Deloitte Recap Honors Sanofi-aventis and Exelixis With the Allicense 2010 Breakthrough Alliance Award for Early-Stage Collaboration in Cancer

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Aug 31, 2010, 12:07 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Deloitte Recap recently presented the Allicense 2010 Breakthrough Alliance Award to pharmaceutical giant, Sanofi-aventis, and biotechnology firm, Exelixis, in recognition of their potential $1 billion alliance in which Exelixis gave Sanofi-aventis worldwide exclusive licenses for two early-stage cancer treatments and a stake in the development of PI3K inhibitor programs. In exchange, Sanofi-aventis provided Exelixis an upfront payment of $140 million with an additional guaranteed $21 million over the next three years for research and development and could total up to $1 billion in milestone payments.

The annual award, presented at the Deloitte Recap Allicense conference, honors the efforts of business development licensing professionals. Deloitte Recap analysts examined hundreds of biotech/big pharma deals signed in the previous year to identify the top five contenders for the deal of the year. Business development licensing professionals throughout the industry voted to identify a winner.

"Combining the research innovation of the biotech companies with the resources of global pharmaceutical corporations is essential to continued productivity in the life sciences industry," said Mark Edwards, managing director of Deloitte Recap LLC.

"Sanofi-aventis is extremely honored to have received the Allicense 2010 Deal of the Year Award for the Exelixis transaction," said Philippe Goupit, vice president of corporate licenses at Sanofi-aventis. "This transaction perfectly reflects our new strategy to engage true collaborative partnerships with highly reputable innovative biotech companies such as Exelixis. There is a lot to get out from such innovative types of collaboration for the ultimate benefit of patients."

Exelixis also was honored to win the Breakthrough Alliance Award in 2010 and 2009. "We are very excited to receive the Allicense deal award for a second year in a row. Over the years we worked very hard to create innovative deals that are examples for the industry," said Frances K. Heller, executive vice president for business development at Exelixis. "Partnering has been a critical part of Exelixis' strategy and a key source of our non-dilutive financing. Given the challenging economic environment, we believe partnering will continue to be an important source of funding for the industry."

The other deal finalists identified by Deloitte Recap were AstraZeneca/Targacept - Phase II Collaboration for Depression; Takeda/Amylin - Phase II Collaboration in Diabetes/Obesity; Millennium/Seattle Genetics - Phase II Co-Development for Lymphoma Product; and Novartis/Incyte - Phase III Collaboration for Cancer Products.

The Breakthrough Alliance Award deals were analyzed using the currently available deal data from the Recap IQ Series by Deloitte™. Some common elements to the deals include:

Large upfront cash and/or equity payments
Shared costs limits
Clear allocation of decision-making power
Shared commercial rights

About Deloitte Recap

Deloitte Recap LLC was originally founded as Recombinant Capital, Inc. in 1988 by Mark Edwards and based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In July 2008, Recombinant Capital, Inc. was purchased by a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP and the business is now known as Deloitte Recap LLC (Recap). As used in this document, "Deloitte Recap" means Deloitte Recap LLC and "Deloitte" means Deloitte LLP and Deloitte Services LP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries.