30
Jul
2020
Race and Life Sciences: Where is the Healing?
When I started to go to the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, it was still known as H&Q after boutique bank Hambrecht & Quist that had originated it. This means that, as a journalist, I have been able to watch biopharma grow up over the last 20 years. Those first few events I attended had so little diversity that the upstairs... Read More
23
Jul
2020
Pfizer Secures $2B for COVID-19 Vaccine, BioNTech Raises $500M, & Our Test
When Donald Trump first considered a run for president in 2000, he never rose above 1 percent in the polls. America changed in the early years of the 21st century. Trump was always good at harnessing tabloid media weaknesses to his advantage. When our information commons shifted to a 24/7 advertising-based attention-grab economy on the Internet and TV, he was... Read More
22
Jul
2020
Adaptive Trials: Pioneered in the US, Implemented in the UK for COVID-19
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22
Jul
2020
Seer Raises $55 Million; Describes Novel Proteomic Technology
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21
Jul
2020
The Road Less Traveled in Biotech: Abe Ceesay on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Abe Ceesay. He’s the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Tiburio Therapeutics. The company is developing a couple of drug candidates for rare neuroendocrine tumors. It raised $31 million in a Series A financing in January 2019 from NEA, Lundbeckford Ventures, Longitude Capital, and Alexandria Real Estate Equities. Abe is in his early 40s, and... Read More
20
Jul
2020
Barring Foreign Talent Is An Assault on Biotech Innovation
As a first generation American (John Maraganore) and a proud immigrant (Jeremy Levin), we’re appalled by the relentless, short-sighted assaults by this Administration on legal immigration. The latest attempt specifically aims to limit, and potentially shut down, immigration to America of the world’s best and brightest minds. This is precisely the time we need these bright minds. Thankfully, in light... Read More
20
Jul
2020
Clinical Trials: High-Value Attack Surface For Pharmatech Entrepreneurs
There’s an emerging sense among early stage investors that there are profound opportunities at the intersection of healthcare and technology, and no shortage of white papers from consultants and venture groups addressing this topic. Consultant white papers tend to be focused on the inevitability of “digital transformation,” emphasize the $X billion dollar opportunity, and argue that if large organizations don’t... Read More
20
Jul
2020
Karuna Therapeutics Innovates in Schizophrenia Treatment with Hybrid Drug
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16
Jul
2020
Standing With Fauci, Positive Moderna Vaccine Data, and Blueprint’s Megadeal
Last week in these pages, I wrote a full-throated defense of Tony Fauci. A few days later, the White House sadly started doing what it so often does. It embarked on a dirty tricks smear campaign against someone who speaks inconvenient truth to the public. Peter Navarro, who doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to public health... Read More
15
Jul
2020
Do We Need Models Anymore?
Long ago, in the early days of the pandemic, models were everywhere in the news. As our lives were upended and everything became uncertain, models were there to provide some predictability in the face of the unknown. Never mind that predictions varied wildly – between models, and even within the same model at different time points. The models agreed that... Read More
15
Jul
2020
Next-gen Synthetic Biology Pushes Further Into Drug Discovery, mRNA and DNA on the Desktop
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13
Jul
2020
Ovid Therapeutics Finds European Partner to Advance Treatment for Rare Neurological Disease
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13
Jul
2020
Playing the Long Game for Antibiotic R&D
This week’s unveiling of the AMR Action Fund, a $1 billion public/private consortium anchored by 23 pharmaceutical companies to support the development and commercialization of antibiotics, is a welcome development in the fight against antimicrobial resistant infections. The money is important, but it was very encouraging to see the leadership of major pharmaceutical companies — Pfizer, Merck, and Eli... Read More
11
Jul
2020
Can Novartis Digitally Transform Clinical Development?
In 2018, Dr. Vas Narasimhan, newly-installed as CEO, told the Wall Street Journal he saw Novartis as “a focused medicines company that’s powered by data science and digital technologies.” Since then, Novartis has tried to grow into this ambition, embracing the concept of digital transformation perhaps more conspicuously than any other large pharma. It’s not easy, as Narasimhan himself acknowledged... Read More
9
Jul
2020
Novavax Nabs $1.6B, BD Secures Fast Antigen Test OK, & a Tribute to Tony Fauci
The United States, it pains me to say as a patriotic believer in our Constitutional system and institutions and generally decent and hardworking people, looks like a disaster zone. A tally of 3.1 million COVID-19 cases, 133,000 deaths, and record numbers of new infections adding up every day can shake one’s faith. Confidence in US institutions, and faith in government... Read More
7
Jul
2020
The Vintage of 2020: How COVID-19 is Molding Biotech Startups
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6
Jul
2020
Writing in the Language of DNA: Kevin Ness on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Kevin Ness. He’s the CEO of Boulder, CO-based Inscripta. This is a startup that calls itself the “digital genome engineering company.” The aspiration, which Inscripta described in a statement last December, was to create: The world’s first fully automated benchtop instrument for genome-scale engineering. Consisting of an instrument, consumables, software, and assays, it... Read More
1
Jul
2020
Simcha Therapeutics Locks in $25 Million in Series A; Renews Interest in IL-18
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1
Jul
2020
Cygnal Therapeutics Zeroes in on Unorthodox Peripheral Nervous System Approach to Cancer
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1
Jul
2020
Pfizer, BioNTech Vaccine Shows Life, but Cases Surge, Testing Falters & Prices Haunt
Catch up on the main happenings in biotech this week, and consolidate your knowledge heading into the holiday weekend. Stay healthy. The US recorded 50,000 new cases on July 1 – a worrisome indicator of things to come, indeed. This Week in Drug Pricing The pharmaceutical industry entered the COVID-19 pandemic as Public Enemy No. 1. Polls showed that... Read More