Category: Biotech

June Shaffer
If you’ve got a state job working on incentives to spur development of the biotech industry, you shouldn’t also be secretly angling for a job running your state’s biotech industry trade group.
That was the finding of the Massachusetts Ethics Commission, which just fined Robert K. Coughlin $10,000 for violating state ethics law, […]

June Shaffer
Very generic.
(Photo by rstinnett via Flickr)
Another member of the Big Pharma set is eyeing generics as a way to help, rather than hurt, the bottom line.
AstraZeneca is mulling a move into generic biotech drugs, CEO David Brennan told the Financial Times. He’s studying the idea of churning out knockoffs of rivals’ biotech […]

June Shaffer
Elan is looking forward to the end of 2008. A slew of disappointments have grounded the biotech company’s once high-flying shares; they’ve fallen more than 70% this year.
Shareholders are grumbling, including one big one who is so fed up that he’s called for the ouster of CEO Kelly Martin.
As a snowstorm hit […]

JGrimes
As 2008 winds down, Genentech remains independent — or as independent as a company can be while still topping the shopping list of its fifty-six-percent owner Roche.
The biotech giant’s shares went for $77.08 at the end of regular trading yesterday, a reminder of investor’s lingering doubts about Roche’s$89-dollars-a-share bid for the chunk of […]

JGrimes
The latest negative turn of events for Elan: Another patient on the multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri has been diagnosed with a brain infection.
Elan and Tysabri partner Biogen Idec told regulators last Thursday that the MS patient, who is in Europe and had taken Tysabri for 26 months, had a confirmed case of progressive […]

JGrimes
Biotech companies are getting in line behind Detroit’s Big Three for a little help from the feds.
As we’ve noted amid the tumult this fall, biotech companies, which depend on investors for cash to fund their dreams of a blockbuster drug, are seeing the financial wells go dry amid the credit crunch.
So, the companies […]

JGrimes
Watch out Amgen and Genetech, Merck wants a piece of your business.
Merck, best known for pills and vaccines, is moving into biotech medicines. But Merck’s idea is to copy the biotech blockbusters of others. At its annual business briefing, Merck said it is establishing a new division to make generic biotech drugs, or […]

Jonathan D. Rockoff
Roche CEO Severin Schwan is the latest exec to to sound the alarm about tough times for the pharmaceutical sector.
In an interview with the WSJ, Schwan (pictured) said some drugmakers will probably go belly up because insurers simply won’t pay for medicines that don’t bring enough value. “Those who fail to […]

JGrimes
GlaxoSmithKline goes to Washington tomorrow to argue in a federal appeals court that government rules intended to curb abuse of the U.S. patent system aren’t such a hot idea after all.
The drugmaker will carry the legal flag for Big Pharma and other patent-intensive industries in a case about procedural changes the U.S. Patent […]

JGrimes
Roche’s blockbuster bid for the portion of Genentech it doesn’t own has stalled amid the credit crisis and stock market plunge, and concern persists over the impact of the proposed transaction on the biotech pioneer’s culture and productivity.
Not to worry — at least for now, said Stephen Kelsey, the company’s VP for clinical […]