Too Big to Flail

In the biotech world, the acquisition of a company by another is an occasional but newsworthy event since it typically means that the acquired company has succeeded in creating sufficient value that an acquirer is willing to pony up significant cash (and/or stock) to buy out the acquired company’s founders and investors (e.g., Takeda’s recent [...]

A Long Strange Trip

A couple weeks ago, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. of Gurgaon, India (Ranbaxy) reported that it had received marketing approval in India for an new anti-malaria drug, a combination of arterolane maleate and piperaquine phosphate (Fierce Biotech article and Economic Times article).  The announcement was notable because Ranbaxy is a fifty-year-old generic drug maker (and since 2008 [...]

Verify Then Trust

One concept for accelerating the development of drugs for neglected diseases (i.e., those whose treatment is not reimbursed by insurance companies) is application of the “open source” innovation model in which distributed groups of researchers, mostly at academic laboratories, share tasks and pool information to advance drug discovery and development.  I have written about the [...]

Skin in the Game

The recent announcement that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics, Inc. (CFFT), and Vertex, the well-established biotech company, had extended their collaboration to find “correctors” of the genetic defect underlying cystic fibrosis (defective transmembrance conductance regulator proteins, Vertex press release) got me thinking about the need for better business development efforts by organizations developing treatments for [...]

Open Source Sesame

One concept for accelerating the development of drugs for neglected diseases (i.e., those whose treatment is not reimbursed by insurance companies) is application of the “open source” innovation model which originated the software industry.  This model is based on easy access to source code, distributed work among unaffiliated programmers, and rights to use (and sell) [...]

ReDuX

Last week I wrote about why vaccine development and new vaccines may be important in global health in the coming year, one of which is their cost-effectiveness (they prevent rather than treat).  What I did not note is that, as something that is put into people, assuring their safety and effectiveness is time- and labor-intensive [...]

Yet Another

In previous posts I have noted the proliferation of commissions, centers, institutes, and advisory groups which conduct numerous studies, analyses, and reviews and publish a host of reports, conclusions, summaries, and policy guidance in the name of improving global health, but mostly, it seems to me, aim to steer money to themselves and their pet [...]

Drug Development on the Cheap

One often-cited study of the cost of the discovery and development of new drugs is that of DiMasi et al. (DiMasi et al. 2003) from the Tufts University Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD).  Their sound bite number of $800 million per new approved drug (now up to $1.7 billion) is undoubtedly big [...]

Commercialization: A Going Concern

To my simple way of thinking, commercialization is the final step of innovation:  all the steps needed to sell a new product or service and at an affordable price to a customer for whom it fulfills a need.  Ideally, the sales revenue allows recouping of the expenses the product’s  development, manufacture, distribution, and marketing plus [...]

Exertion Toward a Common Object

“I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object for the exertions of a great many men and in inducing them voluntarily to pursue it.”  Alexis de Tocqueville, On Democracy in America (On Democracy). Back in the day, the ever-quotable Alexis noted the [...]