Carnival of Biotechnology
Investing and Clinical Trials
PharmaGossip has an illuminating excerpt from The End of Medicine describing a method to invest in drug companies as they progress through clinical trials.
Ted Love, CEO of Nuvelo Inc., explains how biotechnology companies are frequently able to recover from seemingly disastrous clinical trial failures.
Patents
When manufacturers seeking to sell generic drugs challenge patents in order to try and enter the market, the patent holders will sometimes settle out of court and pay the generic company to wait until the patent expires. There is growing opposition in congress to this practice, with some lawmakers calling it anticompetitive.
In order to challenge a patent, a challenger must either have been sued for infringement, or be able to demonstrate that they are likely to be sued for infringement. This can place licensees in a dilemma where they must decide to license a patent they feel is invalid, or infringe a patent and challenge it but risk paying triple damages for willful infringement. A ruling in the case of Medimmune v. Genentech has strengthened the case for licensees, permitting them to pay licensing fees “in protest” and still challenge a patent.
International
The Chinese biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors are rapidly growing as increasing numbers of expatriates are returning, bringing skills and connections from abroad back home. Chemical Engineering News profiles the Chinese pharmaceutical industry and investigates the challenges it still faces.
Sir Chris Evans, founder of Merlin Biosciences, blames British biotech investors for having a ‘sick garden syndrome’, stating “We keep pulling the flowers up every six months to look at the size of the roots, and ram them back in the ground wondering why they struggle to grow.”
Here’s the direct link to the PharmaGossip post:
http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-trade-drug-trials-phase-2-is-key.html
I’m not really a trader, but its a good read anyway. Even if you’re planning on going long, it gives you an idea of when the dips might be.