At the American Chemical Society national conference last weekend, Rensselaer Polytechnic researcher Dr. Robert Linhart announced that his team may have built the first fully synthetic heparin. Whether or not you believe that the possibility of another contamination crisis of natural raw heparin exists, the potential for a heparin supply independent of the whims and worries of the global supply chain, not to mention the global pig population, is certainly welcome news.
Is synthetic heparin feasible on a large scale? Yes and no, says one of Linhart’s collaborators, professor Jian Liu at the University of North Carolina. The science is there to produce synthetic heparin at the milligram level, and almost there to produce it at the kilo level, Liu told me this morning. But a lack of investment and low market incentive may collude to limit the short-term outlook for engineered heparin.
“We need someone who’s willing to serve as partner to expedite production,” Liu says. Right now, the researchers are (more…)
A large push by Las Vegas economic development authorities to lure biotech companies away from New Jersey, California, and other hotbeds has by and large failed. The promise of tax incentives and cheap land for development means little, it seems, if the local biotech talent pool is dry. The LV Review-Journal reports.
–PWT
Yesterday’s announcement that Eli Lilly had sold off its Greenfield, Indiana, R&D facility to Covance is perhaps not just a big deal, but really a bellwether move that may signal a trend of Big Pharma companies not just outsourcing aspects of their R&D operations but selling them off altogether. As the above-linked article suggests, the time for companies like Lilly to assume the role of financiers who aggregate data may be closer to reality.
Your thoughts on the significance of the deal? We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one, and include expert input in posts to come.
–PWT
Category:
MiscellanyPosted by pharmamanufacturing @ 1:48 pm |
Category:
MiscellanyPosted by pharmamanufacturing @ 8:38 am |
Pfizer has decided to close one of its plants in Cork, Ireland. The company had purchased the plant from Pharmacia in 2005.
A paper by James Evans recently published in Science, explores the impact of the Internet on research publications. The problem: Fewer and more recent sources are being cited. For a video interview with Evans, click here.
Emil Ciurczak expounded on this theme a while back, describing this as the “Cool Hand Luke” effect….what we have, he says, is a “failure to communicate.”
For more, click on and on.
The Illinois-based marketing company JP Group had some interesting insights on the implications this trend has for new product development and marketing. Concepts could apply to any form of product development. (cut and pasted, unattractively, below….)
AMS
| Long Tail. Or Short Tail. |
| The Internet: Promoter of diversity or instrument of uniformity? |
|
Have you heard of the “Long TailTheory”? First published in Wired magazine in 2004, the theory says that, because the Internet places an almost infinite amount of data at our fingertips, we are bound to expand the range of information we use.The 80/20 rule, which, in this case,means that 20% of the data is used 80% of the time (and that the “tail,” 80% of the data, is rarely used at all), wouldlose some of its meaning. Why limityourself to the same small portion ofdata everyone else uses when you haveall of it at your disposal? |
| The theory has something comforting in that it balances the cold blandness of computers and the information age: Itposits that computers can help uncover hidden nuggets and thus make the world more diverse. It also promises higher quality: Rather than having to shoehorn an oft-used fact into an argument, one can search for the mostappropriate fact, no matter how small orapparently trivial. |
| The problem is that the nice theory is not supported by the facts. |
|
(more…)
August 1, 2008
Category: Eli LillyPosted by pharmamanufacturing @ 2:11 pm |
Eli Lilly will determine within the next year whether or not it will close its plant in Lafayette, Indiana. Prospects for the site are not good, writes the Indy Star.
–PWT
Why do men have all the fun when it comes to mid-life crises? With male mid-life crisis one pictures Harleys and trophy wives. Think female mid-life crisis and you get divorce, eldercare…
News came this week of a study (for a brief summary, click here) suggesting that, by mid-life, women are the sadder sex. The study’s results were published in the improbably titled Journal of Happiness Studies. Fortunately for some, there are pharmaceuticals to help with all this. As for me, I’m taking the kids and grandma for a spin on the Harley.
–AMS
Researchers at the Salk Institute in La Jolla have discovered a drug (for more, read on) that appears to provide the same benefits as exercise: improved endurance and metabolic function—–in mice. What’s next?
U.K physics professor Jim Al-Khalili recently visited the Royan Institute in Tehran to witness their work in stem cell research, and described the differences in approach in an interesting commentary in the Guardian.
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