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7
Mar
2022

The Globally Integrated Biotech Is Down, But Not Out

“What else can you do? The entire isolation of Russia. Nowadays we see real solidarity of the whole world to cancel or stop any economic, cultural, technological, financial connections with Russia and we urge the same from the Drug Discovery community.” This was the message on Mar. 5 from Andrey Tolmachov, founder and CEO of Enamine Ltd., a Ukrainian chemistry...
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7
Mar
2022

Peacetime vs Wartime CEO: A Useful Lens for Transformative Leaders?

As biotech execs cope with challenging market conditions (the XBI biotech index is off about 50% from its high of February 2021), I found myself revising a now-classic 2011 essay by venture capitalist Ben Horowitz of Andreessen-Horowitz, arguing that extremely challenging times require very different management skills, and a different leadership style.  He describes and contrasts the approaches of what...
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3
Mar
2022

Biotech Takes a Stand

Not long ago, biotech leaders steered clear of commenting on the issues of the day. Politics was limited to certain vested interests like drug pricing, science funding, and FDA regulation. Then came COVID-19 and the racial justice reckoning. Staring these terrible things in the face, people began to think more about their roles in the workplace, and in the community....
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28
Feb
2022

Making Clinical Trials More Diverse: Michele Andrasik on The Long Run

Today’s guest on The Long Run is Michele Andrasik. I’m excited to have Michele on the show to talk about an undercovered aspect of the scientific enterprise. Michele is the director of social and behavioral science and community engagement for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, and COVID-19 Prevention Network. She’s based in Seattle at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center,...
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24
Feb
2022

When Does COVID Normalcy Begin?

When can we declare the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic over? For some people, a battle is over when it is clearly won or lost. Our fight with COVID-19 doesn’t fit into such tidy categories. The term endemic, at least in epidemiology, means chronic. It’s a constant presence, usually of an infectious organism, at some steady level. If a virus is endemic, that...
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22
Feb
2022

A Long Hauler, Two Years Later

I can’t believe my daughter is about to turn 16, and I have been living with COVID for two years. Having contracted the virus on her birthday, it will seemingly always be my Covidversary. She has blossomed over the past two years, while I feel like I have wilted. I still lean hard toward the sun, but it’s not easy....
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17
Feb
2022

The Unsung Community Heroes Who Make Biotech Thrive

Every thriving biotech hub can trace its origins to one or two outstanding scientific institutions. But every thriving region can also trace some of its success back to community leaders. These are people who attend boring night meetings. They aren’t household names. They’re fine with that. These people were especially common in America after World War II. They laid down...
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10
Feb
2022

Biotech’s Future off The Beaten Path

The future of biotech isn’t limited to a few square miles in Cambridge, Mass. and South San Francisco. Biotech is starting to spread its wings in minor league towns. That’s good news. It’s also necessary for the industry to grow and continue to better integrate into the wider world. Let’s look at an example close to my home in Seattle....
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9
Feb
2022

The Omicron Story: The Winter of Our Discontent

The Omicron wave has been shocking. We in the virology community knew the SARS-CoV-2 virus had an exceptional ability to mutate, but the pace of its evolution was surprising. We were just as surprised by the even-faster speed by which this variant spread. Omicron became the dominant variant almost two years into the pandemic because it’s more transmissible and able...
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8
Feb
2022

Behind the Scenes of BD: Maude Tessier on a Megamerger Curveball

[Editor’s Note: this is part of a series of interviews with business development executives about some of the surprises, subtleties, and human aspects of biotech dealmaking.] Maude Tessier is the chief business officer of Boston-based Ikena Oncology, a developer of targeted small molecule cancer drugs. Like a lot of people in business development, she considers herself a “recovering scientist.” She...
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7
Feb
2022

The Cancer Moonshot Relaunched

Last week, I had the honor of attending the Biden Administration’s relaunch of the Cancer Moonshot at the White House. The Cancer Moonshot dates back to 2016, when then-Vice President Biden, mourning the death of his son Beau, spearheaded this bold initiative to accelerate the rate of progress against cancer on a national scale. The initiative resulted in the 21st...
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2
Feb
2022

TR’s 7th Anniversary: Thank You

Timmerman Report is 7 years old today. On Feb. 2, 2015, I rode my bike to the office on a wet Seattle morning and turned on the lights. I thought there was a need for clear, probing, contextual biotech journalism. It was a leap of faith, like any entrepreneurial venture. I couldn’t have predicted 90 percent of what came next....
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1
Feb
2022

Targeting Integrins With Small Molecules: Praveen Tipirneni on The Long Run

Today’s guest on The Long Run is Praveen Tipirneni. Praveen is the CEO of Waltham, Mass.-based Morphic Therapeutic. Morphic Therapeutic is developing oral small molecule drugs aimed at integrin targets. There’s some fascinating biology and computational technology underpinning this work, which I discussed a couple years ago on The Long Run with Morphic scientific founder Tim Springer. Just to review...
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