Category Archives: Uncategorized
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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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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