The Biotech Exec

The first gift suggestions are likely the most popular and practical for your favorite biotech exec. The iPad Mini and Apple TV each offer “a small package that allows for amazing presentations,” said David J. Kolb, CEO of Miami-based Insero Health Inc., who put these gadgets on his holiday shopping list.

Similarly, i3 Analytics’ ClinicalTrials Navigator sorts reams of information and presents the data in a streamlined format. This tool provides information on hundreds of thousands of clinical trials around the world in a user-friendly interface that allows biotechs to track pipelines by disease state, intervention, sponsor, mechanism of action or phase – perfect for racing those pesky competitors to FDA approval.

To dress for success, ties from the DNA Store are “perfect for the executive who wants to impress at board and fundraising meetings,” said Peter Winter, editor of BioWorld Insight. Some of the bolder styles also will help you stand out among the JP Morgan crowd, he observed. And don’t overlook the female biotech exec on your gift list; this site offers distinctive DNA jewelry.

For those prospective investors on the other side of the table, consider the eye-grabbing t-shirts from VCwear, recommended by BioWorld’s executive editor, Lynn Yoffee. No one wears ties in Silicon Valley, right?

The Historian

BIO president and CEO Jim Greenwood recommended the gift of participation in National Geographic’s Genographic Project. The package includes a buccal swab kit, DNA analysis and a report placing you on a branch of the human family tree and tracing the ancient migrations of your ancestors across the globe. You can also agree to anonymously contribute your data to National Geographic’s genomic database. To date, the project has attracted more than 500,000 participants.

In a similar vein, BioWorld staff writer Catherine Shaffer suggested the genotyping service 23andMe, which allows you to connect to your past, learn about your present and contribute to the future by contributing your DNA. With more than 150,000 genotyped members, the service enables users to peek into their ancestry composition and genetic relatives.

In another participatory event, the Life Sciences Foundation is conducting oral histories with luminaries and sharing the story of biotechnology through its website, quarterly magazine and educational events. Earlier this year, the Foundation published Honoring 25 Years of Biotech Leadership, an illustrated coffee table book honoring individuals, companies and scientific achievements inducted into the Biotech Hall of Fame. Currently, LSF is working on a comprehensive scholarly history of the origins of commercial biotechnology, scheduled for publication in 2014.

The Clinical Investigator

What clinical investigator isn’t occasionally befuddled by the overwhelming amount of data associated with human trials? Calculate is a next-generation clinical calculator and decision support tool for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry that’s freely available to the medical community. The tool offers more than 150 unique calculators and decision support tools, plus detailed references with Pubmed integration. The app also offers treatment guides such as the Framingham and Reynolds Risk Scores and the CHADS2 and CHA2DS2-VASc score.

Some would argue that viruses aren’t exactly art, but British artist Luke Jerram’s blown glass microbes have been exhibited around the world and mentioned in publications ranging from The Lancet to Wired to The New York Times. They’re creepy-cool, but beautiful, and available in limited editions.

For the serious scientist, Leslie J. Williams, president and CEO of ImmusanT Inc., recommended The Scientist as Rebel, by Freeman Dyson, who argues that the best way to understand science is by understanding those who practice it. Dyson tells tales of scientists at work, ranging from Isaac Newton’s absorption in physics, alchemy, theology and politics to Ernest Rutherford’s discovery of the structure of the atom and Albert Einstein’s stubborn hostility to the notion of black holes. Dyson’s descriptions of physicists like Edward Teller and Richard Feynman are enlivened by his own reminiscences of them.

On the lighter side, your favorite researcher might enjoy a coffee mug that looks like an Erlenmeyer flask or a tie-dye lab coat. Why settle for white like the rest of the lab rats?

The Job Seeker

Biotech and big pharma are just emerging from – or, some would say, still mired in – the economic havoc wreaked by the Great Recession. The displaced thousands don’t want platitudes, but they could certainly use tangible help in the form of gasoline gift cards for those hauls to job interviews, Starbucks gift cards (think free WiFi) or a resume reboot from a seasoned professional, such as a member of the Professional Association of Resume Writers & Career Coaches.

Another job-hunting tool is JibberJobber, a Web-based career management tool that helps job seekers organize and track job leads and store professional information in one spot. And you can’t go wrong offering the gift of dignity in the form of professional business cards designed with a contact phone number and email address. You can order 250 cards for $10 from VistaPrint.

For inspirational reading, consider giving Celebrating Failure: The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes, and Thinking Big, by business coach Ralph Heath, which offers 30 short stories of failure and lessons learned that are worth pondering.

