With a new year, old impatience is growing among small companies and investors eager to see the potential of federally sanctioned crowdfunding take off. In January, biotech hotbed Massachusetts, as well as Oregon and Maine, joined a growing list of states taking matters into their own hands. Irritated by the SEC's sauntering approach to finalizing proposed rules it drafted to implement crowdfunding provisions in the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, they joined a growing roster of states that have adopted their own rules for governing the offerings. (See BioWorld Insight, Aug. 11, 2014.) Massachusetts' new rules, like all...

It’s been 16 years since I first reported in BioWorld Today that David Blech was charged with securities fraud. In April 1997, I reached him at his New York office a few days after his arraignment in a U.S. District Court. Though he wouldn’t comment on the case, he chided me repeatedly for using the word “arrested,” insisting that I tell our readers he “appeared voluntarily” for the arraignment, still worried about his reputation ‑ as if it wasn’t already rubbish. Frankly, I’m satisfied he’s going to serve time. Angry that our judicial system can’t penalize him with a longer...