Opportunities in Life Science.

While 2009 looks to be a challenging year for the economy, there is real potential to turn chaos into opportunity. The the big top 20 pharma companies are attempting to buy their way out of a problem. Mergers and acquisitions activity in 2006-07 was higher than ever, and the newswires are rife with rumor about the latest big buyout. As well as the headline-grabbing deals, there is an increasing trend for collaboration, co-marketing and licensing of therapeutics. This trend is aimed at sharing costs and risks, but also at padding thinning pipelines of new compounds. An uncomfortable fact observed by big pharma is that R&D productivity does not scale. Expenditures have increased steadily over the last ten years, though revenues have not matched the increased investment. The response of the industry has been to boost collaboration with other companies on the development side. The global life sciences industry is on the anvil of interesting times. We will see more unprecedented levels of collaboration. There is an incredible opportunity for Indian players to enter into strategic partnerships with global innovator life science companies. Global R&D spending outsourced to India is touching $400 million, and global revenues for custom synthesis and manufacturing expected to grow to $168 billion by 2009.

Ben Hedenberg