Everyone this week seemed to be extending a helping hand:
- The U.S. Senate reached out to small business, moving toward reauthorizing the popular SBIR grant program [1], even expanding eligibility to venture capital-funded companies this time around;
- Senator Kennedy, Governor Howard Dean and the National Venture Capital Association all reached out a hand to developers of novel biologic drugs, supporting at least 12 years of data exclusivity that would prevent the entry of biosimilars [2] (an interesting development, since the adminstration has been pushing for only 7 years);
- The UK government is handing out [3] “innovation passes” to developers of some novel medicines that will allow them to skip the usual comparative effectiveness assessment before going to market PLUS the government is putting £150 million into what is supposed to become a £1 billion venture capital fund;
- Pfizer is reaching out to OICR and OCI, collaborating with the two Ontario cancer institutes on a nearly $7 million research project [4];
- BIOTECanada is reaching out its hand, asking the federal government for short-term loans [5] to help the shocking 70% of Canadian biotech companies with less than 12 months’ cash on hand; and
- Pharma companies are reaching their hands out to each other, with new collaborations in HIV and cancer drugs announced this week [6].
Reach out your hand (or electronic pointing facsimile thereof) and find all the other cool stuff this week at the Cross-Border Biotech Blog [7] or follow me on Twitter @crossborderbio [8].