However, investors should be careful not to distinguish too much between biotech and pharma.
Retail has been strong, and there has been lots of great action in biotech and pharma stocks as well.
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Sarepta, the developer of a new muscular dystrophy drug with extremely promising results, saw its shares gain more than any other medical stock in my monthly scan of biotech, pharma, and medical device stocks.
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Biotech often soars when big pharma languishes, as happened most recently during the early-2000 biotech bubble.
But much of the new effort comes from small biotech firms and Big Pharma defectors.
But for drug development, the promise of these new cells is likely to be too good for companies, Big Pharma and biotech alike, to pass up.
Last year the number of alliances between big pharma and biotech rose to 502, from just 69 in 1993, according to Deloitte's "Critical Factors for Alliance Formation" report, released Sunday.
Since corporate change has to start from the top, a lack of biotech-savvy corporate governance may be at the heart of the issue: the reality is there are few if any biotech voices in Big Pharma boardrooms.
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Not all of these new drugs came from big pharma as biotech companies like Regeneron (Eylea for wet acute macular degeneration), Vertex (Kalydeco for cystic fibrosis) and Incyte (Jakafi for bone marrow disease) had major drugs approved.
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Friend highlights four groups whose behavior will need to evolve if lasting change is achieved: academics, biotech, foundations and the pharma industry.
Big Pharma is looking toward the biotech sector to feed the new pipeline for drug discovery.
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His studies show that biotech companies are no better than Big Pharma at inventing drugs.
Also, less than a month ago Merck agreed to acquire Aton Pharma , a privately held biotech firm with a cancer drug in midstage clinical trials.
The challenge here: Gilead competes not with biotech companies but with deep-pocketed Big Pharma.
There was one with some impressive data, but it only seems to highlight the changes in the drug industry further, because it came from a tiny, privately held firm called Corthera, not from a big pharma or even a publicly traded biotech.
To go public, all a biotech needed to show was some interest by big pharma in its drug development program.
Today, exits for venture capital investors come about only when a big pharma steps up and actually buys a biotech company rather than simply taking an option or a license on its drug program.
With big pharma in many cases absent from the game, biotech entered the field.
If Big Pharma wants to buy, why not pick a biotech giant that's less in favor with Wall Street?
To take a biotech from founding it as an offshoot of Yale to an international pharma company is pretty unique.
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Moulder, who built tiny mgi Pharma, maker of an antinausea drug, into a successful biotech.
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Some 30% of big pharma's revenue now comes from products licensed from smaller biotech firms.
Some industry observers have said that Big Pharma firms should try to more actively license drugs from smaller companies and biotech outfits in order to fill out their pipelines of experimental drugs.
Nonetheless, Berry says that most companies are "making solid progress" in development and clinical trials and that Big Pharma, with pipelines running dry and blockbuster drugs coming off-patent, needs biotech partners more than ever.
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