Latest Posts

• Could Facebook’s Crypto Break Financial System? Congress Airs Fears

  In late 2017, a federal watchdog unit assigned a working group to keep an eye on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and to sound an alert if those alternate currencies showed signs of becoming a risk to the stability of the US... Read more »

  Bernadette Tansey7/19/19

• Bio Roundup: Opioid Exposé, Gilead’s Gambit, Life Science IPOs & More

  The opioid crisis reaches all corners of the nation, and newly released data this week revealed how the growth of the epidemic tracked with a massive increase in the production and distribution of these drugs.

  From 2006 to 2012, the number... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan7/19/19

• Genmab, Mirum Pharma & Fulcrum Raise $653M in Wall Street Debuts

  Initial public offerings took a brief summer break the week of Independence Day, but healthcare IPO activity resumed this week as three more companies joined the US public markets. Here’s a recap of the biotech companies that priced IPOs Wednesday evening.... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan7/18/19

• Bio Roundup: Michael Becker, Suzanne Eaton, Gene Therapy Moves & More

  The life science and healthcare worlds are vast. We often talk about impact in terms of millions of patients and billions of dollars. But these worlds can be small, too. It seems at times we’re never far removed from any one... Read more »

  Alex Lash7/12/19

• Amgen, Novartis BACE Inhibitor Joins List of Failed Alzheimer’s Drugs

  Amgen and Novartis are stopping work on an experimental Alzheimer’s disease drug after an early look at clinical data showed worsening cognitive function in patients.

  The interim results announced Thursday were part of a pre-planned review of data from two pivotal... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan7/11/19

• Trump Kills His Administration’s Plan to End Secret Drug Rebates

  Donald Trump’s criticism of high drug prices began during the 2016 presidential campaign and continued through his presidency, perhaps most famously just before his inauguration when he said that drug companies were “getting away with murder.”

  This week has... Read more »

  Alex Lash7/11/19

• How Do YOU Think the Internet Will Evolve? A Sampling of Your Tweets

  [Editor’s note: This is part of a series examining the internet’s first 50 years and predicting the next half century. Join Xconomy and World Frontiers Forum on July 16 for Net@50, an event exploring the internet’s past and future.... Read more »

  Wade Roush7/9/19

• Future of the Internet: What Scares Networking Pioneer Radia Perlman

  [Editor’s note: This is part of a series examining the internet’s first 50 years and predicting the next half century. Join Xconomy and World Frontiers Forum on July 16 for Net@50, an event exploring the internet’s past and future.... Read more »

  Wade Roush7/8/19

• Why Bob Metcalfe Is an Optimist About the Internet

  [Editor’s note: This is part of a series examining the internet’s first 50 years and predicting the next half century. Join Xconomy and World Frontiers Forum on July 16 for Net@50, an event exploring the internet’s past and future.... Read more »

  Wade Roush7/8/19

• Bio Roundup: Duchenne Race, Warren v. Gottlieb, A $599 Genome & More

  As we pause to celebrate the 4th of July, another birthday is top of mind: A third baby whose embryonic DNA was edited by Chinese scientist He Jiankui. As Xconomy reported in November, He hinted about a second pregnancy after his... Read more »

  Ben Fidler7/5/19

• The Next Internet: Usability Guru Don Norman Calls for Starting Over

  [Editor’s note: This is part of a series examining the internet’s first 50 years and predicting the next half century. Join Xconomy and World Frontiers Forum on July 16 for Net@50, an event exploring the internet’s past and future.... Read more »

  Wade Roush7/3/19

• Special Report 2069: Predicting the Internet’s Next 50 Years

  [Editor’s note: This is part of a series examining the internet’s first 50 years and predicting the next half century. Join Xconomy and World Frontiers Forum on July 16 for Net@50, an event exploring the internet’s past and future.... Read more »

  Wade Roush7/2/19

• Tracing the ARPANET Roots of the Internet’s Cybersecurity Crisis

  [Editor’s note: This is part of a series examining the internet’s first 50 years and predicting the next half century. Join Xconomy and World Frontiers Forum on July 16 for Net@50, an event exploring the internet’s past and future.... Read more »

  Brian Dowling7/2/19

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• Bio Roundup: Merger Drama, FDA Trauma, Big IPOs, CRISPR Fights & More

  It was a busy week. If we had to choose a theme, it was all about getting together. Two huge drug companies, AbbVie and Allergan, said they’d be better as one. Two more huge drug companies, Celgene and Bristol-Myers Squibb, learned... Read more »

  Alex Lash6/28/19

• PanTheryx Lands $50M to Use “First Milk” to Target Gut Microbiome

  [Corrected, 6/28/19. See below.] There’s a reason why mothers are instructed to breastfeed their babies soon after they’re born. The milk they produce in the days after giving birth is rich in nutrients, immune cells, and antibodies. While this... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan6/26/19

• AbbVie to Pay $63B for Allergan to Prepare for Life Without Humira

  [Updated, 10:11 am ET, see below.] Pharmaceutical giant AbbVie this morning agreed to acquire Allergan in a $63 billion deal meant to provide the pharmaceutical giant with enough revenue to brace for the loss of patent protection for the... Read more »

  Ben Fidler6/25/19

• Bio Roundup: Array Bio Acquired, IPO Spree, Sanofi’s Job Cuts & More

  [Corrected 6/24/19, 12:08 p.m. See below.] Cancer remains one of the hottest areas for pharma deals and this week saw a big one: Pfizer’s proposed $11.4 billion buyout of Array Biopharma.

