The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

Biotechnology, Health and Business in Canada, the United States and Worldwide

Monthly Archives: January 2009

It’s Raining M&A

Pfizer-Wyeth is certainly the biggest headline (see here for info on those companies in Canada), but it seems like a very popular time to be shopping.

Friday Science Review: January 30, 2009

Interesting science developments in and from Canada this week:

Dare We Compare?

A summary of the increases for research funding in the U.S. Stimulus.

Canada Budget Reax Update

Genome Canada is causing quite a stir this morning, picked up by ScienceInsider this afternoon.  That, plus more budget reaction from a Research Canada press release and a thumbs-down from the CVCA below… The CBC story on Genome Canada funding has some reaction from Tony Clement: Minister of Industry Tony Clement, speaking to CBC Newsworld on Thursday morning, [...]

Canada Budget Reax

A collection of reactions to yesterday’s budget

Wendesday Brain Dump: January 28

Things that caught my eye this week: The FDA made Geron very happy; Sarkozy made French scientists very unhappy. Here at home, some regulatory milestones for Oncolytics, Welichem and Pfizer Canada. Europe’s R&D intensity (spending as a percentage of GDP) was stagnant overall from 2000 to 2006, but at least a few detractors are out of [...]

Canadian Budget

Watch Live at CTV Also see the Globe and Mail special coverage page.

Personalized Medicine: Local to Global

Two local developments in personalized medicine in Canada, one at the forefront of global efforts, one making recommendations on how to play catch-up:

Flu and Stimulus

With new reported cases of avian flu in Canada and China  it’s encouraging to see that the U.S. economic stimulus plan boosts funding for development of vaccines and antiviral treatments for pandemic influenza.

How *Not* to Cut Back

Hat tip to Paul Carenza… In difficult economic times, managing cash flow is key to survival. However, a recent case serves as a reminder that corporate directors in Canada are exposed to personal liability for the corporation’s unremitted source deductions for income tax, EI and CPP, as well as GST collected, unless the director has exercised [...]

Pfizer-Wyeth in Canada

Following today’s developments, some Canadian stats from the Pfizer Canada and Wyeth Canada web sites:

Monday Deal Review: January 26, 2009

Canadian Deals we found this week:

Trends, Trends Everywhere: Random Gloating II

Katie Hood, CEO of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, has an interesting piece up at Huffington Post that relates to our Trends post on foundation funding for commercialization.

Trends in 2009: Personalized Medicine … Just Down the Street

An event this Monday (Jan. 26, 10am) at PMH will be an interesting preview of how personalized medicine may take further shape in Ontario in 2009.

Update on U.S. Biotech Bailout

Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee approved the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” (pdf) which did not include tax stimulus incentives proposed by the biotechnology industry (namely monetizing future Net Operating Losses and future R&D tax credits now in order to forgo those tax assets in the future). The U.S. House [...]

Trends in 2009: You’ve Got a Friend In…

A story yesterday reminded me about a movement I think we’ll start seeing a lot more of – funding to commercial entities by disease advocacy foundations.  This will be fueled in 2009 by two factors: a self-perpetuating availability heuristic that will encourage foundations to seek commercialization opportunities; and an economic environment that will have companies looking harder than [...]

Bailout Bedfellows

A brief was released jointly last night (pdf) by 7 Canadian national organizations: Association of Canadian Academic Healthcare Organizations(ACAHO) Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC)  BIOTECanada Canada’s Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D) Health Charities Coalition of Canada (HCCC) MEDEC – Canada’s Medical Technology Companies Research Canada: An Alliance for Health Discovery Update: the Brief [...]

Friday Science Review: January 23, 2009

Interesting science developments in and from Canada this week:

New MOPOP Chapter 17 re Biotechnology

From Inaugural Guest Blogger Brian Gray, setting a high bar: On January 14 CIPO issued the revised version of chapter 17 of its Manual of Patent Operating Procedures (MOPOP) re biotechnology (pdf). Obviously a lot of work has gone into this. Interestingly enough, while the previous chapter 17 (pdf) dealt mainly with the formalities of filing sequence [...]

Oops!

Not Biotech, but an interesting story about NDAs, and why you need to pay attention to them.

Inauguration Links

Watch live at MSNBC FOX CNN. Listen live at NPR. Here’s a great This American Life episode on the inauguration from the past weekend. Updated: Missed it?  Here’s the Inaugural Address from CNN.

Trends in 2009: Random Gloating

Remember way back Monday when we identified Comparative Effectiveness as a trend to watch in 2009? Well, here it is, showing up as part of the bailout bill. More on the bailout bill’s Bio provisions to come. AAAS is running continually updated coverage of the bill and its R&D provisions here.

Money = Jobs

As various constituencies make their arguments for bailout funding, the supporting materials have a common, unsurprising, theme: Money = Jobs.  How many jobs? 

News: FDA Launches Secure Supply Chain Pilot Program

The FDA announced a new pilot program, which will select 100 applicants who will get expedited import clearance for up to 5 of their drugs that have a demonstrably secure supply chain.  Think of it as NEXUS for (FDA-approved!) drugs.  The idea is to decrease overall risk associated with imported drugs by allowing the FDA to focus [...]

Threats in 2009: Patent Reform

The United States Congress is expected to take up patent reform legislation again in 2009. For biopharma companies, it is safe to say that last year’s version of the bill would not bode well for industry innovation and investment.

News: FDA Off-Label Guidance

The FDA released updated guidance today on the use of journal articles to promote off-label uses.  Here is a link directly to the FDA guidance. Here is the Reuters story, which notes some Congressional (Waxman) and consumer (Public Citizen’s Health Research Group) opposition, and PhRMA support. One concern is that a permissive approach to off-label promotion [...]

Trends in 2009: Comparative Effectiveness and Personalized Medicine

Two potentially conflicting trends may see a dramatically increased profile in 2009: Government Bailouts and Free-Market Capitalism Comparative Effectiveness and Personalized Medicine. Both have been highlighted by the incoming Obama administration. 

Bailout Bonanza!!

With every industry under the sun seeking bailout money, Biotech is not about to be left out. And with a record number of biotech companies with less than 6 months’ cash in the bank, there is good reason to fear that promising ideas could be lost before the credit markets thaw. There are, however, an [...]

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