That’s the new benchmark for what big pharma may have to pay a biotech these days. The figure was first mentioned last fall by In Vivo magazine and seems to have become a given.

Roger Longman, who wrote the article, argues the rise in cash and milestone payments means some successful biotechs can focus solely on drug discovery, leaving the costs and headaches of moving medicines to market to the big drugmakers. Biotechs could still retain a significant chunk of profits going forward, and the licensing fees would help fund other pipeline projects. Bigger upfront payments would also mean less reliance on venture capital financing and the uncertain market for initial public offerings.

Irwin Lerner, the interim chief executive of Medarex, mentioned the $100 million figure as a sign of the Princeton biotech’s untapped value in an interview earlier this year. Officials of the German biotech Morphosys cited it on an earnings call with investors in February. And it was doubtless mentioned repeatedly in private meetings between biotech and drugmakers at BIO.

“No Big Pharma has said, ‘Gee, this is not true,’” Longman, a managing partner of Windhover Information, the publisher of In Vivo, tells The Star-Ledger of New Jersey. “Biotechs really love it, of course.”

The full story is here.

[tags]BIO, Biotech, Roger Longman[/tags]