Industry news

Top Three Factors That Will Drive Biopharma in the Future

Ben Locwin / BioPharm International

When it comes to predictions, I  agree with physicist Niels Bohr. They’re difficult, especially about the future.  Even when forecasting a very small number of inter-related factors, the uncertainty due to error can be very high. We see this every day, whether in daily stock price forecasts in the Wall Street Journal, or as the prediction intervals of a hurricane’s path.

Is This Cancer Treatment Worth It? New Tool Offers Patients Data

Michelle Cortez / Bloomberg Business

For the first time, a consortium of top U.S. cancer hospitals will provide patients with guidance about the cost of drugs used in their treatment, helping address a concern for many people undergoing a major medical event -- what the financial repercussions of their condition are.

U.S. FDA approvals for Indian pharmas jump 50%

Matthew Driskill / FiercePharmaAsia

Indian pharmaceutical firms got some good news last week when it was reported that during the period from July to September, there was a 50% gain in the number of abbreviated new drug approvals (ANDAs) from the U.S. FDA, Bloomberg TV India reported.

15 October 2015

Diagnostics Special Report: Non-invasion of the body snatchers

DDNEWS

Despite the rapid advances in identifying and understanding the nature of driver mutations and resistance markers in various cancers—information that is going a long way to individualizing patient care—the challenge of fully characterizing a cancer within a single patient remains significant. Even in situations where a solid tumor exists, it is not always possible to obtain a tissue biopsy due to clinical inaccessibility or unacceptable risks to patient safety.

Is Google a competitor or partner to Big Pharma? Roche's CEO doesn't know, yet

Nick Paul Taylor / Fierce Biotech IT

The advance of Google ($GOOG) and other tech firms into life sciences has given drug developers a new source of partners with complementary skills, but also raised an awkward question: Long term, are these companies allies or rivals? For Roche ($RHHBY) CEO Severin Schwan, the answer is still unclear.

Hong Kong's gray market draws mainland Chinese looking for lifesaving meds they can't afford at home

Eric Palmer / FeircePharmaManufacturing

Duties and distribution costs have made top-tier drugs in China among the most expensive in the world. If they can be found cheaper, chances are they are counterfeit. As a result, a thriving gray market in Hong Kong is drawing tourists from the mainland looking to get drugs like Gilead Sciences' hep C med Sovaldi or Roche's breast cancer drug Herceptin, often without a prescription.

The Way We're Testing Antibiotics Is All Wrong

John Tozzi / Bloomberg Business

For 50 years, hospitals have used a single test to decide how to treat the most stubborn infections. But according to a growing body of research, that test is now wrong more often than we'd thought. All because of the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that behave one way in lab tests and another way in the human body.

European investor snatches up DNA test maker DNA Diagnostics for $118M

Emily Wasserman / FierceMedicalDevices

DNA testing outfit DNA Diagnostics is selling out to European healthcare investor GHO Capital for €104 million ($118 million), allowing GHO to cash in on the genetic testing market and expand its international footprint while increasing DDC's global reach.

3Q venture capital decreases, but there's a silver lining

Brian Orelli / BioWorld

When you compare third quarter investments in private U.S companies to the rest of 2015, it doesn't look pretty. Just 39 companies tracked by BioWorld Snapshots garnered the attention of venture capitalists in the third quarter compared to 53 in the first quarter and 50 in the second quarter.

Jim Blair Shares Insights on Future Direction of Genomics with Investor Business Daily

Domain Associates

Jim Blair, Ph.D., a founder of Domain Associates has seen genomics grow from its infancy into the rapidly developing space it is today.  In 1981, as managing director at Rothschild, Inc., Dr. Blair invested funds managed by his firm in the start-up financing for Applied Biosystems, developers of the gene sequencers later used in the Human Genome Project.