Benzinga | Apr 21, 2021 08:37AM EDT

Royalty Pharma Announces Strategic Alliance With MSCI To Launch Life Sciences Indexes

Royalty Pharma plc (NASDAQ:RPRX) today announced a collaboration with MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI), a leading provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community, to expand MSCI's thematic index suite with the launch of new indexes that aim to capture long-term, cutting edge themes that will disrupt the life sciences, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry groups.



Royalty Pharma will provide expertise on various medical conditions, clinical trials, transformative therapies, and technologies that may lead to breakthrough medical treatments that will assist MSCI to design a classification framework and index methodologies. The initial indexes will measure the performance of companies focused on delivering new and innovative therapeutic treatments related to virology and oncology.

Pablo Legorreta, founder and Chief Executive Officer at Royalty Pharma, stated: "As a leading funder of innovation in life sciences, we are extremely excited to collaborate with MSCI to develop innovative index solutions that will be licensed as the basis for indexed financial products such as ETFs targeting this dynamic sector. This collaboration leverages Royalty Pharma's deep clinical and scientific knowledge built over decades, as well as the unique capabilities of our Strategy and Analytics team. This venture represents another example of Royalty Pharma's creative approach to monetizing its existing intellectual capital through the creation of indexes that support investment in life sciences."

Henry Fernandez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at MSCI, said: "The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on all aspects of society and has proven to be an accelerant for long-term, structural changes, particularly in the life sciences. As we have seen during this time, life sciences companies are pivotal to shaping and advancing the healthcare industry and have been critical to the development of approaches for prevention and treatment of diseases. MSCI is thrilled to partner with Royalty Pharma to design thematic indexes that capture companies at the forefront of this evolving landscape and having a positive impact on the future of our world."

The MSCI indexes are planned to launch later this year.