The Decorator

Picture the planet in a paperweight or a brilliant sunrise in Tektite glass, and you’ve discovered the work of Josh Simpson, a Massachusetts artist whose glass pieces are inspired by nature, from the constellations above to the ocean reefs below. “I absolutely love his work,” said ImmusanT’s Williams in her recommendation.

The Beira Lamp, shaped as a chemistry flask, is not only practical but oddly attractive in its simplicity. The end of the flask contains a ring of frosted glass that enhances light, while an opaque spun metal lampshade inside the flask cleverly conceals the electrical fittings. Made of aluminum, the lampshade can be anodized in different colors to match any decorating scheme.

Jazz up your aquarium with Casper Fish, a cross between two mutant zebra fish, nacre and roy, that produce offspring with translucent skin and scales. Internal organs – heart, gallbladder, circulatory system, brain, spine and the eggs in females – are viewable with the naked eye. Who wouldn’t be mesmerized staring at see-through fish?

The Globetrotter

Go anywhere with the Misfit Shine, a wireless activity tracker you can sync with your smartphone just by placing it on the screen. Whether you’re walking, biking or swimming, the technology can track your every step or stroke, anywhere.

Similarly, Jawbone’s UP is a wristband that tracks your movement and sleep in the background. The app displays your data, lets you add things like meals and mood and delivers insights to keep you moving forward. One can never have too much momentum in biotech.

And before you hike or bike to distant shores, BioWorld’s science editor Anette Breindl recommends a peek at Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. Nature writer David Quammen recounts his travels in remote corners of the globe with field researchers investigating disease outbreaks in rats, monkeys, bats, pigs and other species, with the potential to “spillover” to humans.

Children (and the Young at Heart)

Biochemies, DNA molecules redefined as plush dolls, are the brainchild of Jun Axup, a PhD candidate at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. Funded through Kickstarter, the colorful bases interact with each other via hydrogen bonds – magnets, in the toy world – to form base pairs. The happy bases make great desk toys and educational tools for current and aspiring scientists.

On the gooey side, Jeff Behrens, president and CEO of Sialix Inc., suggested ThinkGeek’s Giant Microbes Primordial Putties, which feature little rubber microbes chilling in a putty-like gel. The putty can be plucked out for play, as can the microbe, but we don’t recommend this gift for the squeamish.

And if you want to make sure your child has the best possible shot at the Ivy League, forget the popular plastic LEGOs. BioWorld’s Breindl pointed out that Harvard researchers recently assembled 3D nanostructures using DNA bricks that function like LEGOs. OK, they’re not actually available in toy stores – not yet, at least – but we think junior DNA LEGOs would send the average student straight to the head of the class. Adults who enjoy building blocks might also be intrigued by protein “legos,” which Breindl covered earlier this year.

Parting Thoughts

What biotech exec couldn’t use a good laugh these days? Consider wrapping your conventional, but nonetheless boring, present in a hilarious fake gift box from Prank Pack. We particularly like the “iArm,” which provides an extra arm for the mobile executive on-the-go.

On a more poignant note, we were reminded of the true meaning of generosity by Kosta Steliou, CEO of PhenoMatriX Inc., in Boston. “The best and most valuable biotech gift one can give this holiday season is a pint of blood,” he said. “For the person receiving it, the gift is priceless.”

Editor’s note: It’s never too early to start planning for the 2013 holiday season. Did we overlook your favorite biotech gift? Send your suggestions to marie.powers@bioworld.com.

While the OPDP’s move is a welcome step in shutting down Burzynski’s clinical trial pyramid scheme, in which, according to some patient fundraising blogs, trial participants pay more than $100,000 to become guinea pigs for antineoplaston therapy, the letter provides little clarity regarding what is or is not a promotional claim.

The letter specifies, “This provision is not intended to restrict the full exchange of scientific information concerning the drug, including dissemination of scientific findings in scientific or lay media. Rather, its intent is to restrict promotional claims of safety or effectiveness of the drug for a use for which it is under investigation and to preclude commercialization of the drug before it is approved for commercial distribution.”

However, some of the so-called violations strongly resemble claims made in countless biotech and pharma press releases posted on company websites.

For example, “ANP was well tolerated with easy manageable side effects of fatigue, skin rash, and electrolyte abnormalities and no chronic toxicities . . . These results compared favorably to radiation therapy and chemotherapy (Mandell, et al. 1999, 7 percent overall survival at 2 years and 0 percent at 5 years), but should be confirmed in phase III trials scheduled to begin in 2009.”

