Our paid-subscription 'Weekly Update' will now be included *free* in this newsletter. Each week we will post an Excel file on our
Data Downloads
page, which will list all the companies we have added and removed in the past week. It will include details we normally publish on our website as well as funding & year founded. Some weeks we add a lot, some weeks a few. These files will remain posted for a couple weeks, so make sure to check them out while you can.
Addition & Attrition
This week we added 28 companies, mostly EU-based. We have been working hard improving our coverage in Europe. We also removed 23 companies - that number is high this week because we did our monthly website check where we confirm that the websites of all 9000+ companies are working. (Yes, we actually do that - we're the best for a reason.) File available for download:
Weekly Update
March Funding
We tallied a total of $2.7B in funding for private biotech companies in March. Summary available for download:
March Funding
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InVivo Biosystems
At the end of March, Nemametrix announced they had changed their name to
InVivo Biosystems
. Undoubtedly they paid someone a lot of money to come up with that moniker. And how unique it is. No one will get it confused with InVivo BioTech Services, InVivo Therapeutics, InvivoGen, InvivoSciences, InVivoScribe, Invivotek or the defunct In Vivo Medical Diagnostics. Nice work, team!
Zimmer
In a PR coup, the CEO has magnanimously offered to
sacrifice his salary
for the year in the wake of the COVID pandemic. If you live in the real world, you may think that means he's giving up all his pay for the year. Hahaha! In CEO-land it means he forgoes the $1M in 'salary', but still rakes in the other $9M+ in additional compensation. So ultimately he took a 10% pay cut, just like half of America. What a hero...maybe we should be banging pots for *him* at 7:00 pm.
Organovo/Tarveda Merger
That angry letter from the ex-CEO worked! The "illogical" merger between these two companies has been
called off
. All is calm. Hey, maybe a company Christmas party invite is in play for that guy after all.
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COVID deniers
This is a public service announcement - COVID deniers are all over the internet, they are not worth your time, they do not believe in facts, they may not even believe in most words, they're almost totally unredeemable, brainwashed droids. They are not worth your time. Do not engage.
Remdesivir
This Gilead product has been used on a compassionate basis for COVID-19 patients. In a small-scale,
53-patient study
, 67% of patients showed improvement after receiving the drug. Wow, sounds good, right? Sure does as a headline.
What if we told you the patients received the medicine for 10 days and were followed for another 18? Does 67% improving after *28 days* sound that great? Dig a little deeper - of the patients who required invasive breathing assistance (ie ventilation), 56% showed improvement, 18% died, 24% left the hospital. In total 76% were either dead or still in the hospital after a *month*. Still sound great?
That's a good example of why we must conduct proper clinical studies to know if a treatment works. But give it a minute and our Snake-Oil-Salesman-In-Chief will start demanding we all take this drug prophylactically.
Speaking of hydroxychloroquine, a
study out of China
showed no improvement at all after 28 days. Of course, since it's coming from China, all those Twitter crazies will somehow claim it's part of a vast conspiracy. How about a
study out of France
that comes to the same conclusion? Will be harder to come up with a fake excuse for that one, but the Twitter crazies are nothing if not a shifty bunch.
Vaccine Situation
Derek Lowe is back with an
exhaustive explanation
of the status of pretty much all vaccine candidates for COVID-19. His blog is one of the only places in the world where the comments section is sometimes useful and usually civil. If you're interested in a discussion on pluralization of Latin words it's a dandy place to visit.
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Premium Listings Always Available
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If you weren't aware, we offer several ways to promote your company's listing in our database. This could be swapping in a logo, expanded your text, bumping your company to the top of the list or a combination of these elements. You can try it for as short as one month. Read about these options here:
Promoted Listings. Simply reply to this email if you have any questions.
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