Papiernik tells Bloomberg that biotech is essential to pharma industry

Bloomberg covered Sofinnova Partners' deal with Apollo with a website article and a segment on the Bloomberg TV show "Bloomberg Markets: Americas" with Alix Steel and Guy Johnson.

Antoine Papiernik, Sofinnova Partners' chairman and managing partner, was quoted in the article as saying, "you can sense the desire of everyone — the pharma industry on one end and the big asset managers on the other — to massively increase their exposure to life sciences."

Later, on the Bloomberg TV segment, as Steel and Johnson pressed him to comment on the downturn in the stock market, he expanded on the idea that the biotech sector plays a crucial role.

"The pharma industry needs biotech. This is today absolutely a fact," Papiernik said. "People are talking about $500 billion of fresh cash, dry powder, in the coffers of the pharma industry. This is not going to come out immediately, but this is something very important that anyone should think about." He went on to stress that small biotech companies fill a key role in the health care ecosystem. "Pharma ultimately will need those products to feed their pipelines," he said.

When asked why Apollo agreed to a minority stake instead of an outright purchase, Papiernik stressed that the deal reflected what both companies wanted. "This is really a point where both Apollo and ourselves totally agreed from the get-go," he said, adding that Apollo "want to learn from our knowledge of life sciences. They don't want to meddle in the way we invest ... They wanted a partner that would bring them a skill set that they don't have. We wanted a partner that would bring us firepower."