It was an example of how much money they (big pharma) have and will spend to acquire outside their own.

BMSN are developing technologies that big pharma want but don't necessarily want to spend the money on for full research and development. It is nothing for BP to finance research of a development when such is being done by a small biotech company. If such company is developing a chemical or technology that no one else has, BP will dig deep to fund while at the same time averting many liabilites attached should there be a failure.

It happens regularly.