2
Apr
2020
A Baffling Coronavirus Response, Arch & Flagship Reload, & Merck Passes 2 Phase IIIs
The world now has more than 1 million confirmed cases of infection with an insidious virus that spreads from person to person with exponential speed, is spread by people who don’t display symptoms, and kills an estimated 1 percent of people who get infected. As the US death toll now exceeds more than 1,000 a day from COVID-19, we are... Read More
26
Mar
2020
The Coronavirus Tsunami, Lyell’s $492M Megaround & Some Deals You Missed
When a story moves with exponential speed and deadly force, it’s hard for a human being to keep up. Hard for you, and hard for me. My approach these past few weeks has been to work with purpose and passion on this story that touches all of humanity. The plan has been to seek out diverse voices with fresh perspectives... Read More
23
Mar
2020
New Drugs at Low Prices: Alexis Borisy and Melanie Nallicheri of EQRx on The Long Run
Today’s guests on The Long Run are Alexis Borisy and Melanie Nallicheri. Alexis is the chairman and CEO of EQRx, and Melanie is the president and chief operating officer. EQRx is a startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It aspires to develop new medicines for serious diseases like cancer. That’s nothing unusual. What is unusual is that EQRx is seeking to create... Read More
17
Mar
2020
Dangerous Shortages of Equipment: A Nurse’s View from the Front Lines of Pandemic
[Editor’s Note: this is a statement from a nurse in New York City who I spoke with earlier today. Her concerns about dangerous shortages of Personal Protective Equipment for healthcare workers were echoed in an article today by Seattle physicians in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. The nurse wishes to remain anonymous.] I am a registered nurse... Read More
12
Mar
2020
COVID-19: Collective Problem-Solving Time
The alarm bells have been ringing for weeks. Stunningly, millions of people in the US weren’t listening, or didn’t want to listen. We have wasted precious time in defending ourselves against the coronavirus pandemic. The horrible news from Italy is slowly starting to sink in for us in the US, and other parts of the world. Sports cancellations, a prime-time... Read More
9
Mar
2020
Living Life Fully with Stage 4 Lung Cancer: Isabella de le Houssaye on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Isabella de la Houssaye. Isabella is a former attorney on Wall Street, a mother of five kids, and a terrific endurance athlete. She’s run marathons around the country, ultramarathons, and even completed an Ironman triathlon. She’s also a Stage 4 lung cancer patient. She owes her life, and her vitality, to some extraordinary... Read More
5
Mar
2020
COVID-19 Spreads in Seattle, Gilead’s $4.9B Cancer Bet, & Thermo Grabs Qiagen
Everywhere I look — to the North, South, East and West of my home office in Seattle — there are confirmed cases of Covid-19. It’s one thing to read about a distant outbreak and intellectually understand the pandemic math, the morbidity and mortality rates, and responsible steps for containment and mitigation. It’s another thing to live in the middle of... Read More
27
Feb
2020
Gilead, Moderna Rise to the Occasion, Esperion Goes Back-to-Back, & Sangamo’s Big Neurology Deal
This week’s Frontpoints is a compilation of two weeks of deals, financings, and personnel moves. To synthesize the main events of this eventful stretch, subscribers to Timmerman Report may read on. Coronavirus Thoughts If we learn one big lesson from this public health crisis, it should be that we need to continue to invest in our public agencies dedicated to... Read More
24
Feb
2020
Facing Up to a Political Crisis: BIO Chairman Jeremy Levin on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Jeremy Levin. Jeremy is the chairman of the board at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. It’s his job to lead on advocating for the biotech industry in Washington DC. This is the most perilous time ever to be the chairman of BIO. Biotech and pharmaceuticals have become Public Enemy No. 1. Public approval ratings... Read More
13
Feb
2020
Lilly, Genentech Alzheimer’s Drugs Fail, Revolution’s Big IPO, & an Obesity Drug Disappears
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11
Feb
2020
The Cell Therapy Puzzle: Jane Grogan on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Jane Grogan. Jane is the chief scientific officer of South San Francisco-based Arsenal Bio. Like the name suggests, Arsenal is pulling together a stockpile of potent tools of modern biology. As the company describes itself: Arsenal will integrate technologies such as CRISPR-based genome engineering, scaled and high throughput target identification, synthetic biology, and... Read More
6
Feb
2020
Sanofi’s Intriguing MS Drug, Merck’s Big Spinoff & Coronavirus Fog
Lots of shiny blinking objects are out there to pay attention to, but this was a week when a lot of fundamental hard work got done in biotech. Read about it in Frontpoints. Deal of the Week Merck is spinning off women’s health, biosimilars, and “trusted legacy brands” into a new company. The unnamed NewCo rolls together products expected to... Read More
6
Feb
2020
CAR-T for Autoimmunity: Bluestone Joins Sonoma Biotherapeutics, a $40M Bet
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5
Feb
2020
First Buy, Then Invest: Novartis, Gilead Join $35M Bet on Vineti’s Software
Please subscribe and tell your friends why it’s worthwhile. Quality journalism costs money. When you subscribe to Timmerman Report at $149 per year, you reward quality independent biotech reporting, and encourage more. Subscribe Now Sign in to your account.
30
Jan
2020
Coronavirus Fear Spreads, CVS Feels the Heat & Black Diamond’s Sizzling IPO
Last week, I was dismissive of the coronavirus outbreak stories. The internet was teeming with what struck me as alarmism. I’m still not running for the hills. I’m still rolling my eyes at the speed and volume of misinformation about coronavirus on the web. But more facts have since emerged to make this a more urgent and serious situation. We... Read More
27
Jan
2020
Scientists at the Movies: Relay Therapeutics CEO Sanjiv Patel on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Sanjiv Patel. Sanjiv is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Relay Therapeutics. Relay is among a new crop of drug discovery companies driven by advances in computational chemistry. What does that mean? As I wrote in Timmerman Report a little over a year ago: “The basic concept is all about starting with high-quality crystallography... Read More
23
Jan
2020
Much Ado about Coronavirus and 23andMe Hits the Wall
This was a quiet week in biopharma. Review it in your weekly Frontpoints. This Week in Alarmism Every year, we hear about an infectious disease scare that generates massive coverage, way out of proportion with the actual threat posed. Remember Mad Cow disease, SARS, Bird flu, Ebola, etc. etc? I’ve been in newsrooms providing saturation coverage of such things, and... Read More
16
Jan
2020
Lilly’s Half-Measure on Insulin, Illumina’s Up-Market Play, & the Little Deals from SF
Please subscribe and tell your friends why it’s worthwhile. Quality journalism costs money. When you subscribe to Timmerman Report at $149 per year, you reward quality independent biotech reporting, and encourage more. Subscribe Now Sign in to your account.
13
Jan
2020
A New Cholesterol-Lowering Drug at a Low Price: Tim Mayleben on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Tim Mayleben. Tim is the CEO of Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Esperion Therapeutics. Esperion is bucking a few of the trends you’ve seen in biotech the past decade. It has developed a cholesterol-lowering drug, bempedoic acid. The drug is currently under review by regulators in the US and Europe. It is expected to be... Read More
12
Jan
2020
EQRx Taps Zeitgeist, Raises $200m For Innovative Drugs at Aggressive Low Prices
Alexis Borisy is smart. As in high IQ. But there’s more to biopharma than that. “As my grandmother used to say, ‘You can be smart, smart, smart…but dumb,’” Borisy said. Some old wisdom is part of what’s driving Cambridge, Mass.-based EQRx. The company, started by the former Third Rock Ventures partner and backed by $200 million of “smart money” in... Read More