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BioPharmGuy
In recent years it's become more common for companies to be named (or renamed) to avoid anything that refers to Pharma. We were wondering how big of a shift this has been, so we compared our current directory to our archive from August 2, 2014. We pulled only drug companies whose names had Pharm, Thera, Bioscience or Biotech in their name. Then, we checked what percentage had each term in its name.
August 2014 (1182 companies)
Pharm - 57%
Thera - 29%
Bioscience - 8%
Biotech - 6%
August 2021 (2289 companies)
Pharm - 39%
Thera - 47%
Bioscience - 8%
Biotech - 6%
Aha, we weren't just making this up! There's been a stampede away from anything even hinting at the PR-challenged, Pharmaceutical. Pretty interesting that the prevalence of both Bioscience & Biotech happened to remain exactly the same over this seven year period, so this has been a shift entirely from Pharm to Thera.
For what it's worth, we've not yet heard of anyone whining about "Big Thera", so can't really argue with the logic of the trend.
Side note - we currently list nine drug companies who have both Thera and Pharm in their company name:
AltaThera Pharmaceuticals
Enthera Pharmaceuticals
eXIthera Pharmaceuticals
Karyopharm Therapeutics
Pharmasum Therapeutics
Santhera Pharmaceuticals
SmartPharm Therapeutics
Theragene Pharmaceuticals
Theravance Biopharma
July Funding
Last month we tracked 24 IPOs for $3.3B plus $3.9B in private funding at 46 companies. An absurd 16 of those private rounds were for $100M or more. Let it ride!
Funding summary available on our downloads page.
Addition & Attrition
24 companies added, two removed this week. Company list available on our downloads page.
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Mologic
In what can only be described as a conspiracist's dream, George Soros and Bill Gates are teaming up to buy a diagnostics company. Sure they say they're trying to diagnose dengue, bilharzia and river blindness, but we all know they really want to install chips in people to track them, since no one already walks around with a 100% trackable device in their pocket all day. Those devious philanthropists!
K&K?
Sounds like Johnson & Johnson is trying to avoid paying out for past misdeeds. They want to hive off their baby powder lawsuit liabilities into a separate unit. The last company to try this shameful move was Purdue Pharma - the co-creators of the opioid crisis. But how is this even remotely legal? Shouldn't every corporation facing any legal issues just say "Hey, not us - it's this company with no assets we spun off six days ago you should be suing!". The whole concept is a legal travesty.
Tolstoyan Team Roast
1) Whitewashed background plus what must be a really threatening photographer - dude looks scared
2) This guy seems to have sent in a VHS screenshot from his 2003 family trip to an Orlando shopping mall.
3) Only school picture insiders have access to this sweet background - must be his photo from his high school science teacher days.
Biogen
They did an earnings call last week where the first question was an obvious plant who teed one up for the CEO about negative media coverage of Aduhelm and how it is hampering the drug's rollout. The guy was mostly mad at the media for pointing out the product didn't work. Get real, dude. Maybe sell something with some proven CLINICAL EFFICACY if you're gonna charge $56k/yr.
Numerous health systems and insurers are straight up saying "nope, won't cover it" and Biogen is not happy. To be sure, they will still make truckloads of cash off this consumer product, but maybe only half as many truckloads as they would if it actually had positive data.
Oh, and if you didn't already know this bit, Biogen terminated the clinical studies for aducanumab back in 2019 due to futility. Then they went back and decided it was good after all and the FDA bought it. That's just not how this works - ever.
First, billion dollar corporations don't terminate potential goldmine trials if there is even a remote chance the product works. (and yes, Alzheimer's is a drug company goldmine.) Second, the FDA does not see a trial terminated then let the company re-analyze data and say "just kidding, it was good after all!". That's regulatory madness.
The HHS has agreed to an inquiry into the Aduhelm approval, so we will almost certainly see some shady misdeeds come to light now, especially once lawmakers realize they can score some screen time by skewering the FDA, Biogen and everyone else involved. Just have to sit tight until 2023, which is when HHS says the results will be out. Wow, what great speed.
Also, sort of on the topic, made the mistake of tangling with a Biogen investor on Twitter this week. As pointed out to them, it's pretty telling that almost 100% of people without a financial interest in Biogen think this approval was absurd, whereas 100% of Biogen stockholders totally care about Alzheimer's patients unlike the rest of us. Sure, non stockholders just want to see them suffer. So stupid. Twitter: never worth the effort.
Throwback Website
Step into your time machine and head back to the year 1999 when ABTECH Scientific was born. Their website is preserved in time for your browsing pleasure. Check out that spinning logo - some great late 90s stuff right there. Methods of ordering include Credit Card, Fax, Email or Mail. People were still mailing in order forms? Classic!
Sadly the GM of the company is now a lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad & Tobago, so ABTECH is probably out of business. Who pre-paid 20 years worth of web hosting bills?
SEC Ain't Nothin' Ta F Wit'
Incarcerated former pharma CEO Martin Shkreli had his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" seized in 2019 after he was convicted of being a real a**hole (and also securities fraud).
Last week the US government sold the album to reap some of the restitution owed by the inmate. There appear to be no public details on the price nor the buyer, but we are reallllly hoping one of you bought it for BioPharmGuy as a gift - dying to hear that thing!
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Sinclair Research is back, still offering full-service IND-enabling toxicology and safety pharmacology services at a single research site in Missouri. Whether your program is in late-stage discovery or entering clinical trials, Sinclair Research provides the services you need, the data you expect and the customer service you deserve.
Nonclinical safety studies are required to establish a safe starting dose for initial human clinical trials, but how do you know which studies are required to get your compound to the clinic and what special considerations need to be made for your program? Set up a consultation with Sinclair Research’s scientific experts who are available to review your program requirements and share insights tailored to your specific compound.
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Where Cases Go, Vaccines Follow
Drew Armstrong covers vaccination progress over at Bloomberg. He's showing that folks in regions being hit hard by the latest outbreaks are starting to get vaccinated at a much higher clip. First hand experience with this disease seems to get people to take it more seriously. You can see from the maps that vaccination & case counts are up in pretty much the same regions around America.
Paleo Tourism
No, we're not talking about meat-centered adventures (though a trip through Memphis, Kansas City & Lockhart would be a heck of a week). Rather, paleo tourism refers to digging for fossils - you can pay to dig and keep your own fossils out in Wyoming.
In fact, this place claims to be the only quarry in the world that allows you to keep what you dig. Impressive. At least until you look at the location on Google Maps and see there's another quarry a half mile north that offers the same thing.
It does sound pretty cool and not too expensive, as long as you can get to the middle of nowhere in Wyoming.
Prion Disaster
Prions are nasty little things. They're the proteins that cause Mad Cow Disease and also the human version - Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Working with them is considered to be highly dangerous. A second French lab worker in the past three years has been shown to have acquired a prion-caused, brain-eating disease. In response, a group of public research institutions in France issued a moratorium on prion research.
Surprisingly, only about 100 researchers in France are working on prions. Not so great that 17 have been involved in lab accidents. That's an unacceptably high number and clearly labs need to take this work more seriously when it comes to safety.
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