10/06/2008 11h01
Partnerships guarantee 50% of Roches income
Gazeta Mercantil - 10/06/2008
With the simplicity of a Scotsman raised in the fields and the objectivity of a scientist, Robin Breckenridge talks calmly but incisively about what he and Roche, one of the bigger pharmaceutical laboratories in the world are betting their chips on: the partnership between the traditional pharmaceutical industry and small biotechnology researchers. "The laboratory enters with the organization and global capacity to develop and distribute drugs and the researcher starts having resources to work and grow together", says the vice-president of operations and responsible for all global partnerships of the multinational. Since 1985, when Roche set its first partnership with North-American Genentech the good fruits have not stopped coming. Today, the Swiss company has nearly 80 strategic partnerships and, from its portfolio, approximately 50% of the US$ 42.2 billion in 2007 sales come from those partnerships, specially in the field of oncology, in which Genetech works intensively. Biotechnology is currently seen by the market as a great move for the pharmaceutical industry, which losses patents in a much bigger velocity than it can replace with the discovery of new substances. Even being a way to obtain a medicine that the market considers much more expensive, it is regarded as the most auspicious one. Maybe that is the reason why other large laboratories such as Bristol-Myers, Sanofi, and AstraZeneca are also looking for partnerships with biotechnology investigators. In Brazil, Roche also wants to make partnerships. For this, it signed an agreement with the Biominas Foundation. Founded in 1990, the institution is today a reference in the bio-business development promotion in the Country and is part of a relevant network of national and international relationships that facilitate the identification of projects that have the potential to generate new business.
