Biotechs’ autonomy threatened

Speaking a week after the sale of Genzyme Corp. left the state’s top biotech firm in the hands of a French buyer, executives at the BD Biotech Conference in Boston yesterday said the pressure to merge is being driven by an unforgiving regulatory environment and the failure of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs.

“It’s a big concern,’’ said Richard F. Pops, chief executive of Alkermes Inc., a Waltham company that is marketing a drug to treat alcohol and opioid dependence. “But there’s not a hell of a lot you can do about it except to make yourself look unattractive’’ to a potential buyer.

Not all biotechs shun buyouts. Smaller, underfunded companies welcome suitors, and many venture-backed start-ups are presumed to be for sale at a time when the market for going public remains weak. But the larger publicly traded biotechnology companies that grew out of area labs and now have hundreds of employees locally also are the focus of attention from would-be buyers, even if they want to remain stand-alones.

Matthew W. Emmens, chief executive of Cambridge’s Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., which hopes to win US approval this spring for a drug to treat the hepatitis C virus, said he would prefer a smaller number of institutional and individual investors to a takeover by a single company.

But the Vertex chief conceded, “It’s not going to be your decision. It’s going to be the shareholders’ decision. Somebody either comes up and writes you a check, or they don’t.’’

During a discussion about large biotechnology companies, moderator John Maraganore, chief executive of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Cambridge, drew knowing laughter from the audience at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel when he said it was tough to find executives from big biotechs to fill his panel at the conference, a networking event focused on business development and forging partnerships among biomedical companies.

One factor Maraganore cited is the continuing migration of US and foreign drug makers to Cambridge, where they have set up research outposts and struck alliances with local biotechnology companies that have sometimes led to buyouts. “Kendall Square is starting to look like New Jersey,’’ he joked, referring to the home state of many pharmaceutical giants.

Picking up on that theme, Craig A. Wheeler, chief executive of Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., lamented the decline of the “dive bars’’ and casual dress that long were a part of the entrepreneurial life sciences scene in the Boston area. “We should do a survey of how many ties are here compared to 10 years ago,’’ Wheeler said.

Wheeler and Steven H. Holtzman, executive vice president for corporate development at Biogen Idec Inc. in Weston, said it is vital to preserve a climate of creativity that allows scientists and innovators to create new companies and drugs in a period where financial backers are demanding faster returns on their investments and the number of products approved by the Food and Drug Administration is falling.

Holtzman, who recently joined publicly traded Biogen Idec after years of running smaller companies that continually needed funding, said he has found benefits to working at a financially stronger company. “I’ve spent 25 years on my knees begging for money,’’ Holtzman said. “My knees are feeling much better the past three months.’’

To navigate in the current regulatory environment, it is important to aim high and not be content to pursue me-too drugs, Emmens said. “Breakthroughs are the only way to go. You’re not going to be able to increment your way to success.’’

With traditional drug makers showing a greater appetite for biotechs, buyers “are more willing to get into hostile situations,’’ Anna Protopapas, senior vice president for corporate development and strategy at Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Co. said on a separate panel. Sanofi-Aventis SA, the Paris-based pharmaceutical company that bought Genzyme, launched a hostile tender offer last year, though negotiations turned friendly in the later stages of their talks.

Others warned that their companies try to avoid hostile takeovers because, under such circumstances, they are unable to do the due diligence required to assess a merger candidates’ drugs in development.

Greg Wiederrecht, vice president for external scientific affairs at New Jersey drug maker Merck & Co., said a better approach is to share with willing potential merger partners a list of the therapeutics and diagnostics it is pursuing. “We’re looking for compounds out there that might be better than ours or ahead of ours,’’ Wiederrecht said.

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.