The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

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

Monthly Archives: January 2010

This Week in the Twitterverse: Weekend Reading

Catch up on all the Canadian biotech news that caught our eyes this week: CAMH out-licenses to Athena Diagnostics in MA to develop genetic test for muscle disorders caused by FHL1 mutations http://bit.ly/cTSUrd  Ontario Hospital Association & PharmaTrust Partner on telepharmacy prescription-dispensing kiosks in hospitals http://bit.ly/c0wlXG  Congrats to winners of CNA-CMA 2010 Media Awards for [...]

Friday Science Review: January 29, 2010

A productive week of international collaborations leading to new drugs or targets… Genetic Map of Yeast: A large-scale, genome-wide interaction map of yeast genes was constructed in an international study.  The extensive network of genetic interactions lays out a functional map of the cell where similar biological processes can be grouped together. Yeast has been [...]

Biotech Trends Update: Jubilant’s R&D Success Continues Drive Toward Innovation in Asia

One of the biotech trends we’re following in 2010 is the increasing innovative activity in India and China.  Both are booming not only as low cost manufacturing centers but also as innovative hubs adding R&D expertise and specialized know-how. This week, the Indian company Jubilant and Endo Pharmaceuticals announced that they are expanding thier partnership following early and [...]

Current Data on the State of Biotech in Canada

Equicom published a report recently that takes a comprehensive look back at 2009 at the Canadian public healthcare sector.  Here’s the link to the press release, which has the headline numbers and a link to the full report.  If I use “therapeutics” as a rough proxy for “biotech,” here’s where we stood at the end of 2009: [...]

Boosting Canadian Commercialization at the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research

Alex Philippidis ran a great story at GenomeWeb last week on the OICR’s plans for 2010, which include hiring 40 more staff, growing informatics capabilities and providing additional support for its Intellectual Property Development and Commercialization program. On the commercialization front, the news is particularly exciting.  OICR has already been willing to participate in novel [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: January 25, 2010

Everyone’s looking to the future in this week’s deal review: two special committees, 225,000 options, two royalty streams, a delisting notice and the first income trust/tax loss deal of 2010. 

This Week in the Twitterverse: Weekend Reading

Lots of good info from Twitter this week.  Catch up on all the news that’s too brief to print: RT @AHCJ_Pia: Data.gov just released data sets called for by Open Govt Directive – Incl food, health, VA, enviro data. http://data.gov/ogd RT @dgmacarthur: Genetic Future post: Personal genomics is getting serious: Counsyl emerging from stealth mode [...]

Friday Science Review: January 22, 2010

Some really exciting research in this week’s review… Special (RNAi) Delivery: One of the obstacles for RNAi based therapeutics is the difficulty in getting the RNAi into the cells efficiently to invoke a positive response.  Vancouver based Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (TSX: TKM.TO), in partnership with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ALNY) and researchers at the University of British [...]

First Two OETF Investments: ecobee and Bering Media

Ontario’s $250 million Emerging Technologies Fund has closed its first two investments, participating in a $6.73 million round from smart grid company ecobee and a Series A round of undisclosed size from location-based ad company Bering Media.  I am proud to report that Ogilvy Renault, led by Senior Partner Jay Lefton, acted for ecobee in connection [...]

Biotech Bailout: How Much Does it Cost Government to Attract Biotech Jobs?

Governments want to create jobs.  Not just any jobs, “creativity-oriented jobs” and ”knowledge economy jobs.”  But what does it cost government to create one of these jobs?  We don’t really know, but on this blog we’ve been tracking data points all year to try to get some sense of how to invest effectively to attract the workers who [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Personalized Medicine: The Case for Diagnostics Focuses on Cost and Effectiveness

A report in FierceBiotech today distilled the views of three life science VCs on trends to watch in 2010.  Along with other worthwhile observations (and I’d encourage you to read the whole thing) was this bullet pointing out the value of personalized medicine in addressing comparative effectiveness concerns: “Interest in molecular diagnostics is heating up. It’s [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: January 18, 2010

Another strong week for Canadian deals. Light on securities, but heavy on M&A, licensing and partnerships.  MedGenesis and Cyplasin brought assets in, Canada and Australia are doing a do-sa-do (Topigen-Pharmaxis, YM-Cytopia), and Trillium Therapeutics signed an out-license to Biogen, while Medicure is shopping its lead program around.  Less good news for Haemacure and Forbes Medi-Tech, but plenty of other [...]

This Week in the Twitterverse

This week was full of interesting developments — catch up with some weekend reading from @crossborderbio: Great new VC blog – really smart stuff from Peter Carrescia at http://techdisruptions.com/ #vc #blog 19 hours ago WSJ VC Blog sums up #JPM10 http://viigo.im/25Ba 23 hours ago Friday Science Review: January 15, 2010 – A little sunflower power to brighten up a [...]

Friday Science Review: January 15, 2010

A little sunflower power to brighten up a quiet week… Understanding Cancer Therapy Resistance: A molecular contribution to resistance to cancer treatments is from the cellular protein Clusterin (CLU).   This cell survival protein is targeted by the antisense based OGX-011, one of OncoGenex Pharmaceutical’s leading compounds currently in phase 2 trials for prostate, lung and [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Commercialization by Foundations: JDRF, J&J and DexCom Collaborate on Artificial Pancreas

One of the industry trends we’re following in 2010 is the increasing commercialization activity by non-profit foundations. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has been taking active and creative approaches to funding treatments for their constituents.  Last month, JDRF in Canada partnered with a government funding agency to create a clinical trials network in Ontario; and [...]

