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Bio-leaders of Tomorrow

Bio-leaders of Tomorrow

I 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.  Read more

Doing the Patent Dance Without Knowing the Steps

Amgen has been involved in several cases involving biosimilars of its blockbuster drugs.

The first day of BIO 2016’s Intellectual Property track featured three sessions that eventually dovetailed into what’s increasingly becoming a thorn in the side of drugmakers: the challenging of drug and biologics patents on multiple fronts and, in theory, without end. In addition to regular patent litigation under the Hatch-Waxman Act, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) formed in late 2012 as part of the America Invents Act gave rise to inter-partes reviews (IPRs) seeking to invalidate patent claims and entire patents. In just over three years, the number of IPRs have increased to the point that the process has come to be seen as a road block for patents.  Read more

The Plus and Minuses of Thailand

The Plus and Minuses of Thailand

The annual JP Morgan healthcare conference is held every January in the cramped halls of the Westin St. Francis hotel on the edge of Union Square, here in San Francisco. Because the conference is selective in its attendees anyway, and because the number of registrants is constrained by walls of the Westin, for the duration of the conference a massive overflow of biotech investors, executives and personnel conduct a torrid business in the lobbies and hotel rooms surrounding Union Square. This sideshow has swelled in recent years to even include smaller conferences running concurrently.  Read more

Head Trauma at BIO in San Francisco

That’s Will Smith up there, talking to Dr. Bennett Omalu about the movie “Concussion,” which Will starred in and is based on the life of Dr. Omalu. The trailer tells you enough, but the idea is Dr. Omalu came to America and discovered Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), and when he raised the flag on this disease to the National Football League (NFL), they tried to keep it buried. This is a still-unfolding story in the world of sports. It’s been suggested the movie was “softened” to avoid antagonizing the NFL, and the NFL has pulled funding for studies examining the effects on the brain of repeated head trauma.  Read more