Building technology enabled platform companies in Biopharma – a perspective on early-stage value creation from Millennium, Alnylam, Moderna, & Kymera

Abstract

This paper addresses the topic of building platform-based companies in biopharma.  We provide a short literature review on the topic, followed by a discussion of financing growth of platform companies.  This is followed by case studies on four pioneering biopharma companies that cover the era of the mid-1990s until today.  These companies are all well recognized pioneers and have gone thru their life cycles from founding, to building portfolios of products, to acquisition. Our mini-case studies include Millennium Pharmaceuticals (now a unit of Takeda), Alnylam, Moderna, and Kymera.) These also cover different technology bases for their respective platforms that have emerged during the last two decades since the emergence of the genomics revolution.