There’s a new contagious condition circulating that has even infected the biotech sector: e-Distraction, with bad manner side effects of indecorum, insensitivity and more. The wealthy are often regarded as egocentric and out of touch with reality by the 99 percent. However, only 1 percent of us may be wealthy, but it seems like 100 percent of us behave as if we are too important to ever be out of touch with one another. Distraction is so rampant in society that it hardly even seems rude any more to multitask in conference sessions. There is so much competition for our...

I have a fondness for the movies and I perform a function in the biotechnology market, so it’s a bonus when I can combine the two. I’ve written about the correlation between the movie and drug businesses before, so indulge my latest diversion, as I reflect on recent events: Hollywood’s biggest night and biotech’s blockbuster performances. Even as the villainous economy brought drama to the world stage with its own tour de force production, the biotechnology market continued to receive generally positive-to-cautious reviews from industry critics and everyone else who had a speaking role in the market. Its performance and...

The virus in the 2011 movie Contagion ‑ about a rapidly spreading, highly lethal virus and the panic that ensues ‑ is based partly on the H5N1 bird flu virus. Scientists have lauded Contagion for its scientific accuracy in showing how a highly lethal respiratory virus pandemic might play out. But the movie’s tag line is also worth keeping in mind: “Nothing spreads like fear.” Another round of alarming news has brought the real H5N1 back into the headlines in recent weeks. Experimental findings that it only takes a few mutations for the virus to become highly contagious via human-to-human...

Unlike every other country in the world at the time, the U.S. founded its judicial system on the premise “innocent until proven guilty.” Under that guiding principle, the burden of proof – in any enforcement action – lies with the government. That principle has served the nation well for nearly 250 years. But now the FDA is seeking a congressional blessing to change it, under the guise of drug safety. Testifying before a House subcommittee last week, the FDA’s Janet Woodcock noted the stress placed on the agency because it bears the burden of proof when it comes to the...

There’s a story, sometimes used to illustrate the difference between counseling and research psychology, about a man who pulls out one, then a second, then a third drowning person out of a river. When he sees a fourth, he starts walking upstream, prompting a bystander to ask “Aren’t you going to pull that one out, too?” Our hero answers “No, I’m going upstream to figure out what’s pushing all these people in.” In the Harry Potter books, Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore reacts the opposite way to a similar conflict as he comes to care for Harry Potter in ways that...

When I was at the Biocom Global Life Science Partnering Conference last week, one of the more interesting debates I heard was about whether it’s better to in-license an asset or acquire the whole company. While every case is different and most big pharmas pursue both strategies, the business development execs at the conference had some very different opinions as to which is preferable, in a general sense. Martin Birkhofer, vice president of the strategic transactions group at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., said his team generally likes acquisitions because they result in a total transfer of control over the asset. “For...

While 2012 has dawned everywhere else in the world, it’s still 1984 at the FDA. With its Bad Ad program, whistle-blower suits and spotters of conference crimespeak serving as its globalwise eyes and ears, the agency has adopted Big Brother (BB) tactics to promote goodspeak among drugmakers while crimestopping off-label promotion, bringing new life to George Orwell’s newspeak. In the newthink of the FDA, quality of life (QOL) is one of those doubleplusungood phrases that a biotech dare not utter – unless it has conducted a doubleplushuge, FDA-approved, randomized, controlled, double-blind pivotal study, including doubleplusvulnerable populations and diverse subpopulations, to...

When people talk about Johnson and Johnson’s new San Diego incubator, Janssen Labs, they can’t help but be a little bit skeptical about the fact that J&J isn’t taking any options or first-rights to compounds developed by its incubator tenants. “What’s the catch?” everyone keeps asking. “What does J&J get out of the deal?” I’m guessing J&J execs asked that same question when Diego Miralles, J&J West Coast site head, pitched them on his idea for a no-strings-attached incubator business model. And I’m guessing his answer was something along the lines of “well we’ve got all this expensive equipment and...

The San Diego biotech industry has been buzzing this week with the grand opening of Johnson and Johnson’s new incubator, Janssen Labs. But already plans for another San Diego incubator are being laid, this time at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. Paul Laikind, Sanford-Burnham’s chief business officer, told BioWorld Today the facility will house six start-ups in an open-lab format similar to the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3). Companies will have access to lab space and can use Sanford-Burnham’s 33 core facilities in animal care, high throughput screening, metabolomics or other areas on a pay-as-you-go basis, Laikind said. Unlike...

The cover story for BioWorld Insight this week is about the biotech venture capital world, and how despite its much-publicized contraction, there’s a lot of exciting stuff going on like established firms closing new funds, established players regrouping to form new firms, and everyone pushing the envelope with experimental business strategies. Although lots of changes are still to come, many of the VCs I spoke with noted how much the biotech venture world has changed already, just over the past few years. A few of their observations: A-B-C No Longer As Easy As 1-2-3: The traditional “Series A – Series...