SAN DIEGO & WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As partnering transactions continue at record-breaking rates and deals continue as the defining industry trend, the critical question confronting big pharma is not if they should embrace earlier stage deals, but how to best take advantage of them. As the top 20 big pharma companies attend BIO-Europe 2008 in Mannheim/Heidelberg, Germany, November 17–19, they will confront this and other critical industry issues in a comprehensive series of panels and workshops.