  The announcement comes less than a month after... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan6/21/19

• Four More Through the IPO Door as Life Science Firms Raise $465M

  It’s been a strong year for biotech IPOs and Wednesday shaped up to be a particularly busy day as four life science firms debuted on the public markets.

  So far this year, 72 companies have gone public, according to IPO research... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan6/20/19

• Colorectal Cancer Data Spurs Pfizer to Pay $11.4B for Array Bio

  [Updated 11:02 a.m. See below.] Array BioPharma touted data less than a month ago that could shift the treatment landscape for some patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. The data caught the eye of Pfizer, which just agreed this morning... Read more »

  Ben Fidler6/17/19

• Bio Roundup: Roche-Spark Drags On, GSK Taps CRISPR, Diabetes News & More

  Is one of the bigger biopharma acquisitions of the year in trouble?

  This past week, antitrust regulators once again delayed Roche’s planned $4.8 billion buyout of gene therapy developer Spark Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ONCE). The US Federal Trade Commission wants yet... Read more »

  Ben Fidler6/14/19

• Polco’s Tools Help Governments Coax Citizens Out of Echo Chambers

  [Updated 6/11/19, 7:31 am CT. See below.] Nick Mastronardi is finding success in countering the negative trend of endless partisan bickering by helping local governments gather public sentiments through online polling.

  Mastronardi (pictured above) is co-founder and CEO of... Read more »

  Brian E. Clark6/11/19

• Bio Roundup: ASCO Wrap, Bluebird’s EU Tap, CRISPR Baby Risk & More

  Welcome to conference week. That’s not an official moniker, but is there any busier time on the biopharma calendar? As the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting wrapped up in Chicago, the annual BIO conference kicked off in Philadelphia, and a... Read more »

  Alex Lash6/7/19

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• ASCO 2019: The Long Game, Targeted Pills, First-Ever Buzz & More

  The American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago has wrapped up for another year.

  Last week, we featured two stories that you wouldn’t find at the ASCO frenzy: Immunotherapy’s lack of progress in treating breast cancer, and one woman’s... Read more »

  Alex Lash6/5/19

• Study: Gene Edits in CRISPR Babies Could Boost Risk of Earlier Death

  The Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who revealed last fall that he used CRISPR gene editing to try to make twin newborn girls immune to HIV infection, might have also given them a higher risk of death. That’s according to a new... Read more »

  Alex Lash6/3/19

• Bio Roundup: Opioids in Court, IPO Parade, Brain Cancer Bet & More

  [Corrected 5/31/19, 8:48 am ET. See below.] Pharmaceutical companies that make or market opioids have found themselves in legal hot water, and much of the heat is coming from Oklahoma. This week, a trial began litigating Johnson & Johnson’s... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan5/31/19

• Agenda Posted for Net@50 on July 16 at MIT Media Lab

  Come celebrate milestones the internet has made over the past 50 years at a special event called Net@50 on July 16 in Cambridge, MA, organized by the World Frontiers Forum and Xconomy. An afternoon forum at the MIT Media Lab will... Read more »

  Ashley Gentile5/30/19

• Can Tiny Drug Doses (and One Woman’s Fortune) Fight the Most Vicious Cancer?

  When the brain goes bad, modern medicine is often powerless to help. That’s the case for Alzheimer’s disease, where drug after drug has failed, and the only approved treatments are marginally helpful at best. The same seems increasingly clear for the... Read more »

  Alex Lash5/30/19

• Immunotherapy Is Now Here For Breast Cancer. What Are Its Prospects?

  Drugs that rev up a patient’s immune system have changed how we treat cancers of the skin, lung, and more, offering people whose tumors have spread a chance to live longer than ever thought possible. But until this year, the field... Read more »

  Ben Fidler5/29/19

• Upland Software Acquires Marketing Software Business Kapost for $45M

  Austin—Upland Software is paying $45 million to acquire Kapost, a Boulder, CO-based company with software for managing marketing content.

  Upland (NASDAQ: UPLD) sells business applications, including some for communicating with customers, managing sales, and automating financial and professional services.... Read more »

  David Holley5/28/19

• Second US Gene Therapy, Approved for Rare Muscle Disease, to Cost $2M

  The FDA today has made Zolgensma, a Novartis treatment for the rare genetic disease spinal muscular atrophy, the second approved gene therapy in the US.

  The news marks a milestone for SMA patients, who have only one other approved medicine available.... Read more »

  Ben Fidler5/24/19

• Bio Roundup: Zolgensma Watch, Brain Cancer Blues, Peloton Payout & More

  Patients, doctors, family members, and drug-price watchdogs continued to wait for the expected approval of Zolgensma, a Novartis (NYSE: NVS) gene therapy for the rare inherited disease spinal muscular atrophy. Originally developed at a children’s hospital in Ohio,... Read more »

  Alex Lash5/24/19

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