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
2
Jun
2020
Puretech Focuses on the Long-Term Lung Complications in COVID-19 Survivors
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31
May
2020
Biopharma Can Dig Deep and Fight Hard Against Injustice. Here’s How
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31
May
2020
Adtech Data For Health: Time To Get Past The ‘Ick’ Factor
If you were responsible for the health of a large population, and could access just one of the following types of data, what would you choose (assuming all were acquired legally and responsibly)? (a) Genetics and other –omics data; (b) EHR data; (c) Consumer/adtech data. For at least the last 20 years, we’ve been obsessively focused on the first two... Read More
28
May
2020
The Infodemic Summer
The US death toll from COVID-19 exceeded 100,000 this week. Another 40 million people are unemployed. We’ve been on this terrible trajectory for what seems like forever, with 20,000 new cases a day and 1,500 or so deaths every day. The New York Times lists 18 states where new cases are increasing and 19 states where cases are decreasing. Memorial... Read More
27
May
2020
The Recovery: A Long Road Ahead for Patients, Healthcare Workers, and Hospitals
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26
May
2020
Finding a Path in Biotech Venture Capital: Nina Kjellson on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Nina Kjellson. Nina is a general partner with Canaan Partners on the West Coast. Her investing style leans toward high science, which you can see in portfolio companies like PACT Pharma, a company developing neoantigen targeted T cell therapies for cancer, Tizona Therapeutics, a targeted antibody developer for cancer, and Vineti, a software... Read More
26
May
2020
Miscommunications, Misapplied Policy & Misunderstood Liberty: Why the US Pandemic Response is in Trouble
On April 17 — seemingly a long time ago — I wrote about what steps would have to be taken in order to (cautiously) “reopen” US states from their various lock-downs and stay-at-home advisories. The piece tried to focus on the “how”, versus the “when”. By the early days of May, most states had begun re-opening, and now all 50... Read More
21
May
2020
A Glimmer of Hope, and a Premature Celebration
We all woke up Monday morning and saw an encouraging headline. Then things started to go downhill. To recap, Moderna, the Cambridge, Mass.-based messenger RNA therapeutics and vaccines company, provided a snapshot of preliminary data from its Phase I trial of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, being tested in collaboration with Tony Fauci’s crew at the National Institute of Allergy and... Read More
21
May
2020
Creating Leaner and Meaner Clinical Trials for the Long Run
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21
May
2020
Day One, Taking a Page from Rare Disease Playbook, Raises $60M for Kids With Cancer
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20
May
2020
Pharma’s Digital Champions Should Focus On Solving One Problem Well
Come for the tech, stay for the culture. That seems to be the hope of most digital champions inside large pharma companies. These executives hope to instill in their organizations not only important new capabilities, but also a “Silicon Valley” mindset, an innovative spirit characteristically associated with tech entrepreneurs. The reality, of course, is more complicated; pharma executives – and... Read More
19
May
2020
Getting the COVID-19 Numbers Wrong
When I was in college, everyone wanted to major in psychology. I signed up, but switched out after only a few weeks. Why? Well, the more I read, the less I seemed to know. Psychology, after all, is an inexact science. I sought refuge in the exact worlds of computer science and mathematics. Those courses led me to build a... Read More