Another month, and another billion-dollar deal which doesn#8217;t involve a company being bought. The company which is currently blazing the billion-dollar R&D deal trail is global giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which is signing and managing a number of mega-value alliances through its novel strategic unit, the Centre of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD). The latest is a US$1.535 B deal with Targacept in the CNS area. Although at first glance this might seem to be the dream scenario for a budding biotech, closer inspection of a number of major deals signed through GSK#8217;s CEEDD suggests that companies are making hard sacrifices in return for the potential returns that are being offered through the CEEDD alliance model. This article asks whether the economics of these early-stage deals represent a new paradigm in biotech deal making, looking in particular at the Targacept deal and the whole CEEDD approach.