Industry news

The top 10 patent losses of 2015

Tracy Staton, FeircePharma

We have bad news and good news about patent expirations next year. The bad? When you tot up the billions of sales at risk of patent expiration in 2015, the result is $44 billion, the biggest number since the debacle of 2012. That year, $53 billion worth of drugs fell off patent--and many drugmakers are still reeling.

Study: Patients don't know how to use drug delivery devices

Varun Saxena, FierceMedicalDevices

The evidence is clear: Patients don't properly use drug delivery devices like inhalers or epinephrine autoinjectors.

HHS awards more than $665 million to design and test state-led efforts to improve health care quality, accessibility and affordability

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Twenty eight states, three territories and the District of Columbia will receive over $665 million in Affordable Care Act funding to design and test health care payment and service delivery models that will improve health care quality and lower costs, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced today.  

Google Ventures Shifts Focus to Health Care

Alista Barr, WSJ/Digits

Google's venture-capital arm is moving strongly into health care and life-sciences startups, mirroring shifts at the Internet giant. More than one-third of the money Google Ventures invested in 2014 went to health care and life-sciences companies, up from 9% each of the prior two years. The venture group plans to continue investing in the area, looking to capitalize on an explosion of health data and new ways to analyze it, said Bill Maris, head of Google Ventures.

Industry Voices: The future of pharma manufacturing--new disruptive technologies that can impact whole industry structures

Dr. Marcus Ehrhardt and Peter Behner / FeircePharma Manufacturing

Despite incremental technological advancement over the past 100 years, the production model employed by the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry has remained rigid and inefficient--stalled on the cusp of a much-needed paradigm shift. But now, pressure is mounting from regulators and payers alike, and new methodologies and disruptive technologies are emerging that may prove to be the catalysts that finally drive what Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, termed "a maximally efficient, agile, and flexible pharmaceutical manufacturing sector that reliably produces high quality drugs without extensive regulatory oversight."

CIRM 2.0: New urgency for therapeutic development

BioCenture

Ten years after California voters passed Proposition 71 on the promise that stem cell technology would produce new therapies, the board of the the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) last week unanimously approved $50 million for "CIRM 2.0" to accelerate the progress of clinical-stage programs.

FDA issues new guidance on MRI safety and compatibility of medical devices

Varun Saxena, FierceMedicalDevices

So far, the issue of MRI-safe devices has mostly focused on devices like pacemakers, and more recently cochlear implants, both of which use electronics. But the FDA just issued new guidance on the MRI compatibility--or in some cases incompatibility--of implants that do not require electrical power to service their function, such as cardiovascular stents, intracranial aneurysm clips, endovascular grafts and transprostatic tissue retractors.

Paul Allen donates $100M to create cell science institute

Nick Paul Taylor / Fierce BiotechIT

Having overcome early skepticism to create a successful brain research institute, Microsoft ($MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen has once again dipped into his personal fortune to advance science. The latest venture sees Allen, one of Fierce's 2013 Top 10 Biotech Techies, donate $100 million to create a cell science center with a heavy reliance on IT.

2014 in review – New drug approvals: what's the story?

Simon King, FirstWord Pharma

To date, the FDA has approved 35 new molecular entity (NME) and biologic license application (BLA) submissions in 2014, compared to the 27 it approved in 2013. Encouragingly, the administration is on target to approve a similar number of innovative pharmaceuticals as it did in 2012, when 39 new products were green-lighted; the highest number of approvals for a decade.

Digital health rakes in $3B

Teresa Wang, RockHealth

Three quarters into 2014 and digital health funding has officially passed the $3B mark. Up from $2.3B since midyear, total 2014 dollars raised has steadily increased in Q3 with over 100% YoY growth.