This Week’s Biotech Highlights

They say the key to a good golf swing is in the follow-through. Hopefully the same is true of blogging, because this week on the Cross-Border Biotech Blog saw a lot of our trends and stories revisited with new developments and new perspective:

Electronic medical records drew a lot of attention this week, with the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference and the first EMR implementation by a large hospital group being topped by an even larger and more influential implementation — the U.S. military.

Budgets and bailout issues were also active. There was good news about Canadian genomics research, which saw additional funding in Ontario and a new institute in Québec as well as $26 million of federal funds through the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Legislators in Ireland and Washington State, though, had to readjust previous commitments.

The Ontario Venture Capital Fund announced its second commitment, again choosing to support a VC investing in Information Technology. As a lawyer, I’m fully ambi-tech-strous (sorry), but I am invested in the success of the Ontario biotech community so I’m also keeping score. So far, zero funds for biotech (or cleantech) coming out of the OVCF.

Lots more at the mothership that doesn’t fit into the neat packages above. Cool deals; more trends; and a nice diversion from the olden days of radio.