6
Aug
2015
Making Biotech Drugs People Can Afford: KUOW Radio Segment
One day as a young reporter, I’m not sure exactly when, I got hooked on biotech. My guess is it might be the time I pushed aggressively, to the annoyance of my editors at the time, for a front-page, three-part series at my newspaper about what a guy named Jim Thomas was doing. Thomas worked at Immunex, a Seattle company... Read More
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17
Jul
2015
Forget Price Controls – Value-Based Pricing is the New Threat to Drug Development
Election season is here, and every day brings a parade of presidential hopefuls, staking out positions along the political spectrum. And, if the early rhetoric is any indication, one of the defining themes of the election will be wealth and income disparity. In an interview with the Des Moines Register, Hillary Clinton said that, although she generally supported the Affordable... Read More
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15
Jun
2015
It’s Time to Re-Think Some Assumptions About Cancer R&D
This is a time to take a step back and re-think cancer treatment. The exciting new wave of immunotherapy is challenging many basic assumptions about the way cancer R&D gets done. It’s time to re-imagine some of the biology, how we measure success and failure, how investment dollars get spread, and how we ought to pay for the progress.
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11
Jun
2015
NEA, Polaris Bet $22M on Startup, Xtuit, to Break Down Tumor Microenvironment
Logic would say cancer drugs can’t work if something is keeping them out of the tumor. The latest startup from the Bob Langer/Polaris Partners factory floor just got $22 million to clear out some of the barriers around tumors, and make it easier for some of the exciting new immuno-oncology drugs to do what they do best. Cambridge, Mass.-based Xtuit Pharmaceuticals,... Read More
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5
Jun
2015
Cancer is Hot, Diabetes is Not: Watch for Drug Safety and Cost Debates at ADA
The Internet was crackling this week with stories of progress against a disease that kills lots of people, and costs society billions in lost productivity. That was cancer. Don’t expect such hopeful scientific narratives this weekend, as physicians gather in Boston to discuss another common scourge—diabetes. Compared with innovation in cancer, diabetes is dullsville. This drug market is more about... Read More
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29
May
2015
Cancer Immunotherapy’s Amazing Four-Year Run: A Timeline of Events
The biggest idea in cancer R&D, for a couple years, has been the notion that you can unleash the immune system to attack cancer cells like a foreign invader. Immunotherapy, in various permutations, is on everyone’s mind this weekend at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago. The buzz is there because of the evidence. Researchers are raising... Read More
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21
May
2015
Why a Pfizer R&D Exec Joined Synlogic to Make ‘Therapeutic Synthetic Life’
One of Pfizer’s well-connected R&D leaders, Jose-Carlos Gutierrez-Ramos, quit recently to run a startup with technology that’s just a little too early, a little too risky, for just about any Big Pharma company. JC, as he is commonly known, said today he has joined Cambridge, Mass.-based Synlogic as president and CEO. It’s a two-year-old company with $35 million in venture... Read More
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18
May
2015
Zigging Away From the Herd: Lilly’s Road-Less-Traveled R&D Strategy
In my hometown, an insurance company ad campaign pokes fun at locals who commit the fashion faux pas of wearing socks with sandals. We’re all in on the joke. We like living in a place where it’s OK to be quirky and geeky. There’s relatively little pressure to conform. Researchers, too, tend to be an iconoclastic bunch. If they were... Read More
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15
May
2015
More than Moderna: Who’s Who in mRNA Therapeutics?
