Locust Walk White Papers
LOCUST WALK INSIGHTS
China Supermarket: Is the Value for Money Due to Global Development Expertise or Superior Negotiation?
Locust Walk analyzed the evolving landscape of China’s biotech out-licensing market and its impact on global…
Overview of AI in Biotech
Locust Walk’s Overview of AI in Biotech report discusses how AI has profoundly impacted drug discovery and the pharmaceutical industry in the last five years, with AI-derived assets representing nearly half of the preclinical…
Deal Makers of Japan, Volume 3
The Deal Makers of Japan series aims to bridge the gap and offer insight to a global biopharma audience to the Japanese pharma…
RNA Therapeutics Landscape Overview
While these key pillars are not exhaustive and approaches may overlap between multiple, these areas have seen a great deal of innovation and attention from strategics and investors as a…
The CAR-T and oncology cell therapy landscape has broadly seen significant continued development, with over 2,000 therapies in development and ~1,350 active trials…
Breakthrough Innovation Reports: Regenerative Medicine iPS-Cell Therapy Investment Insights and Emerging Players
Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has the potential to transform the treatment landscape and bring curative options to patients. iPSC-derived cells have the potential to address a wide range of diseases and serve as a fertile ground for new investment…
Bought Not Sold
Locust Walk has conducted an extensive study of mergers and acquisitions in biopharma completed in the past three years and uncovered an interesting trend leaders need to…
iPSC Market Overview
Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research has encapsulated a global market of scientists, clinicians, and investors and has quickly become the foundation for new regenerative…
The Covid-19 pandemic was the biggest biopharma news of 2020. It may be hard to remember now, but in March of last year, biotech indices had quickly nose-dived, along with the broader market, as the reality of the pandemic became apparent. The prevailing financial sentiment was doom and…
Doubling Down: The Power of Asset Diversification in a Time of Robust Access to Capital
Following up on our recent white paper, Biopharma’s COVID Capital Comeback, here is a look at the greatest risk facing public biopharma companies — single asset failures — and what they can do during this time of robust…
Biopharma’s COVID Capital Comeback – A Whitepaper
Heading into 2020, biopharma looked like it would be typecast in its typical election year role: the big business scapegoat for everything that’s wrong in health care. There had been the usual big Phase 3 trial…
A Brave New World: Japan Pharma and COVID-19
COVID-19 or SARS Cov-2 to be precise, has changed the world in many regards. From the way we work, to the way we do business as well as to even what used to be the simplest thing – chatting over coffee. Now…
Deal Makers of Japan, Volume 2
We are pleased to present the second series of the Deal Makers of Japan – Exclusive Interviews with Japan’s best…
Strategic Implications of COVID-19 on Biopharma
hese are challenging times for governments, public health administrations and the financial markets. While each biopharma company’s primary concern is the health and safety of its team…
In the summer of 2019, Locust Walk launched a blog post, Financing overhang or hangover: The impact on partnerships for public biotech companies, that was born out of observations and conversations with many public, non-revenue generating biotech companies over the…
Deal Makers of Japan, Volume 1
Locust Walk has been active in Asia, in particular, Japan for nearly half of the firm’s history and we are deeply rooted in the market. We have advised on more than a dozen transactions during our history in Japan and have successfully helped deal making between US/EU companies and Japan…
Whitepaper Download: Inside Out
Based on recent acquisition activity by two of the largest pharmaceutical companies, it seems as if the historical orthodoxy that great biopharma companies are made from the inside out may be losing…
My (National Lampoon’s) European Vacation
I recently returned from a month in Europe as part of our effort to expand Locust Walk’s European practice. It was an amazing trip meeting great people and learning valuable…
Financing overhang or hangover: The impact on partnerships for public biotech companies
Biotech companies are attracted to licensing deals for a variety of important reasons: 1) to provide an alternative source of capital from the licensee to fund R&D and commercial operations…
Clear, data-based financial assumptions are essential to driving a successful deal process. In a previous post, The Value of a Commercial Assessment in Supporting a…
The Art of the Multi-Track Deal Whitepaper
Pursuing multiple deal options in parallel, known as a multi-track process, can create competitive tension that will enable a company to obtain the most value out of the…
It is that time of year again when the orthopedics community comes together to reflect on the recent American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) meeting which took place in Las Vegas and finished late last…
The Asia Factor Whitepaper
In this whitepaper, you’ll discover China and Japan are combining to invigorate the deal making landscape in Asia, even though their biopharma ecosystem dynamics are markedly different. Regardless, they are affecting deal making strategies…
Trends in Venture Deal Term Sheets: Favorable Climate for Founders
If you are raising capital now, the path you are about to embark on can be stressful and littered with obstacles, but the light at the end of the tunnel is worth the trials and…
Indication Selection for a Platform Company: The Faustian Dilemma
At Locust Walk, we are often tasked with addressing complex strategic business issues for our biopharma clients. Perhaps one of the most common dilemmas is how best to optimize a given company’s clinical development strategy to maximize…
Explain Yourself! Avoiding Common Communications Pitfalls During Term Sheet Negotiations
Term sheet negotiations are rarely easy, and there are multiple ways negotiations can break down before a deal is…
Japan & China: So close yet so different
Having lived in Japan for more than 20 years, I have admittedly become perhaps a little too accustomed to the Japanese lifestyle. This is probably why after a few days in the hustle and bustle of…
Late-Stage Biopharma IPOs and the Commercialization Partnership – Predictor of Success?
