With scientific discovery changing fast and our world changing faster, bold approaches in clinical trials are needed now more than ever.
> Handle clinical, regulatory and logistical complexities with ease
> Ensure you select the right regulatory pathway
> Benefit from bold thinking based on extensive experience
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BioPharmGuy
If you didn't know, we have an entry-level job board. If your company ever has an opening that is explicitly for someone with 1 or fewer years of experience, it’s free to post, just send us a link. And if you know someone starting out in the industry, please let them know about its existence. We even have an email list where we alert anyone when we add new job.
Companies Added & Removed
18 companies added, three removed.
Best New Name:
Worst New Name:
You Will be Missed:
Arena Pharmaceuticals
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Peak BioPharmGuy?
We were contacted by Fierce Biotech who wanted to use our company funding information for a story they were working on. That story was investigating whether the biotech industry has hit a peak. The story came out on Tuesday. It’s a good summary of the funding world in biotech and what may restrict things going forward. And here’s an actual quote from the article:
“Some of these companies have money and shitty leadership”
There you go - we've officially made it!
Also Fierce Pharma is doing a March Madness-style Drug Name Tournament. Pretty much all drug names are ridiculous, so it's not clear if you're supposed to vote for the more ridiculous or the best-sounding name. Either way, here's the bracket and if you want to vote they have a (not-so-sleek) webform for that.
Launch!
Always good to see a creative use of the term launch. Last week Morningside Ventures announced the launch from stealth of Adiso Therapeutics. In this case, by 'launch from stealth’ they really meant ‘rebranding of Artugen Therapeutics, a company founded in 2016 which had a publicly published pipeline’.
Yeah, real stealthy before this launch.
Lunch?
We discovered Pretzel Therapeutics in a Twitter discussion about biotech company names and since we had been preparing an all-time biotech menu for a while, what better time to serve it up to all of you than right now:
Main: Curry Pharmaceuticals
Dessert: Trefoil Therapeutics, though we really wish there was a Samoa Biosciences out there (because Samoas are the best Girl Scout cookies in existence and anyone who denies this is a Rude Gus)
Turn on, Tune in: Dropout
We raced through the first four episodes of The Dropout and it’s some good TV. They have to take a lot of creative license as all biographically-inspired TV shows must, but Amanda Seyfried is killing it as Theranos founder, Elizabeth Holmes. Great soundtrack and a couple iconic scenes already.
As an added bonus, it’s nice to see an old Lost cast member getting some work after that finale blew up all their careers back in 2010. Naveen Andrews plays Sonny Balwani, Holmes’ #2 at Theranos (and former romantic interest).
Incidentally, jury selection for the real Balwani’s trial began last week. He’s facing the same charges as Holmes: wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud investors and patients.
Rub Some CBD On It
Legalization of marijuana has been gathering steam for decades, and along with that push came the normalization of marijuana as medicine. But recently it all seems to have gone way off the rails. Whereas once upon a time, medical marijuana was used legitimately for pain and psychiatric conditions, it has now become the Robitussin of drug research. This week we discovered someone attempting to develop cannabidiol as a heart medicine and they seem to be taking some enormous leaps with their scientific logic.
Sad thing is all these weed-derivative and psychedelic companies are publicly traded and also less like actual companies, and more like ways for people to try to fund legitimization of recreational drugs. If they had a real commercial case, they would be appealing to big name investors first, day trader later. But the modus operandi in this area is normally to go straight for the biggest suckers - regular people.
Curious how much due diligence these day traders have done on the unpatentability of a naturally occurring plant extract. Or how the limited FDA exclusivity window balances against the time and effort it would take to scale up and roll out a sales team…#notMyMoney
Make it Stop
Biospace keeps coming out with their ugly regional biotech hub maps and here’s the latest for Massachusetts. It’s so crammed, they put Milford west of where Springfield should be and Lexington is almost in New York. Guess there aren't too many geography buffs over at Biospace.
These maps look like crap - it’s a mystery why they don’t at least smarten them up a bit. As is, they serve no purpose. Are any of you still hanging them on the walls at the lab like it's 2005? If so, snap a pic and send it in to prove it. Whoever shows the oldest map may just win a BioPharmGuy T-shirt. (if our local printer ever gets the light blue shirts back in stock)
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WEBINAR: A Road to Value - Maximize the Value of Every Dollar You Spend featuring Karuna Therapeutics & Coupa
From initial R&D to SOX compliance, the Karuna story will give a true roadmap to value and illustrate how the right business spend management solution can maximize the value of every dollar spent. You will hear from Mark LaPre the controller at Karuna Therapeutics on how they scaled for growth with Coupa. Listen here.
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AI (yi-yi)
Some scientists flipped the script and had their drug discovery platform attempt to discover deadly chemicals instead of medicines. They were taken aback at just how good it was at doing so. Derek Lowe weighs in here.
Yes some well-known nerve gases and such were among the 40,000 chemical results, but it would still be a needle-in-the-haystack type of problem to pick out the worst ones. Mainly because almost all complex, synthesized chemicals are bad for people. Half the small molecule drug discovery industry is about building/finding a molecule that won’t hurt people. It’s not easy.
Shark Jumped
South by Southwest has been slowly corporatized over the past decade or so. An exact moment when it lost itself is probably not pinpointable, but this week the CEO of Pfizer showed up in Austin to speak about the race to discover a Covid vaccine. He then pulled out an electric guitar and shredded a track from his new demo album, which he informed the crowd was available for purchase back at the merch tent.
Unstoppable
Thanks to their top-down, “Zero Covid” policy, China has been spared millions of deaths to date compared to a US-style, free-market response. But as we said previously, this policy was always going to end badly, the only question was when. It appears the answer may be now.
Thousands of cases are popping up all around the country and entire cities are again locking down with schools going remote. The Omicron variant almost certainly cannot be stopped, but it seems the Chinese government is unwilling to give up just yet.
Lego Science
A guy on LinkedIn showed off a Lego version of a molecular biology lab. Included is a chemical hood, -80 freezer, lab bench and stool plus some cute pipettes and maybe an incubator? (Crushed dreams and existential angst sold separately.)
Parachuting Spider Nonsense
A spider lady on Twitter would like you to know that vicious spiders are not parachuting in from Japan to take over the eastern US. They’ve been here for years.
eNose
A woman in England exhibits a most interesting ability – she can smell Parkinson’s. She discovered this after her husband fell ill and she later recognized his same scent at a Parkinson's support group. Her ability to detect it is nearly 100%.
Unfortunately, she can’t go around smelling everyone, so researchers have been trying to identify what exactly she was smelling to create a machine to detect those chemicals. To that end they’ve made great progress - their machine is about 70% accurate. Pretty soon, this machine may be able to confidently diag-NOSE Parkinson’s as good as Mrs. Milne.
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Engineering Project Managers - Concuir Consulting
(Orange County & San Diego, CA)
Concuir is a consulting company of top performers. They partner with pharma, biotech, and medical device clients to predictably achieve successful project results.
What sets them apart:
Concuir employs consultants as full-time employees with full benefits. They value their team members by facilitating work-life integration and catering to their strengths. Concuir also offers mentorship from experienced team leaders to help grow employees’ expertise and advance their careers.
What you'll do:
You'll work with clients to identify and drive critical path activities from a hybrid work environment. Your successful project delivery will help get life-improving
and/or life-saving treatments to patients sooner.
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