Clay Siegall

Opinion

December 15th, 2009

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Xconomy Seattle — 

[Editor’s Note: As the decade comes to an end, we’ve asked a number of Xconomists around the country to weigh in with the Top 5 innovations they’ve seen in their respective fields the past 10 years, or the Top 5 disruptive technologies that will impact the next decade. Here’s the first installment.]

Here are the 5 biotech innovations from this decade that are currently (or will be shortly) making a big difference for patients with a variety of diseases.

1) Cancer therapies such as Roche/Genentech’s trastuzumab (Herceptin) and Celgene’s lenalidomide (Revlimid).

2) HIV therapies such as Gilead Sciences’ combination of efavirenz, emtricitabine, and tenofovir (Atripla).

3) Improved flu vaccines.

4) Therapies for hepatitis C such as Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ telaprevir.

5) Tumor vaccines such as Dendreon’s sipuleucel-T (Provenge).