Our popular "Word on the Street" column provides a selection of the most entertaining and thought-provoking quotes that the BioWorld Today/BioWorld Insight staff publishes each week. Some are gathered during interviews, some gleaned from analyst reports, and some are overheard at conferences. They reflect the type of year we have had – certainly a challenging one if you were looking for venture capital. Overall, it was a good year for the industry with increased productivity in terms of products approved and higher stock valuations for biotechs on the capital markets. The issues that challenge us still remain essentially the same: regulatory oversight, reimbursement, raising capital, biosimilars and patent protection to name but a few. As we enter into 2013, we hope that you enjoy this look back at some of the quotes that defined 2012.

Capital Markets

"Conventional wisdom is that the IPO market is broken."
– Jay Ritter, Cordell professor of finance, Warrington College of Business Administration, University of Florida, speaking at the SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies meeting held in San Francisco

"I don't believe the biotech IPO market will ever come back the way we remember."
– Bijan Salehizadeh, cofounder and managing director of NaviMed Capital

"When was the last time we saw two biotech companies price their IPOs at the top end of their ranges on the same day?"
– Evan McCulloch, portfolio manager, Franklin Templeton Investments

Venture Capital

"We have to figure out how to be more capital efficient. We can't continue to fund companies only to have them be marked down."
– Bijan Salehizadeh, co-founder and managing director of NaviMed Capital, on the troubles of the biotech venture industry

"Venture capital has placed too much money in the hands of too few people. I don't see most small biotechs ever getting venture funding unless it's strategic venture funding from pharmaceutical companies. It's really dried up for most of us."
– Judith Kelleher-Andersson, founder, president and chief scientific officer of NeuroNascent Inc., discussing the financing challenges confronting discovery- and development-stage biotechs

"The life science venture financing environment remains challenging. A potential bright spot is that we are seeing some increased involvement by large life science companies in the venture funding process. This makes sense, as large pharmaceutical and medical device companies need a healthy life science start-up industry to help fill their product pipelines."
– Barry Kramer, partner, Fenwick & West, commenting on the results of their First Half 2012 Life Science Venture Capital Survey

"The venture capital community is in the process of contracting. Many of them are not making new investments, and they're becoming more risk-averse. They want more robust clinical tests, and they don't want early programs with novel mechanisms."
– Joseph Gardner, CEO of Aerpio Therapeutics Inc., discussing challenges for small biotechs in financing and developing new compounds

It's All About the Science

"During the early debates about the Human Genome Project, researchers had predicted that only a few percent of the human genome sequence encoded proteins, the workhorses of the cell, and that the rest was junk. We now know that this conclusion was wrong."
– Eric D. Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, commenting on results from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements or ENCODE project

"This is really the thing that threw a wet blanket over the diabetes space."
– William Wilkison, chief scientific officer with BHV Pharma Inc., on cardiovascular safety

"At the end of the day, oncogenic kinases are tried and true successes in molecular therapy for cancer. PI3K alpha is the next kid on the block."
– Christian Rommel, chief scientific officer of Intellikine Inc.

"We'll need more innovation in the years ahead to finish the fight against AIDS."
– Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank

"Using antibodies and other targeting agents to deliver potent drugs to the site of tumors and disease, while avoiding off-target toxicities, have long been pursued almost as a holy grail in the biopharmaceutical industry."
– David Mott, NEA general partner and new board chairman at Mersana Therapeutics Inc.

"A few years ago, a lot of the VCs felt the sky was falling on RNA."
–Paul Lammers, CEO, Mirna Therapeutics Inc.

Personalized Medicine

"You need to have physicians wanting to be able to test before they prescribe a drug, pharma companies who see the value in testing, and diagnostic companies who see the value of these partnerships. What is now starting to happen is those three stakeholders are really starting to come together."
– Trevor Hawkins, CEO of Next Generation Diagnostics at Siemens, on personalized medicine and companion diagnostics

Partnering

"It's very hard to maintain high levels of innovation once a company has begun to focus so many of its resources on commercialization and sales."
– Mike Bigham, partner at Abingworth, on why it makes sense for biotechs to partner

"When we started in 2006, big pharma was making deals at the preclinical stage. We were told with an IND and a clinical study underway, they'd just jump onboard. Well, they moved the goal posts down the field, and now they want efficacy."
– Philip Ralston, Jr., president and CEO of MacuClear Inc., discussing the evolution of partnering discussions with big pharmas

"Companies are turning into vampires and trying to suck whatever blood there is out of the system, and a lot of walking dead."
– Chris Ehrlich, of InterWest Partners, on the difficulty of getting funding, at Deloitte Recap's Allicense meeting

Patent Cliff

"As expected, the company's financial performance in 2012 largely reflects the ongoing impact from the loss of exclusivity for several brands in key markets, as well as the challenges that confront the pharmaceutical industry as a whole."
– Pascal Soriot, CEO, commenting on AstraZeneca plc's third quarter 2012 financial results

Regulatory Issues

"FDA regulations and guidance must help today's patients while enabling the biotech community to move into tomorrow with cures and continued breakthroughs so our children and grandchildren won't have to live with the same diseases we have faced and, perhaps, one day, any diseases at all."
– Jim Greenwood, president and CEO, Biotechnology Industry Organization

"The Federal Circuit likes to draw lines. The Supreme Court likes to erase them."
– Courtenay Brinckerhoff, partner at Foley Lardner, on the Supreme Court decision in Prometheus

"It's raising IPO-like money without going through the back-breaking S-1 registration process."
– William Hicks, partner with Mintz Levin, on the Regulation A pathway

"Pharmaceutical executives are struggling to grow revenue in the face of pricing and regulatory pressures, including fines, taxation and reporting requirements."
– David Blumberg, KPMG partner and pharmaceutical advisory sector leader

"The most damaging facet of SOX for the biotech industry has been the diversion of investment funds from science to compliance in the absence of product revenue."
– Jeff Hatfield, president and CEO of Vitae Pharmaceuticals Inc., from testimony at a hearing on the effect the regulatory burdens in Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) have had on emerging biotech companies at the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets

General Wisdom

"This is one of the more interesting industries right now because every part of it has to undergo reinvention."
– Glen Giovannetti, global biotechnology leader at Ernst & Young

"The entrepreneurial mindset is a balancing act between opportunity and constraint."
– Noubar Afeyan, managing partner and CEO at Flagship Ventures

"Disease is the most democratic process there is; we all get a chance to play."
– Melinda Richter, CEO of Prescience International