Advisory line
BD & Dealmaking Advisory
Where the edge concentrates
I have done deals in all four directions of the table — corporate to corporate, corporate to small company, small company to corporate, and founder licensing from universities and knowledge institutes. Most advisors have done one or two of these well. Very few have done all four at a senior level.
The work is in industrial biotechnology and specialty ingredients specifically — the counterparty universe is one I read natively after twenty years across DuPont Industrial Biosciences, Inbiose, S-Biomedic, and the broader fermentation industry. Founders trust me because I understand the corporate side; corporates trust me because I have done their job.
The most valuable judgment in a negotiation is reading when a deal isn't worth doing. Having taken a biotech to a clean exit, I am calibrated to walk away when the terms warrant it — and to recognise the points at which a counterparty is in fact ready to move.
What we work on
Licensing negotiation support
Term-sheet drafting, red-team review, counterparty strategy on licensing deals — in-licensing or out-licensing technology from universities, knowledge institutes, or corporates.
Partnership & JV structuring
Strategic-partnership term shaping: commercial structure, IP ownership, exclusivity, milestones — for biotech-corporate or corporate-corporate deals.
M&A advisory — sell-side
Positioning a small biotech for acquisition: buyer-list shortlist, pitch material critique, valuation framing, introduction pathways.
M&A advisory — buy-side
Target shortlisting, fit assessment, counterparty diligence support — typically alongside sector-diligence advisory.
BD program build-out for founders
Building a small-company BD function from scratch: partner pipeline, pitch architecture, deal cadence, negotiation playbook. Often retainer-based.
Negotiation coaching
Senior coaching of a buyer's BD team through a live high-stakes negotiation — advisor-to-the-advisor.
Patterns I've seen
Engagements are confidential, so we don't name clients. What follows are recurring patterns I have seen across licensing and partnership work in industrial biotechnology.
Pattern I've seen
Field-of-use definitions in European corporate × US scale-up licensing deals
European corporates negotiating in-licenses from US-headquartered scale-ups have a recurring failure mode at the field-of-use clause. The corporate wants exclusive rights in a defined application but won't commit to minimum-spend or development-diligence terms that would justify the exclusivity from the licensor's side. The licensor's deal team, often first-generation in dealmaking experience, cannot tell whether to push back on the exclusivity request or to give it away.
The resolution that works in my experience is a two-track structure: time-limited exclusivity (24–36 months) at a defined commercial milestone that the corporate commits to in writing, followed by automatic conversion to non-exclusive if the milestone isn't met. This protects the licensor's upside without putting the corporate in a position to refuse the deal, and avoids the more common alternative — a vaguely worded "best efforts" clause that ends in litigation when the field stalls.
Pattern I've seen
When the founder needs to be reminded that the corporate is also negotiating internally
Small-company founders sitting across the table from a strategic acquirer or a partnership team often read every pause and every counter-proposal as a signal about the deal. Most of the time, it isn't — it's a signal about the corporate's internal negotiation between the BD team, the business unit head, the finance gate, and (in Europe especially) the works council.
The advisory work is to map that internal counterparty for the founder: who has signing authority, who has veto, what the BU head's incentive structure rewards, when the next relevant board meeting is. A patient counter-proposal that anticipates the corporate's next internal step closes deals faster than a punchy one that ignores it.
Tell us about the deal
Every BD engagement starts with a 30-minute scoping call. We will tell you honestly whether this is work we can help with and what the right shape would be.
Schedule a scoping call →SUDEVCO provides independent business-development and dealmaking advisory. It is not authorised or regulated by the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA), and does not provide investment advice within the meaning of MiFID II, investment recommendations within the meaning of the Market Abuse Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 596/2014), a fairness opinion, or any other regulated investment service. Deal views and valuation framing are commercial and strategic — not a recommendation to acquire, dispose of, or subscribe for any financial instrument, and not a formal valuation. Clients make their own decisions and should take independent legal, financial, and tax advice.