Topic

The Edge

10
Aug
2015

‘Pharmaphobia’ Pushes Back Against Anti-Industry Crusade, But Comes Up Short

Piles of books, journal articles, and newspaper exposes have been written about corrupt relationships between drug companies and physicians. The attacks have taken a toll. Big Pharma’s reputation is somewhere in the gutter with Big Tobacco. While I see much admirable public-service journalism in exposing wrongdoing in science and medicine, this result strikes me as an overreaction. Pharma and biotech companies often...
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4
Aug
2015

Molecular Information Companies, One Way or Another, Find Value in Genomics

Way back in the day, the late 1990s, companies ran around saying, ‘Holy mackerel, we’re gathering all this cool genomic information. It’s valuable. We’ll sell it and make a bundle.” Almost 20 years later, next-generation sequencers are exponentially better, faster, and cheaper. They pump out vast amounts of genomic information. There are many more companies gathering data, slicing it up...
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20
Jul
2015

How Are Biotech VCs Performing in the Boom? You’d Be Surprised

The biotech boom has been good to many people, but especially to venture capitalists. Many can point to winners in their portfolios. They have seized the moment to raise new funds, collect even bigger management fees, and double down on more cool science and technology companies. As I reported here in March, a few firms, such as The Column Group...
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7
Jul
2015

Pay Cut? That’s OK: Wall Street Veterans Find New Purpose in Biotech

Last month, I wrote about how Big Pharma executives are migrating into biotech like wildebeest across the Serengeti. They aren’t the only big game animals moving in this direction. More than a dozen well-known Wall Street investment bankers and analysts, in the last couple boom years, have quit to join biotech companies. This isn’t exactly unprecedented. The CEOs of Amgen...
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29
Jun
2015

LinkedIn Is Integral to Biotech, But Some Still Don’t Get It

The sci-fi writer William Gibson once said, “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” That rings true with LinkedIn, at least in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Some of the most powerful and best-connected people in the business gathered last week in Greece for the annual private summit organized by industry legend Stelios Papadopoulos. This is...
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8
Jun
2015

Bristol-Myers Should Drop the Bully Act. Non-Competes Are Bad for Biotech

Big Pharma talent has been migrating to biotech startups the past couple years, and that’s good. Lots of people with skills and rare experience are being matched with exciting new opportunities. This dynamic labor market is healthy for the industry, and increases its ability to create innovative healthcare products. Foolishly, some company had to try to squash all that.
1
Jun
2015

Big Pharma Talent Is Flocking to Biotech Startups. Nobody’s Saying ‘Are You Nuts?’

Look at some of the high-science, high-risk, venture-backed companies in biotech and you’ll see something that wasn’t so common five years ago. The management teams of these startups are often stacked with people who quit high-paid, high-powered jobs in Big Pharma. Last week, the cancer immunotherapy startup Juno Therapeutics poached a chief scientific officer, Hyam Levitsky, from Roche. Microbiome drugmaker...
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26
May
2015

Long-Term Relationships May Not Count in Many Businesses, But They Do in Biotech

Cynicism runs through just about every business, if you read the news or follow pop culture. The Netflix show “House of Cards” portrays dirty politics of Washington, D.C. A new “Entourage” movie delves into Hollywood manipulation. Prosecutors in real life last week showed traders cackling about rigging interest rates that harm millions of people, so they can sail away on...
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27
Apr
2015

It’s Time to Re-Think How We Train and Develop Biomedical Scientists

A strange feeling hit me the other day at one of the world’s great biomedical research centers. There I was, at the end of a long table at MIT, surrounded by two dozen young researchers. While munching sandwiches over the lunch hour, they fired away with questions about the biotech industry. It was a great back-and-forth. The questions were sharp...
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20
Apr
2015

Hungry for Cash, Academia Reaches For a Bigger Piece of Biotech Action

Cash is gushing through the pharmaceutical industry at the same time its allies in academia are scraping for every nickel. The gap between these haves and have-nots is wide and getting wider. But at least in a couple recent cases, the poor people in academia have figured out clever ways to get a piece of the biotech action, at least...
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13
Apr
2015

The Big Boys Love Kendall Square. Let’s Hope They Don’t Squeeze The Life Out of It

Something magical has been happening in Cambridge’s Kendall Square for years. All kinds of biotech companies, big and small, have thrived on it. Now the big guys have to be careful not to squeeze the life out of it. The biotech real estate market in Kendall Square is about as hot as it gets. Genzyme is building a new headquarters along...
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