This paper investigates the drivers influencing the choice of the governance form in inter-firm relationships (IFRs) between pharmaceutical and biotech companies. By analyzing the relevant literature on the issue, we have located the main drivers that might influence such relationship and a set of hypotheses linking them to governance forms. Such theoretical framework has been empirically tested through a survey conducted among the companies associated to Farmindustria. The result of the empirical analysis provides some interesting insights on how shaping bio-pharmaceutical deals; we found that the developmental stage of the product object of the deal, the existence of previous collaborations between firms and the number of products marketed by the biotech company are able to affect the choice of the governance form.