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Astellas restructuring R&D, shutters multiple facilities
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/21/2013
Japan’s Astellas Pharma is taking a cue from its peers in the US and Europe, fundamentally changing its approach to R&D with a move toward efficiency. The company will close facilities at OSI Pharmaceuticals in New York, Perseid Therapeutics in north[...]
Siemens Healthcare CEO on CNBC
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/20/2013
Siemens Healthcare CEO & President in North America Greg Sorensen discussing his brain, his teenagers and the medical device tax on CNBC.
Allergan riding a rollercoaster in the markets
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/14/2013
Allergan is on a wild ride in the past few days, posting positive financial results yet getting hammered in the stock market for delaying two high potential drug candidates. One of the products focuses on macular degeneration in Allergans core ophtha[...]
Lillys rough week: More layoffs and CEOs health in question
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/13/2013
Eli Lilly is having a bad week.  First, employees learned that a massive restructuring of the companys sales force will affect far more employees than was disclosed last month.  Lilly will eliminate 1,624 positions from its U.S. sales force in July. [...]
Quintiles goes public in mega IPO for life sciences
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/10/2013
Quintiles CEO Tom Pike celebrated the companys IPO yesterday, taking public one the largest private companies in the life sciences industry. Quintiles is a huge success story since going private and restructuring its business.  They also have taken a[...]
Could one Senators retirement help repeal device tax?
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/8/2013
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) was the primary contributing author for the Affordable Care Act.  He is also one of the strongest opponents to overturning the 2.3% medical device tax, seeing as he wrote the bill which included it.  However, the Senator has[...]
Baxter is latest Alzheimers failure. Back to square one?
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/7/2013
Maybe Chris Veihbacher and his team at Sanofi have it right?  Maybe we just dont know enough about Alzheimers and the underlying physiology behind the disease.  This week, yet another promising treatment has fallen apart in Baxters Gammagard, an intr[...]
Life sciences employees earn more than other industries
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/6/2013
While labor statistics and the job market continue their tepid recovery, at least it appears that employees in the life sciences are earning more than their counterparts in other industries. Federal statistics indicate that workers in medical technol[...]
Wearable devices bring together technology and life sciences companies
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/3/2013
There have been a variety of milestones in the design and product development of medical devices in the past few decades.  The first challenge was taking big cumbersome devices and making them smaller.   Next came the goal to make them portable.  Wha[...]
Good or bad? Almost 1 in 3 new drugs focus on cancer
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/2/2013
Almost 5,500 out of 17,000 investigational drugs are being developed for the treatment of cancer, according to a report from PhRMA.  Biopharmaceutical companies, working with other partners in the American research ecosystem, have made incredible pro[...]
Obamas Treasury Secretary opens door (slightly) for device tax repeal
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 5/1/2013
President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testified in front of a Senate Committee this week when the topic of discussion circled toward the Medical Device Excise Tax. Lew was asked pointedly about the likelihood of repealing the tax. His respons[...]
GSK partners with VC firm, to fund new companies in San Diego
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/29/2013
Yesterday, GSK broke new ground in its search for future products by partnering exclusively with Avalon Ventures to identify new product candidates and invest as much as $495 million in early stage life science companies in San Diego. Avalons role is[...]
Led by mayor, Chicago announces new urban life sciences hub
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/25/2013
Earlier this week, we spoke of the competitive nature on the floor of the BIO Convention in Chicago, among regional assocations (state and international) vying for attention. Well, the competition seems to have spilled off the exhibition floor and in[...]
Is BIO too big?
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/25/2013
The 2013 BIO International Convention officially started Monday in Chicago.  The annual event features dozens of seminars, sessions and partnering opportunities.   This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first BIO conference, which was held in No[...]
Is BIO too big?
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/25/2013
The 2013 BIO International Convention officially started Monday in Chicago.  The annual event features dozens of seminars, sessions and partnering opportunities.   This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first BIO conference, which was held in No[...]
Industry reports at BIO highlight profits vs. R&D and gun for Big Pharma
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/25/2013
The BIO convention in Chicago is host to 2-3 leading reports each year the state of the biotechnology industry.  Steven Burrill, a leading biotechnology oracle and investor, uses the BIO platform to release his companys annual report on the industry.[...]
Obama budget bears mixed news for life sciences industry
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/24/2013
President Barack Obamas $3.77 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2014 delivers mixed news for the life sciences industry.  The bugdet proposal would reduce biologic exclusivity from 12 years to seven and includes more than $160 billion in reduced sp[...]
Which company has the most employees?
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/19/2013
As human beings, we like to measure and quantify almost everything in our lives.  The result is an endless stream of rankings and comparisons.  The same is true for the life sciences industry which annually generates lists to compare everything from [...]
TEDMED: The coolest conference of them all
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/18/2013
TEDMED started earlier this week in Washington DC, and simply the coolest conference of them all with ties to the life sciences industry.  If you dont know of it, youre just missing out. As always, we will share topic-based TEDMED videos on Beakers B[...]
San Diego loses another foothold with Life Technologies acquisition
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/18/2013
This week, Thermo Fisher Scientific agreed to acquire Carlsbad-based Life Technologies for almost $14B.  The acquisition creates further consolidation of an already centralized lab products business.  Remember when Thermo Electron, Fisher Scientific,[...]
Sanofi steps back from Alzheimers race
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/17/2013
In an interview with Bloomberg, Sanofi CEO Chris Viehbacher drew the conclusion that Sanofi will be pulling out of the clinical development race toward an Alzheimer’s treatment. His rationale aligns with the company’s new R&D strategy, that current e[...]
Supreme court to decide: Can companies patent a gene?
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/15/2013
For 30 years, the US government has granted patents for portions of genetic material. And, the Federal Circuit court has upheld those decision.  But today the US supreme court will take up a case by Myriad Genetics as to whether the company is allowe[...]
Which companies lead the way in R&D spending?
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/11/2013
Novartis, Roche and Merck topped this ranking of biopharmaceutical companies based on spending for research and development last year.   Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson came in fourth and fifth, respectively.  Also making the Top 10 were Sanofi, Glaxo[...]
Sequester cuts begin to affect the life sciences industry
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/4/2013
We are roughly a month into the scaled $85 billion spending sequestration stumbled into by our legislators in Washington DC. And the pains are now starting to emerge within the life sciences industry. Specifically, NIH funding is evaporating and feed[...]
Biogen Idec on a run, new MS treatment in pill form
Jeffrey Clark - Posted: 4/3/2013
Along with the rest of the stock market, the biotechnology & drug industry is on a run. Leading that charge is Biogen Idec which is up more than 20% in the first quarter of the year. Biogen IDEC CEO George Scangos joins CNBC to discuss the recent FDA[...]
 
Beaker.com
BeakerBeat - 05-20-13
In this week’s BeakerBeat, Viagra has long been the salvation of many a man’s sex life. But now it’s[...]
Siemens Healthcare CEO on[...]
Siemens Healthcare CEO & President in North America Greg Sorensen discussing his brain, his teenager[...]
Allergan riding a rollerc[...]
Allergan is on a wild ride in the past few days, posting positive financial results yet getting hamm[...]
Quintiles goes public in [...]
Quintiles CEO Tom Pike celebrated the company’s IPO yesterday, taking public one the largest private[...]
BeakerBeat - 05-06-13
In this week’s BeakerBeat, you may or may not wear your heart on your sleeve, but one day soon you'l[...]