BIOTECH
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Pharmaceutical
company gives
new meaning to 'spin doctors' I would
like to propose what
I call the Moyers' corollary of scientific research. I use the
term in part
because what inspired me was a speech journalist Bill Moyers delivered
last year
to the National Conference for Media Reform. In the speech, Moyers was
talking
about how journalists allow government to "spin" the news by failing
to do more than repeat what officials in A recent
study led by
Michael Steinman, a staff physician an at the San Francisco VA Medical
Center
and an assistant professor of medicine and the University of
California, San
Francisco, makes me think there's a corollary in the world of
scientific
research and continuing medical education programs. For as it turns
out,
science is far from immune from "spin."
When the
pharmaceutical
industry sets out to develop a new drug, it often starts with a
specific target
in mind. A target
is something in the
body a drug can inhibit or otherwise modulate by binding to it as a way
to
interrupt the biochemical activity underlying a particular illness.
Think of
targets as locks and drugs as keys that fit into them. There are
many other issues
on the way to developing a new drug such as potency, toxicity and
whether that
key fits into only the lock for which it is intended, rather than into
other
locks too, causing unwanted side effects. But the search for a new drug
often
begins with an automated process known as high-throughput screening,
where
thousands and sometimes millions of compounds are thrown at a desired
target
one at a time to see what sticks. Small
biotech sees
opportunity in developing a new antibiotic Johnson
& Johnson's
acquisition of Peninsula Pharmaceuticals received a lot of attention
last year,
largely because What
received less attention
at the time, though, was the potential blockbuster J&J left behind
for Alameda-based
Cerexa Inc.,
the spin-out of
From time
to time, my wife
and I engage in scientific discourse about the nature of her brain and
mine. On these
occasions, I
suggest that her estrogen-soaked noggin causes her to exhibit the
behavior of a
female dog that lacks the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality,
although
maybe not in those exact words. In response, she will throw out some
fancy
medical jargon like "anal-cranial inversion" and note that the
presence of a Y chromosome within my cells has left me dumber than
wood. Turns out
we may both be
right, and that's something the biopharmaceutical industry needs to
recognize. Bush,
called enemy of stem
cell research, may be its best friend I'm going
to go out on a
limb and say that George W. Bush is not a favorite among people with
spinal
cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments for which
embryonic stem
cells hold out hope. Bush
paused long enough from
kissing "snowflake" babies (children born from frozen embryos) to
veto legislation that would have eased restrictions he put into place
on
federal funding of embryonic stem cells. The legislation would have
significantly expanded the availability of embryonic stem cells by
allowing the
use of excess eggs donated for in vitro fertilization procedures to be
used in
federally funded research. But before
supporters of
embryonic stem cell research grab torches and pitchforks and head off
to July 21 Medical
device to ensure
docs take their scalpels with them In 2002,
security guards at
an airport in A few days
later, she had an
X-ray as part of an effort to determine why she suffered from ongoing
abdominal
pain, according to a Reuters report at the time. The X-ray revealed she
had
been walking around with a 12-inch long and two-inch wide surgical
retractor
that had been left inside by surgeons who had performed abdominal
surgery on
her four months earlier. Before a
patient is sewed up
in an operating room, staff take an inventory to make sure they account
for all
of the items used in the procedure. As the Canadian woman could tell
you, the
method is vulnerable to human error.
July 14, 2006 Researchers'
findings may lead to treatment for Down syndrome It's easy to
think of the little white mouse from the novel
"Flowers for Algernon" when reading about research at Stanford
University that holds the promise of one day preventing or reversing
the
cognitive decline in people with Down syndrome. Down syndrome,
the result of a chromosomal abnormality that
afflicts 350,000 people, is the leading cause of mental retardation in
the While it's long been understood that people with Down syndrome have an extra copy of chromosome 21, there's been little research to understand it at the molecular level to search for possible therapies to treat its effects. July 7, 2006 Pharmaceutical
industry not yet hip to power of blogging Peter Pitts
describes himself as a "faithful
blogger." He is perhaps
better described as a blog evangelist who is
trying to show the light to the pharmaceutical industry about the
righteous
path of blogging. Brothers and sisters, le'me hear you say "Yahoo!"
Art
imitates science for painter inspired by microscopic views I find I prefer
Xanax to Zoloft. The colors are brighter,
the light seems to dance and it's oddly calming. I speak here not
of the pharmaceuticals, but the works of Reis, 28, may
not be the first artist to paint her
drug-induced visions, but hers are unique in that she relies on the use
of an
electron microscope rather than psychoactivity to draw her inspiration.