On the face of it, that statement seems identical to hundreds of statements made every day by other companies, so what distinguishes Burzynski’s regulation-violating promotion from permitted “exchange of scientific information?”

Clarity is on Hold

Crystal clarity on that question may be a long time coming. The biopharma community has been clamoring for the FDA’s guidance on a related question – how to use social media – for nearly two years, and the agency has answered with silence – a silence set to continue for another two-year period, under the new FDA Safety and Innovation Act.

That silence has led to a “gotcha mentality” that uses enforcement, rather than guidance, to communicate policy.

For companies that want to avoid running into trouble with their public communications, warning letters such as the Untitled Letter issued to the Burzynski Clinic are some of the only clues available as to what the regulations allow and do not allow.

Stephen King, a public affairs specialist for the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, offered a statement that provided a few more hints on the Burzynski case.

“The FDA takes seriously its role in assuring Americans the drugs they use are safe and effective and manufactured according to current good manufacturing practices (cGMP). The agency also seeks to ensure patients who are participating in clinical trials and expanded access programs are appropriately protected,” King said. “To date, no randomized, controlled trials showing the effectiveness of antineoplastons have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals nor have all of the trials needed to approve antineoplastons as a treatment for cancer been conducted.”

So far, so good. But again the FDA’s communication falls short of total clarity as to why certain claims violate regulations and others don’t. In the Burzynski case, the clinic’s lack of evidence to back up its claims, and track record of plundering its patients’ retirement funds may contribute to the OPDP’s actions, but nothing in the OPDP letter actually cites false claims or misunderstanding by patients. “The totality of these claims suggest that Antineoplastons, investigational new drugs, are safe and/or effective for the treatment of various types of brain tumors indicated above, when they have not been approved for these uses,” the letter states, suggesting that the only and entire violation by the Burzynski clinic is that it said the words “safe and effective” before the drugs had been approved ‑ words which are ubiquitous in drug company statements regarding clinical trials of unapproved drugs.

“The promotion of investigational new drugs is prohibited by law and the agency is concerned BRI’s promotional claims will mislead patients about the safety and efficacy of unapproved antineoplastons,” said King, providing few hints as to how other companies should modify their language regarding safety and efficacy of their own unapproved drugs.

OPDP instructed the Burzynski Clinic to immediately cease dissemination of “violative promotional materials” for antineoplastons and to submit a written response by Nov. 1.

A company spokesman for the Burzynski Clinic, Azad Rastegar, told BioWorld, “Yes, we have received a letter from the FDA. While we don’t think we have done anything wrong, we have complied with their requests.”

In those heady days of biotech, not that long ago, the rush was on to learn about the latest innovation from companies. Dollars were readily available for investment and biotech execs gave their presentations to a full room.

Bob Dylan’s The Times They are A Changin’ provided an apt interlude tune played before the start of one session. It was a refrain frequently expressed during the standing-room-only audiences for the BIF business roundtables devoted to investing.

We all feel it. Biotech investment meetings have a different buzz about them these days.

Since the emphasis of BIF is on early and established private companies as well as emerging public companies, the agenda had a heavy dose of business roundtables focused on early stage and creative financing and partnering strategies. This has been a tough arena to raise venture capital and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

“During the past five years we have seen people investing out of fear rather than with conviction,” noted Srini Akkaraju, managing director at New Leaf Venture Partners. “We are in a tough fundraising environment and it is only going to get worse,” he added.

Akkaraju was one of the participating panelists on “Forecasting 2013: Trick or Treat?” the closing plenary session at BIF. (See this Oct. 15, 2012, BioWorld Insight story: Has Biotech Reached Its Peak? Analysts Say Room for Growth.)

He was also critical of the fact that biotech investors need to be more creative with their investment time horizons since they are dealing with 15-year businesses and trying to fit them into a five-year box. Venture capitalists are heading for the exit door after five years, precisely at a time when companies are beginning to emerge with strong data. This is a good opportunity to continue investing and not exiting. These are certainly structural issues for the venture industry to solve.

On the capital markets front, biotech is on a roll. According to Evan McCulloch, portfolio manager at Franklin Templeton Investments, the biotech sector appears to be fairly valued at the present time, and there is certainly room for the sector’s value to increase. Panelist Bryan Roberts, partner at Venrock, agreed, particularly if companies continue to report strong data for their drug candidates.

The consensus was that it will be the large cap companies that will drive biotech’s collective performance with the smaller cap biotech companies still struggling to garner attention from investors.

We won’t have long to wait to see if these predictions hold true. Biotech investors will be flocking back to San Francisco in January for the always exciting JP Morgan Healthcare Conference.

