Biotech Partnering a Constant Amid Industry Uncertainty

As the curtain fell on BIO-Europe 2024, and attendees turned for home, the re-election of Donald Trump as U.S. president loomed large. The ordinary business of biotechnology will doubtless continue during his second term – regardless of their political affiliation, people will always get sick and need access to innovative healthcare. But it will take time to understand the wider effects the incoming Trump administration will have on key research and regulatory agencies such as the NIH, the FDA, and the CDC, and on key programs, such as BARDA’s Project NextGen, which is investing $5 billion to accelerate the development of better vaccines and therapeutics against COVID-19 and other public health threats.

It will also take time to establish the administration’s position on biotech collaboration between the U.S. and China. There is already strong bipartisan support for the Biosecure Act, two versions of which, S3558 and HR8333, are currently undergoing scrutiny in the Senate. These look set to limit the activities of certain Chinese service providers in the U.S. market. During the media wrap-up panel, Clarivate’s Mike Ward speculated whether the Trump administration might introduce more draconian legislation. But that could work against U.S. interests, if it prompted a global realignment in biotech partnering, with a strengthening of the existing links between Europe and China, as well as other parts of Asia.

Uncertainty is, of course, almost a fixed condition for biotech. But regardless of the political climate, partnering will remain the lifeblood of the industry, as evidenced by the many partnering meetings held over the course of the event. High-quality assets, technologies, and expertise will always be in demand. New technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) will – if used appropriately – offer powerful new ways of conducting drug discovery and development, diagnosing disease, and selecting treatment. “AI-discovered drugs have the promise to be substantially more successful than the industry average,” said Hubert Birner, managing partner at TVM Capital, which hosted several panels on the role of AI in drug discovery and development and in diagnosing disease. He anticipates their success rate in phase 3 trials will reach 15%–20%, as compared with the current rate of 7%–20% - in other words, a doubling of the industry’s success rate in drug development.

In diagnosis, AI also offers analytic and predictive power that can help to guide treatment selection. Ralf Huss, a panellist on AI in diagnosis, described how AI can offer much richer insights into the biology of a given tumor than standard assessments can, by analyzing the spatial and functional context of cancer and immune cells within the tumor microenvironment.

During the same session, Andrea Gisle Joosen, a board member of Zühlke, a digital transformation consultancy based in Schlieren, Switzerland, predicted that AI could offer low-income countries with limited healthcare infrastructure a technological leapfrog opportunity.

“There’s so much to win – we really should speed up,” she told attendees. Ralf Huss, managing director of BioM Cluster Development in Munich, has already provided remote digital pathology support to colleagues based in Africa – and said it would be unethical to withhold AI where it can provide benefit. Huss is a practicing pathologist.