The Bio Report

The production of biologics is costly and takes time. Dyadic International has developed a proprietary manufacturing process that replaces the use of Chinese hamster ovary cells, long used to produce protein therapeutics, with a fungus that has a long history in industrial biotechnology applications. The company believes its process can produce drugs faster, in greater volumes, and at significantl...

Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death and it continues to rise. Today it is costing the U.S. healthcare system $200 billion a year and there are no therapies that prevent, halt, or reverse the disease’s progression. United Neuroscience is taking a new approach to the disease with its endobody vaccines, a class of synthetic biologics it is developing to treat Alzheimer’s and other...

Gene therapy represents an expanding area of potential to correct and modulate the activities of genes driving diseases. One of the major challenges these groundbreaking technologies face, though, is delivering them to where they need to go within the body to be effective. Nanogenic Solutions believes its solved the problem with its LipTide technology that marries a payload carrying-lipid with syn...

Brexit, the United Kingdom’s plan to withdraw from the European Union, carries a long list of unintended consequences, one of which is the relocation of the European Medicines Agency. As many as 20 cities are competing to become the new home of the drug regulator. We spoke to Rory Mullen, International Investment Executive for IDA Ireland, about Dublin’s efforts to woo the EMA, the process going f...

Nearly one in three drugs has a postmarket safety event, according to a study published earlier this month in JAMA. The study looked at 222 novel therapies approved between 2001 and 2010. We spoke to Nicholas Downing, clinical fellow in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and lead author of the study, about the findings, the limits of clinical trials, and whether the U.S. Fo...

Climate change is not often viewed as a public health threat, but it can have unexpected consequences on the spread of infectious diseases. As changing temperatures make new areas more hospitable to mosquitos, its can raise the risk of mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue, chikungunya, and zika in areas not usual thought as prone to outbreaks of tropical disease. We spoke to Erin Mordecai, assi...

Ten years ago, a group of San Francisco State University alumni working at Genentech got together with the Michael Goldman, the university’s chairman of the biology department, to establish the school’s annual Personalized Medicine Conference. This year, the conference will revisit topics from its past ten years as well as exploring the future of personalized medicine ask speakers to reflect on ho...

The promise of precision medicine to provide more effective and safer cancer therapies that target the genetics driving each patient’s disease has been hindered by the lack of understanding of the specific genetic alterations underlying many cancers. Elana Fertig thinks math can solve that problem. Fertig, with a nod to the algorithm Netflix uses to help recommend movies users might like, is worki...

For anyone who has ever sought to find the price of healthcare services before obtaining them it will come as little surprise that information is not readily available. A recent study from Public Agenda, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the New York State Health Foundation, set out to find how Americans seek and use healthcare price information. We spoke to David Schleifer...

As the Trump Administration calls for significant increases in military spending, it is also seeking steep cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and programs used to address issues of global health. Michael Osterholm director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, in a recent op-ed in The New York...

Recent mumps outbreaks are raising questions about strategies to combat the spread of the virus. One issue of concern is that the current vaccine is designed to protect against a different strain of the virus than the one that is sparking the outbreaks. Though the vaccine can help prevent some people from getting the disease or minimize its effects, the outbreaks have raised questions about whethe...

The landmark legislation known as the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, or GINA, anticipated growing concerns about genetic privacy, although it left much work undone. Now, though, as genetic information proliferates, proposed legislation would weaken protections by allowing employers to compel employees to share their genetic information in workplace wellness programs. Though vol...

By the time signs of Alzheimer’s disease manifests in the form of memory problems, behaviorial changes, or loss of executive function, years of irreversible damage to the brain has already occurred. In the latest annual report from the Alzheimer’s Association, the organization looks at the potential for biomarkers to diagnose the disease at its earliest appearance and allow for treatments to hold...

The Personalized Medicine Coalition’s recently issued its 2017 report on the opportunities and challenges for the industry. Chris Wells, communications director for the organization, will be kicking off The 4th Annual Business of Personalized Medicine Summit in South San Francisco March 28, drawing from the new report to discuss trends and the pace of advances. We spoke to Wells about the state of...

Orphan drugs, therapeutics that target small patient populations, have become an enticing area for Big Pharma as companies are attracted to the premium prices, lower development costs, and faster path to market. A new EvaluatePharma report on the Orphan Drug market forecasts a compounded annual sales growth rate of more than 11 percent through 2022 with orphan drug accounting more than 20 percent...

The Broad Institute has emerged victorious in a battle with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley over patents covering breakthrough gene-editing technology that allows scientists to easily and inexpensively alter genetic material with precision. Last month, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled that patents held by the Broad Institute rela...

Earlier this month the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine issued a report that considered the scientific, ethical, and governance issues surrounding human genome editing. The report comes as new gene editing technologies have reduced the cost and increased the ease of manipulating the human genome. We spoke to Alta Charo, co-chair of the study committee that wrote th...

The emergence of cancer immunotherapies, drugs that activate and enlist the immune system to fight cancer, has emerged as a promising approach to combat the disease in its many forms. Lawrence Fong, co-leader for the Cancer Immunotherapy Program at the University of California, San Francisco, stands at the intersection of several initiatives involving UCSF to better understand the immune system’s...

The start of Trump administration, a new cabinet, and a new Congress are raising concerns within the scientific community about how the changes in Washington will affect the health of science and innovation in the United States. At issue is not only funding for research, but a range of policy decisions relating to everything from public health to climate change that some fear will not be informed...

For a number of diseases that require chronic administration of a substance naturally produced by the body, patients may have to rely on regular injections or infusions. Sernova is working to free patients from these types of regimes with it combination device and cell therapy that implants a pouch that contains living cells that produce the missing hormone, factor or other substance. We spoke to...

Telehealth, which encompasses an array of technologies to deliver healthcare, is a rapidly growing area. Stratus Video, a language services company, is making a push into telehealth where it sees a big opportunity to leverage its expertise and apply it to healthcare. We spoke to Lee Horner, president of the Stratus Telemedicine division, about telehealth trends, how its altering the practice of me...

Drug discovery and development is a slow and costly process, but the Regeneron Genetics Center represents a drugmakers’ bet that harnessing large amounts of genetic data can point the way to better targets, greater success rates, and ultimately better drugs. We spoke to Aris Baras, vice president and head of the Regeneron Genetics Center ahead of the Precision Medicine World Conference 2017 in Sil...

Last year, KemPharm was on its way to winning an FDA approval for its opioid Apadaz designed to deter users from snorting, injecting, or otherwise abusing it. But the regulatory agency stymied the company’s efforts when it declined to label it as an abuse-deterrent opioid. Apadaz is a prodrug that is converted to its active form through an enzyme present in the intestinal tract that releases the h...

In the realm of mental health, a lack of biologic measures for diagnosing and treating patients has at times made this an area where doctor’s subjective decisions can play a disproportionate role. Ehave is seeking to improve diagnosis and treatment of patients with its data-rich management, assessment, and remediation tools that sit on its cloud-based software platform. The company’s initial produ...

With 2016 drawing to a close and the biotech industry gearing up for the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, we continued our holiday tradition of checking in with Adam Feuerstein, senior columnist for TheStreet. We spoke to Feuerstein about the year in biotech that was, the winners and losers of 2016, and what to look for at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference and beyond.