Remember when the promise of biotech was a mere twinkle of innovation in some researcher’s eyes? An investor’s long-term bet? Depending on how you label a biotech company, Amgen Inc.’s first-ever payment of a quarterly dividend last week marks an important step in the growth of the world’s largest biotech and the industry as a whole. How many other pure-play biotechs have reported the same news? None. It wasn’t a surprise. The big biotech has about $15 billion in cash and has been criticized by some for not returning money to its shareholders. Still, I was surprised at the lack...
Marriage is both heaven and hell. So it goes with people and so it goes with biotech firms racing to bring new drugs to market. Faced with up to $1 billion to bring a drug from idea to patient, funding more than a decade of work is a complicated affair, especially amid these weak market conditions. Just as people enter courtships and marriages with different hopes and long-term game plans, biotechs hope for long honeymoons, but are smacked with real-life challenges. BioWorld Today relays news of countless deals gone sour, mostly when drugs don’t pass muster. But sometimes it’s because...
Interventional cardiologists already know that drug-eluting stents (DES) do a better job of keeping the blood flowing through narrowed arteries than the bare metal variety. But a new study out of the UK reveals that these stents do not result in fewer post-procedure heart attacks or deaths. (Medical Device Daily)
On the heels of a unanimous FDA panel recommendation in March for an expanded indication of Boston Scientific's (Natick, Massachusetts) cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators (CRT-Ds), including the Cognis CRT-D for asymptomatic and mild heart failure patients, a new sub-analysis of the MADIT-CRT trial has shown that women with mild heart disease who had a CRT-D implanted had a 70% reduction in heart failure alone and a 72% reduction in death from any cause. (Medical Device Daily)
