Managing Royalties in Biotech, Pharma, and MedTech

In this episode of The Life Science Rundown podcast, MetaComet president and co-founder David Marlin speaks with The FDA Group president and CEO Nicholas Capman about how biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical device firms struggle to manage licensing agreements as they scale. What starts as a simple once-a-year payment can quickly evolve into a tangled web of tiered rates, stacked IP, country-specific rules, and audit requirements.

David breaks down where companies most often go wrong—managing rules in Excel, underestimating the operational burden, and lacking traceability across contracts, SKUs, and sales data. He discusses how automation not only reduces risk and effort but also preserves trust with licensors by ensuring accuracy and transparency.The conversation also covers how organizations can recognize when it’s time to move beyond spreadsheets, what a successful royalty system implementation looks like, and why experience matters in such a niche space.Whether you’re paying or receiving royalties, this episode offers valuable insight into a critical but often misunderstood area of life sciences operations.

MetaComet Systems

Royalty automation experts and providers of best-of-breed royalty management solutions.