Ann: Chairman's Address at 2019 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, page-26

Confidentiality isn’t confined to this deal between Acadia and Neuren – in fact, it’s so common in this industry, it’s the norm.

I remembered that I'd looked into this issue a number of years ago, so checked my files.

Below are some insights I found at the time in a report on pharma royalties. The chapters are fittingly titled “Overt or Covert?” and “Disclosure of Royalties: Why the Big Secret?”

In my experience the pressure to release royalty information would only ever come from the licensor, the biotech or start-up who wanted to show what a good deal they had achieved. Licensees, particularly big Pharma, don’t want that information in the public domain as it might be perceived as a negative; there is nothing to gain from it…they don’t see it being conducive to their negotiating position if every piece of the deal puzzle is out there. Licensors’ expectations may be raised.

Former CEO, Biotech, Europe


‘… barely more than 1% of all deal-related headlines report actual royalty rates, although these may easily represent most of the value generated by the innovation in the market. Companies are rather reluctant to show these figures as they prefer to reserve some uncertainty about the value, as this could help them negotiate increasingly better terms with any potential subsequent partners. In other words, keeping royalty figures to themselves potentially increases their negotiating power. For these reasons a dealmaker is deprived of perhaps the most crucial information in understanding the full financial returns of a commercialisation programme.’

Head, Pharmaceutical Consultancy, UK


Some 51 of the 81 deals (63%) made by Pfizer in this period (2007-2011)were with start-ups, and, perhaps not surprisingly, in the context of the overall 0.62% disclosure rate for big pharma, not one of them involved the disclosure of any hard royalty information.

http://files.pharmadeals.net/contents/toc_rrr2012.pdf