BioPharmGuy News

May 25, 2022

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At Pfizer CentreOne, we bring you the capabilities of a global manufacturing network and scale with you across every step of your journey from clinical to commercial. Overcome your drug development challenges with the scientific mastery of a brand synonymous with success and draw upon the scientific power of Pfizer to shape your development masterpiece. We've spent over 40 years understanding the challenges you face, making us the trusted CDMO of choice for our customers all around the world.

BioPharmGuy

I'll be in San Diego during BIO in June (note: not for BIO). If you're a client, or an otherwise interested party, send an email and maybe we can meet up some evening.

Someone asked us to add a company to our directory, and we looked at the website they submitted. It said they did R&D but didn’t mention whether on their own products, or on a contract basis. Was strangely vague. So we asked the submitter whether they could clarify and they said the company "does R&D!”. Alright, guess we’ll put them in the nonexistent “R&D” BioPharmGuy category.

2022 Startups

Finally put together a 2022 startups page. As we always say, most announced startups were technically founded 1-2 years prior to the announcement. So a 2022 “launch” is usually a company founded in 2020/2021. As a result, our 2022 startups page looks thin, but that’s because of the common founding-to-funding delay.

Happy Website User of the Week

“Thanks for all that you do! I use your website as a tool to build and expand my company’s key accounts. You’re up to great things.”

Companies Added & Removed

38 companies added, six removed this week.

Ugliest New Name: URO-1

Summary file of additions and removals available on our downloads page.

Industry

Fixx Pharmaceuticals

Appealing to the masses by doing something like crowdfunding is still amateur, but becoming more acceptable. Selling merch is another level. We have 40k visitors per month plus 14k email subscribers, and we have to give the shirts away. Who the hell wants to pay $35 for a tee shirt from a no-name biotech company??

Ain't She a Beaut?

Sometimes a company puts a picture of their facility on the website, usually to show off. Hey, anything to convince clients to hire you and trick employees into working for you. But, maybe...just maaaybe, don't publish it if you only have a picture of the side door with overgrown beds lookin’ like an abandoned movie theater.

Hemoglobin Oxygen Therapeutics

Blood substitutes are an age-old holy grail in the biotech industry. One company working on them was called Biopure. Founded in 1984, they did a lot of work getting to trials and by the early 2000s, they expected approval. Unfortunately, there were safety issues and the FDA said they had to do more trials. Time passed, they ramped up again about 2007, fizzled in 2008, and went under in 2009.

From there the assets were bought by some people under the name OPK biotech who thought they could somehow make it work. Nope. Bankrupt in 2014. Then another outfit called HBO2 Therapeutics bought the assets, kept the party rolling for a while and just a couple weeks ago came out of nowhere to announce they were planning an IPO. They admitted all the IPO money would be used to start up their cow slaughtering facility (the product is made from bovine blood) and for business expenses. None earmarked for such frivolities as a clinical trial.

This company just won't die. One funny detail – the guy who was CEO back in 2004 is again CEO. Because how can you argue with such a successful track record? In fact, he’s been an executive at all incarnations of this beast. (And he's a nice guy - BioPharmGuy even helped shovel his car out during one of those trademark Boston snowstorms when he worked there)

Magneto

Speaking of blood, this thrombectomy company put a pretty cool (gross) picture of a blood clot on their main page.

Nature Bagtechnology

Our copy of Nature Biotechnology arrived yesterday, in a plastic bag. The bag is stamped with the following note:

“Bags may not degrade in a landfill. This bag, if littered, will ultimately biodegrade in 12 to 60 months as tested in accordance with ASTM 6954”

Sounds an awful lot like a pro-litter message right there.

Namer’s Remorse

Rafael Pharmaceuticals didn’t like their name, so now they’re Cornerstone Pharmaceuticals. Again. That was their name up until 2017.

Cornerstone was always a better choice, but when you have the option to change, why not find a unique moniker? There's already a Cstone pharmaceuticals that goes by Cornerstone (and they’ve had some problems this week) plus there was a Cornerstone Therapeutics in biotech history. Boo!

Naming Clinic

This Cornerstone lack of effort leads us to a company who put on an absolute naming clinic. This company is working on solutions to ensure longer reproductive health in women. Their chosen name? Oviva Therapeutics.

10/10, would name again.

Caesarea, NON-US

Xact Robotics created a LinkedIn page and shared the city in which they operate, but they weren’t quite willing to say what country. So they opted for “NON-US” as the country.

Spoiler: Caesarea is in Israel and it has a pretty cool 2000-year old, sea-facing theater too. All-time performances at the theater include ancient plays, various jesters, lions eating Christians and Eric Clapton.

Steel Therapeutics

Might not be the best company name considering the product, but it's certainly a product with a market. Steel Therapeutics is working on a medicated netherwipe containing nifedipine & lidocaine, drugs which relax blood vessels and relieve pain respectively.

To those who have never experienced any pain in that region, congratulations on your success! To those who have, you know this product will sell. Sometimes simple inventions can be lifesavers.

Sorry - no poop jokes, but please refer to Tushy.com's list of euphemisms for a laugh.

Gamma Irradiation Part 2 - Risk-based approach to sterility requirements for single-use systems

Gamma irradiation is the most used method of sterilization and bioburden control for single-use bioprocess systems. However, there is still some confusion around the need for sterile or bioburden-controlled systems and how to accomplish it.

Qosina explains the difference between a validated sterile claim and a low or zero bioburden microbial control claim on single-use systems and where each fit into biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes.

Learn More.

Health & Science

MonkeyPox

Should you freak out about monkeypox? Probably not. It spreads mostly via intimate contact, not respiratory droplets like a certain pandemicky disease. If you get monkeypox, maybe start to freak out just a little - mortality is 1-10% and scarring is common. It's been studied for many years, so it's not the black box of a Covid-type disease.

One thing you will see in the coming years is a much, much faster response from public health authorities as well as the media whenever a disease is detected where it should not be found. That's good because we can be ready, but bad because it will lead people to unnecessarily freak out more often. The case counts of monkeypox continue to grow, so clearly this was spreading for a bit before anyone had a clue. Hopefully awareness will help limit it's spread.

Take My Money

If you find yourself having one too many quenching quaffs, it may sound too good to be true that it could some day be possible to "de-age" your liver. Scientists at the Salk Institute have gone down that route with some minor success. For now only lushes of the murine variety have been shown to benefit, but with enough time and effort, maybe we can work hard enough as a species to one day be free from the consequences of our poor lifestyle decisions!

Saline Discharge Fee

A woman in New York tweeted out a picture of her sister's hospital bill which included a $40 charge for "Brief Emotional Behavioral Assessment". This charge was assessed because she cried.

Medical billing is often a scheme to add as many costs as possible, but in this case, the code they used is for preventive screening of some mental health issues, not when someone is crying for an obvious reason like being ill and in the hospital.

ETC.

Chipotle, Qdoba, whoever...all terrible at properly spreading the burrito ingredients so that each bite gets a little of everything. They just pile it all in the middle, leading to a travesty of a culinary experience. The only way to get ingredient equality in your bites is to randomly bite from all sides, inevitably leading to a pile of burrito droppings.

Thankfully, one man has figured out what to do with these droppings - turn them into a taco!

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