Milestone payments are becoming an increasingly familiar aspect of many biotech deals, as buyers try to mitigate the risks inherent with big purchases. Take Celgene’s $2.9 billion buyout of Abraxis; the biotech giant set aside $650 million in milestone payments if Abraxis’ key drug Abraxane hit certain goals. “These structures are a great way for [...]
Oncologics, lipid regulators, respiratory agents, antidiabetics and anti-ulcerants are the five largest drug classes by sales. But annual sales are only half the story. Which drug classes are booming, and which have plateaued–or even dropped? IMS Health has released top-line industry data revealing the 15 largest drug classes, and we’ve crunched the numbers to take a closer [...]
A group of scientists have demonstrated that specially engineered stem cells could be used to fights off AIDS, successfully testing the approach in mice engineered to develop immune systems similar to humans. The investigators started with the observation that a small group of people who are virtually immune to HIV have disabled CCR5 receptors on [...]
Nigeria is fast-tracking mobile authentication services in its fight against drug counterfeiters. Manufacturers will bear the brunt of the cost, at least initially. The costal country of 150 million is at the forefront of African anti-counterfeiting efforts, thanks largely to a rampant supply of malaria drug fakes. In mid-May, the nonprofit Pedigree Network and computer [...]
Welcome to the annual look at the biggest CEO paychecks in the pharma industry. The major trend in 2009 was the mega-merger, which helped propel former Schering-Plough CEO Fred Hassan to the top of this year’s list. With the help of a $33 million golden handshake, Hassan bypassed perennial top dogs Bill Weldon (Johnson & Johnson) and Miles White [...]
In the quest for a cancer vaccine, Merck KGaA is again stepping into the ring. Vaximm Holding AG, the company’s joint venture with a Switzerland’s BB Biotech Ventures III, will start testing a therapeutic cancer vaccine in patients next year. The vaccine, VXM01, harnesses the body’s immune system to fight cancer by using T-cells to close off [...]
Worrywarts who thought Roche would corporatize and homogenize Genentech can rest easy. Roche is veering toward Genentech, rather than the other way around, Bloomberg reports. Even though Roche was the one that bought out Genentech in last year’s $46.8 billion deal, the Swiss drugmaker has named Genentech scientists to key jobs–Hal Barron as head of [...]
Over the next five years, the market for biosimilars will swell to $10 billion, but only a handful of players with deep pockets and world-class R&D facilities will be able to play. And that means that most small- and medium-size drug developers will never have a chance of leaping into the new market for follow-on [...]
Hold onto your hats: The global market for contract manufacturing is headed for speedy growth over the next few years. According to a new report from RNCOS, pharmaceutical contract manufacturing is poised to grow about 12 percent per year from 2010 to 2012. Cost is one of the reasons, of course.
Chang Lu and his chemical engineering research group at Virginia Tech have discovered how to “greatly enhance” the delivery of DNA payloads into cells. The description of their work will be featured on the cover of Lab on a Chip, the premier journal for researchers in microfluidics. Lu’s ultimate goal is to apply this technique [...]
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