The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

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

Tag Archives: biotech

Some Partnering Basics: Part 16 of Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries

[Ed. This is the sixteenth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] If partnering is basically the process of selling an asset, the first step is to let people know [...]

Partner, Sell, or Go it alone: Part 15 of Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries

[Ed. This is the fifteenth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] This is a discussion that the management and board of a company need to start as the company [...]

Some Top-Line Numbers From 2011 For Public Canadian Healthcare Companies

The numbers have been crunched in preparation for the 2011 Canadian Healthcare Annual Review, which I co-author with Ross Marshall, Senior Vice President at The Equicom Group. Prior to its publication later this month, we are going to give you a look at some of the top-line numbers. The biggest concern in the sector is [...]

Assessing Potential Market Share for a New Drug: Part 14 of Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries

[Ed. This is the fourteenth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] In the previous post, we looked at epidemiology and pricing to estimate the market size for a new [...]

Potential Rewards from Successful Drug Development: Part 13 of Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries

[Ed. This is the thirteenth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] Finally we have reached the point of looking at the potential rewards from successful drug development. The potential [...]

Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries – Part 11: Changes in Pharmaceutical Industry Product Portfolios and Strategies

[Ed. This is the eleventh part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] As described in the prior post, the modern pharmaceutical industry has evolved from the patent medicine companies selling [...]

Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries – Part 10: Some Pharmaceutical Industry History

[Ed. This is the tenth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] Very few novel drug development companies have made, or are likely to make, the transition to profitable and [...]

Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries – Part 9: Retail Investors

[Ed. This is the ninth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] In addition to the private institutional VCs, there are the retail investors who are willing to take similar [...]

Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries – Part 8: The Current State of Healthcare Venture Capital

[Ed. This is the eighth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] The world of healthcare VCs has changed dramatically in the two decades which I have spent in capital [...]

Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries – Part 7: Funding the Cost of Developing a New Drug

[Ed. This is the seventh part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] Assuming that the average direct cost of developing a new drug through regulatory approval will be at least [...]

Valuation and other biotech mysteries – Part 6: The cost of developing a new drug

[Ed. This is the sixth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development has been the source of the most comprehensive studies [...]

Valuation and other biotech mysteries – Part 5: More strategy and structure for Phase 3 clinical trials

[Ed. This is the fifth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] In the previous case study, we looked back at Theratechnologies and theFDA approval of EGRIFTA™ (tesamorelin for injection). [...]

Pharma / Biotech R&D Budgets – A Proposal For Measuring Performance

During the BioFinance 2011 conference held in Toronto last week, one presenter showed a slide that outlined the number of new chemical entities (NCEs) approved by the FDA over a number of years. Since this slide was used in the context of the increase in global industry R&D budgets, it was meant to show that [...]

Valuation and other biotech mysteries – Part 4: Strategy and structure for Phase 3 clinical trials

[Ed. This is the fourth part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] Very few independent Canadian biotech companies have successfully completed the development of a novel drug – so my [...]

Valuation and other biotech mysteries – Part 3: What are you valuing?

[Ed. This is the third part in Wayne's series. You can access the whole thing by clicking here. Please leave comments or questions on the blog and Wayne will address them in future posts in this series.] Most likely you will be valuing a company, a product or a technology. The valuation of the stream [...]

Valuation and other Biotech Mysteries Part 2: Some Basic Mathematics

[Please note that this blog series has not been pre-written. The subject of the next post in the series will be determined by where the current post leaves off and any questions that readers send me or leave as comments on the posts.] When you create a valuation spreadsheet, you are plugging in numbers representing [...]

Valuation and Other Biotech Mysteries – Part 1

I have been doing valuations in various forms since 1981 when I started my MBA at York University. There are major differences between those initial valuations and the ones that I have been doing as a biotech stock analyst over much of the last 20 years. Those initial valuations were for assets or profitable companies, [...]

Stability at the Top: A Look at Top Biotech VC Deals from 2007-2010

FierceBiotech published the top 15 biotech VC deals of 2010 last week, measured by dollars invested. Since they noted an overall uptick in investments in 2010, it seemed like a worthwhile time to look back. Here’s what U.S. VC investment in biopharma and medical devices looked like from 2007 to 2010 (normalized to 2007 levels): Not [...]

