You think the drug shortage is a devil now Just wait around a few years ’Cause you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. When that biosimilar pathway begins to flash Those big green dollar signs, You’ll know, you’ll know, you’ll know, you just ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Those biosimilars will turn your heart away from the old drugs of yesterday. You’ll think you have it comin’, and you’ll want it that way. You’ll say big profits are good profits, so you’ll take what you can get. B-B-B-Baby, you ain’t seen n-n-n-nothin’ yet. Patients will go to the doctor, and he’ll tell them...

It seems likely that this year’s Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine will be remembered by many people who normally forget about it before the physics prize is even announced. One of the three prize winners, Ralph Steinman, passed away last Friday. The Nobel Prizes are not usually awarded posthumously; the Nobel Prize website, in fact, states that such awards are “not possible,” and so it is unclear whether Steinman is, indeed, a Nobelist or not. According to a report by the Associated Press, committee members didn't know Steinman was dead when they chose him as a winner and are...

What did the productive procrastinator say to the beetle on the beer bottle? “Oh, you won an Ig Nobel Prize, too!” That’s right. One of my favorite parts of the science awards season has arrived: Yesterday, another crop of Ig Nobel winners was announced. This year’s crop of Ig Nobel-worthy findings included the fact that yawning is not contagious in turtles; that the best way to procrastinate on something important is to avoid it by doing something else that is also important; and that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an...

BioWorld doesn’t have an editorial calendar outlining our planned coverage, because so much of what we write depends on breaking news. That said, here’s a sneak peek at the stories most likely to end up on our cover before the year is up.   October The Obesity Society annual meeting (1-5): With Orexigen Therapeutics Inc., Vivus Inc. and Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. in various stages of responding to FDA concerns and slogging forward once again, the potential (futility?) of obesity therapeutics is sure to be a hot topic. BIO Investor Forum (25-26): BioWorld will be on site in San Francisco for...

I recognize that while a lot of you busy biotech folk subscribe to BioWorld Today, I am probably one of the only people who actually reads every single word of the paper every single day. In doing so, I often come across really cool companies doing really cool stuff that you might have missed if you were just scanning the headlines for news related to one particular indication or another. So here’s a shout-out to a few of the coolest little companies I’ve stumbled on recently: ŸKingdoms Cross Station: NovaDigm Therapeutics Inc. just popped on the radar at ICAAC with...

Regulatory certainty. It’s something industry needs and investors want to see. It’s also one of the drivers for job creation. But it’s something our government doesn’t seem to get. Take the president’s repeated call for shorter data exclusivity for biologics, beginning in 2012. Just last year, Congress made 12 years the law of the land. Changing it now is a) premature, b) unnecessary and c) absolutely pointless. As we’ve reported in BioWorld Today, the FDA is not ready to be deluged with biosimilar applications. And the biosimilar user fees that will pay for the path won’t even be in place...

Teary-eyed mother to Michele Bachmann: Michele, my daughter took the HPV vaccine and spontaneously became mentally retarded. Michele Bachmann to the world: We must stop the use of these dangerous government-mandated vaccines which infringe on our liberties as Americans and cause mental retardation. Those aren’t direct quotes . . . but it was the gist of the exchange. I cringed when I read the news reports. It was more than a misstatement; it’s a potential death sentence for the untold number of girls and women who might be lead astray by this heinous misinformation put forth by GOP presidential hopeful,...

Back in 2008, biotech companies working on cancer vaccines were not exactly shouting it from the rooftops. In fact, most companies working in the space quietly began branding their drug candidates “immunotherapies” when they met with investors in an attempt to avoid connection with the spate of disappointing headlines such as the ones that ran in BioWorld Today – “Cell Genesys Crushed on Latest GVAX Failure,” “Favrille Sinks on Phase III Failure of Lead Cancer Drug” and “Genitope Dropping MyVax Work, Focusing Instead on Antibodies.” Then Dendreon Corp.’s Provenge (sipuleucel-T) hit its Phase III survival endpoints and won FDA approval...

She’s best known as the Biogodess. A biotech insider who can recount the early days in the sector -- when the industry was first starting to attract serious biobucks. The Biogodess has helped many bridge the gap of knowledge between the science and business of this Wild West of the pharmaceutical industry. She’s tracked the sector’s roller coaster ride like few others. In the early days of the male-dominated industry, it was pretty easy to spot her in a crowd. Not just because she was a woman, but because she had a bright and effervescent fashion sense in a sea...

If you read our post earlier this week (Top 5 Tips for Pitching BioWorld), you know what kind of news BioWorld Today covers. Here are five more helpful hints regarding how to work with us: How to contact us. Our direct phone numbers are on page two of BioWorld Today or here. Aside from the DC and science beats mentioned in Tip #4, we don’t specialize, so you can reach out to any of us. If you know your news is not cover-worthy (i.e. a patent, a personnel appointment, fast track or orphan drug designation, an early stage trial initiation,...