June 2007

Carnival of Biotechnology

June 28, 2007

Welcome to the June 25th 2007 edition of Carnival of Biotechnology. Finance and business development BusinessFund.com has a great post on 25 alternatives to venture capital — too many entrepreneurs assume that venture capital is the de facto way to fund a company, when there are many other avenues they should be exploring. Industry Trends [...]

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Off to Toronto

June 27, 2007

I’ll be in Toronto from July 5th-8th. Wanna meet up for coffee? Drop me a line.

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Google’s healthcare ambitions — the ultimate second opinion

June 20, 2007

I’ve been trying to elucidate Google’s rumored healthcare plans for quite some time now. Google’s plans are outlined in these two posts on Google’s blog: How do you know you’re getting the best care possible? and Is there a doctor in the family?. The post titles lay it out pretty well. Google wants to be [...]

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Shuffling off to Buffalo

June 20, 2007

I’ll be in Buffalo from July 1st – 4th for Buffalo Old Home Week, presenting on a panel on economic development and using some interesting case studies: bioproducts/biofuel in east Montana, simulation technologies in Alabama, and the case for a Buffalo-Rochester-Toronto collaboration in bioinformatics, medical imaging, and diagnostics. Wanna meet up for coffee? Drop me [...]

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Patenting synthetic life

June 19, 2007

Craig Venter, leader of the private effort to sequence the human genome, has filed for a patent on a synthetic bacterium. By knocking out each of Mycobacterium’s 470 genes, Venter and his team have elucidated a minimal set of genes that could, in theory, be synthesized on a stretch of DNA and inserted into a [...]

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Indian pharma scientists commanding U.S. wages – in India

June 13, 2007

Interesting post from the Business Standard: Pharma R&D heads call the shots. They report that top pharma scientists in India are commanding wages at or near U.S. rates with significant perks such as the operating in the U.S. for six months or round-trip tickets for their families. The impact of this strong compensation is that [...]

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Herbert Boyer

June 12, 2007

It’s important to remember where the biotechnology industry comes from: the demonstration of gene splicing by Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen in 1973. Investor’s Business Daily has a great non-interview (Boyer doesn’t give interviews) profile of Boyer, retelling the story of Boyer’s meeting with Robert Swanson and the formation of Genentech, one of the first [...]

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Functional Overview of the Biotechnology Industry

June 6, 2007

Here’s a slideshow of the presentation I give to students when I’m asked to give them a general introduction to the business of biotechnology. The material is drawn from my book, Building Biotechnology. Go ahead and post any questions you may have in the comments.

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Drug Patent Expirations in June 2007

June 1, 2007

Courtesy of DrugPatentWatch.com: Drug Patent Expirations in June 2007*Drugs may be covered by more than one patent Tradename Applicant Generic Name Patent Number Patent Expiration AEROBID Roche Palo flunisolide 4,933,168 JUN 12,2007 ANTHELIOS SX Loreal Usa avobenzone; ecamsule; octocrylene 4,585,597 JUN 16,2007 ESTRING Pharmacia And Upjohn estradiol 4,871,543 JUN 12,2007 ESTRING Pharmacia And Upjohn estradiol [...]

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