Precision medicine is designed to target diagnostic, treatment and prevention strategies to individuals based on their biological and clinical profile. A number of companies are integrating data from multiple sources such as tissue samples, epidemiological and biochemical data, and genomics sequencing, and then using specific mining tools to analyze trends and patterns in the collective data. Turning those data from big to informative and useful can lead to more effective disease prevention, prognosis, diagnostics and therapeutics.
Building a successful biotechnology company requires that its executives make decisions to help navigate a smooth path around barriers that could easily hinder progress. There is no doubt that running a biopharma company involves plenty of risks in an ever-changing financial and regulatory landscape.
Editor's note: The term "big data" has captured our imagination – conjuring up visions of supercomputing, that quickly and intelligently examines vast amounts of genomic and clinical trials data, combined with patient records, and returns meaningful and actionable information. BioWorld Insight recently examined how big data will play a defining role in reducing the time and costs of drug discovery.
Although biopharma's second-quarter financial results haven't knocked the ball out of the park, investors nevertheless returned to the sector big time as M&A speculation continues to swirl around some of biotech's blue chip companies. As a result, the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical Index reversed an 8 percent drop in June, with a 12 percent rebound in value in July, outpacing the general markets, with the Nasdaq Composite index up 6.6 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial average up 2.3 percent in the same period.
Precision medicine is designed to target diagnostic, treatment and prevention strategies to individuals based on their biological and clinical profile. A number of companies are integrating data from multiple sources such as tissue samples, epidemiological and biochemical data, and genomics sequencing, and then using specific mining tools to analyze trends and patterns in the collective data. Turning those data from big to informative and useful can lead to more effective disease prevention, prognosis, diagnostics and therapeutics.
Over 45 years have elapsed since President Richard Nixon, in his State of the Union address on Jan, 22, 1971, asked for an appropriation of an extra $100 million to launch an intensive campaign to find a cure for cancer. "The time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease. Let us make a total national commitment to achieve this goal."
It has been a long time since a new therapeutic has been approved to help treat sickle cell disease (SCD) and its associated complications. People who suffer from the debilitating disease will be hoping for positive outcomes for the candidate drugs, which are now in or approaching late-stage clinical trials. One of those is vepoloxamer from San Diego-based Mast Therapeutics Inc., which anticipates reporting top-line data from a phase III study of the compound in 388 SCD patients this month.
Our mid-month checkup on the biopharmaceutical sector's temperature finds that it is finally exhibiting some healthy signs of life as it gathers momentum in parallel with the improving capital markets, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 index continue to scale new heights.
It looks like the biopharmaceutical shopping spree to acquire assets has eased off. The number of completed mergers and acquisitions in the biopharma industry disclosing financial details, recorded by BioWorld Snapshots, in the first half of this year was 31, which was 35 percent below the number of M&As completed for the same period last year. Total deal value was approximately $60.5 billion, less than half of the $158 billion total deal value in the same period of 2015.
