25
Jun
2020
The Exponential Curves Re-Emerge
The curves are telling the story. They were flat for a while. Now they’re heading up the exponential slope again. Texas, Arizona, Florida – and even California, which did so well for so long – are among the couple dozen states that are beginning to look up at those scary curves of new COVID-19 cases. We still have no idea... Read More
24
Jun
2020
Bit Bio, With $50M From Arch, Foresite and Klausner, Looks to Reprogram Cells
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22
Jun
2020
Codiak Scales Up Exosome Capabilities, Snags $72.5M from Sarepta
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22
Jun
2020
From Heart to Head, Corporations Can Step Up Against Systemic Racism
The raw, painful emotions emanating from Minneapolis, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing by police, have prompted millions of people to stand up in defiance of racism and inequality. The passionate reaction is right, and long overdue. George Floyd was just the latest in a terrible list of victims of police brutality. What’s most important is how activists have... Read More
18
Jun
2020
Merck Wins 2 Big Approvals, a Surprise from Old ‘Dex,’ and a Digital Therapeutics First
For 40 days, the numbers on new COVID-19 cases have been traversing along a flat, steady ridgeline. Now it is back on the ascent. The President may wish to do less testing to make it appear as though case numbers are coming down. But that won’t make the SARS-CoV-2 virus go away. The 7-day moving average shows new cases are... Read More
16
Jun
2020
A Busy IPO Calendar: Forma, Repare, Progenity, Genetron
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15
Jun
2020
DNA Sequencing Startups Aim to Reduce Cost, Increase Meaning in the Data
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13
Jun
2020
A Conversation About Race: Ted Love on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Ted Love. Ted is the president and CEO of Global Blood Therapeutics, or GBT for short. The company is based in South San Francisco. GBT is focused on sickle cell disease. Sickle cell disease affects about 100,000 people in the US, the vast majority of whom are black. About 20 million are thought... Read More
11
Jun
2020
AstraZeneca Opens Its Digital Komono
AstraZeneca has emerged with a reputation as one of the industry’s most imaginative pharmas – it was named the “most innovative” global pharma company by IDEA Pharma in November 2019, and was cast as Gallant to GSK’s Goofus in a recent Financial Times piece examining their contrasting trajectories. In this context, I was especially excited when I saw what looked... Read More
11
Jun
2020
Inconvenient Truths and Rays of Light
The information world that we built sometimes has a way of distracting us. It downplays and marginalizes what’s important. Not this week. Let’s start with a few timely, inconvenient truths. As of this writing on June 11: The US has 113,865 dead from COVID-19 and counting. 2 million+ confirmed cases. 20,000 new cases adding up every day. 21 states are... Read More
10
Jun
2020
Fighting COVID-19 & Racism: Andy Plump on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Andrew Plump. Andy is the president of research and development, and a member of the board of directors, at Takeda Pharmaceutical. Takeda doesn’t get a lot of attention in the US, but it’s one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies by revenue, ranking a little behind AbbVie and a little ahead of Bristol-Myers... Read More
10
Jun
2020
Making Drugs at the Edge of Reason
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10
Jun
2020
Let’s Turn the Black Nod Into a Collective Nod
I first met Ken Frazier, the CEO of Merck, at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco in January 2018. It was my second year as an operator in biotech. I was still getting familiar with the whole bewildering experience of JPM. I was trained as a cancer immunologist at Dartmouth, did a stint in life sci strategy consulting,... Read More
9
Jun
2020
Versant Bets $50M on Lycia to Make Protein Degraders Against Extracellular Targets
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9
Jun
2020
Complexity in Motion: Multi-Omics Tools Unravel Path From Genotype to Phenotype
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8
Jun
2020
Atlas Venture Closes Fund XII at $400 Million, Promotes Gladstone to Partner
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8
Jun
2020
Accent CEO Shakti Narayan on Targeting RNA-Modifying Proteins for Cancer
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5
Jun
2020
Tech Integration Into Pharma: A Report From The Front Line
Most biopharma companies can talk at some length about embracing data science, and sometimes it’s hard to get beneath the surface of what they’re doing, at least publicly. But it was my privilege recently to frame and moderate a very insightful recent conversation – recorded for on-demand viewing at this year’s virtual BIO 2020 conference. This provided an unusual opportunity... Read More
4
Jun
2020
Anger, Pain, and Hope
The emotions this week were especially intense. Anger. Fear. Despair. But there was also hope. That gets me up in the morning. In this slice of America, the biotech industry, many people are mission-driven. People in this industry work every day to improve the human condition by making better medicines. Not everyone feels the full weight, but many in this... Read More
2
Jun
2020
Digital Natives and Skilled Operators: Weaving Data Science Into Pharma R&D
An abiding challenge at the intersection of technology and pharma R&D is the need to bring together two historically disparate cultures. Tech companies tend to be led by engineers. Pharma R&D is generally run by chemists and biologists in the early stages, and by physicians further on in development. Each of these domains has its own distinct language, culture and... Read More