German Drug Firms In Search For Biotech Partners

Leading German drugmakers are engaged in an intensive search for new partners among smaller biotechnology companies. Gert Caspritz, head of Hoechst Marion Roussel's new technology sector, said in Heidelberg that the company was "wide open" to new partners. Mr Caspritz was one of hundreds of German pharmaceutical company delegates attending the BioPartnering conference in the city.

The search for biotechnology partners engaged either in academic biotechnology research or industrial biotechnology drug development has been assigned mainly to specialized teams within German drug firms. Hoechst now has 17 biotechnology partnership arrangements, Boehringer Mannheim eight, while Bayer and BASF each have seven larger-scale alliances.

The cooperation deals already account for an estimated 10%-20% of a company's R&D budget, and the Heidelberg conference heard that this proportion was set to increase.