In the previous installments of this series, we looked at recent big pharma transactions through the lenses of oncology, obesity/metabolic disease, respiratory and infectious disease, and finally from an investor’s point of view. In this sixth and final part, we switch to a startup-side perspective: what makes a company attractive as a partner or acquisition target, and how can founders design a path that leaves room both to be acquired and to remain independent?
The goal here is not to offer a magic recipe for “how to get bought.” Rather, we will extract patterns that seem to recur in recent deals and translate them into a practical framework for:
- Teams that actively aim for acquisition or large-scale partnering
- Teams that prefer to stay independent but want to keep the door open to strategic options
Think of this article as a playbook to help founders and leadership teams make more deliberate, less reactive decisions as their companies evolve.
1. Why founders should pay close attention to big pharma deals
1-1. Deals are not just “endpoints” but inputs for present-day decisions
For many drug discovery and biotech startups, M&A or major partnerships are realistic exit scenarios. The key question is whether those possibilities are treated as distant, abstract endpoints—or as design constraints for today’s strategy.
- How far along the value chain do we intend to go on our own?
- At what point does it make more sense to hand off to a partner with global development and commercial capabilities?
- Which parts of the story (indications, modalities, regions) do we want to retain control over, and which are we willing to share or sell?
Recent big pharma transactions provide concrete examples of how those choices have played out for other companies. Used well, they can serve as a guide for reverse engineering your own roadmap.
1-2. Understanding which “cluster story” you belong to
As we saw earlier in this series, recent deal activity has been especially intense in clusters such as:
- Oncology (targeted therapies, immuno-oncology, ADCs, radiopharmaceuticals)
- Obesity and CVRM (cardiovascular, renal, metabolic) around the GLP-1 wave
- Respiratory and infectious disease, including rare pulmonary disorders
From a startup perspective, it is critical to be able to articulate:
- Which cluster your story lives in, and why
- Within that cluster, where you sit in terms of modality, stage and positioning
This is not only about investor decks; it is about making conversations with potential pharma partners start from a shared mental map rather than from scratch.
2. Common traits of startups that end up in major deals
2-1. They are clearly a “missing piece” in someone’s portfolio
Assets that anchor big deals are rarely just “good drugs.” They tend to be:
- Pieces that fill a specific gap in a big pharma company’s existing portfolio
- Amplifiers of a core franchise (oncology, CVRM, respiratory, etc.)
- Enablers of future lifecycle strategies (combinations, line extensions, new segments)
For a startup, a key question is:
- In whose portfolio do we clearly and naturally fit, and at which level?
- Which existing or pipeline products could we be combined with to form a more powerful story?
The more explicitly you can answer those questions, the easier it becomes for a partner to envision your place in their long-term plan.
2-2. They pair scientific novelty with a disciplined risk story
Interesting science is not enough. Deals gravitate toward companies that can show that they have already done significant work to systematically de-risk key uncertainties:
- Clear target validation and human biology rationale
- Early translational data that connect mechanistic promise to human disease
- A realistic view of safety, toxicity and on-/off-target risks
In other words, the question is not only “How novel is the mechanism?” but also “How coherently can you explain which risks remain, and which have already been mitigated?” The latter often drives timing and terms more than the former.
2-3. Their team design reflects what must be done, not just what they enjoy doing
In young companies, talent is precious. Many of the startups that show up in recent deals have made deliberate choices:
- They do not try to internalize every function from discovery to global commercialization.
- They focus internal capacity on the stages where their unique know-how has the highest leverage (e.g., early discovery, preclinical, initial clinical proof-of-concept).
Conversely, they are realistic about what they are unlikely to do themselves:
- Large, global Phase 3 programs
- Building a worldwide commercial infrastructure
Being explicit about where you intend to stop—and having a plan for how to hand off beyond that point—is often more attractive to partners than an unconstrained “we’ll do everything” narrative.
3. Designing backwards from potential exits
3-1. Full acquisition vs. staged partnerships
Exits for startups do not have to mean a one-time, all-or-nothing acquisition. Other structures include:
- Global licenses (upfront + milestones + royalties)
- Co-development and co-commercialization agreements
- Regional deals that carve out specific geographies
- Option-based partnerships (e.g., an equity or R&D collaboration with an option to acquire later)
Each comes with trade-offs in terms of control, economics and future flexibility. What matters is that founders:
- Form an early hypothesis about which exit shapes are compatible with their mission and investors
- Use that hypothesis to guide decisions on pipeline scope, headcount and capital intensity
Recent deals show a notable rise in hybrid structures that combine licensing, options and future acquisition rights—models that allow both sides to stage their commitments as uncertainty reduces.
3-2. Deciding how far you plan to go before partnering
A central strategic choice is how far to advance your lead assets before seeking major partnerships:
- Taking programs through Phase 2 can significantly increase deal value but requires substantial capital and time.