Canadian Biotech and Healthcare Licensing Trends in 2010

I was fortunate this week to host the Canadian Healthcare Licensing Association‘s (CHLA’s) annual holiday get-together on behalf of Ogilvy Renault at our Toronto office (we hosted a parallel CHLA event in Montreal earlier this week). I presented a short slide deck on licensing trends in 2010, with data drawn from our Monday Biotech Deal [...]

Biotech’s Murky IPO Window Increases M&A Attractiveness

A recent press release from Burrill & Company points out that only 1 of 8 U.S. biotech IPOs in 2010 is currently trading above its IPO price. IMRIS was the last Canadian biotech IPO, completed in November 2007 at $6.00, and it is currently trading at $5.50 after dipping under $2 in late 2008. Facing these [...]

Friday Science Review: May 21, 2010

A slightly different FSR this week with a spotlight on Global Health, right on the heels of the recent Grand Challenges Canada announcement.  An interesting report in Nature Biotechnology, led by Drs. Abdallah Daar and Peter Singer at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, mapped the collaborations between health biotech companies in developing countries.  The [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Social Media for Biotechs: Building Momentum Toward Critical Mass

In December, I wrote a post listing the top 3 reasons biotech companies should use social media and noted that we would be following adoption and use of social media by biotechs as one of our Trends in 2010. The 2010 Dose of Digital Dosie Awards held voting for finalists this week, including for Best Facebook Page, [...]

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 in 2010: Top Three Reasons Why Biotech Companies Should Use Social Media

Tech startups use social media avidly [rabidly?], but biotech companies? Not so much.  Biotech companies should be blogging, tweeting and linking in like mad, though.  Here’s why: Your customers (pharma companies) do it.  More and more pharma companies are active in social media. Take a look at this article in the December issue of Life [...]

Gairdner Breakfast: Nobel and Gairdner Winners Discuss Biotech and Pharma’s Pipeline Problems

As part of the  Gairdner Foundation’s 50th anniversary celebrations this week, there was a breakfast panel this morning with a lot of brainpower (even for MaRS). Cal Stiller lead a discussion by David Baltimore, Phillip Sharp and Corey Goodman who between them have three Gairdner awards and two Nobel prizes. These top-notch scientists also have truly impressive [...]

This Week in the Twitterverse

Tweets I tweeted this week @crossborderbio: RT @jensmccabe: CCHIT announces ‘modular’ EHR certification http://tinyurl.com/ykj9shz This week’s Friday Science Review: cancer, genomics and Nobels, oh my! http://bit.ly/kUkhN << Richard Chan, ladies and gents. RT @FierceBiotech: Kansas looks to boost early stage drug dev with $50M in venture capital funding. http://is.gd/46Qak << incl. Burrill,MPM Big news in [...]

Trends Update — IP Constituencies: Rotman Article Explores Canadian Biotech Collaborations with Developing Countries

A very interesting article in Nature Biotechnology from a group at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health provides some empirical support for a trend we’ve been following of increased innovative activity in developing countries.  According to the article, over 25% of Canadian biotechs collaborate with developing countries.  Of these, however, the vast majority of companies do so alongside [...]

Rumoured Omeros IPO Might Signal Newly Opened Window

An article in Xconomy Seattle today reports rumours that Omeros, a company that has been around since 1996 and has raised over $102 million in private money, may revive its 2008 IPO plans. The company’s lead products — “proprietary low-dose combinations of existing drugs” — are more pharma than biotech, putting it in line with Cumberland’s [...]

Cumberland Ends Bio IPO Drought But Prices Under Range. Next Up, Emdeon.

Cumberland Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CPIX) raised $85 million in its IPO today, pricing at $17 per share.  This was less than the $19-21 per share range, but since it’s the first bio IPO since November 2007 we won’t complain. The company is planning to use the proceeds to buy late-stage or approved therapies for acute care [...]

This Week in the Twitterverse: August 8, 2009

Since I’ve been using Twitter to note short but interesting items that don’t require a whole blog post, I thought I’d post a re-cap of the week’s Tweets.  So, for those who aren’t on Twitter and haven’t been reading the @crossborderbio feed in the column to your right (or who read the blog by RSS), here’s [...]

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 84 other followers