Archive by category | Regional Initiatives

Analyzing Global Biotech Investing Over Time

Analyzing Global Biotech Investing Over Time

Where 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.  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

Biotech investment panorama in Chile

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The “Chilecon Valley” bubble is a weird one. Four years ago, people wrinkled their nose at you when you called yourself an entrepreneur. Today, they treat you like a rockstar and maybe even throw money at your face – especially if you’re a foreign entrepreneur coming to the country. There is an oversupply of tools, help and attention directed at entrepreneurs in Chile just now, which should seem like good news. The bad news? We are getting far too comfortable with all these entities babying us, and once the bubble bursts (if indeed it does) we will be left with nothing – because we have not built any sustainable structure.  Read more

Universities in Brazil – Do we have the best model?

Universities in Brazil – Do we have the best model?

Education in Brazil should be free. Article 205 of the constitution claims: education is a right for all and a duty of the State. Article 206 IV of the constitution claims: Official institutions must offer free education for all.  Read more

GM mosquitoes fire first salvo against Zika virus

GM mosquitoes fire first salvo against Zika virus

A Brazilian city in January became the first to approve a program to grow transgenic mosquitoes for their release into the environment as a public health measure against the Zika virus outbreak. The city of Piracicaba in Brazil said it would work in collaboration with the Milton Park, UK–based Oxitec to scale up release of transgenic Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the main vector for the Zika, dengue and Chikungunya viruses, and build a new production facility there. With no Zika vaccine in sight, government officials across the globe are pondering strategies that suppress the mosquito populations to thwart the spread of infection. US and Chinese regulators both green-lighted field tests for vector control strategies involving nontransgenic Aedes albopictus mosquitoes.  Read more

Law 13123 and access to the Zika virus

Law 13123 and access to the Zika virus

Last year I published an eBook by Schollars Press with an Last year I published an eBook by Schollars Press with an acknowledgment for this blog. The eBook was titled, Topics About Biotechnology in Brazil. One such topic was The Future of Sustainable Use of Biodiversity in Brazil.  Read more

Doubling Feed and Food in Brazil

Doubling Feed and Food in Brazil

In my previous posts I wrote that Brazil can double its food and feed production without increasing deforestation or further depleting our biomes. I mentioned that Brazil has conservatively 30 million hectares of degraded pasture distributed mostly in the Cerrado area in the south. This is almost the same acreage that Brazil uses for its production of grain and meat in these areas. Today Brazil produces close to 200 million tons of grain and we are the world’s No. 1 meat producer.  Read more