And now, as the Alnylam deal suggests, the future might see the pharma forced to compete with companies that used to rely on its largesse.