Preclinical deals between industry and academia dipped in 2016 to 207, down from 236 the year prior, continuing the long slide since 395 deals were formed in 2012. Industry remains interested in academic research but has gotten more selective about why and how it forms deals. The school systems of California and Texas again are in this list as the most active schools, but it is the University of Pennsylvania that made a large jump: nine deals in 2016 versus four in 2015 (Table 1). AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are atop the list of most-active pharmas and big biotechs in 2016 (Fig. 1), with Johnson & Johnson moving from 3 deals in 2015 to 11 last year.

Table 1 Academic partnerships 2016
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Figure 1: The most-active pharmas and big biotechs with academic or research institute partners in 2016.
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Source: BCIQ: BioCentury Online Intelligence.

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