Inpart Deal glossary
Learn definitions for common terms used in Inpart Deal.
Agreement
An agreement is a legally binding contract between parties like pharmaceutical companies, research institutions, or regulatory bodies. It covers various aspects such as development, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, licensing, or collaborations. These agreements define terms, responsibilities, and obligations to ensure compliance with legal and regulatory standards, protect intellectual property, and manage risks effectively.
Related content: Create and manage agreements and CDAs
Asset
The asset is the object evaluated as an opportunity by your company. It represents the elements that, once acquired or licensed, will become part of your company's portfolio. It can be anything: a compound, a research project, an expertise, an application, a device, a production capability or facility, etc.
In Inpart Deal, we identify several asset types:
| Asset type | Definition |
| Pharma Asset | A pharma asset can be any compound, drug, platform, research project, expertise, IP, or knowledge that can lead to, or support, the discovery and development of a new drug. |
| Technology | A technology can be screening or diagnostics methods or tools, AI or analytics platforms, digital health applications or sensors, medical devices, etc. |
| Consumer Health Asset | A consumer health product can be non-prescription drugs (e.g., pain relievers, cold and allergy remedies, acne therapies), disinfectants (e.g., for use on countertops, contact lens solution); cosmetics (e.g., make-up, shampoos, deodorants); and natural health products (e.g., vitamin and mineral supplements, traditional and homeopathic medicines, probiotics, toothpastes). |
| Organization |
An organization can be a company, research institute, cluster, institution, etc. Such an opportunity can be used to manage discussions with potential out-licensers, acquisitions, CRO evaluation, and investments. Within an Organization type initiative, you can select the same company for several opportunities in this initiative. Only the name of the opportunities must differ from one another. This functionality is helpful for out-licensing. For instance, you can:
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The asset type can be found within each opportunity overview, in the Asset tab.
Company
A company is a legal entity formed by a group of individuals pursuing activities in any field relevant to your activity.
In Inpart Deal, a company can be a biotech, a small or large pharma, a public laboratory, a technology transfer office (either regional or academic), a center of excellence, a university, a consulting firm, a CRO or CMO, etc. Basically anything!
Companies are always related to an opportunity. The master list of companies can be found on the dedicated Companies page, accessible from the navigation bar. You can also access a specific company profile through a related opportunity overview or contact profile.
Related content: Create and Manage Companies
Contact
A contact is a member of a company who has interacted with someone from your organization (usually during a meeting or a project). A contact can be associated with an opportunity and have a specific role in this opportunity: lead researcher, main contact person, project manager, etc.
The master list of contacts can be found on the dedicated Contacts page, accessible from the navigation bar. You can also access a specific contact profile through a related opportunity overview or company profile.
Related content: Create and Manage Contacts
Evaluation
An evaluation is an internal collaborative assessment of the value of an opportunity from different angles. It can either involve only a few evaluators and focus on scientific elements in the earlier stage of the evaluation, or centralize many people on various aspects of the deal during the due diligence.
Evaluations appear as tasks to Inpart Deal users so it is easy for them to manage their list of tasks and evaluations to perform. This is also true for expert contributors who only need quick access to the list of evaluations they're assigned to.
An evaluation then reaches a conclusion that can be shared and used as input for decision-makers to proceed or decline the project.
The evaluations can be found in the Tasks tab of each opportunity, or directly on the homepage, in the Evaluations section.
Related content: Create and Manage Evaluations
Initiative
An initiative defines the scope of the search effort of your Business Development and Search and Evaluation teams to find a partner to solve a specific scientific challenge or strategic objective.
It usually defines the type of project, compound, or technology, your company wants to in or out-license or acquire, the target therapeutic area or research field, the ideal development stage, and the type of partner organization (academics vs. biotech or investment firm). In the case of out-licensing, it also describes the specifications of the out-licensed asset or set of assets.
Initiatives reflect the partnering strategy of a company as it defines the challenges and objectives of focus. An initiative contains several opportunities that offer solutions to fit the initiative.
An initiative is always tied to a specific context or use case, defined by the associated asset type. Hence, an initiative can have only one associated asset type:
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Pharma asset: If the initiative is about seeking targets for research collaborations or in-licensing in the pharma space.
