The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

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

Monthly Archives: November 2009

Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in False Claims Act Whistleblower Case

The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in a case we noted in June in which amici curiae PhRMA and BIO urged the Supreme Court to limit whistleblower suits under the False Claims Act (FCA). Feel like you were really there by reading the full transcript of the oral argument (pdf). Out loud. In [...]

Three Need-To-Know Canadian Patent Decisions That Impact Pharma, Biotech and Generics Companies

In Canada, linkage regulations similar to the Hatch-Waxman Act in the U.S. ensure that generics manufacturers have to address relevant patents listed on the Patent Register (the analog to the Orange Book) if they want to market their product prior to the expiry of listed patents.   Generics manufacturers can do so either by accepting the terms of [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: November 30, 2009

It was a fairly quiet week last week, but you still have options (har) after the jump, as well as an equity line, a debt settlement, a rights offering, licenses, and deals closing in a reasonably timely manner.

This Week in the Twitterverse

A pretty quiet week for @crossborderbio on Twitter.  The first part was consumed by a tech deal of some magnitude, and the second part was U.S. Thanksgiving.  Nevertheless, a few tweets escaped: Good update/summary from the WSJ on the status of #biosimilars exclusivity in #hcr legislation http://bit.ly/4oYmbd 1 day ago Congrats! RT @fodden: RT @slaw_dot_ca Slaw hits [...]

Friday Science Review: November 27, 2009

Two quick reviews on studies addressing Alzheimer’s and lung damage therapy… An ‘- omics’ Study of Lipids in Alzheimer’s Disease: Clues to the underlying molecular mechanisms of amyloid plaque proteins causing Alzheimer’s disease were revealed using a lipidomic method (think broad ‘-omics’ type profiling of lipids).  In diseased tissue, accumulation of certain isoforms or types [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Synthetic Biology: Smallest Genome May Not Provide the Best Roadmap

One of the trends we’ll be following for 2010 is synthetic biology — efforts to create entirely novel organisms and systems from “scratch.” A fundamental question in the quest to create novel life forms is what the minimal genome is that will comprise a living organism. Scientists have been looking for, and at, existing organisms [...]

Personalized Medicine Conference Highlights a Busy Month

Last week, Harvard Medical School held a conference entitled “Personalized Medicine: The Time is Now.”  Is the time now?  Looking around, it seems like personalized medicine has had a pretty good month: PBMs Drive Demand CVS Caremark, the country’s largest pharmacy services provider, partnered with Generation Health to expand pharmacogenomic testing for cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: November 23, 2009

A slightly delayed Deal Review this week because of some non-biotech deal activity.  Live, from New York, it’s the Deal Review!

This Week in the Twitterverse

Tweets of the week, in case you don’t follow us @crossborderbio: Cool story by my wife/editor about evolutionary advantages for sensitive kids @jenniferkolari ‘s Blog: http://ow.ly/DWd9 1 day ago RT @InVivoBlogEllen: NICE … tells Onyx/Bayer Nexavar is too pricey. Who doubts reimbursement = new deal hurdle? http://tinyurl.com/y86hq6c 1 day ago Quoted by Lexpert on Social Media http://ow.ly/162Y9H 1 day ago Boarding [...]

Friday Science Review: November 20, 2009

Intestinal disease genomics and how hedgehogs cause arthritis… Genetic Clues to ‘Belly Aches’ in Children: The largest genomic investigation into early onset inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis involved the efforts of an international research team.  In total, genetic information from 3,400 children with IBD and 12,000 healthy children were compared.  [...]

New Early-Stage Funding: Ontario Genomics Institute’s Pre-commercialization Business Development Fund Calls for 2010 Applications

The Ontario Genomics Institute has a Pre-commercialization Business Development Fund (PBDF) that makes investments to fund proof-of-principle (aka proof-of-concept) programs.  They are soliciting applications for 2010 investments, with a deadline of January 29, 2010. The project or business has to “involve genomics, proteomics, or associated technologies,” but the potential business areas are broad, including: biofuels; cell, [...]

Jeremy Grushcow Quoted by Lexpert on Social Media

A Lexpert Magazine article that came out yesterday quotes our illustrious Jeremy Grushcow. The article about law firms and social media cites Jeremy’s experience using social media to facilitate real life connections between people in his network. Also featured were blawging expert Simon Fodden and his co-operative Canadian legal blog Slaw, where Jeremy contributes weekly posts on [...]

FDA Meeting on the Internet, Social Media and Online Drug Marketing

Following some perplexing moves by the FDA, including cracking down on Google search ads, the agency convened a two-day hearing on the use of the internet and social media for online drug marketing last week.  The goal of the hearings was to seek comments from “all interested parties, including, but not limited to, consumers, patients, [...]

