BioWorld Sourcebook Editor Oh, to be a fly on the wall in a room full of bankers and investors! At the 2009 ACG Capital Connection conference in Atlanta, investment bankers and private equity principals from the Southeast staffed tables so CFOs, accountants, lawyers and other deal-makers could interact with them. What was the general mood? No apparent fear or panic. As mentioned by one speaker, Americans are, above all, pragmatic. Are banks and lenders active? It may not be business as usual

BioWorld Perspectives Contributing Writer Editor's note: Mike Williams is adjunct professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, from where he publishes his personal views on today's drug discovery industry. For the better part of the past three decades, interest in natural products as potential sources for new drugs has been overshadowed by an overtly mechanistic, targephilic approach to identifying new chemical entities (NCEs) as potential leads for new drugs. The Targephilic Approach

All My Clones—Episode 21: Makeovers and a New 'Do for Investment Models If you missed previous episodes of the biotech-themed soap opera "All My Clones," click here to read the beginning of the story. Odessa wove her way through the noon crowd packing the first floor of Neiman's to get to the Lancme makeup counter. Her whirlwind trip across the country got her to the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on time, but she paid the price by leaving all her makeup in her New York apartment. No way

BioWorld Today Washington Editor NEW YORK - Staying focused on a company's mission, remaining cash conscious and being up front and transparent with employees and investors to minimize anxiety are key to weathering the current economic storm, biotech CEOs advised. Much of the talk at this year's BIO CEO & Investor Conference, which ended Tuesday, focused on the survival of the biotech industry during the economic downturn and what strategies firms were putting in place to stay in business

BioWorld Today Assistant Managing Editor In its first major collaboration, privately held Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc. partnered one of its two lead antithrombotic programs with Novartis AG in a deal potentially worth up to $575 million. The deal comes a bit earlier than expected, since elinogrel, a P2Y12ADP receptor antagonist, is still in Phase II testing - the firm started patient enrollment in an 800-patient trial late last year in nonurgent percutaneous coronary intervention. The firm

BioWorld Today Correspondent NeuroSearch A/S shrugged off disappointment in the clinic last week - namely, the failure of ABT-894 in a Phase II trial in diabetic neuropathic pain - with a three-year central nervous system drug discovery alliance with Eli Lilly and Co. that has the potential to grow to blockbuster proportions. NeuroSearch is getting an up-front payment of $5 million, research funding up to $8 million and an equity investment from Lilly worth about $17 million. In addition, it

BioWorld Today Washington Editor WASHINGTON - The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will get a $10 billion boost to its budget from the economic recovery stimulus package to conduct biomedical research in cancer, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease and stem cells and to improve its facilities. The $787 billion legislation - a 1,000-page bill known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - also provides $19 billion to accelerate the adoption of health information technology by

Image Cranky commentary by Cynthia Robbins-Roth It's Not over Until the Fat Lady Sings Biotech has its first opera — REPO! The Genetic Opera. Here verbatim is the review from Star, that highly regarded industry journal and source for cultural news: "It's hard to figure how anyone thought this was a good idea: a blood-soaked musical about the repossession of body organs. The Evanescence-esque music isn't half bad, but with lyrics like, 'I'm infected by your genetics,' you won't be singing

BioWorld Perspectives Contributing Writer Editor's note: Paul Hartzell is senior vice president of Merrill DataSite. For CEOs and owners of small-cap biotech companies, 2008 was a year of immense opportunity. Even as the broader economy has slowed, biotech dealmakers are still seeing strong activity, and partnerships among biotech companies and between biotech and pharmaceutical companies are reshaping the industry. For small players especially, this means that if you're not paying attention

BioWorld World Staff Writer Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. has granted London-based GlaxoSmithKline plc worldwide rights to IDX899, a potential treatment for HIV/AIDS, in a deal that could bring in a potential $450 million for the U.S-based biotech. Cambridge, Mass.-based Idenix will receive $34 million up front and up to $416 million for development, regulatory and sales milestones. The up-front payment by GSK was split evenly between cash and the purchase of Idenix common stock at $6.87 per

BioWorld Today Washington Editor WASHINGTON — Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told President Barack Obama in a letter Thursday they were committed to getting a health reform bill passed and enacted this year, despite no longer having Tom Daschle at the head of the effort. Kennedy and Baucus said they were "saddened" by Daschle's decision to withdraw from the nomination

BioWorld Today Assistant Managing Editor VANCOUVER, British Columbia - As it prepares to welcome the world for the 2010 Winter Olympics - set to start exactly one year from Thursday - the city, for the seventh year in a row, hosted a smaller group of local and international visitors as the annual BioPartnering North America conference, which opened Monday. The two-day meeting kicked off with some promising news for the region, as Pfizer Canada upped its commitment by an additional $2 million

BioWorld Today Washington Editor NEW YORK - Investors are generally optimistic about biotechnology firms as a solid target, with mid-cap oncology firms being the most attractive, according to new results from a survey conducted by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and Thomson Reuters. The survey of more than 80 participants represented institutional, hedge fund and venture capitalist investment firms with $2.3 trillion in assets under management, including $266 billion in health

BioWorld Sourcebook Editor Editor's note: This is Part II of a two-part series of articles on marketing. Click here to read Part I, which included an example of integrated marketing and talked about digital media, web optimization, relationship building and campaign building. Your brand and product don't have to keep their current market position. To change your situation, however, you'll have to think outside the box. Now more than ever, creativity is required in order to truly distinguish

BioWorld Sourcebook Editorr Editor's note: This is Part I of a two-part series of articles on marketing. To receive Part II, make sure you are opted-in to BioWorld Perspectives. These days, it pays to think ahead. Marketing can make or break a brand or a specific product. Spending time to develop creative campaign elements can cement your marketing success, in the long run. For biotech companies, this means defining a product's uniqueness and superiority well before a product launch. Even post

Medical Device Daily National Editor In this issue of BioWorld Perspectives, we hereby provide, la David Letterman, a collection of "fun facts" about biotech, medical technology and health care ... a minority of which are actually true facts, or at least likely to be true. Look to future episodes of BioWorld Perspectives for more fun facts, and send in your own to bioperspectives@bioworld.com. The End of Our World as We Know It A group of viruses and bacteria recently got together and put

BioWorld International Correspondent LONDON – UK biotech needs to find a new way of funding start-ups. Even before the current financial crisis, institutional investors had lost interest in the sector because returns are too long term and too uncertain. Now action is needed from the government to provide tax incentives for investment in early stage companies and to secure the future of the sector, said a government-commissioned report published last week. "Biotech companies have not provided

BioWorld Perspectives Contributing Writer When life — or the economy — hands biotechnology companies lemons, they ask the government for help in making lemonade. The industry's most recent request is one for sheer survival. In December biotechnology industry executives visited Congress to ask for a temporary change in the tax law. It would allow companies currently losing money to get cash from the government now, in exchange for tax credits they would pledge not to take if they eventually

BioWorld Today Science Editor In his inauguration speech, President Barack Obama had both a warning for and an offer to countries that are hostile to the U.S. "We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense," he said. But even to those countries that are currently enemies, "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." At a meeting of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, and in an editorial published in PLoS Neglected