Industry news

GV charts its own course with big bets on med tech: Bloomberg

Emily Wasserman / FierceMedicalDevices

VC firms traditionally take a measured approach to med tech investing, but GV, formerly Google Ventures, is bucking the trend. The company is betting big on companies with innovative technologies despite potential regulatory obstacles.

Macro Matters

Jim Miller / BioPharm International

Bio/pharmaceutical companies, and the companies that serve them, tend to think they are immune from broader macroeconomic and political developments. As populations age, emerging middle classes expand, and scientific knowledge progresses, research on new drugs and demand for new therapies seem to follow an inexorably upward trend.

FDA maintains tight grip on Indian and Chinese products

Matthew Driskill / FiercePharmaAsia

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected more than 13,000 products made in India in the 5 years between 2010 and 2015, according to FDA data cited in an Economic Times report, and rejected slightly more than 15,000 products made in China.

Another win for 'gamification': FDA clears Microsoft Kinect-based physical therapy system

Varun Saxena / FierceMedicalDevices

In the latest example, the FDA cleared the Yugo Microsoft ($MSFT) Kinect-based physical therapy system. Developed by Israeli startup Yugo, the device can be used to create a personalized physical therapy routine, which can be done at home following prompts from an Xbox or other computer that's connected to the Kinect. The Kinect camera records patient's movements and sends it to the cloud, enabling physiotherapists to keep tabs on their patients' rehabilitation from orthopedic injuries (or lack of therapy, in the case of those who are noncompliant).

Innovative Therapies Require Modern Manufacturing Systems

Jill Wechsler / BioPharm International

FDA set a 19-year record in 2015 in approving more new drugs and biologics, and agency officials expect this pace to continue. Manufacturers are testing a full pipeline of important, new therapies to treat both rare diseases and widespread serious conditions such as high cholesterol, diabetes, multiple myeloma, and a range of cancers. 

Biopharma Heeding ‘Mission Critical’ Call to Improve Performance of Drug Trials

Marie Powers / Life Sciences Connect

Responses from 30 participants in a recent roundtable as part of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD) Executive Forum indicated that 48 percent of their phase II and III trial sites missed enrollment targets in 2015 and 11 percent failed to recruit a single patient. Fewer than half of patients screened for these trials actually completed them, according to the newly released R&D Management Report from the Tufts CSDD.

Clearing aging cells keeps whole mouse from aging

Anette Breindl / BioWorld

Removing senescent cells from middle-aged mice by pushing them into apoptosis lengthened the life span of the animals by 25 to 35 percent, researchers from the Mayo Clinic have reported. The findings confirm a broad role of senescent cells in promoting aging, and suggest that targeting such senescent cells could be beneficial in a number of age-related diseases. A spinout based on the results, Unity Biotechnology Inc., plans to put that idea to the test in the clinic.

PhRMA hopes to polish pharma's tarnished rep with patient-focused ad campaign

Emily Wasserman / FiercePharmaMarketing

Pharma's image has been sagging lately, so the leading U.S. trade group is trying for a facelift. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is kicking off a new ad campaign aimed at polishing up pharma's tarnished rep.

U.K. looks to house software developers at planned cancer research hub

Nick Paul Taylor / Fierce Biotech IT

The team behind a planned 10,000-person, 265,000-square-meter cancer research and care hub in London is looking for software developers to occupy some of the site. By housing software companies, biotechs, med-tech developers and other companies in part of the U.K.'s cancer research and care network, the team is aiming to better connect the public and private sectors.

U.S Venture Capital Investment Spanned 133 MSAs in 2015

U.S. National Venture Capital Association

With the entrepreneurial ecosystem expanding from coast to coast, venture investors deployed capital to 3,662 companies located in 133 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) in 2015, according to the MoneyTree™ Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), based on data from Thomson Reuters.