CIHR’s Canadian Health Research Awards and Prix Galien Canada Name 2009 Awardees

Awardees were announced today for CIHR’s Canadian Health Research Awards and for the Prix Galien Canada. It’s great to see awards that cross such a broad spectrum: basic and applied research; and molecular and population-based approaches. The CIHR awardees are: Dr. Nahum Sonenberg at McGill for his pioneering work on translation control mechanisms, opening the door [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: November 16, 2009

This week’s Canadian biotech roundup features a dose of all kinds of deals, though common shares appear to be figuring more prominently lately than they were earlier in 2009.  Lots of multijurisdictional activity too, with the U.S., the UK and Germany all participating in this week’s transactions. Other notable cross-border developments include the acquisition of [...]

This Week in the Twitterverse

Tweets from the week – little bits of biotech goodness, reproduced here from @crossborderbio for your viewing pleasure: Agrium ($AGU) letter to $CF Industries shareholders lays out the case for Agrium’s bid. http://bit.ly/3bRR5r << $4.9b deal, #Canadian buyer 2 days ago RT @MaRSDD: Blog – Canada’s science policy takes centre stage in Toronto http://bit.ly/wNVjI #cspc 2 days ago RT [...]

Friday (the 13th) Science Review: November 13, 2009

No bad luck here in unraveling new genetic and proteomic links in disease… Gene Variants Linked to Hearing Loss:  A genetic link to hearing loss in children who are being treated with the chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, has been identified.  Cisplatin is a widely used anti-cancer drug but one of the harmful side effects is hearing [...]

Trends Update — IP Constituencies: Novartis CEO Vasella Calls Upcoming Gleevec Decision a “Turning Point” for R&D in India

India and China both ranked in the third quintile of countries in the 2009 IPRI Report, with India ranking 46/115 and China ranking 68/115 for protection of IP rights.  In an earlier post, we predicted that this ranking would change rapidly, with both countries strengthening their IP regimes as their domestic R&D capacity ramped up. Both countries have [...]

Ontario H1N1 Swine Flu Update: November 10, 2009. 212 Hospitalized, Seven Dead.

This week’s Ontario Ministry of Health Influenza Bulletin shows continuing increases across all metrics. Clinic hours have expanded, and the definition of “high risk” groups entitled to be vaccinated has expanded.  Also this week, the CDC reported a cumulative total of 4,000 swine flu deaths. The Ontario numbers continue to look grim: Nine new institutional [...]

Trends Update — Electronic Medical Records: Ontario’s New EMR Adoption Program

Ontario is providing up to $29,800 per physician over 3 years for new adopters of electronic medical records.  In the few weeks since the program has been implemented, the OMA has gotten over 650 inquiries and over 150 applicants.  There’s a local option and a cloud option, which runs off the eHealth Ontario servers.  Interestingly, up [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: November 9, 2009

Some closings, some new deals, some MDS and some PBM all in this week’s deal review.

This Week in the Twitterverse

For those who don’t follow @crossborderbio and for those who just like everything wrapped up nice and neatly in one post, here’s the Twitter news from the week.  Also, if you’re interested, I made a Twitter list of great Biopharma, HealthIT and Health twits.  Check it out here. RT @FierceBiotech: Reuters: Bioniche gets $6M milestone [...]

Bill for U.S. Domestic Production of Medical Isotopes Passed by House of Representatives

The shut-down of Ontario’s Chalk River reactor, which used to supply 30% of the world’s medical isotope requirements, and 60% of U.S. isotope needs, has prompted Congressional action in the U.S. Yesterday, the House passed H.R. 3276 — the American Medical Isotopes Production Act of 2009 — finding that “[t]he United States should move expeditiously to [...]

Friday Science Review: November 6, 2009

Just two stories this week – a cancer pathway and innovative dipsticks… New Relationship between Tumour Suppressor Genes: Knocking out genes in mice believed to play a tumour inhibiting role would intuitively result in rapid cancer development.  However, it was a surprise to McGill researchers that mice lacking the tumour suppressors 4E-BP1 and 4E-BP2 were [...]

Canadian Announcement on Merck–Schering-Plough Transaction Closing

Merck closed its merger with Schering-Plough yesterday, following regulatory clearance in China and Mexico.  They held press events yesterday and today, and this morning they appear to have released country-specific announcments. Here’s the blurb on Canadian operations: “Canada is an integral part of the company’s expanded global presence. Merck will now market over 530 pharmaceutical, [...]

Trends Update — IP Constituencies: China On the Rise as an IP Enforcer

We have been tracking increased innovative activity in India and China as part of this blog’s Trends in 2009 series, because it has the potential to impact the constituencies that negotiate the IP aspects of global trade agreements.  Generally, with this blog’s focus on pharma and biotech, posts have mainly considered commercial collaborations to develop [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: November 2, 2009

In this week’s Deal Review: SemBioSys hops on the SIFT Tax bandwagon; new deals from Microbix, OPMEDIC and GeneNews; and good updates from iCo Therapeutics, QLT, Noveko and Oncolytics.

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