Public-Private Partnerships Can Lead To Long-Term Success

By Chris Przybyszewski

The COVID pandemic has ushered in a new age of public-private partnerships, showing how these collaborations can transform biotech solutions and the corporations that create them.

Not really.

While the current crisis has perhaps brought more public awareness of these partnerships, they have existed and flourished in the U.S. and globally for hundreds of years. That said, COVID does provide an interesting case study. To give only one example, Emergent BioSolutions inked a $628M deal with the U.S. Federal agency BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) to produce vaccines. The contract is not the first Emergent- BARDA contract, nor even the company’s largest (i.e., the entities previously agreed to a $1.5B deal involving Emergent’s anti-anthrax vaccine).