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Technology: If the initiative is about centralizing the work of a team focusing on tech scouting in the digital health space.
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Organization: If the initiative is about out-licensing or looking for investment targets.
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Consumer health asset: If you're specialized in consumer health and its specificities.
The master list of initiatives can be found on the dedicated Initiatives page, accessible from the navigation bar. You can also access a specific initiative overview through a related opportunity overview.
Related content: Initiatives support articles
Meeting
Meetings often act as a starting point for a potential partnership opportunity. The meeting feature enables you to capture and manage the interactions that happen between your company and other potential partners.
Meeting records can be added to an opportunity, a company, or a contact overview.
Opportunity
An opportunity is a chance to find and sign a deal with a partner company.
It includes the identification of the partner or asset, its evaluation, and the contracting until the deal signature.
An opportunity can target a specific asset or technology offered by a company (in the case of in-licensing, research collaboration, or asset acquisition projects), or a company (in the case of out-licensing or a company acquisition).
Opportunities are always related to an initiative and a company. The master list of opportunities can be found on the dedicated Opportunities page, accessible from the navigation bar. You can also display the list of related opportunities within an initiative, a company, or a contact profile.
Related content: Opportunities support articles
User roles
Inpart Deal provides two main user roles to enable different levels of collaboration and control in the application: Manager and Contributor. A third role, Business Admin, gives additional rights to Managers.
Related content: User Roles and Rights support article
All user roles are managed from the Admin Center.
Manager
Managers have full access to all features of Inpart Deal. They can:
- Create and manage initiatives, opportunities, tasks, and evaluations, and manage workflows.
- Upload emails and documents to the platform.
- Control access to initiatives.
- Invite Contributors to participate in evaluations.
Managers are usually part of the Business Development team in your company.
Their role is to create and define the initiatives that fit your company's strategic goals. They identify new opportunities, screen them, and move them along the partnering flow. An important part of their role is coordinating the evaluations to help advance the opportunities through the partnering stages.
Contributor
Contributors have access to a limited number of Inpart Deal features, that are made for a broad audience. They can:
- Create opportunities and comment on them.
- Respond to evaluations.
- They can't create initiatives, tasks, or evaluations.
Contributors are usually functional and therapeutic area experts.
Their role is to help identify promising opportunities and provide expertise to help make decisions about the opportunities evaluated by your company. They respond to evaluation requests sent by Managers and explore and comment on opportunities proactively.
Business Admin
This is an add-on role to Manager. Business Admins, in addition to all their Manager rights, can specifically:
- Manage list values and tags, from the Administration page.
Their role is to customize and keep clean the list of values available in Inpart Deal to fit your company processes and thus facilitate your team's work.
Workflow
The workflow is the series of stages an opportunity needs to go through before a deal can be signed. It represents all the major activities required to properly evaluate, negotiate, and contract with an external partner.
A workflow is associated with a deal type (in-licensing, out-licensing, research collaboration, acquisition, investment, etc.). Each type will require different activities and tasks to be completed.
Workflows are useful to help you standardize your evaluation process and align your teams.
Related content:
Stage
A stage is one of a set of standard, required activities that are part of a business process, i.e. workflow. Stages contain default tasks that can be used as guidelines for the work to be done by your team.
Examples of stages are:
- Scientific evaluation
- Due diligence
- Negotiation
- Contracting
- Etc.
Status
The status indicates if an opportunity has reached its conclusion or not. It's important to be able to organize work and focus on active opportunities and get some accurate reporting on the state of your partnering pipeline. The possible statuses of an opportunity are:
- Active: The opportunity is being worked on. No decision has been reached and the evaluation is ongoing.
- On-Hold: It's not possible to proceed with the evaluation at the moment. But the opportunity is still deemed valuable and should be reevaluated in the future. This usually happens when waiting for additional research results, or when not enough data is available. If you put an opportunity on hold, you'll receive a notification after two months to remind you of it.
- Declined: The evaluation of an opportunity reached a negative conclusion and the decision was made not to pursue it further.
- Closed: An opportunity that reached the end of its evaluation and has been successfully contracted is considered closed. The outcome was positive but there is no more work to be done as part of the evaluation project.
The workflow, stage, and status can be found on top of each opportunity overview, and are also displayed in the columns of the master list of opportunities, on the Opportunities page.