Monthly Archives: August 2016

Bio-leaders of Tomorrow

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colors-on-canvas-1197595-639x502I first came across the GapSummit in November 2015. The meeting was organized by Global Biotech Revolution and was to be held April 2016 at Cambridge, UK. Looking at the agenda, I noted the Voices of Tomorrow competition, which aimed at getting all the participants to form groups and come up with possible solutions for the ‘gaps’ in the biotech sector, found in research and innovation, funding, future health, future resources, people, bioethics, and public perception & education.

I applied to attend as a leader of tomorrow. This required me to write an essay explaining why I wanted to attend and in December, I was informed that I have been selected to attend the Gapsummit 2016. I was elated!

The “leader of tomorrow” title I think is apt, since the science students of today will be future leaders. Millions of students and postdocs like me are future leaders in the biotech sector. We are the ones who are going to make life liveable in this fast-paced world!

In April, I attended the GapSummit 2016, and it was a phenomenal experience. According to their website, “GapSummit is the world’s first inter-generational and inter-cultural leadership summit in biotech.” It aims “to connect the biotech think-tanks, industrial leaders and research pioneers who are going to become the young bio-leaders of tomorrow and initiate a discussion about the gaps in the sector.”

This was definitely what I experienced when I was at the meeting. I found the experience enriching and felt the need to do a similar event in Singapore, the first of its kind here. I wanted to create a conducive atmosphere for groups of focused and motivated bio-leaders who will help advance the biotech and healthcare ecosystem in Singapore.

After several discussions with Global Biotech Revolution, they decided to organize the Singapore Leaders of Tomorrow (SLoT) Forum (thanks to Kelvin Chan for facilitating this!), to be held on October 19th 2016, with Biotechin.Asia (Disclaimer: I am the co-founder of Biotechin.Asia) as a key partner. I then started forming a team in Singapore; I roped in Laxmi Iyer, my partner at Biotechin.Asia, and other colleagues to join in as part of the executive team. A*STAR, where I am a research fellow, has been supportive of this effort, and the forum will be held at their premises.

The summit should help Singapore form more science competitions, and could provide pointers on teaching the next generation of bioscientists.

Sandhya Sriram

Heparin, Brazil and innovation

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clay_marblesAn article published at the Brazilian Journal  of Cardiovascular Surgery compared all heparins manufactured by Brazilian companies to Liquemine, manufactured by Hoffman La Roche. Heparin is a complex carbohydrate that was introduced to control thrombosis during extra-corporeal surgeries during the 1930s by Clarence Crafoord. It’s been nearly a century and there is no substitute for the drug. No surgeon performs chest surgery without heparin at hand.

Authors of the article, titled Quality control of the heparins available in Brazil: Implications in cardiovascular surgery, concluded that no heparin manufactured in Brazil met the minimum quality control requirements when compared to Liquemine.

There were issues with purification, and contamination with other carbohydrates resulting in inadequate anti-clotting properties. Structural problems were also detected, which resulted in heparins of variable molecular weights – unacceptable, because these properties equally affect the anti-clotting behavior of the drug.

Fortunately, imported heparins are available in Brazil. We attempted to learn more about this scenario and visited a medium size company that commercializes heparin in Brazil (total revenues: US$300 million/year), at the invitation of a friend of the CEO.

Our objective was to improve quality control at the company and boost innovation. We wanted to speak with a company that had four decades of science dedicated to heparin. To our surprise, the Innovation Director asked us if we had their heparin product. Apparently this was key for us to proceed, and since we did not have it, the meeting was aborted prematurely.

This question surprised me, and I later realized I should have said we were not product makers ourselves, but wanted to discuss quality control. Foreign companies dedicate a lot of work by scientists to assure quality control of heparin and drugs in general, but a lack of quality control at Brazilian companies means we cannot compete internationally, or innovate.

But there is hope. At our meeting, the CEO arrived somewhat late. After listening to a short summary by the Innovation Director about heparin, the CEO said, “Even if we cannot collaborate in the area of heparin, please stay in touch. Innovation is key for us – if we don’t innovate, this company will disappear in 10 years.”

I agree. Particularly if that innovation isn’t around creating new drugs.

Luiz Antonio Barreto de Castro

Analyzing Global Biotech Investing Over Time

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Base_mapWhere are venture funds being deployed in biotech? Is this changing? As part of a programme to find out how VC interacts with biotech, I have created a database of venture investment in 33 countries and three regions of the USA, over the time periods before, during and after the financial crisis of 2008-11, and built this into an interactive map of the biotech VC world. The map is clickable, with data for each country linked to that country on the map. The link to the map is here.

A quick summary shows:

  • USA dominates investment in biotech.
  • East and West Coast investors have different behaviour and different investment priorities than others.
  • UK, Israel and non-Coastal US investors are similar
  • Looking to the Coastal US for examples of ‘how to do it’ guides for policy may not work.
  • Companies with bold ambitions should look to where investors match their vision, not to local sources.

Globally, the USA continues to dominate investment in biotechnology – around 2/3 of all investments by value and number are from investors in the USA and into US companies.

Because of the US dominance, many European governments and a not insignificant number of entrepreneurs look to the USA for leadership, inspiration and, of course, funds. But is the USA a good model for other countries?

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