Bio€quity Europe recap, part 1: talent & dealmaking
Medicxi’s Francesco De Rubertis, MSD’s Khatereh Ahmadi discuss the global hunt for talent and quality assets
By Jeff Cranmer, Executive Editor
May 18, 2022 12:59 AM UTC
BioCentury
Even as industry is facing a global talent crunch, Europe’s biotechs have it better than ever, Medicxi’s Francesco De Rubertis said on a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast. He and MSD’s Khatereh Ahmadi joined the BioCentury podcast team to discuss the battle for top talent and the state of deal-making amid the ongoing downturn.
De Rubertis, a co-founder and partner at European VC Medicxi, believes it’s easier now for Europe’s biotechs to hire top people, especially compared with 25 years ago, when such a role was perceived as an “exotic and uncertain path.”
“For the last couple of years it has been an easier exercise to hire any kind of executive, American or European, in any of private-stage biotech companies exactly because, of course, 2020, 2021, have been incredible years,” he said, while conceding it remains to be seen whether it’s a pandemic-related trend or a structural shift brought on by the maturing of the European biotech sector.
Also on the podcast, which recaps the first two days of the Bio€quity Europe conference in Milan, De Rubertis and BioCentury Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn discussed the qualities most sought after in a CEO.
Ahmadi, who is head of European Search and Evaluation at Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. (MSD), spoke to the current environment for M&A and licensing deals amid the ongoing downturn. Although a wealth of lower-priced assets has opened up opportunities for dealmaking, she said at the end of the day, assets must be a strategic fit for a given company.
“It’s not just being able to get a lower price for an asset. It’s because you’ve got to build that asset up, and then that’s where the real investment comes in,” she said. “I think the problem remains the same: you’re looking for high-quality assets that, there’s strategic fit with your pipeline and needs. And usually when there’s high-quality assets, there are also other pharma that are looking at the same asset. I think it’s pretty much driven by that rather than, that there is a wealth of low valuation assets.”
She expects more deal and M&A activity in the coming months.
Last week as part of a podcast previewing Bio€quity Europe, Graziano Seghezzi, managing partner of Sofinnova Partners, and Corrado Panzeri, partner and head of the Innovation & Technology Hub at The European House-Ambrosetti, discussed how the Italian life sciences sector has grown into an ecosystem.
This week’s podcast is sponsored by MSD (Merck & Co. Inc. in the U.S.), whose London-based European Innovation Hub includes a business development and licensing team, clinical teams and its U.K. Discovery Research Centre. For information on how to sponsor BioCentury This Week and The BioCentury Show, please contact Sarah Shoaff at sarah.shoaff@biocentury.com.
