As pipeline failures continue to exert pressure upon the industry, billion-dollar licensing deals between big pharma and biotech companies no longer result in the raised eyebrows they once did. What are still relatively rare, however, are alliances between the big pharmas themselves. This feature investigates the recent deal between Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), the eighth largest pharma in the world, and AstraZeneca, the sixth largest, to develop and commercialise two investigational compounds for type 2 diabetes. Although they are both top 10 companies, the financial impetus is still with the larger of the two, with AstraZeneca committed to paying up to US$1.35 B to BMS over the course of their collaboration, a notably large amount in terms of total potential value.