In biotechnology, one way to get a feel for a new therapeutic platform's potential for success is relationships. A really promising platform will generally attract the attention of other players who want a piece of the action.
Big Pharma has essentially “pharmed out” a lot of the drug discovery and development it used to do with emerging biotech companies. But if one of the new upstarts is truly promising in the opinion of the experts working at these companies, a couple of things can happen. One is a partnership, either on an existing drug under development at the junior company or for a collaboration to use that company's technology to develop a drug that doesn't exist yet. The second thing, of course, is an outright buyout of the smaller firm.
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