By John Carroll It’s not been an easy time for venture groups trying to make money in the biotech arena, says Terry McGuire, the co-founder of Polaris Venture Partners. The bleak prospects for IPOs have cast a pall over the VC companies, McGuire tells CNBC. And then there’s the growing amount of time it takes to …
By Ryan McBride While Big Pharma still has a strong foothold in the antibiotics market, smaller biotechs have tackled the job of replenishing our arsenal of new weapons against infections–especially so-called superbugs, like MRSA, that are resistant to older antibiotics. Despite those drug-resistant infections, there’s been a dearth of FDA approvals of new antibiotics …
By John Carroll Sanofi-Aventis CEO Chris Viehbacher (photo) took the podium at an MIT event to lay out the pharma company’s R&D strategy, once again voicing his displeasure with big internal research operations and laying out a new approach to investing in small biotech companies. “My goal as CEO is never to inaugurate a new …
By John Carroll While the life sciences sector in the UK is still reeling from Pfizer’s decision to pull out of Sandwich and chop 2,400 researchers from its payroll, some investor groups are preparing to make lemonade out of the fresh crop of lemons. David Pinniger, manager of SV Life Sciences’ International Biotechnology Trust, expects to …
By John Carroll Chris Viehbacher (photo) wasn’t playing around when he said that Sanofi-Aventis ($SNY) was going to turn to outside partners for more of its innovative thinking. He spent much of 2010 breaking the old mold on drug research while trying to forge a new one. In the process, he became the world leader in innovation. …
By John Carroll Roche’s pipeline review could set the stage for some new biotech companies to take shape.Bloomberg reports that the Swiss pharma giant intends to slim down its pipeline in the coming weeks and venture groups are keenly interested in seeing if some of the most promising programs and scientific talent could be packaged …
By John Carroll In a bid to break out of its dependence on manufacturing and cheap labor, the Chinese government is planning to invest $1.5 billion into new drug development between 2011 and 2016. And biotechnology is one of seven emerging industries that the Asian powerhouse will use to spearhead the next big step in …
By John Carroll Ask just about any biotech CEO about licensing strategies and you can almost guarantee that at some point the chief will mention that the best deal valuations come after the developer has a solid set of proof-of-concept data. But the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Douglas writes that the shopworn biotech strategy no longer …
By John Carroll Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim is planning to bring out the check book as it scours everything from early-stage biotechs to developers with marketed products for “targeted acquisitions” that can help the pharma company make up for the revenue being lost to new generic competitors. Boehringer appears eager to build on recent deals to …
By John Carroll GlaxoSmithKline is taking its cash and development strategy to Japan, where it’s planning to strike a series of new development deals with small and medium-sized biotech companies. Marc Dunoyer, Glaxo’s Asia Pacific president, tells the Financial Times that the big pharma company will be on the lookout for development programs in rare diseases––as …