- Partnering around or shortly after Phase 1 reduces capital needs and shares risk but limits the upside you capture.
There is no universal right answer. The “best” choice depends on:
- The indication and typical trial sizes
- The maturity of the modality and the appetite of potential partners
- Your realistic fundraising capacity and team experience
What matters most is not perfection, but clarity: having an internally aligned plan so that day-to-day decisions support a coherent trajectory.
4. The “deal readiness package” startups should build
4-1. A data narrative that can be grasped quickly
In early discussions with big pharma, you may only have a short time to convey who you are and why you’re different. It helps tremendously to have:
- A single, clean slide that shows the overall mechanism and disease link
- Clearly curated “hero” figures for preclinical and early clinical data
- A simple competitive landscape matrix that situates your approach
The goal is not to compress everything, but to ensure that the core narrative can be understood in minutes, not hours. Many successful deals begin with exactly that kind of crisp, early impression.
4-2. IP and contracts that will not become last-minute blockers
Even outstanding science can be undermined if:
- Core IP is fragmented or unclear
- Legacy agreements with institutions or collaborators put heavy constraints on future licensing
From a startup-side perspective, two practical disciplines make a big difference:
- Keeping ownership and licensing structures around core IP as simple and transparent as possible
- Negotiating academic and collaboration agreements with an explicit eye on future commercial use and sublicensing
It is easier to prevent complexity than to unwind it under the pressure of a signing deadline.
4-3. Team and governance that inspire confidence
Deals are done not only on molecules but also on people and systems. Partners will quietly assess whether:
- Key know-how is overly concentrated in a single individual
- Basic compliance and quality processes are in place
- Board and shareholder dynamics are stable enough to support a major transaction
Even if you aim to stay independent, strengthening these areas increases your degrees of freedom: it makes you a more credible counterparty for partners and a more investable company for future rounds.
5. Diverging paths: built to be bought vs. built to remain independent
5-1. Being honest about your mission and business model
Some startups are explicitly designed to:
- Generate transformative innovation in a focused area and then hand it off to a large partner
Others aspire to:
- Build a long-term, integrated biotech company with multiple assets and revenue streams
This choice influences:
- The kind of leadership and board you assemble
- The types of investors you bring in and their time horizons
- How you prioritize between deep platform building and asset-centric execution
There is no moral hierarchy between the two models. But ambiguity can be costly: mixed signals to staff, investors and partners tend to surface at the worst possible moments.
5-2. Always being “acquirable,” without always choosing to be acquired
Even if your ambition is to remain independent, it is wise to keep your company in a state where acquisition is feasible on your terms:
- IP and contractual structures that would not scare off a buyer
- Clean cap table and governance
- Well-organized data and documentation
These are not just about being buyout-ready. They also:
- Ease future fundraising and partnership negotiations
- Reduce friction in due diligence for any type of strategic transaction
In other words: build a company that could be acquired at any time, then decide deliberately whether you want to accept an offer when it comes.
6. A practical checklist for startup leaders
To make this concrete, here is a simple checklist founders and leadership teams can use when thinking about big pharma deals:
- 1. Can we clearly state which therapeutic cluster we belong to (oncology, CVRM, respiratory/infectious, etc.) and why?
- 2. Do we know which big pharma franchises we plausibly complement, and how?
- 3. Have we agreed internally on how far we intend to go before major partnering (by phase, geography and modality)?
- 4. Do our pitch materials lead with human biology and translational rationale, not just preclinical elegance?
- 5. Have we had a serious, external review of our IP position and key contracts from a “future deal” standpoint?
- 6. Are our data, figures and competitive maps packaged in a way that can be shared quickly if interest arises?
- 7. Is our board and cap table structured in a way that would allow a large strategic transaction to be executed without chaos?
These may sound like simple questions, but systematically working through them can be the difference between being surprised by opportunity and being ready for it.
7. My thoughts and future outlook
Viewed from the startup side, the story of big pharma deals over the last few months is less about “who bought whom” and more about how certain patterns keep reappearing. Companies that get meaningful deals done tend to combine strong science with disciplined risk framing, clear portfolio fit and operational readiness. Those elements do not guarantee an outcome, but they dramatically increase the odds that, when the right conversation begins, it can move quickly and seriously.
At the same time, the ultimate measure of success for a startup is not always a buyout. Some of the most impactful companies are those that choose to remain independent, repeatedly raising capital and building portfolios while collaborating with multiple partners. For both paths, the core benefit of studying big pharma deals is the same: it sharpens your ability to design, not just react. If this final installment helps founders and teams see their own journey more clearly in the mirror of recent deals, then this series has served its purpose.
This article was prepared by the Morningglorysciences editorial team.
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