This story showed up in my newsfeed last week.
Its relevance? The company for which pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is paying $8 billion dollars is Kelonia Theraputics. Those of you paying close attention will remember that Kelonia is the developer of the new multiple myeloma treatment KLN-1010, which (if all goes well) I’ll be getting the week after next as part of a Phase 1 trial at Stanford.
I took two things from this story.
First, if a big dog like Lilly is willing to pay that much for Kelonia, it must believe that its products, including KLN-1010, have a lot of promise. That’s enouraging.
Second, as much as I’d like to think that the lion’s share of that $8 billion will go to the scientists and researchers who actually develop its products, my gut (and my knowledge of the way things work in the acquisition world) tells me that most of that sum will go to the venture capitalists who funded Kelonia’s startup, Kelonia’s executives, and the financiers, deal-makers, and hangers-on who arranged for and work on the sale. To be sure, Kelonia’s scientists won’t be living out of their cars, but they won’t receive nearly the benefit from the transaction that they should.
Categories: Blogging