This Week’s Biotech Highlights

Sure was an exciting week, if you enjoy parsing politicians’ public proclamations… Gary Goodyear, Canada’s Minister of State for science and technology, dug himself a deep hole when asked about evolution and although he kept digging for quite some time, he appears to have found neither a coherent response nor a convincing fossil. 

And speaking of divine intervention, no sooner did I put up a post bemoaning the worldwide biotech cash shortage, than over $1 billion in new venture funding rained down from … well, the Ontario and Québec governments. More legislative intervention than divine, but don’t let that get in the way of a good post theme…

Heaven forfend the U.S. be left behind in a post about religion and politics: Obama’s move to lift the ban of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research didn’t sit well with several U.S. states, which have now passed or are considering legislation to outlaw some forms of the work.

I spent some time this week in quiet contemplation … about some changes in intellectual property policy that could show up as a trend in 2009 now that innovator pharmas have started investing in generics and Asia is turning a serious eye toward innovation.

Over at the Cross-Border Biotech Blog, you can read about these stories and check out the weekly features: the Monday Deal Review (where we round up Canadian deal activity), the Wednesday Brain Dump (this week featuring a collection of stories about food) and this week’s Friday Science Review (which was all about the numbers).