About - Avance - Financial Valuation Specialists in Life Sciences

About Avance

Avance is a company specialized in valuation in life sciences located in Basel, Switzerland. We serve a wide range of clients around the globe including biotechs, big pharma, medtechs, hedge funds, investors, banks, and technology transfer offices.

Our main lines of business are
valuation services, valuation software, and valuation training.

Avance was found by Boris Bogdan and Ralph Villiger in 2004 and since then has helped more than 1500 professionals in life sciences.

PHILOSOPHY

We stand for tailored and outstanding work

Tailored solutions
Satisfied clients
Companies' education

We, at Avance, believe in tailored and fact-based solutions for each of our clients. We understand that every company is unique in the existing capabilities and approaches to solve current market gaps. It is our goal to capture the maximum value of projects and technologies, provide the management with a clear elaboration on the results, and help to steer the companies towards most value adding strategic decisions.

We are determined to professionalize valuation in the life sciences industry. In that perspective, we engage with the community in life sciences through social portals, publish many of our insights in our wide-spread newsletter, and distribute educational materials on valuation-related topics. A detailed summary and description of our approach are published in the industry reference book “Valuation in Life Sciences. A Practical Guide”.

A PRACTICAL GUIDE, 3RD EDITION

Valuation in Life Sciences

This book is the first complete guide to valuation in life sciences for industry professionals, investors, and academics. It has rapidly become the standard reference in the industry and is currently published in its third edition.

Boris Bogdan and Ralph Villiger introduce the characteristics of drug and medical device development, explain how to translate these into the valuation and provide valuable industry data. After guiding the reader through the theory of valuation, including discounted cash-flow and real options, the authors demonstrate how to value projects, patents, licenses, firms and stocks on real-life examples, even treating complex license and company structures.

Special emphasis is put on the practicability of the proposed methods by including many hands-on examples, without compromising on realistic results.

Reviews

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Ralph Villiger and Boris Bogdan have written what is sure to become the industry standard reference for valuation of pharmaceutical and biotechnology projects and companies. Their academically rigorous treatment of the underlying theoretical framework for both risk-adjusted net present value, and real options approaches to valuation is combined with the real-life complexities of pipeline and portfolio management in the life sciences industry to provide a comprehensive overview of this critical subject. At a time when the healthcare industry is placing increasing emphasis on licensing and M&A as a core strategy this book provides a firm understanding of the way in which products and businesses can be valued at all stages of their development, while their thorough treatment of quantitative approaches to the valuation of companies provides a solid theoretical and practical framework for all of those involved in financing the new generation of biotechnology companies. This book will be of immense value to strategic planning, licensing and business development, corporate finance professionals and senior managers in all sectors of the life sciences industry.

Martin Buckland

Chief Business Officer, Astex Therapeutics, Cambridge, UK

This book provides an introduction both to the development of new medicines and to the techniques of financial investment appraisal. According to the authors, traditional approaches to assessing investment opportunities fall short in the pharmaceutical industry. More sophisticated evaluation techniques are necessary, particularly in respect of the drug development process, intellectual property evaluation, licensing and sublicensing. The book presents a number of innovative ideas, illustrated with practical examples, that should improve decision-making in these areas. The authors make a persuasive case for the use of advanced techniques and the section on worked-examples should be particularly appealing to practitioners.

Dr. Martin Grossmann

Novartis Pharmaceuticals

We all welcome publication of this first book which deals specifically with Valuation in Life Science. Valuation has always been the focal issue for anyone involved in business development. The combined talents of Boris Bogdan and Ralph Villiger have produced an excellent synthesis of the parameters and stakes of the Life Sciences field, integrating them successfully in the most sophisticated economic evaluation models (ENPV, Real Options, etc.). The book also contains numerous case studies and exercises which clearly illustrate the most complex theories. Methods and models for the evaluation of projects and companies are carefully described and explained and will thus provide a practical and rational basis for negotiations. There is no doubt that this book will become an essential reference tool for professionals in technology transfer, business developers and biotech companies, as well as the pharmaceutical industry and Life Science investors.

Jean-Pierre Saintouil

Director of Technology Transfer Department, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

"‘Valuation in Life Sciences: A Practical Guide’ leads readers step by step through the theory of life sciences valuation. … it is an important read for biotech investors. … It is the first book of its kind that combines industry data and valuation theory together with practical advice. It includes valuation techniques and tools that allow investors to pick undervalued biotech stocks."

GEN – genetic engineering news

February, 2007

"Valuation in Life Sciences: A Practical Guide opens up the black box and describes, step by step, a relatively simple procedure for quantitative valuation in life sciences. The book guides the reader through the recommended procedure of quantitative valuation … . This book is recommended to those who would like to acquire a profound understanding of quantitative valuation and use a simple spreadsheet approach of their own cases."

Rudolf Gygax

Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 25 (9), 2007

"This book provides some interesting examples – for business development and licensing executives – of where ROV may be used. … For the general reader and business development executive there is a good explanation of ROV and its applications in life science … . The book may also be of interest to biotechnology company business development executives and university technology transfer officers … . this book is essential reading as it not only provides the mathematical theory but also the applications in different types of deals."

Roger Davies

Business Development & Licensing Journal, Issue 4, 2007

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