SRF, true but noone has yet stepped up to the plate all deals on...

SRF,
true but noone has yet stepped up to the plate all deals on ISIS are taking the new standard approach by big pharama in lowering risk & wasted expenditure in their efforts to uncover the next blockbuster - many outright buy theorys on early stage drugs are out the window being replaced by smallish upfronts yet "potential" block buster milestones should they prove their worth over time.

Locking in the potential to capitalise but heavily positioned against risk exposure. You only have to look at GSK with the $35M up-front and potential further $1.5B should all tick boxes over time. So it's cost them $35M to lock it in place on multiple candidates but the rest is unknown - if they where confident all would deliver they would of just thrown the offer upfront. Even the recent Excaliard / Pfizer is very similar undisclosed but fairly modest up-front when taking ISIS released figure into account & then "potential" to increase the figures as milestones are met.

Gone are the days of out-right buys & in with the strong grip on risk management laargely due to big pharma drastically increasing R&D expenditure over recent years but being met head on with a high rate of failures, abandoning trials.