How to Secure a Strategic Partner to Reach Your Drug Development Goals

Strategic partnerships have become a cornerstone for growth in the pharmaceutical sector, offering numerous advantages (outlined below). However, for many companies, the process of identifying, selecting, and formalizing an agreement with a partner can feel overwhelming.

Why is it so challenging? Partnering involves expanding your network, building relationships, and conducting thorough research to find and evaluate the right partner—no small feat for a life science business leader, even with an experienced team in place.

Below, we break down how you can successfully form a strategic partnership in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.


The Benefits of Partnering in Pharma & Biotech

 

Partnerships between big pharma and emerging biotech companies have become more prevalent, delivering more efficient outcomes for late-stage assets. This includes regional collaborations. (Check out our previous post, Is a Regional Partnership Right for You Biotech Company?)

The key benefits of these partnerships include:

  • Expanding big pharma’s reach into specialized, diverse therapeutic areas

  • Identifying unmet medical needs that big pharma may not have explored otherwise

  • Providing resources for biotech companies to navigate early-stage development costs

  • Enabling large-scale R&D and clinical trials that biotechs couldn’t afford on their own

  • Accessing global markets by leveraging big pharma’s infrastructure

  • Attracting venture capital partners for preclinical assets, often injecting $5-10 million


Steps to Securing an Effective Strategic Partnership

Forming a strategic partnership may require time and effort, but the process can be simplified by following Sosna + Co’s 4 Simple Steps to Partnering.

The first step, Ready – Build the Target List, involves compiling a comprehensive list of potential partners. This includes companies and key contacts, which can be identified through your own network, databases, and industry events. Sosna + Co simplifies this by leveraging our network of over 80,000 life science professionals and using industry-specific databases. We track and qualify leads in our digital system, ensuring you don’t miss any key opportunities.

Next, in the Aim – Prioritize Your Targets step, it's essential to narrow down the list by evaluating each potential partner based on your objectives. Sosna + Co helps clients refine their lists using filters such as geography, company size and type, industry (e.g., biotech, vaccines), and therapeutic area (e.g., oncology, neurology). This tiered approach ensures that you start with the best-fit candidates.

The third step, Target – Plan Your Outreach, is about initiating contact. How you reach out can make or break the potential partnership. Successful outreach combines digital marketing (email, social media) with traditional business development activities, like phone calls, video meetings, and face-to-face interactions at events.

Finally, in Approach – Implement a Cadence for Outreach, you begin executing your outreach strategy. This involves a series of coordinated activities, such as LinkedIn messages, emails, introductory calls, and follow-up meetings. Even if a potential partner isn’t an immediate fit, this process helps expand your network and can lead to future opportunities.

Conclusion

Strategic partnerships offer immense value, particularly for biotechs looking to scale or accelerate development. While the process can be complex, partnering with Sosna + Co simplifies the journey, taking the burden off your shoulders and ultimately saving you time—and money.

Sosna + Co is a boutique, outsourced business development partner for the life sciences. From M&A advisory and licensing deals with Fortune 500 companies to uncovering the potential of savvy, new start-ups, the principal is simple: we work meticulously to uncover new opportunities that grow your business. Contact us today to learn more.

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