This Week’s Biotech Highlights

With Fall in the air, this week in biotech was full of change, as Canadian biotech advocates converged on Ottawa and new priorities were the order of the day:

A report on a so-called “Express License” for university technology transfer led me to call for new priorities at tech transfer offices and led to some debate in the comments. Universities often take in 10-fold more money from industry-sponsored research as they do from licensing royalties, so the Express License makes sense for those willing to sacrifice a bit of royalty income to encourage more sponsored research.

The Business Development Bank of Canada released its 2010 financial statements, and they showed a 38% drop in investments in venture capital funds compared to 2009. BDC says this was due to a lack of available co-investors, but commentators are eager to see BDC take the lead next year instead of waiting for others.

Despite vigorous advocacy on both sides of the issue, the FDA committee that met this week declined to make a recommendation on whether to approve AquaBounty’s genetically-modified salmon.

If you, like the FDA, need more information to reach a decision, stay tuned to The Cross-Border Biotech Blog and @crossborderbio on Twitter.