Topic

All

14
Nov
2024

Save the Date: TR 10th Anniversary

Hard to believe, but the 10th Anniversary of Timmerman Report is coming up in March 2025. Time to party! The past 10 years of biotechnology have been remarkable. I’m fortunate. I’ve had a front-row seat to chronicle monumental advances at Timmerman Report, and occasionally influence events. Join me and a group of biotech leaders in Boston on Mar. 6 and...
Read More
11
Nov
2024

A Day to Thank Veterans

Happy Veteran’s Day. For some reason, this day doesn’t receive the same level of attention of most holidays on the American calendar. Let’s pause today to thank veterans in our communities. For real. Face to face. Or maybe on the phone. Not in a tweet. As I wrote last year: Today is a day when I honor my Dad. He...
Read More
7
Nov
2024

What Will Trump Do? Look at the Record

Please subscribe and tell your friends why it’s worthwhile. Quality journalism costs money. When you subscribe to Timmerman Report at $199 per year, you reward quality independent biotech reporting, and encourage more.   Subscribe Now   Sign in to your account.
4
Nov
2024

Lessons from the Manure Digester

My first real journalism job flashed to mind this week. It was 1998. I was a kid reporter fresh out of the University of Wisconsin. My job was to cover Dane County government for The Capital Times, the progressive newspaper in Madison. Dane County had about 400,000 people. Half lived in the beating liberal heart of the City of Madison...
Read More
4
Nov
2024

When Business and Politics Collide

I have always kept my business and political lives separate – and have had no trouble doing so.  But now my political beliefs and my industry are threatened by the same plague. Donald Trump would not merely undermine our country, he would undermine the fundamental principle of our industry – and, speaking quite selfishly, my business…and yours. That principle is...
Read More
31
Oct
2024

And Just Like That: What the Viral Adoption of a Clinical AI App Means for Pharma R&D 

In 2011, we were experiencing the ascension of technologies like the cloud and the smartphone.  Apps had become a thing: social network apps like Instagram (the iPhone “App of the Year” in 2011) and Twitter, utility apps like Evernote and Dropbox, navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze, and game apps like Angry Birds. Yet in medicine, as I wrote...
Read More
24
Oct
2024

Yes We Can: My Response To Skeptical Readers

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how difficult it is for R&D leaders to “pick winners,” despite the enormous incentives to do so.  I explained how we tend to underestimate the role of chance, and overestimate our ability to “domesticate uncertainty,” as Nassim Taleb and I wrote in the Financial Times in 2008.  Mostly, efforts to systematically improve success rates...
Read More
22
Oct
2024

Can We Pick Winners With Causal Human Biology? Vertex Makes the Case

Everybody reading this column knows that biopharma is a difficult business.  Biology is unfathomably complicated and figuring out how to introduce something into the human body that does more good than harm is a fiendishly difficult challenge. That’s why it’s important to recognize the occasional success. It reminds us what’s possible, and inspires us to think about how to achieve...
Read More
16
Oct
2024

Cured With CRISPR, Living Life

Jimi Olaghere was cured of sickle cell disease four years ago by a CRISPR cell therapy. Last month, he summitted Kilimanjaro. This is a testament to science at its best, and the human spirit. If you and your team are looking for inspiration, watch this 35-minute interview I conducted with Jimi at The Meeting on the Mesa. Thanks to the...
Read More
15
Oct
2024

Designing Protein Drugs for Cancer & Autoimmunity: Chris Garcia on The Long Run

Today’s guest on The Long Run is K. Christopher Garcia. Chris is a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and structural biology at Stanford University and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. To be a bit more specific, you can call him a structural immunologist – the kind of scientist who uses the vivid tools of structural biology...
Read More