Emerging biopharma companies with promising lead candidates in late-stage trials are often faced with a fundamental decision: go-it-alone (self-commercialize) or secure a strategic partner to support development and…
Maximizing Your JP Morgan Healthcare Conference
The JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, or “JPM”, is the healthcare conference of the year. Companies from all over the world convene in San Francisco to setup meetings with…
Finding the invisible, how to meet Family Offices
Besides calling the Ghostbusters, how does one catch a ghost? That is the question asked by most life science companies trying to raise capital from family…
Navigating the MedTech Fundraising Environment
For many years, the fundraising environment for MedTech companies has been exceedingly difficult. Venture firms that were historically active in MedTech shifted their investment allocations to other areas of life sciences and capital became…
Demystifying the Venture Capital Term Sheet
Raising capital for an emerging biotech company is rarely easy. Tremendous time and effort goes into crafting the perfect story, determining the amount of capital you need to raise and what that money will be used for and reaching out to…
When to use a structured deal process?
Though often overlooked or made by default, decisions about the structure and timing of a competitive deal process can have a significant impact on the ultimate value realized by the sell-side…
Key trends impacting Japan partnering
Over the past years, I have had the fortune of participating in negotiations and ultimate deals between Western and Japanese biopharmaceutical…
With the new school year just around the corner here in Boston (and already underway in other parts of the country), transactions involving…
Maximizing the Likelihood of Closing a Deal This Year
A few months ago, I posted a related article about deal timing titled ‘Maintaining Deal Momentum in the Summer Months’. Now it is early August, and we are deep in the summer…
As an early advocate for the importance of the family office in the biotech financing landscape, I have learned from recent experience what many entrepreneurs already know. Raising money from family offices is…
Ask the Experts: The Importance of Including Subject Matter Experts in Deal Discussions
One of the most important elements of successful deal discussions is establishing your credibility to a potential partner. This can be done in a multitude of…
Helping to Ensure Success After the Deal
One of my favorite places to hang out in Tokyo is the Apple Store in the Ginza area. It is a beautiful four-story venue, complete with a theater (where one can sit and receive non-stop sessions on all of Apple’s products) and, of…
The Best Buyers Are The Best Sellers
As it is often necessary to structure creative deals with deferred and/or ongoing value delivered to the seller, an important but frequently overlooked component of the deal process is to position your company as the ideal partner for the acquired…
Maintaining Deal Momentum in the Summertime
Maintaining Deal Momentum in the Summertime CATEGORIES Asian Capabilities Capital Raising Commercial Assessment Locust Walk Institute Market Trends Multitrack Process…
Looking at Deal Value Beyond the Headlines
Looking at Deal Value Beyond the Headlines CATEGORIES Asian Capabilities Capital Raising Commercial Assessment Locust Walk Institute Market Trends Multitrack…
Companies are bought, because they are sold
Companies are bought, because they are sold CATEGORIES Asian Capabilities Capital Raising Commercial Assessment Locust Walk Institute Market Trends Multitrack…
Finding the Right Partner
Finding the Right Partner CATEGORIES Asian Capabilities Capital Raising Commercial Assessment Locust Walk Institute Market Trends Multitrack Process Negotiation Partnering…
Looking East – Geographic Considerations when Partnering Regionally in Asia CATEGORIES Asian Capabilities Capital Raising Commercial Assessment Locust Walk Institute…
It’s Not You, It’s US: The Value of Keeping US Rights in Biopharma Partnering CATEGORIES Asian Capabilities Capital Raising Commercial…
Five Tips to Successfully Raise Family Office Capital
Five Tips to Successfully Raise Family Office Capital CATEGORIES Asian Capabilities Capital Raising Commercial Assessment Locust Walk Institute Market Trends…
CATEGORIES Asian Capabilities Capital Raising Commercial Assessment How to Approach Regional Partnering Deals in Japan and Asia Many Japanese pharmaceutical…
5 Mistakes an Entrepreneur Makes When Raising Capital
5 Mistakes an Entrepreneur Makes When Raising Capital CATEGORIES Asian Capabilities Capital Raising Commercial Assessment Locust Walk Institute Market Trends…