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Trouble Brewing?
It’s no secret that many of the bigger companies in biotech have been laying off people for a while now. But we don’t hear much about layoffs at smaller companies. That's because a 10-person outfit is not sending out news releases announcing their demise.
We here at BioPharmGuy do have a bit of an ear to the ground on this situation, however. We check to make sure every website is working every month and make a note if it's down. We just finished January’s check, and it looks like a real bloodbath out there. About 50% more websites went down this month vs. a normal month.
It could be that a lot of companies had their websites paid up for the calendar year and we are seeing a time lag from companies who went under a while ago. Or maybe a lot of companies really did go out of business this past month.
We will let you know in February whether this is a trend.
Rhombus Pharma
Good opening line on this page:
“To get success, one needs hard work with Stratagy, Foresight and Goal.”
The rest of the write-up is nearly as entertaining including a reference to “tilting the pan balance of life”.
FDA/Biogen Investigation
An independent congressional investigation concluded there was some shady s**t going on between Biogen and FDA relating to the approval of Aduhelm, the now ostracized drug for Alzheimer's.
Other than the general coziness that had seriously bad optics, FDA also seemed to write some portions of documents that were submitted by Biogen.
Despite this, the investigators concluded there was not enough shadiness to merit any penalties.
The court of public opinion has already done its job anyways.
Heated Merger
This week Blacksmith Medicines merged back into Forge Therapeutics from which it was originally spun out. (It never really to make sense to separate a blacksmith from its forge.)
Anvil Biosciences went out of business in 2018, but Alloy Therapeutics is still around if they want to put together some sort of Dream Team for the 1892 Olympics.
Peanut Circus
Nestle is reportedly selling off the peanut allergy treatment obtained in their purchase of Aimmune long ago in late 2020.
You may recall the product, Palforzia, is a carefully metered dose of ground up peanuts available for the low, low price of $11,000/yr plus numerous allergist visits.
Nestle paid $2.6B for the company, and given the low sales figures, they'll be lucky to sell it for...peanuts. (Had to)
Team Roast – Heart of Mold
Riparian Pharma has a big picture of a heart on their home page. The twist is the heart is brown, almost as if it’s dead and rotting. Not the inspirational tone you may expect from a vascular “health” company.
But why stop there with the creepiness? Why not convert the team’s faces into this same brownish dead mass? Can't tell if hideous or disturbing is the correct adjective.
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