BioPharmGuy News

August 10, 2023

Harbor Clinical is a women-owned clinical research organization. As a leading player in the biopharmaceutical industry, Harbor Clinical provides a wide range of services, from clinical trial management and regulatory affairs to strategic consulting and data analytics. Harbor Clinical serves sponsors in a variety of outsourcing models including single-service support, database hosting, Functional Service Provider (FSP), and consulting.

BioPharmGuy

Just hit 18k subscribers, which is nice, but was really hoping to hit 20k by year’s end, and it’s not looking good. It's all your fault for not recommending this unbridled madness to more of your colleagues and friends!

Kidding. 18k is pretty good. In fact, if I never got another subscriber, you all would be enough for me.

But wouldn't it be fun to have something to talk with your co-workers about every Thursday? As crazy as it sounds, a lot of people tell us reading our newsletter is the highlight of their week. I don't know if that's really awesome or really sad. But either way, it's a win for BioPharmGuy.

Miracles

Who says miracles don’t happen? Had a 10-month-old invoice paid recently. We don’t typically run newsletter ads before receiving payment, but this one must have been a last-minute case where it would have went unsold otherwise. Since the possibility of some money is better than the certainty of no money, we threw the dice.

Thankfully we usually book up in advance and don’t have to be annoyed by lazy companies like this.

But the rare times we let it slide, generally, the bigger the company, the slower the payment. I remember one time someone at one of the biggest pharma companies in the world wanted our data and insisted his company had a net-60 or net-45 policy, so we wouldn't see payment for a while.

I was like, well, then you won't see this data for a while. Amazingly, he was able to put it on a credit card later that week.

-BPG

Companies Added & Removed

Nine companies added, four removed this week.

Best New Name:

Catena Biosciences

Worst New Name:

Enspire DBS Therapy

You Will Be Missed:

Zyngenia

Excel summary file of adds/removals available on our downloads page.

Industry

Contracting Universe

Intergalactic Therapeutics announced their plan to wind down. The sad news cast an eclipse over our BioPharmGalaxy.

Constellation Pharmaceuticals & Comet Therapeutics were both acquired in 2021 so it seems we're down to Andromeda Biotech, Cepheid, Nebula Genomics & Southern Star Research.

(We do list a few zodiac signs too, but not about to include a list of a hundred Cancer companies here.)

Oh hey, we have Medeor Therapeutics & Mediar Therapeutics too, but no record of any Meteors.

The galaxy is looking lame, but our solar system is much more robust. We'll bring that to you next week.

Sayenza What?

Sayenza Biosciences is a company we discovered this week who is harnessing the regenerative power of fat-derived stem cells. And what image could better encompass this fat-harnessing power than a skinny, underwear-clad model checking herself out?

Nailed it!

Miracles (2)

Getting a 10-month-old invoice paid isn't the only recent miracle in the biotech world. Wegovy was shown in clinical trials to reduce heart attacks by 20% in a trial of patients with existing cardiovascular disease.

It seems like insurance companies in America are going to have a hard time avoiding coverage for these drugs in the very near future.

Still waiting to learn the new term for a drug bigger than a blockbuster.

ATDs

New company just added to our directory is called Big Eye Diagnostics. They're working on 'All-Terrain Diagnostics' for tropical diseases that can withstand extreme climates.

So, who wants to break it to them that climate and terrain are two entirely different things?

KALA BIO!

The demure Kala Pharmaceuticals has been renamed the more blustering KALA BIO. Why are they suddenly so angry and terse?

Even with all those caps, they can’t touch our current all caps champ: ONCOMATRYX BIOPHARMA.

Roast/Toast - Alltrna

On the Team page, they went with the comic book look for the team photos, which while not great, could be worse. (We've definitely seen worse.)

However, in their posed picture for Fierce the crew is bringing the color, which is great. Yes, you can show some personality while leading a biotech company. (Just don’t wear dumb hats or something - we will make you pay)

Health & Science

HeLa yeah

Thermo Fisher settled its legal case with the estate of Henr ietta Lacks. Lacks best known for having had her cells stolen and used for a tremendous amount of medical research over the past 70 years.

Depending on how you define life, she is the most massive person ever, will ultimately be the longest-lived human in history, has been involved in curing the most diseases, has interacted with the most people…it’s really mind-boggling how much this one person’s DNA has accomplished.

It was always going to be hard for Thermo to argue against a payout as no one has ever denied the cells were harvested surreptitiously. The terms of the deal were undisclosed, but both parties were happy with the arrangement, which is a pretty good result.

PYREX vs pyrex

When biotech companies use all caps, they're pompous. When a consumer brand does, sometimes there's a reason. In the case of temperature-resistant glassware, upper and lower case can make all the difference.

PYREX, mostly available in Europe, is borosilicate glass which does not shatter easily upon thermal expansion. Lower case pyrex is available in America and Asia and is tempered soda lime glass which is more prone to shattering.

They both seem to have similar maximum temperatures, but uneven distribution of food can lead to uneven temperatures, which can mean catastrophic shattering.

Be warned!

(I have no recollection what kind of experimental dish I was making with those chicken breasts back in May 2022, but it looks downright horrible. -BPG)

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