Day One: The wait is over! I leap off the bus and race the other lively stepping attendees to the registration corridor, exchanging pleasantries with everyone I pass. My first-day euphoria high carries me though five sessions, over three miles into the evening, where I meet with equally giddy colleagues to network, wine and dine on my boss’s dime! One of my kids calls me in the middle of dinner, but I manage to resist the Super Dad habit to answer . . . “I’m in a free zone force field, unreachable to handle family stuff!” She must’ve forgotten that...

BOSTON ‑ After crisscrossing the exhibition hall and three Boston zip codes yesterday for my citywide BIO 2012 reception scavenger hunt and finding a belly full of German sausages, Chinese dim sum, French pastries, Japanese sake and Irish whiskey to compliment a head full of the day’s diverse lecture topics and a mini-marathon of orthopedic proportions, I retired to my hotel room and fell into a outlandishly fitful sleep that I’ll just call “A Nightmare on BIO 2012 Exhibition Street.” It started off innocently enough, as I passed by the New York pavilion – “Whadda you lookin’ at? Take a...

The cost of doing biopharma business in Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as other emerging and underdeveloped markets, could come with a significant trade-off if the budding compulsory licensing trend gains traction. And, at the moment, there's not much brand makers can do about it.

June is not only for Father's Day greetings; it is also Men's Health Month. And if any gender needs an aide memoire to engender the self-awareness to regard and conduct its health, it would be men! I acknowledge there are exceptions, but as a demographic, men tend to neglect health warning signs, shun preventive checkups, ignore professional medical advice and are generally reluctant to seek healthcare. Everyone knows at least a couple of males fitting (often proudly so) that description. Do any of these tenor- or baritone-inflected men-isms sound familiar? "I must've eaten something that disagreed with my stomach." "It...

“Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” That was a famous line from the 1937 Broadway musical, Babes in Arms, shouted to exhort the old gang to take action to save the orphanage. As the theater market just put on its Tony Awards to assess the state of its industry, June is also the most active event season for biopharma, as the industry puts on its own long-running show, with the ASCO and BIO events taking center stage this month. Only this time, it’s not the orphanage that’s in need, but the orphan drugs – as well as the biosimilars,...

Pop quiz . . . which market is valued higher, illegal drugs or prescription drugs? Although drug lords and cartels are not apt to file annual reports, the United Nations estimates that 5 percent of the global population now takes illegal drugs that account for an approximate $430 billion black market industry that, fortunately, still trails the $800-plus billion prescription drug market. Of course, government keeps both markets in check for the sake of public safety. It seizes illegal drugs and takes the criminal kingpins to trial in the illegal market, thereby devaluing the illicit drug revenue stream. In the...

NEW YORK – Since payers have now replaced regulators as the Omega factor in the path to market success, the Holy Grail in drug development has transformed from regulatory approval to reimbursement – as evidenced by a trend in which some drugs have failed to live up to market expectations.

NEW YORK – Revenue losses due to patent expirations, an increasingly complicated regulatory landscape and erratic results in getting drugs to market are key dynamics forcing biopharmas to take a look in the mirror and acknowledge the need for change, according to a panel at the New York Biotechnology Association 21st annual meeting this week.

It wasn’t exactly love at first sight back in 1976 when Genentech Inc. became of legal age to go forth and incorporate, but the platonic relationship between biotech and pharma has increasingly mellowed over the ensuing 36 years into an intimate affair. The recent blood transfusion/exit strategy weddings that are rejuvenating the bones of the old molecule money pharmas and fulfilling the dreams of enterprising young biotechs seeking to become the nouveau riche certainly represent something more than just a passing fling. That became patently observable when Roche Inc. finally put a ring on it and took Genentech off the...

The contenders for becoming the April Fool in Life Sciences for 2012 came down to three candidates, but two of them have persisted past the April 1 deadline, thereby removing themselves from consideration. President Barack Obama still has a glimmer of hope for preserving his Affordable Health Care for Americans Act and even if that is struck down, he can still overcome his supreme pranking with a wily November trick-up-his-sleeve snappy comeback. And Illumina Inc.’s stockholders continue to resist drinking Roche’s undervalued Kool-Aid unless they add more sugar to sweeten to Illumina’s taste. So, to the would-be biosimilars drugmakers –...