This book is about asymmetric "David & Goliath" partnerships in pharmaceutical R&D--bilateral arrangements in which one partner is a smaller bioscience or academic organization (David) and the other a large multinational corporation (Goliath). The past decade has seen a paradigm shift in how medicines and other therapies are discovered, developed and commercialized. The new distributed model of R&D seamlessly blends external partnerships with in-house efforts to generate innovative medicines and create new value.

Smaller bioscience firms and academia have been both beneficiaries and...