Author Archives: Steve Dickman
Lilly’s Big Buy of Avid Anticipates Alzheimer’s Therapies That Actually Work
In one of the highest-value acquisitions of a private, venture-backed healthcare company this year, Eli Lilly & Co. announced on Nov. 8 that it had acquired Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, a Philadelphia, PA-based company with a Phase 3 imaging agent that can … Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Convergence West Highlights: From iPhone Sequencing Apps to Funding Innovation in Biotech
The VCs that are still investing in biotech “are more interested in in funding innovation today than at any time in the last 15 years,” said VC Bryan Roberts of Venrock. Futuristic sequencing app: “Integrate the sequencer into your iPhone, wave it around and see the genomes of all the pathogens swirling around you all the time,” said Eric Schadt, CSO of recently IPO’d sequencing star Pacific Biosciences. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Google Meets Healthcare VC
Now that most private-company biotech CEOs have given up on “IPO window reopens” and “VC bidding war,” three of the most galvanizing words for someone raising money these days are “Google might invest.” Here’s the Boston Biotech Watch take not just on what Google Ventures is doing in healthcare but also what we think they should be doing. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
We are our bugs – hot Boston startup mines the gut
The next Boston-area startup takes on our dual nature as “higher” eukaryotes who are in fact stuffed full of bacteria – which could be tweaked or targeted to improve our health. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Into the Hot Seat – Scangos to Lead Biogen Idec
Just when we were beginning to wonder whether major multiple sclerosis drugmaker Biogen Idec (Nasdaq: BIIB) would ever have a new CEO came yesterday’s report from Bloomberg that industry veteran George Scangos had accepted the job. We will argue that the choice of Scangos is both a good one for the beleaguered biotech itself and also a positive signal for the industry in general.
Filed under Uncategorized
New, breathing “lung on a chip” shows the way for expanded use of tissue culture in preclinical development of new drugs
In the 25 June 2010 issue of the journal “Science,” Don Ingber and a Harvard-based research team published an impressive advance in organotypic tissue culture that could someday be adopted as a viable alternative to animal experiments: a “lung on a chip” including both human cells and a bioengineered boundary layer that is both porous and flexible. The new chip overcomes limitations of previous 3-D organ models in at least two ways: both by recreating the body-environment interface featuring a multilayered set of membranes with communication across them, which in itself is remarkable enough, but also by allowing dynamic mechanical forces (think “breathing”) to be applied and showing the response. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
IPO Drought Likely to Last, Boston Globe writes
Scott Kirsner, the Boston Globe’s innovation columnist, on Sunday thoughtfully tackled the question of when the current IPO drought is likely to end. His piece, which makes a nice mention of CBT Advisors, is nominally focused on the Boston area but the sentiments are of course similar in other geographies. Here is an excerpt with a link to the rest of the piece below. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
The Next Feeding Frenzy? VCs Rush Toward diagnostics (!?)
There was a time not long ago when no amount of persuasion could have made most venture capitalists do a diagnostics deal. The reasons abounded: markets were too limited; margins were too low; and the number of potential acquirers too small. So imagine our surprise when the most upbeat session of this year’s c21 investor conference in late May was a panel discussion focused on – you guessed it – molecular diagnostics. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
The Boomerang: Healthcare Innovation Goes Where it Must, To the Developing World
By Malorye Allison* and Steve Dickman, CEO, CBT Advisors We always thought that innovation in biomedical science started in western countries and pretty much stayed there, where the money is. The role for developing countries, if they ever got their … Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Venter Builds a Bacterium – and a Bio+Technology Company
By Steve Dickman, CEO, CBT Advisors For a glimpse at the future of biotechnology, we recommend this week’s Economist cover story on Craig Venter and his Science paper describing the creation of a bacterium with a synthetic genome. The accomplishment, … Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
