Biotech Strategy Blog

Commentary on Science, Innovation & New Products

Posts tagged ‘Biotechnology Innovation’

Today is Innovation Day at Childrens Hospital Boston #iDay

By on February 14, 2012

Today is the first “Innovation Day” at Children’s Hospital Boston. For those, like me, who can’t be in Boston for it, you can follow on Twitter using the hashtag #iday or watch online via live streaming.

Innovation Acceleration Program Logo Today is Innovation Day at Childrens Hospital Boston #iDayI’m impressed that the hospital has an Innovation Acceleration Program focused on supporting “clinical care that impacts patients around the world.”

I think this event is a really great way to showcase some of the interesting research and collaboration that is taking place in the hospital in the field of device development, healthcare IT and process innovation.

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Innovation – should companies take bigger risks and outsource pharma R&D?

By on August 3, 2011

According to a forthcoming article published in Forbes, excerpts of which appear on Matthew Herper’s blog “The Medicine Show,” big pharma should take bigger risks and outsource R&D to smaller, innovative companies.

At least that’s the philosophy of Bernard Munos, the former Lilly sales executive who has focused on the innovation problems faced by the pharmaceutical industry. According to Forbes, he believes that big pharma should “cut research and development” and “rather than do research in house, companies should close their labs and outsource the work to tiny, nimble startups that can explore bigger, crazier ideas.”

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Letter from Boston

By on August 1, 2011

I recently returned from a few days in Boston & Cambridge, so today, in memory of the late Alastair Cooke and his Letter from America, broadcast for 58 years from 1946 to 2004, I wanted to share with you my “Letter from Boston”.

New England is the No 1 biotechnology region on the East Coast of the United States and the Boston/Cambridge area of Massachusetts is the hub.

What makes Boston/Cambridge so attractive as a biotech region?  Amongst many, I’d suggest 3 factors stand out to me:

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Innovation is seeing round the corners

By on July 12, 2011

Innovation involves insight that allows you to see around the corners. That’s the perspective according to Andrew Marks, Professor of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University Medical Center, who recently wrote a Commentary on Innovation in Science Translational Medicine.

Entitled “Repaving the Road to Biomedical Innovation Through Academia”, Professor Marks’ commentary captures the reader’s attention in the first sentence:

“The path to biomedical innovation requires a synthesis of seemingly unrelated observations.”

He goes on to say, “innovation requires joining the pieces to solve the puzzle.”

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BayBio 2011 Annual Conference on Powering Global Innovation

By on April 20, 2011

Today and tomorrow, Northern California’s Life Science organization BayBio has their annual meeting.  Entitled ‘Powering Global Innovation” it’s a meeting that covers a lot of ground from deal making to partnering, emerging markets and company presentations.

According to their website, they plan to be live streaming to their website.  However, if you are interested in following the Twitter discussion (hashtag #baybio2011), you can do so using the aggregator below – just click on the play button to see the tweets:

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Biodegradable nanoparticles may be a new treatment to combat MRSA infections

By on April 13, 2011

Nanotechnology is leading to innovation in drug delivery, and new ways to treat diseases.

In an April 3, 2011 online article in Nature Chemistry, researchers from the IBM Almaden Research Center, Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore and Zhejiang University in China publish groundbreaking data on how biodegradable nanoparticles could be used to treat infectious diseases such as methillicin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

The research shows how nanoparticles can selectively disrupt microbial cell membranes, walls and inhibit the growth of gram-positive bacteria, MRSA and fungi.

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Biotechnology Innovation – is a systems based approach the way forward?

By on February 21, 2011

Thanks to Justin Chakma, a student at the University of Toronto, who brought to my attention an interesting article on innovation that he published on Vijay Govindarajan’s Harvard Business Review Blog.

Justin discusses how in emerging markets, venture capitalists (VC) create intentional links between the companies they invest in, compared to the more typical stand-alone investment model we see in Western countries.

By creating an innovation ecosystem, VC’s in emerging markets are able to leverage their investment in multiple companies.  I encourage you to read Justin Chakma’s article, in which he discusses the advantages of this approach in emerging markets.

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