Bill Kridel
wants to give you exposure to cancer and only
cancer, if that's what you want. If
neurodegenerative disease is more your speed, or
cardiovascular disease is what you're in the market for, he thinks you
should
have that choice. Or, if you prefer, get them all. Kridel is not an evil geneticist, but a Wall Street wizard. His international investment banking firm Ferghana Partners may not have the household-name recognition of retail brokerage houses, but within the life science industry he is a well-known figure specializing in life science mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and private placements. Red
Sox-Yankees style rivalry emerges between drug firms Coca-Cola has
Pepsi Cola, the Yankees have the Red Sox, and
Tercica has Insmed. After 20 years
without a new drug approved to treat severely
short children, pediatric endocrinologists suddenly have two new and
similar
drugs to choose from for patients who don't respond to human growth
hormone. South San
Francisco-based Tercica began marketing its drug,
Increlex, at the start of the year. It's a hormone replacement therapy
of
recombinant human insulin-like growth factor-1 or IGF-1. Richmond,
Va.-based
Insmed joined the fray this month with its drug, Iplex, a recombinant
human
IGF-1 and a second that binds to it known as BP3.
The U.S. Food
and Drug Administration's recent approval of
a generic biotechnology product is anything but a generic OK. The green light
for Omnitrope, a form of recombinant human
growth hormone produced by Novartis AG's generic subsidiary Sandoz,
ends a
three-year effort by the company to win approval for the drug.
Omnitrope in
recent years fueled a high-stakes fight in the biotechnology industry
over how
difficult the FDA should make the approval process for generic
biologics, and
its approval is now reigniting that battle. Though the FDA
completed its review of Omnitrope in August
2004, it told Sandoz at the time it was unable to make a decision on
approval
because of unresolved legal and scientific issues. The FDA only
approved the
drug after a federal judge in April ordered the agency to act on the
application.
Genentech should
put the OxiClean pitchman under contract
and start marketing Avastin as the cancer drug with 1001 uses. That may seem a
bit premature, at least from the point of
view of sticklers like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but it's
not too
early to plan, given all of the clinical activity around Avastin. Early-stage
researchers have tough time digging up funding Earlier this
month Dale Bredesen walked into the auditorium
of the Buck Institute for Age Research to take a look at a new slide
projector,
but instead found himself greeted by his staff yelling "surprise." The staff had
gathered for a ceremony to present the The patent
relates to inhibitors and inducers of paraptosis
-- a new pathway involved in cell death discovered by Bredesen and his
research
team. The discovery of the pathway could lead to new treatments for
cancer and
neurodegenerative diseases, but the patent's immediate value is
symbolic.
May 19,
2006 Sometimes chance
meetings have a funny way of leading to
great things, but credit an enterprising M.B.A. student to know better
than to
leave a chance meeting to mere chance. Last fall, Dan
Brounstein, who became a student at the UC
Berkeley's Haas School of Business after eight years in the medical
device
industry, had just been rejected in his efforts to become a Mayfield
Fellow, a
fellowship established by the venture capital firm The Mayfield Fund
that
exposes students to the world of high-tech startups by sending them to
work for
a portfolio company. Brounstein
thought it would be great if there were a similar
program for students interested in entering the medical device
industry. So
when Bill Harrington, a partner with the venture capital firm Three
Arch
Partners spoke at a BioEntrepreneurship dinner that Brounstein helped
organize,
he placed himself on the seating chart next to Harrington.
Working
on chimeras could
put scientists in the doghouse In my
younger days I learned
to spread my wings. There have been times when I've run with my tail
between my
legs. And I know my children would tell you my bark is worse than my
bite. Maybe
that's why I don't get
too worked up over talk of chimeras, the blending of human and
non-human
genetic material into a single organism. Beyond the specific
controversy today
surrounding chimeras is a more critical question about how science
should be
regulated. For some,
chimeras stir up
nightmarish images of the
Scientists
feel deflated as
NIH research bubble starts to pop I never
get too excited
about bubbles, unless of course you are talking about the champagne
stylings of
Lawrence Welk. As a
breed, though,
journalists love to look for bubbles. We love to blow them up big and
then
stick a pin in them and watch them go pop. First there was the dot-com
bubble.
More recently, there appears to be a race to the housing bubble (mostly
by
bitter journalists shut out of the Bay Area housing market). Nevertheless,
here I go.