Biotech doesn’t usually make for must-see TV. It scares most people. Something must be up if a biotech company can get extended air time on television. Cambridge, Mass.-based Moderna Therapeutics captured more than its share of attention this week when it succeeded Elon Musk’s Mars exploration company as the “No. 1 Disruptor” in corporate America by CNBC. Many in biotech... Read More
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6
Apr
2015
Baseball Meets Biotech, Where Hope Springs Eternal
Baseball season is here, and I can’t wait. It’s time to draw some analogies between these two passions of mine. Plenty of writers have observed that baseball is basically a microcosm of life in all its messy glory, filled with hope and disappointment. This time of year, the old saying goes, “hope springs eternal.” Fans are optimistic, and maybe even... Read More
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3
Apr
2015
Sarepta’s Controversial CEO is Out, But Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy R&D is Rising
Sarepta Therapeutics is one of those rare biotech stories with Hollywood appeal. Its CEO was ousted this week, and it may never deliver the happy ending so many desperate parents are counting on for children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. But no matter what, the company has helped spark a renaissance of R&D for this crippling rare disease. To get a... Read More
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30
Mar
2015
Cancer Combos Force Companies To Do Some Re-Thinking
Cancer drug developers like to say they follow the science, work well with partners, and that their prices are designed to make sure every patient gets access. But those statements are being put to the test now by combination therapies for cancer, where two or more companies will have to work together in novel ways to make the biggest impact... Read More
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20
Mar
2015
NASH is the Next Monster Pharmaceutical Market. Here Are The Players
People in rich countries like the U.S. eat lots of junk food and sit around. That gives rise to some of the biggest opportunities that exist for pharmaceutical companies. Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are the ones everyone knows about. A little over a year ago, another huge opportunity became clear. It’s called Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis, or NASH. New York-based Intercept Pharmaceuticals,... Read More
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18
Mar
2015
Third Rock’s Revolution Medicines Tears Apart Antifungals, Atom By Atom
Mother Nature has provided scientists with a lot of odd chemical structures that work as drugs, and offers inspirational templates for new drugs. But good drugs derived from scorpion venom, tree bark, and other strange sources aren’t easily cooked up in the lab. Now a group from the University of Illinois, backed by Third Rock Ventures, says it has hit... Read More
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13
Mar
2015
Ember Therapeutics, After Shutting Down, Pools IP With Mariel
Quick follow-up on a story I broke here last month. Third Rock Ventures shut down its obesity drug company Ember Therapeutics late last year, and spent a few months looking to hand over its intellectual property to someone else. Now it has found that someone else, as was noted by FierceBiotech. Boston-based Ember said yesterday it has agreed to merge... Read More
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12
Mar
2015
Antibiotic R&D Is Getting More Attention. Who’s Doing What?
Bacteria, when confronted with the same old antibiotics, find ways to survive and sometimes kill people. Drugmakers haven’t paid much attention in recent years. But now, after repeated warnings about the rise of drug-resistant bacteria and some new profit incentives, the industry is coming around to the fight against “superbugs.” Drugmakers have long seen bigger opportunities to make money elsewhere.... Read More
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6
Mar
2015
Esperion Jockeys For Place Between Statins and the Next Big Class of Heart Drugs
Millions of people have been taking statins for years. These pills are cheap, simple to take, and effective at reducing heart attacks and strokes. They are a tough act to follow. Now here comes a new class of drugs that inhibit a molecular target called PCSK9. Elegant genetics, profound clinical trial results, and deep corporate pockets are all lined up... Read More
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25
Feb
2015
The Tularik Alumni: Where Are They Now?
Two of the biggest stories in biotech this week, Flexus Biosciences and NGM Biopharmaceuticals, had something in common. They were both led by entrepreneurs who cut their teeth years ago at Tularik. That company name from the past is dotted all over the employment histories of the people now running Flexus Biosciences and NGM Biopharmaceuticals. For those who missed it,... Read More
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23
Feb
2015
Who Is Poised To Go Public in 2015, and Who Isn’t?
This is the greatest bull market ever for biotech IPOs, which everyone reading this surely knows. If Dr. Seuss were around, he’d ask something like: “How long can it go? Nobody knows.” Renaissance Capital counted 102 healthcare IPOs last year, more than one-third of all the new stock offerings in the U.S. An infusion of more than $9 billion flowed to... Read More
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19
Feb
2015
Global Blood Zeroes in on Sickle Cell, a Potentially Big, and Touchy, Opportunity
Black people suffer from all kinds of health disparities compared with other racial and ethnic groups. Yet diseases that mainly hit African Americans seldom get to the top of the R&D priority list. Global Blood Therapeutics is one of the rare companies that could build a big business and put a dent in a stubborn societal problem.
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