Even More Antitrust Scrutiny Pending for Pay-for-Delay Generics Deals

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission published a report today (subtly) entitled “Pay-for-Delay: How Drug Company Pay-Offs Cost Consumers Billions” claiming that settlements between patentees and potential generic entrants where the generic manufacturer is compensated result in delays averaging 17 months longer than the delays in settlements where no compensation is paid.  “Pay for Delay” is the [...]

Biotech Trends Update — IP Constituencies: Innovators and Generics Continue to Blur Pharma Lines

Two stories noted by the WSJ’s Health Blog highlight the trend we’ve been following of blurring lines between branded/innovator pharma and generics companies: The biggest development I’d cite is Pfizer’s deal to sell 40 generics made by India’s Strides Arcolab and South Africa’s Aspen.  This deal seems to go a step farther than other innovator/branded deals with [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: January 11, 2010

The busy pace for Canadian biotech deals set at the end of 2009 continues into 2010. After the jump, 3 licensing agreements, 6 securities deals (though it’s 5 closing, one launching) and a PMA.  You may even find redemption if you

This Week in the Twitterverse

A busy week this week on Twitter, so if you don’t follow us at @crossborderbio, here’s your weekend remedial reading: RT @mrcglobal: From the Economist: Innovation in global health – A spoonful of ingenuity http://bit.ly/7R2Lfy 1 day ago RT @PharmProEditor: MDS Appoints Steve West MDS Inc. CEO – Peter Dans Appointed Future CFO http://bit.ly/7LSIH5 1 day ago Good stuff! [...]

Friday Science Review: January 8, 2010

I am starting the new year and decade by recognizing the accomplishments of two distinguished scientists… Two outstanding Canadian scientists were recognized for their valuable contributions to the global research community. Dr. Andras Nagy’s innovative technique to reprogram mature body cells into stem cells – called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells – was [...]

The Long Arm of Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB)

In Canada, the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB)’s mandate is to (1) “ensure that prices charged by patentees for patented medicines sold in Canada are not excessive,” and (2) “report on pharmaceutical trends of all medicines, and on the R&D spending by pharmaceutical patentees. ” It has jurisdiction over any patented medicine “sold in any market [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Personalized Medicine: A Big Market, If We Can Just Figure Out How to Get People to Use It

Late last year, a PwC report made the rounds with a big headline number — $232 billion — as the size of the personalized medicine market.  FierceBiotech called it a “tipping point,” for personalized medicine.  George Church called us “the first genomic generation” in Newsweek, and Francis Collins’ new book ”offers practical advice on how to [...]

Analyzing the FDA’s 2009 Approval Statistics

Two interesting Tweets appeared this morning: Biotech drug approvals spiked in 2009. http://is.gd/5O2KD followed shortly by #FDA Drug Approvals Mostly Flat in 2009 http://bit.ly/5sAGF6 The actual numbers, which are based on analysis by investment research group Washington Analysis, are that 2009 saw 26 total approvals compared to 25 in 2008 and of those, seven were for biotech [...]

Jeremy Grushcow Featured in a Globe & Mail Story About Lawyers & Social Media

None other than our very own Jeremy Grushcow is featured in the Law Pages of the Globe & Mail today in a story about lawyers and social media. Go look for yourself – it’s really true. The story was also picked up by @stevematthews on Twitter and by the à l’avant garde blog at lesaffaires.com. Congrats to Jeremy [...]

Biotech Bailout: Five Reasons Ontario Needs to Do More to Support Bioscience Companies in 2010

As we head into another budget cycle here in Ontario, there has been a flood of news showing that other jurisdictions are investing heavily in recruitment and stimulus for biotech companies.  Each one of these investments raises the bar for what has to be done in Ontario to build our own companies and capitalize effectively [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: January 4, 2010

Welcome back, and happy 2010! If you’ve been away for a couple of weeks, check out the winners and losers from our 2009 Trends, and the year’s top posts. If you’re just here for the deals, don’t fret, we have those too: a busy bunch of closings ended 2009, with almost $12 million flowing into [...]

Top 10 Cross-Border Biotech Blog Posts of 2009

We’ve put up posts with our top the winners and losers from our 2009 Trends, but that was just subjective.  Here’s an emprical sort of the year’s top posts (excluding Swine Flu items): Facing the Challenges of Introducing Biosimilars or Follow-on Biologics in the North American Market Scientific American and BIO worldVIEW Scorecard: A Global Biotechnology Ranking [...]

This Week in the Twitterverse

Some interesting bits from the business side and the science side from @crossborderbio on Twitter: Transgenic prairie voles set the stage to investigate the genetics of monogamy. Stay tuned… http://viigo.im/1WD9 22 hours ago Congratulations to #CLawBies2009 winners and other runners-up (runner-ups? finalists?)! Thanks @stevematthews and @jordan_law21!! 23 hours ago Forbes picks Monsanto as company of the year, writes up [...]

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 93 other followers