Assigning Credit and Blame to Biopharma R&D Chiefs

There’s been an awful lot of turnover lately among Big Biopharma R&D chiefs, with departures from Merck, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, Roche, and AbbVie. Their... Read more »

The Devil is in the Details: What BioPharma Press Releases Don’t Say

While my primary focus is on the research side of the business, I have to admit that for many biotechs, their survival may be tied to the art of the... Read more »

Has The Pendulum Swung Too Far in Favor of Rare Diseases?

As a politician, one of the worst things you can be accused of is being a flip-flopper, a person who changes their mind on one or more issues. Another way of... Read more »

The Academy Awards: Biopharma Edition

Academy Award season is upon us, with the Oscars being polished up in anticipation of the big night. Who knows which Hollywood heavyweights and newcomers will be recognized for their... Read more »

Got Cancer? Sorry, There’s No App for That

That’s right. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are no apps for treating Parkinson’s either. Or ALS. Or Alzheimer’s, or one of a large number... Read more »

The Enduring Success of a Healthcare Radical

I’ve spent some time over the past few months reading about an American political figure’s transformative role in our health care system. His crusade began when his staff surveyed drug... Read more »

Rescuing Patent-Less Proteins from the Drug Development Dustbin

“Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.”

The Greek poet Hesiod wasn’t referring to the drug development process when he wrote... Read more »

The Reproducibility Initiative: A Good Idea in Theory that Won’t Work in Practice

The failure of scientists to independently confirm much of the data contained in “hot” academic publications is casting a long shadow over the biopharmaceutical industry. Research groups at Amgen and Bayer... Read more »

Would Longer Drug Patents Really Lead to Lower Drug Prices?

Imagine needing a drug to save your life, finding one that is likely to work, and then realizing you can’t afford it. This was the ironic situation that recently confronted... Read more »

Woeful Websites: How to Guarantee Your Startup Won’t Get Funding

You don’t have to work in venture capital to know that many biotech startups are having a difficult time raising money. The economy remains in the tank, and the former Olympic-sized... Read more »

Clash of the BioPharma Titans Looms Over Biosimilars

Fights between powerful combatants form the foundation of many mythological tales. In the epic film Clash of the Titans, Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus, must kill the monstrous... Read more »

Basic Biology: The Complex Core of Drug Discovery

The hardest task in major league sports is hitting a baseball. Those who can successfully do this even three out of every ten times over the course of a career... Read more »

Virtual Biotech Companies: Built on Solid Bedrock or Unstable Landfill?

A recent meeting focused on “Reinventing Biotech’s Business Model” provided an interesting window into the spectrum of approaches being used to create new biotech companies. Unfortunately, it did little... Read more »

BioPharma Needs A Safe, Reliable Way To Repair Broken Genes

The sequencing of the human genome didn’t immediately lead to treatments for a number of diseases, as many had hoped and a smaller number had predicted. However, the enormous drop in... Read more »

A Seussian Guide to BioPharma

Years ago, pharma’s rep was grand,

Selling drugs throughout the land.

Many different problems mended,

Diseases treated, lives extended.

Sulfa drugs, antibiotics,

Pain-relieving strong narcotics.

A high point... Read more »

Will New Business Models Enhance or Endanger Drug Discovery?

The most successful biotechs of the past quarter century have been companies that established relatively large, cutting edge research programs, such as Biogen, Immunex, and Genentech. I’ll refer to this as... Read more »

iPubSci: An Alternative to Unaffordable Science Journals

Advances in the biomedical sciences are highly dependent upon researchers having a clear understanding of the current state of knowledge. This information is primarily acquired by having access to the scientific... Read more »

Biopharmaceuticals: Nothing Compares to You

Are biotech and pharma companies doing well, or falling apart at the seams? People will have differences of opinion on this, but one thing is clear: it’s all relative.

At a... Read more »

Biopharma Industry Meetings Could Use Some Fresh Voices

One or more notices of upcoming biopharma industry conferences arrive in my email every day. I give their agendas a quick glance before deleting them, as they’re seldom in areas I... Read more »

(Mis)Understanding Drug Discovery: It’s Much Harder Than Rocket Science

Developing new medicines is an amazingly difficult undertaking. The research portion alone is daunting, and for those of us who have actually attempted it, humbling. A recent article reminded me just... Read more »