Just as big drugmakers are spanning the universe in search of the next hot biotech, some biotechs are doing a version of the same thing. Today, for instance, Biogen Idec will formally announce that its first tenant has been signed up for a new incubator near its Cambridge headquarters, The Boston Globe writes. Genzyme is also considering creating a virtual incubator - funding, but no housing. And Vertex Pharmaceuticals is trying yet another tactic - a deal with Harvard University in which researchers can publish results freely and retain rights to any technology developed.

“We felt we needed to pursue another mechanism” to support early-stage companies, Rainer Fuchs, executive director of the Biogen Idec Innovation Incubator, tells the Globe. The first tenant, by the way, is Escoublac, a new company founded on work from a Columbia University researcher. Venture capitalists like Biogen’s idea. Peter Feinstein, general partner of BioVentures Investors in Cambridge, tells the paper Biogen could invigorate its research programs by bringing in entrepreneurs with new ideas. “It like having puppies around an older dog,” he quips.

Vertex, meanwhile, claims to have received dozens of proposals and decided to fund five starting next year - committing a total of several million dollars over three years. If Harvard decides to license any technology developed, Vertex has the option to license it first. “It’s a new model,” ceo Josh Boger tells the paper.

Of course, others are eyeing incubators, as well. Pfizer, for instance, launched one earlier this year at its La Jolla, California, facility near San Diego. But as The Deal pointed out in a story last June, such arrangements aren’t slam dunks. What happens if Pfizer of Biogen aren’t interested in a med developed by a tenant? “Let’s say Pfizer has 50 percent of my company and someone on my board,” David Weinstein, CEO of GliaMed, a startup in the Columbia University-affiliated Audubon Center in Manhattan, told the Deal. “If Pfizer passes on my drug, what’s the matter with it? I have one foot and one leg tied down. It’ll have a half-life of exactly two years.”