Industry news

FirstWord Lists – The drugs that will shape 2015

Simon King, FirstWord Pharma

Which pharmaceutical products – both marketed and in the pipeline – will dictate industry news flow over the next 12 months?

Medical device, diagnostic venture investment at $2.7B, highest since 2008

Stacy Lawrence / Fierce Medical Devices

Med tech venture investing may lag biotech by more than half, but it's coming on strong. As venture-backed exits pick up, a real devotion to breakthrough innovation seems to be whetting investor appetites. A total of $2.7 billion was invested by VCs last year in medical devices and diagnostics, with $748 million of that total coming during the fourth quarter

What's next for next-gen sequencing? Everything.

Stacy Lawrence / Fierce Medical Devices

More than a few presentations at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference this week sought to address the future of next-generation sequencing, particularly with the huge waves of related news. Foundation Medicine ($FMI) sold half its company to Roche ($RHHBY) for up to $1.2 billion and NantHealth is already being used in most cancer centers to guide treatment with a whopping $1.5 billion already spent to get it there and another $800 million raised in the last 6 months.

The 2015 biotech takeover target list includes some hot new players

John Carroll / FierceBiotech

With the big multinationals like Merck ($MRK), Roche ($RHHBY), Pfizer ($PFE) and Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) joining some of the most aggressive biotechs (think Shire) in roaming the planet in search of the right biotech targets to acquire, you can expect to see a steady stream of fresh speculation among analysts over which companies figure as the most likely buyout--and the next place to score some quick cash by investors.

New FDA quality office to grade manufacturing operations

Nick Paul Taylor / FiercePharma Manufacturing

The FDA has shared details of plans for its Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ). Staffers plan to group drug production operations by category and release an average quality grade for each bucket, allowing manufacturers to see if they are outperforming their peers.

New Moscow site makes markers to identify cancer, HIV and then some

MarchMont Innovation News

Developers in Moscow have launched the production of medical markers to identify a range of serious diseases. They expect that a few years from now the new product may be delivered to every Russian clinic, the website of Vesti TV  reported . 

New biotech engineering service center announced in Russia

MarchMont Innovation News

The Rusnano InfraFund, the infrastructure-financing arm of Rusnano, Russia’s largest nanotech company, has unveiled its new biotech engineering service center with an overall budget of $3.5m. The InfraFund is contributing $1.8m, the Russian news agency TASS  reported , citing a source in the nanotech giant. 
 

Hospital market of Russia: results of the first 9 months of 2014

market-access-solutions.com

According to Hospital Audit of procurement in Russia ™, hospital market value in the first nine months of 2014. increased by 16% in real terms and amounted to 485,489,000. packages. In monetary terms, the market showed positive dynamics in rubles (+ 22%) and the dollar (+ 9%), and was equal to 101.717 billion. Rubles (2,870 bln. Dollars.) In wholesale prices. 

Annual Venture Capital Investment Tops $48 Billion in 2014, Reaching Highest Level in over a Decade, According to the Moneytree Report

National Ventures Capital Assocation / USA

Venture capitalists invested $48.3 billion in 4,356 deals in 2014, an increase of 61 percent in dollars and a 4 percent increase in deals over the prior year, according to the MoneyTree™ Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), based on data from Thomson Reuters. In Q4 2014, $14.8 billion went into 1,109 deals.

Big rounds push 2014 biotech venture funding to near-record $6B

John Carroll, FierceBiotech

With a big assist from Moderna's recent monster round, the biotech industry came within a rounding error of breaking the annual record for new venture investing in 2014, racking up $5.96 billion in total investments in a frenzied year of deals, data and buyouts, according to The MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data from Thomson Reuters.