Ah-one, ah-two... Blame If there's a
fight over how the California Institute for
Regenerative Medicine should structure its intellectual property rules
or if
the Actually, don't
blame Cohen and Boyer the people, blame
Cohen-Boyer the patent. Held jointly by It also gave
rise to the notion that "technology
transfer," the process of licensing out university inventions for
commercial development, could be a cash cow. University
and nonprofit show power of combination therapy Consider a
global health problem and the high cost of
producing the most effective drug to treat it. Now add to that
the obstacles of commercializing technology
developed at a university and the general unwillingness of venture
investors to
invest in a startup company looking to develop a new platform
technology. Each of those
poses a daunting challenge by itself, but a
university researcher, a startup he helped found, his university and a
Bay Area
nonprofit seemed to have figured out a way to address those problems
all at
once. The world is not
round, it's flat. Red carpeting, not water,
covers most of its surface. I know because this week I walked the four
corners
of the world -- actually, there are more like five. What's more, the
Every year I get
a new map of the world. They're not like
the ones from Rand McNally. My new map is of the exhibit hall of the
Pray
that science finds the truth behind our assumptions Science has the
ability to challenge our beliefs. Sometimes
it does that in big ways -- challenging our notions about the very
nature of
what it means to be human. Sometimes it
does so in smaller ways that force us perhaps
to acknowledge that as much as we hoped some things were true, they
simply are
not. Two
studies that have received a fair bit of attention in
recent days are challenging some widely held beliefs in small ways. One
reports
that drinking isn't as good for you as studies have suggested and the
other
that praying for heart patients did not help them and, if they knew
about the
prayer, they actually fared worse.
Genentech
finds high drug prices stick to teflon image During
Genentech's annual investor meeting in March in He touted the
fact that EBay, Adobe and Microsoft all boast
bigger profit margins than Genentech. Though
it's not the typical point you'd expect a CEO to make
to Wall Street, Levinson was not trying to convince the audience that
there
were more attractive investments for them. Instead, he was trying to
assure the
room that Genentech was not gouging cancer patients.
Bid
for Chiron highlights CEO's uncertain future at company Chiron's
problems with contamination at its The flu vaccine
troubles helped secure Pien the dubious
distinction from BusinessWeek of being named among the worst managers
of 2004.
And the Business Times named him the Bay Area's most over-paid CEO in
2004. When I have
asked people who know the Emeryville-based
biotechnology company why Pien hadn't been fired, they have
consistently
answered along the lines of "I've been wondering the same thing
myself." So when I read a letter the other day from a Chiron shareholder to the Chiron board, I wasn't surprised that it threatened to lead a campaign to oust Pien. What did surprise me is the case it made based on his positive performance as CEO. Have people failed to see Pien's accomplishments? Does Pien stink, or is he just misunderstood? March 17,
2006 Last year
when federal
regulators approved the drug BiDil for heart failure specifically in
black
patients, it pointed to an age of personalized medicine when the
efficacy of
drugs is increasingly seen as tied to the genetics of a patient. But it
also highlighted an
ongoing concern among researchers about the difficulty of enrolling
minorities
in clinical trials. A diverse
group of clinical
trial participants can help answer not just whether a drug works, but
also for
whom.
I am not looking
forward to menopause. It's not that I'm
planning on going through it myself, but I know someday my wife will
make that
passage, and she'll be taking me along for the ride. So it is with
some personal interest that I read "The
New Menopause Book" (Avery), edited by three women's health experts at
Bionovo Inc., an Emeryville-based biotechnology company working on an
alternative to available hormone replacement therapies. The book, which includes chapters from a variety of experts, explores hormone replacement therapy and also other approaches ranging from herbal medicine to yoga. It is intended to help women make decisions about how best to cope with the health effects of menopause.
Investors have yet to embrace tool to
identify rare viruses
A few weeks ago,
a 28-year-old woman showed up in the
emergency room of
Will
you be alive in four years? 12 questions seek one
answer If you knew that
you were going to die soon, what would you
do? Try skydiving? Take a cruise around the world? Skip having that
colonoscopy? That last
question is the type that Sei Lee hopes to
provoke, at least among those for whom the bell may be tolling a little
sooner
then later -- within four years, to be precise. Lee,
research fellow at the division of geriatrics at the
San Francisco VA Medical Center, is the lead author of an article in
the
Journal of the American Medical Association that describes an index he
and
other researchers created to predict the likelihood that someone age 50
and
older will die within four years -- with 81 percent accuracy. February 17, 2006 It's not unusual
for Gilead Sciences to find itself the
target of criticism. Third-world prostitutes slapped it around over a
drug
trial, Now a
humanitarian group of doctors are giving it a
bilingual tongue lashing as they yell "J'accuse!" The Foster
City-based biopharmaceutical makes the critical
AIDS drug Viread, and the politics surrounding the disease often puts
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