Bench2Bedside:
How do you see the current environment around the world for partnering deals? What are some of the key challenges facing biopharmaceutical companies?

Linda Pullan:
Fund-raising is tough, and we continue to see a challenging environment across the biopharma industry, especially for early rounds. Because of these fundraising difficulties, many companies are pursuing partnering as an alternative fund-raising mechanism.  But this push to partner increases the competition for deals with the in-licensors.

We’ve also seen that many smaller public companies are trading below their cash value, and they too are considering their strategic alternatives. For most, this means any in-licensing they do is likely to be for a later-stage asset that can make their stock more attractive. These public companies are generally not interested in licensing earlier stage assets because it is exceedingly difficult to change the perception investors have regarding impact on the stock priceof most early-stage assets.

Additionally, making a big impact, we’ve seen Chinese companies shifting their strategic focus towards doing more out-licensing deals. This further serves to increase the competition for deals, primarily for drugs with validated targets.

With numerous factors coalescing, it’s clear that the competition to partner early-stage assets is high.

Bench2Bedside:
How are you and your team at Pullan Consulting helping biopharmas to partner amid this high demand environment?

Linda Pullan:
In this environment, to partner, you must work hard on the basics of the partnering process. We help figure out who might be interested in the technology or drug candidate.  We cast a wide net but think about the sales force structure, the sales forecasts of key products in the pipeline, the deal history, and the cash balance of potential partners. We tap our database of established relationships and choose the best contact. We help biopharmas tell their story as clearly and powerfully as possible, and it starts from the very beginning. First impressions are crucial—your first slide serves as a hook to get the potential partner to read the rest of the deck. And that generally means you need to argue for a differentiated position in the future market.

In addition to email outreach, we find partnering conferences extremely valuable, and we have extensive experience presenting assets for partnering at conferences. For an event such as BIO International or BIO-Europe, we begin planning with companies months in advance. We make sure the descriptions answer the key questions for partner fit (indication, stage, molecule type and key differentiation). We also encourage expanding awareness through publications, attendance at scientific congresses and tapping the connections of the team and boards.  These science connections, especially through trusted colleagues, can be very valuable in prioritizing your asset inside the partner’s BD process.

Ultimately, there is great demand for differentiated assets, but they need to stand out from the competition.  And the science rarely is so clear as to sell itself.

Bench2Bedside:
With this demand for differentiated assets, what are some exciting trends you see in young biotech companies?

Linda Pullan:
We do, in fact, see exciting science continuing to drive the industry towards promising treatments. For example, looking to Mark Hogarth of Burnett, and the team at Pearl Bio, we’re really beginning to better understand protein and Ab structure and function to make better molecules.

We’re also seeing great strides in areas that have historically challenged the industry, such as going after “undruggable” targets, using live cell proteomic screening from BridGene; incredible protein folding science from Sibylla Biotech; Congruence Therapeutics, which is harnessing protein folding dynamics to changing molecular conformation back to the unmutated; and targeted protein degradation with PROTACS and glues that Orum Therapeutics is developing.

In CAR-T, a next generation is coming, and we think it is promising. We see In Vivo approaches as a major next phase, like the team at Nanocell Therapeutics, potentially solving many of the challenges that have plagued growth in that sector.

I’m also excited to see real progress with creative solutions to go after non-protein targets, like RNA by Avidity Therapeutics, Lnc RNA from LincSwitch Therapeutics, and glycans, being pursued by GlycoNex Inc.

No doubt, obesity is off the charts, but there continues to be a massive market for technologies looking at mechanisms for healthy body weight loss and its many co-morbidities, notable examples in this space include AliveGen and REMD Bio.

Cancer therapeutics continues to be a big area of partnering, but we’re also seeing great strides to deal with resistance and prevention from companies like Kairos Pharma, Atossa Therapeutics and Curileum.

And a new and exciting tech list wouldn’t be complete in 2025 without mentioning the impact of AI, from finding binding pockets, to digital twins and digital humans (123Genetix) to brain implants.

Bench2Bedside:
That’s an impressive list. What is the industry missing? What are some key challenges?

Linda Pullan:
Clearly, coming out of COVID, we need better ways to produce good anti-infectives and anti-fungals ahead of the next pandemic. Biosergen is one such company working on antifungal drugs to save lives.

Complex areas like immunology and CNS have made strides, but fundamental things like better, more translatable animal models are needed for progress. Holoclara is going back to worms to find new pathways to modulate the immune system and aging.

And looking at how companies grow, we see a key gap impacting early-stage companies. There are a lot of good ideas coming from good people with excellent track records who are continuing to find it very difficult to get funding. I’m on the board of a company creator, NLC, and I continue to see that the next step is really difficult. I’m not convinced that the market is as efficient as it could and should be, where the best science reliably gets funding. The biotech market should be working hard to close these gaps because we can’t afford to lose out on these best ideas.