RE:RE:eyes on the prizethere is an amazing range of things that happen with biotech companies and, recently, not too many of them good! Quite uncommon for a big player to buy out a 20y old company with a franchise value of $100-150M. The Gilead purchase was an outlier, for sure. Particularly after Gilead's experience with Kite. None of the top 10 biotech purchases in the last year or so have been microcap biotechs and all of the big acquisitions have involved companies with approved products and a pipeline of sales and profit. I guess Affinivax, the JAK inhibitor, and the new disruptive TKIs were all partnered just prior to FDA approval but none with just Ph II data alone. I would say that it is not true that most biotechs get bought out before the initiation of a phase III but I certainly would say that the partner companies want a very significant control of the design, implimentation and reporting of a pivotal trial. That covers a wide swath of possibilities, though!! These will not be easy negotiations.
Geneman