http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/03/14/want-generic-biotech-you-might-wait-14-more-years/

In any negotiation, there is no substitute to getting your number on the table first!  It's a shame that the Generic Pharmaceutical Association didn't have the same negotiation professor that I had :)

Honestly, Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Joe Barton (R-Tx.) might be reaching for the stars with H.R. 5629, the Pathway for Biosimilars Act (http://eshoo.house.gov/images//biosimilars%20summary.pdf), but it is good to see that someone is willing to fight for the Life Science Industries right to return value and remain incentivized.  Something tells me that California's 14th district (Eshoo's district) includes the Biotech corridor. 

However, in my opinion, I think that like in all good negotiations, the right number is somewhere between the two positions.  Hopefully this segment of the industry can find that balance and make certain that the value to the company is protected, while the general public can get the affordable biologics that they need. 

I would encourage everyone to read this article.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120535959743831617.html?mod=sphere_wd#

Basically, Delhi's High Court is considering a case that ultimately could set the precedent for the seizure of foreign drug patents by Indian companies.  There are provisions in the WTO for the seizure of patents when "efforts to obtain authorization from the right holder on reasonable commercial terms and conditions" have failed, or in cases of "national emergency."  The drugs being targeted here, Tarceva (Roche Switzerland) and Sutent (Pfizer US) do NOT fall under those provisions in my opinion. 

My concern is simply around the threat against the incentive that drug companies have to continually innovate.  I recognize that there needs to be some work with respect to price tiering in those markets where it makes sense, and in doing so the drug companies might better avoid the tipping point that may be coming around this issue, but the fact of the matter is that the world is better off pharmacologically speaking thanks to the work of primarily US based Pharma companies. 

The incentive, ultimately, is shareholder value.  We must protect the ability of companies such as Roch and Pfizer to generate continued and sustainable value for those who chose to risk their own capital in these organizations. 

Hello.  My name is Michael Naimoli and I'm a Director at Microsoft responsible for a team of brilliant people all working to make a difference in the Life Sciences industry.    This industry is complex to say the least.  Most interesting about it is the fact that it struggles to be innovative, but must do so in a risk averse climate.  I don't mean to minimize the fact that this industry is full of some high rollers...but consider what they're up against!  Sam Batterman, one of my colleagues at Microsoft, has been working hard to understand how these organizations manage the complexity of the data available to them.  Take some time and review some of his latest postings.   

Quote:  This is from Sam Batterman's Blog

Metabolic Pathway Diagrams with WPF

Recently, one of my colleagues (Gabor Fari) sent me a bit of a challenge.  Displaying Metabolic Pathways in a Resolution Independent manner.  Naturally, I immediately thought of WPF, but Silverlight would also be a good choice for this particular visualization.

Gabor sent me this link: http://www.g-language.org/GenomeProjector/# which is basically the Google map engine applied to massive scanned images.  You could show anything with this technology that is image based: architectural drawings, floor plans, even artwork.

Here's what the link generates:

I really like the bookmark concept (which is really just masking x,y coordinates with an English description). There's also a zoomed map on the right (cut-off on this view - sorry about that) that provides classic Overview & Detail based awareness.

So, I went to the source of the scanned data (yes, someone really drew this map - regardless of whether it was a tool specifically designed for Metabolic mapping, or something like Visio, you have to give the author credit - I'm sure they are wearing bi-focal's now).

Here's the source: http://www.expasy.ch/cgi-bin/show_thumbnails.pl

Each panel is a separate .png image that can be tiled out. So I downloaded each tile (each one has a tile coordinate based scheme - like tileA10.png - like a Battleship game layout).

Then I created a WPF canvas and tiled them across - generating images dynamically and mapping them across x and y.  Each image is 720 by 600 pixels, so my images are 72 x 60 - more on this in a second.

Here's the first show - the overall canvas is blue and you can just make out the tiling in between the tiles.

Now, to zoom in on the Canvas...

and again,

and since we are here, let's ink on the tiles using an InkCanvas overlay...

I'm particularly happy with the readability of each tile - amazing work by the WPF guys in sampling and scaling these things.

This particular challenge only took about 30 minutes to build, but more to the point, adding things like annotation, connecting it to literature, tagging, breaking out each tile to work with them independently--you get it all for free.

I'm still working on it, but wanted to post this out...