|
Cell Bank Failure
In a stunning financial development, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) experienced a sudden run on its holdings last week, became insolvent, freaked out the entire biotech startup community and was saved by the FDIC. All in a 48 hour span.
The FDIC already insured up to $250,000 in each account, but most of this bank's holdings were for companies who hold considerably more than that. Why? Because companies don’t spend all the $50M Series A at once and they have to make payroll, pay vendors, etc.
Thankfully the depositors have been made whole, but to see the number of people out there who think depositors and bank owners should pay equally for the bank’s failure is astounding. This was a 40 year-old S&P 500 company not some fly-by-night hucksters. The owners of the bank will be wiped out. Depositors shouldn't be collateral damage just for the hell of it.
While this was all still being figured out, many biotech companies felt the need to issue press releases letting everyone know they didn’t have any money with SVB. But then things got weird, and a company located in France issued a release stating they did not have any cash or assets with SVB and also did not have any holdings at any US bank. Maybe their PR person was merely getting ahead of a possible total meltdown of the entire US banking system?
Work smarter, not harder.
Novo Nordisk
After itself being forced into action by the federal government, Eli Lilly's insulin price drop seems to have forced its insulin competitor's hand as well. Novo Nordisk dropped their list prices 65% earlier this week.
All in all, great news for the 37 million diabetic Americans (though roughly 7 million of those are not yet aware they have it). Sometimes dominoes fall the right way in the private sector when the federal government exercises some leadership.
Moderna
No secret that Moderna has been expanding like crazy since their Covid vaccine was shown to be safe and effective against severe Covid. But a nice byproduct from such a hiring bonanza is the fact that their pool of eligible softball players keeps getting bigger.
Moderna took advantage last fall and won the Massachusetts biotech 2022 state championship for the first time.
Thus their recent announcement of a westward expansion can mean only one goal: national softball domination.
Sintalica
This company successfully harvested their first batch of psilocybin mushrooms, which helped them reach "two important milestones through the University of Messina."
Now all they need to do is write the smoothest song in history to reach their University of Loggins milestone.
Seagen
It’s been quite the 12 months for Seagen neé Seattle Genetics. Last April, its now former CEO was involved in a drunken sex party followed by some alleged domestic abuse and now the company has been acquired by Pfizer for $43 billion.
Oh no, sorry – Pfizer didn’t acquire them. They “invested” in battling cancer by paying a bunch of money for an existing company. Yeah, that's it. Invested.
Amazingly, this $43B purchase doesn’t even rank among the top 10 drug company acquisitions of all-time.
iEcure
We featured some dumb sidescroller websites a couple weeks ago and an astute reader pointed us to the second frame where some "surgeons" are zooming in on a DNA helix image.
This makes sense as surgeons are always cutting DNA strands to cure diseases.
For those that don't know, the surgical team featured in that video clip are of course Chris Purr & Cass Nein.
| 
