The Best in Drugs and Biotech: “S&P’s Herman Saftlas and Frank DiLorenzo share some favorites in these resurgent sectors, including Barr Pharmaceuticals and MedImmune “

What VCs Don’t Tell You: “To secure funding, an entrepreneur needs to appreciate the goals and strategies at work on the other side the table. Here’s a guide “

Building a Better R&D Mousetrap: “By posting their scientific conundrums online, companies like Eli Lilly and Procter & Gamble have discovered a rich new source of brainpower.”

A WTO deal on drugs
India and Brazil are good at making cheap copies of life-saving drugs. Now they are allowed to export them too…

Biotechs big winners in VC rebound

Biotechnology companies are leading a rebound in venture capital investment in the New York metro area, a new survey shows.

Investors put $380 million into 56 companies in the second quarter of this year, for a 63% jump in venture capital investment over the first quarter, according to the MoneyTree Survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association.

Vatican in favour of GM Food
: “The Vatican has made an endorsement of controversial genetically modified foods by declaring that they hold the answer to world starvation and malnutrition.”

Genetically engineered trees sprouting quietly… for now
Roll over John Muir and tell Johnny Appleseed the news: biotechnology is coming to the forest and orchard.

Antibiotics, The Next Generation
Few things are as inexorable as the march of bacterial resistance. When a person or animal is given an antibiotic, it kills enough pathogens to cure the illness. But bacteria that have mutated so they can resist the drug survive. The next time these bacteria cause an infection, the antibiotic is less likely to work. But that is drawing some biotech companies into the antibiotic research.

The War against ‘Viagra’

The US Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to fight counterfeit drugs. The FDA will introduce technology that could show at a glance if drugs are real, such as watermarks or electronic tags. It will also tighten requirements for drug wholesalers so it’s tougher to sneak counterfeits into legitimate supplies.

BIO leader hits proposal for drug price regulation

The Cambridge-based chairman of the nation’s largest biotech organization is strongly opposing any federal controls in drug pricing if a prescription drug component is added to Medicare.

“It’s price controls or innovation; you can’t have both,” said Richard Pops, who recently was elected to head the board of directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), a Washington-based information and lobbying group. Pops is CEO of Alkermes Inc. in Cambridge.