Category Archives: Uncategorized
“Quant” VC Correlation Ventures: VC’s New “Dream Date”
Those venture capitalists lucky enough to remain in the drastically smaller pack are constantly cruising for the perfect co-investor. Like the perfect spouse, it’s hard to imagine finding it all in one person: Quick decision. Even if it is a … Continue reading
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Startup Targets Sweet Spot for Consumer Health: Connecting You With Your Data
By Steve Dickman, CEO, CBT Advisors One secret to both improving consumer health and making money in healthcare IT is the feedback loop: providing a person with her own data as a way to improve compliance and performance. Once she … Continue reading
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Partnering360: A New Social Network Aims At Biotech – And Succeeds
We recently test-drove Partnering360, a new social network for biotech and pharma executives that meets a real need. Here we give details on what makes us think this network will succeed and describe some of the challenges to its growth. Continue reading
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Big Pharma Attempts to Extend Own Lifespan by Activating Sirtuins
Can drugs that supposedly “activate” a controversial target – sirtuin proteins – stop or even reverse the aging process? A new report this week said “No.” Sirtuin activators, it said, do not extend lifespan in roundworms and flies and earlier studies that said they did were flawed. Nonetheless, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) continues to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into developing drugs to hit these targets Continue reading
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How Google+ Could Transform Healthcare and Medicine
Even if Obamacare is ultimately upheld, it’s hard to imagine that the government alone is capable of unifying and analyzing all this data through the implementation of electronic health records. A better solution may come from the private sector, where all the necessary tools are already developed. As we know from Wikipedia, the most comprehensive, cost-effective data sets often come from user-generated data. Google+, with its 25 million users, could become the preferred platform for personal health data. Continue reading
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Google Health is Dead, Long Live Google+
Now that Google has put its ill-fated Google Health project to rest, we are wondering who will make the next big attempt to establish a personal health record (PHR) platform for healthy people. We think Google+ has the inside track. Continue reading
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Exosomes: The Little Vesicles That Could
Exosomes are long-known but little-studied vesicles secreted by all cells. Thanks to some exciting results, exosomes are beginning to gain the limelight in areas as diverse as diagnostics, disease prediction, therapeutics and RNAi delivery. Continue reading
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Hacking Ourselves: “Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life” by Marcus Wohlsen
Garage biologists are busily “hacking” their own genomes and cooking up a variety of novel and potentially useful wetware inventions some of which, despite their cheap and kludgy origins, might change the world profoundly, much as mainstream biotechnology has. Is this for real? The new book “Biopunk” by Marcus Wohlsen helps to sort this out. Continue reading
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How Sanofi Could Start Off on the Right Foot in Cambridge
Now that the Sanofi acquisition of Genzyme is nearly done – the New York Times is reporting that it may well be announced before the Sanofi board meeting on Wednesday – we look to the aftermath. Instead of just laying off the entire R&D team – which until recently accounted for $800 million in annual spending – why not set up a corporate venture fund to save at least part of the talent base and build an even bigger bridge to the Boston biotech community?
Read the post and comment on my suggestion on Xconomy here or copy-paste the link:
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2011/02/07/how-sanofi-could-start-off-on-the-right-foot-in-cambridge/?single_page=true
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Bugs 1, Humans 0: “Antibiotics: The Perfect Storm” by David M. Shlaes
Steve Dickman’s review of “Antibiotics: The Perfect Storm,” an entertaining book on the rise of super-resistant bacteria and industry’s inadequate attempts to combat them. Continue reading
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