Category Archives: Pharmaceutical Industry

Rise in cloud computing starts to cut revenue for IT outsourcing companies

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Alexander Szewczak

Sean McLain, writing in the Wall Street Journal, describes how the shift to cloud computing is dramatically reducing the number of IT support staff needed to maintain and customize servers and software, and the result is a big drop in hiring of outsourced … Continue reading →

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Bristol Meyers Squibb Joins the R&D Hub Consolidation in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Alexander Szewczak

BMS has just announced that it will be closing its Wallingford, Connecticut facility and relocating much of R&D to Cambridge MA.  Derek Lowe has some coverage.

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Takeda Joins the R&D Migration to Boston

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Alexander Szewczak

From Fierce Biotech, news that the “unending game of global reorganization in biopharma R&D is continuing” with a new move by Takeda to close several vaccine operations around the U.S. in order to concentrate R&D in “the hot Boston/Cambridge, MA hub“

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Dwarfed by Big Pharma, Biotech by the numbers

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Alexander Szewczak

From Bruce Booth’s blog, three charts that illustrate the extent to which large pharma companies dwarf small biotechs.  In total, small biotech firms only spend an estimated $6 billion a year on research and development, approximately equal to Pfizer’s annual R&D budget. From … Continue reading →

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Average Drug Development Cost Now $2.6 Billion

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Alexander Szewczak

Based on the latest study conducted by the Tufts University Center for the Study of Drug Development, the total cost of developing a drug is, on average, $2.6 billion.  That figure includes $1.4 billion in direct out of pocket costs for each … Continue reading →

Posted in Fixing Big Pharma Research, Pharmaceutical Industry | Tagged | 1 Comment

Infographic: Total and per capita NIH award funding by state

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Alexander Szewczak

Mid-way through 2014, California currently leads the nation with $2.1 billion in National Institutes of Health (NIH) award funding, while Massachusetts and New York are ranked 2nd and 3rd, with about $1.4B each.  Not surprisingly, Massachusetts — much smaller in … Continue reading →

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Why isn’t New York City a Biotech Hub?

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Alexander Szewczak

An article in the Wall Street Journal says that high rents are the problem: It also underscores a wider problem for the city as it tries to attract biotech away from thriving centers like San Francisco and Boston—an inability to … Continue reading →

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AbbVie will buy Shire in another Pharma tax inversion strategy

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Alexander Szewczak

Following on the heels of Mylan, AbbVie will buy Shire in a move that, among other things, will result in a significantly lower tax rate when the redomiciled company is fully headquartered in Ireland. More information can be found here (WSJ) and here … Continue reading →

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Generic drug maker Mylan pulls a mini-Pfizer tax inversion

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Alexander Szewczak

Taking a page from Pfizer’s playbook, Mylan is buying Abbott Laboratories’ branded specialty and generics businesses in developed markets outside the U.S..  The $5B deal is structured to result in a tax inversion, with the newly formed merged company to be headquartered in the Netherlands. “We see … Continue reading →

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Securitization of Biomedical Research

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Alexander Szewczak

MIT’s Andy Lo has published another article about the securitization of biomedical research, this time proposing a private-public partnership specifically to create therapies for Alzheimer’s disease.  Pharmalot interviewed Andy and Derek Lowe has some comments. I heard Andy talk about his proposal at … Continue reading →

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