The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

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

Monthly Archives: October 2010

This Week in the Twitterverse

If you’re not following our Twitter stream @crossborderbio, here’s what you missed this week: RT @JillLOsborne: An interesting look at tech tranfer in Canada http://bit.ly/9Zqbb7Thx Jill – it’s by Mark Curtis, new @crossborderbio ! How Canada can use science as a diplomatic tool to restore our int’l reputation.http://bit.ly/aavqsP by Mehrdad Hariri of @sciencepolicy Acadia gets rights [...]

Friday Science Review: October 29, 2010

One announcement to make this week before delving into the FSR – Gordon Ramsay and a handful of well known Canadian chefs, including Toronto’s Mark McEwan, Jamie Kennedy, and Lynn Crawford, will be attending Mount Sinai Hospital on November 20th for the Chef’s Challenge. Participants must raise $2500 to attend the event and the top [...]

Technology Transfer at Canadian Universities

The technology transfer office (TTO) lies at the interface between university researchers and the university’s external environment, including industry and government. The presumed role of the TTO has been to mobilize knowledge and foster research relationships between academia and industry, and in doing so support the commercialization agenda of the university by monetizing its innovations [...]

Ten Business Law Tips for Startups

There are lots of collections of tips for startups that have excellent business advice on building your team, hitting product milestones and pitching to VCs; but not that many that give a corporate lawyer’s perspective. So here’s mine:* You May be a Genius, but You Are Not a Lawyer Your idea is brilliant and you [...]

Two MaRS Innovation Transactions Take Off

MaRS Innovation, the “integrated commercialization platform” responsible for commercializing inventions from 16 Toronto academic institutions, announced two deals last week. One spin-out and one out-license (pdf links). The spin-out: MI put $500,000 into Prof. Shana Kelley‘s new company, Xagenic, alongside a $300,000 loan from HTX; $200,000 from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research; and $40,000 from [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: October 25, 2010

Welcome to your weekly review of Canadian biotech deals for October 25, 2010.  Last week’s notable transactions included the Qualifying Transaction of TSXV CPC company CCS Capital Inc. (now known as China Health Labs & Diagnostics Ltd.) and ProMetic’s strategic agreement with Allist Pharmaceuticals Inc., for the commercialization in China of two of ProMetic’s drug [...]

This Week in the Twitterverse

Some weekend reading from our Twitter stream on @crossborderbio: Internal promoters: Pierre Meulien moves from GenomeBC to Genome Canada CEO http://bit.ly/czrWSc Glad to be following @sheffi ‘s tweets today from CER/PM summit at NIH http://bit.ly/b9vfiw I’ve seen that combo b4… http://bit.ly/9h4BJM Great call with @jordan_law21 @privacylawyer @scottwolfejr – prep for panel Connecting Social Media to Business [...]

Friday Science Review: October 22, 2010

Some great research to touch on this week in top-notch journals including Science, Cell, and NEJM. The first publication really emphasizes the strength of collaborative research projects around the globe. Understanding Endometriosis: Ovarian clear-cell carcinomas are less common than high-grade serous carcinomas (12% and 70% of total respectively), but still remain the second leading cause [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Biosimilars Blur IP Constituencies: Novartis and Pfizer-Biocon are Featured in the Economist

Two 9-figure announcements this week mark a turning point for the biosimilars market, and one highlights the increasingly important role India plays in innovation. Pfizer linked up with India’s Biocon in a deal that will see Biocon take the lead in development of four biosimilar insulin products that gives Biocon $200 million up front. Coverage of [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: October 18, 2010

Despite the short week, it was a busy one in the Canadian biotech sector. Read on to learn about the Labopharm / Paladin licensing deal, Ondine’s new facelift (and 15:1 equity liposuction), and various other biotech updates and news. 

This Week in the Twitterverse

Lots of great weekend reading from our Twitter stream on @crossborderbio, including news and commentary on the latest in personalized medicine and the Canadian VC landscape: RT @LillyPad: ..changing R&D models to develop more targeted therapies instead of blockbusters, tailoring therapies that are more effective. 1 day ago RT @wellingtonfund WF-Blog:Mass confusion in ventureland: Is the venture model “broken”? [...]

Friday Science Review: October 15, 2010

A world first It has been almost 12 years since James Thomson published his groundbreaking paper in Science providing details on how he and his colleagues had managed to isolate embryonic stem cells from human blastocysts, and maintain them indefinitely in culture. This work provided the foundation upon which future therapies could be built. Stem [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Personalized Medicine: Duncan’s Personalized Health Manifesto is Primarily Preventative

Journalist David Ewing Duncan’s “Personalized Health Manifesto” was published this week by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The most interesting thing about the manifesto* is that it assumes that the technical hurdles to generating and understading a full set of personalized health data have been overcome, and focuses on how that information can be deployed [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: October 11, 2010

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!  This Monday Biotech Deal Review reports that it was a bad week for turkeys and a bit of a slow week on the biotech front, but read on to learn about some interesting collaborations, allegations and corporate immigrations.

Friday Science Review: October 8, 2010

This week I’ll take the opportunity to discuss a Nature Biotechnology commentary that has generated a little buzz in the health-biotech community, in addition to a recent publication in Science that is particularly impressive. Making the Invisible “Visible”: The elucidation of protein structure is essential for our understanding of protein function. Despite having sound methods [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Biosimilars: FDA Meeting Formally Announced, EMA Working on Rules for (a few) Antibody Biosimilars

Reuters reports that the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which has already approved 13 biosimilars, is expecting to publish guidelines in November on biosimilar antibody therapeutics. EMA Executive Director Thomas Lonngren said that clinical trials will be required for antibody biosimilars (as they are for the products EMA has approved to date), but that requirements were [...]

Canadian Venture Capital Data from Q2 2010 Shows Big Jump From Q2 2009 but Only Moderate Increase for Biotech

The Q2 issue of Industry Canada’s Venture Capital Monitor is up, and it shows “the highest level of VC activity since Q3 2008,” though that is still “significantly lower than the quarterly average of $440M recorded over the previous five years before the downturn.” A couple of (particularly) parochial notes: First-time deals at the seed and [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: October 4, 2010

This week’s Monday Deal Review brings you the usual assortment of biotech wheelings and dealings from the past week, including a summary of the newly completed Valeant / Biovail merger. 

This Week in the Twitterverse

Here’s some weekend reading from our Twitter stream on @crossborderbio … Friday Science Review is back, thx to Mark Curtis! Today’s cool Canadian science = tomorrow’s cool startups… http://ow.ly/19f2te1 DTC genetics link in last tweet is from @CMAJ_News – also contrasts Class III regulation of companion diagnostics. I.e. DTC is non-clinical? MT @genomicslawyer: …Health Canada is taking [...]

Friday Science Review: October 1, 2010

I am pleased to see the Friday Science Review back online, and very much look forward to contributing to the Cross-Border Biotech Blog. This week I will play a little catch up and provide details on a number of publications from the Canadian research realm spanning the last month or so. Future posts will of [...]

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