This Week’s Biotech Highlights

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, 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 (an interesting development, since the adminstration has been pushing for only 7 years);
• The UK government is handing out “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;
• BIOTECanada is reaching out its hand, asking the federal government for short-term loans 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.

Reach out your hand (or electronic pointing facsimile thereof) and find all the other cool stuff this week at the Cross-Border Biotech Blog or follow me on Twitter @crossborderbio.