Legal Circumvention
Molecular switches provide a route around existing gene patents

5 Big Drug Companies Face R&D Drought
Five of the world’s biggest drug companies do not have any potential billion-dollar drugs in late-stage development, highlighting the industry’s current poor R&D productivity, according to a report released on Wednesday.

Informatics Moves to the Head of the Class
The race is on to increase the quantity and quality of bio-IT training programs as government and academia bet the need will be great. Will the job market back that up?

Nanopharmaceuticals Open Up Brand New Field Of Study
Drug-binding molecules tiny enough to travel through the body’s smallest capillaries may provide a way to spare the heart and other organs from the toxic effects of drug overdose.

Networked Pharma
The pharmaceutical industry is experiencing a deepening productivity crisis. The industry’s preferred escape mechanism from this predicament has been to increase investment in current business activities – primarily R&D and sales – to sustain productivity levels or, ideally, to exploit economies of scale. This has been implemented through organic growth of critical resources and/or M&A. The fact that productivity continues to decline after a decade of vigorous growth in investment levels, and against a background of increasing company size, bears testament to the fallibility of this strategy.

Pharma Financial Squeeze Bodes Ill for Genomics
‘Caution: Tougher Times Ahead’ may be an apt sign for biotech in general and genomics in particular, according to a panel of leading venture capitalists.

DeCode’s Genetic Breakthrough Barely Registers
DeCode Genetics published an important genetic map–assembled by methods very different from those used to create the sequence of the human genome–that will make it much easier for scientists to hunt down new genes linked to disease. But DeCode’s stock continues to languish.

Celera abandons gene sequencing
The company that shared the glory for unravelling the code of life of human beings has turned its back on gene sequencing. Celera Genomics of Rockville, Maryland, announced this week that it is to develop drugs instead

Biotrends
Two major reports highlight the globalization of biotechnology and the battle within the U.S. for regional supremacy

Where the Biotech Bets Are
John McCamant of The Medical Technology Stock Letter tells where he’s making his in this poorly performing sector.