Massachusetts

Patrick lobbied to drop gift provision

John Carroll — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:27:18 -0400

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has been a darling of the biotech industry, repeatedly lauded for pushing through a $1 billion support program for the industry. But now the state's biotech association has been pushing Patrick hard to drop a provision in a new healthcare bill that forces doctors to disclose gifts and meals worth more than $50. Businesses say the provision would reveal internal strategies to competitors while proponents are quick to say that the exposure would effectively limit the way drug companies try to influence physicians. Report

Magazine taps Pennsylvania as biotech leader

John Carroll — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:17:00 -0400

Business Facilities magazine came up with its own formula for assessing states' strength in the biotech economic development field and decided that Pennsylvania came in first. The assessment, which included a number of factors that included education, business climate and quality of life, concluded that California and Massachusetts tied for second with Ohio and Texas coming in at a tie for fourth place. Others on the top 10 list: Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Florida, Kansas and Minnesota.

Pennsylvania won kudos for its $150 million program to fund bioscience research, three regional Greenhouses to commercialize research and $32 million to fund high-tech facilities, including biotech.

- read the story in Business Facilities

Developer plots sprawling biotech complex near Boston

John Carroll — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:49:00 -0400

A developer has blueprinted a sprawling 250-acre biotech complex in the Boston area's thriving life sciences cluster. Patriot Partners says it will negotiate with the town of Burlington for the land and development costs have been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The developers do not have any tenants lined up for the laboratory and office space they're planning to build, but the suburbs around Boston have been attracting a large number of developers from Cambridge and other sites. It's also the first big development announced since the Legislature approved a $1 billion program to support the industry.

- reaad the story from the Boston Globe

Mass. accelerator blueprints plans to foster start-ups

John Carroll — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:11:26 -0400

A group of biotech veterans, investors and academics have joined forces to back a new biotech incubator in Beverly, MA. The North Shore Life Sciences Accelerator hopes to tap state and private money to help foster 10 biotech start-ups.

"There are a number people here who have success starting up companies," Martha Farmer, president of the Accelerator, told the Boston Business Journal. "We hope to help (new startups) gain skills and greatly improve the success of the companies."

- check out the story in the Boston Business Journal

Live from DIA

John Carroll — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:11:51 -0400

Massachusetts is wasting no time in putting its new, $1 billion biotech initiative to work. In a panel discussion yesterday at DIA's meeting in Boston, Susan Windham-Bannister, the incoming president of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, noted that the state is on the verge of rolling out new grants to back young investigators, funds for faculty training and matching grants to back collaborations between private developers and academic groups.

There's no doubt that the state money will be welcome. I asked a few members of the panel about the effect of years of flat-line budgeting at the NIH. "We rely more and more on philanthropy," says MIT's Robert Urban, the executive director of the newly minted Koch Institute. A stagnant federal research has "changed the way my medical center interrelated with private companies," added Ken Kaitin, director of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. And you can bet that medical centers will be partnering even more with the private sector in coming years.

Massachusetts, of course, is approaching the federal funding crunch from a position of strength. The Cambridge/Boston area is home to one of the most productive clusters of biotech companies in the world. And that was evident from a look at this year's Fierce 15, which we issued yesterday. Be sure to take a look, if you haven't already had a chance to read our picks of up-and-coming biotech companies. - John Carroll

P.S. If you weren't at BIO or didn't get a chance to stop by the FierceBiotech party, take a look at these photos from the event. Photo slideshow

Mass. Governor to sign $1B incentives plan

John Carroll — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:16:55 -0400

Thousands of biotech execs flocking to San Diego for the annual BIO meeting are likely to hear an earful from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who will be arriving with a freshly approved, $1 billion incentives program to woo biotech companies. Lawmakers had signed off on the legislation late last week, leaving Patrick just enough time to sign the bill today before hopping a flight to the West Coast confab.

The best thing that Massachusetts has going for it is a thriving cluster of life science companies that have created a legion of experienced executives and top scientists--many of whom work among the universities in and around Boston. That kind of cluster effect--added to a new slate of incentives--is likely to make the state much more effective at attracting more companies to the area. It should also help overcome many of the bureaucratic barriers that start-ups faced in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts made FierceBiotech's list of top economic development areas for the industry this year--a first for the state.

- read the story from the Boston Globe

Massachusetts closer on biotech bill

John Carroll — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:20:58 -0400

Lawmakers in Massachusetts are edging ever closer to approving the state's ambitious $1 billion incentives program to help foster its thriving biotech industry. That gives Governor Deval Patrick just enough time to sign a new bill before flying off to the BIO meeting in San Diego. Report

Are Mass. lawmakers 'anti-biopharmaceutical'?

Mon, 12 May 2008 06:59:56 -0400

After coming up with a billion-dollar program to encourage the growth of the state's biotech industry, you'd think that BIO and the biopharma biz would be giving great bear hugs to Massachusetts lawmakers. Instead, GSK wrote a letter to the governor castigating the bill for demonstrating "a strong anti-biopharmaceutical streak." And BIO complained that the bill included a provision that threatened research as well as patient treatment.

The target of all this ire? A provision that bans any and all gifts from a drug company to a physician. That's any and all, as in free lunches, trips to swanky resorts or even cheap pens with company logos on them.

Nonsense, replied state senator Mark Montigny. Lawmakers felt that the gifts--which don't include drug samples--encouraged the use of expensive branded drugs without really benefiting patients.

- read the AP report

Mass. biotechs ripe for buyouts

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:59:54 -0400

Recently, GSK forked over $720 million for Sirtris Pharmaceuticals and Japan's Takeda made an $8.8 billion bid for Millennium Pharmaceuticals. And the Boston Business Journal wonders which Massachusetts-based company is next on the buyout hit-list?

Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Epix Pharmaceuticals and Alynlam Pharmaceuticals, to name a few. Biogen Idec could be an acquisition target for a large biotech. According to MassBIO, 189 of the state's companies have drugs in Phase II, and another 69 have Phase III drug in the works. As one investment banker observes, up to three dozen Massachusetts drug developers could be up for grabs.

- see the Boston Business Journal report

Resolvyx rounds up $25M

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:59:55 -0400

Bedford, MA-based Resolvyx has garnered $25 million in a second round of venture capital. QVT Financial LP led the funding round. The money will be used to accelerate Resolvyx's preclinical pipeline development and to advance multiple resolvin drug candidates into clinical trials in 2008. Resolvins are a recently discovered family of naturally-occurring, small molecule lipid mediators that resolve inflammation.

"We are excited about the growing recognition of the value of our unique resolvin platform. Attracting investors of this caliber underscores the significant progress we have made toward breakthrough drug products," said Paul Rubin, M.D., President and CEO of Resolvyx. "This funding allows us to continue to advance our resolvin therapeutic candidates, RvE1 and RX-10045, and to further evaluate additional resolvin and protectin compounds." Resolvyx's first round occurred in 2005, when the company gained $17 million.

- see this release for more

ALSO: Another Massachusetts-based company, Cambria Pharmaceuticals, has closed a $5.4 million Series A financing. Release