BioWorld Insight will be there to take the industry’s temperature and report on what investors believe 2013 has in store. We’ll also be taking a deeper dive into the financial and business issues impacting on biotech companies in the run-up to the end of the year – make sure to stay tuned looks like it will be an eventful time for us all!

The average increase in the stock values of the 231 public biotech companies tracked by the BioWorld Stock Report is up 38 percent year-to-date. The third quarter was particularly hot for biotechs with their collective stock values soaring by an average of over 12 percent compared with a 4 percent increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a 6 percent increase in the NASDAQ Composite index.

The welcoming capital markets allowed biotechs to take advantage of their increased stock values to conduct follow-on financing. In the third quarter more than $2.8 billion was raised through public offerings compared to only $507 million in the comparable period in 2011, according to data compiled from BioWorld Snapshots.

The same trend held true for private placements such as registered direct offerings, rights offerings and at-the-market deals with public biotechs raising $1.97 billion in the third quarter of 2012 from these financing vehicles well over double the $821 million raised during Q3 2011.

The increased public financing in the third quarter helped biotech companies collectively raise $5.91 billion, an amount that was 111 percent more than the $2.75 billion raised in the third quarter of 2011.

According to statistics compiled by BioWorld Insight, the biotech sector is making up for a very sluggish start to the year with a total of $13.8 billion raised in the first three quarters. This now compares more favorably to the $16.1 billion raised in the same period of 2011, which, by any standards, was considered a very hot year for biotech financing.

On the venture capital front our analysis confirms that deal making for private biotech companies still remains extremely challenging. At the three-quarter post of 2012 global private biotechs had raised $2.35 billion, 33 percent less than the $3.51 billion raised in the same period of 2011.

The public U.S. markets continue to offer an alternative for later-round companies looking for funding. Although the appetite for biotech IPOs cooled off in the third quarter with no deals taking place in August and September, eight companies have gone public year-to-date, comparable to the 9 deals we saw at this time last year. This amounts generated from the 2012 IPO transactions was $536 million compared to $503 raised in 2011.

Given the positive capital markets at the present time it is likely that we will see a flurry of companies, currently on the IPO runway, price their public offerings. According to BioWorld Snapshots there are nine biotech companies that are on the IPO runway.

For full analysis of the performance of the biotech sector in the third quarter read the Oct. 8, 2012 cover story in BioWorld Insight.

Other biotech execs pin their aspirations to the old-school home-run approach of developing a blockbuster drug to address a prevalent indication such as diabetes, and then basking for the next decade in the blockbuster revenue it generates.

Either way, success in biotech is a conceded longshot. And success is usually considered to be more of a company effort, while failure is generally plopped on the already-heavy-is-the-head crown of a C-level executive.

To quote a biotech honcho who spoke off the record to me once, “Everyone at my company covets my salary, but no one – not even my peers or board members – would ever take my job.”

Biotechnology was founded to be an altruistic industry; however, since making market dreams come true requires financing, biotech execs are also expected to deliver the ROI.

In preparing to publish the BioWorld Executive Compensation Report 2013: Trends in C-Level Salaries and Benefits in the Biopharma Market, I was somewhat surprised by the data showing that the salaries and compensation packages for the six top biotech executive positions have remained stout despite the ongoing slow-to-recover global economy.

The report presents compensation data for execs from 203 U.S. biotechs and 55 non-U.S. companies and shows that even though the biotech market has undergone corporate liquidations, M&As, executive retirements, recession repercussions and other events that impact executive compensation, biotech companies still are inclined to pay for leadership in that most precarious of markets that is inherently beset with all the trappings of a video adventure game or a horrible reality show.

The Longest Warm-Up Act in History

Throughout, and often beyond the standard decade of R&D to bring a drug to market, executive officers must harness and channel the physiology of nature, decode and manipulate the functions of biology in the human (and animal) body, tactfully engage the watchdogs at the regulatory gates and beguile an antsy stakeholder audience with the longest warm-up act in history while waiting for the market-approved headliner drug to arrive.

On top of that, general consternation is derived from the perception that biotechnology’s C-suite suits reside comfortably in the rarified land of the one-percenters, while its patient base lives in compromised health in the overcrowded 99 percent hinterlands.

Conversely, few other markets have the evidence to support a claim that they attend to humanity’s most rudimentary, yet most vital, assets: health and life. But the biopharma industry, managed by an ever-changing conglomeration of C-level executives since 1977, has methodically evolved to be productive and profitable.

The absence of Amgen Inc.’s former CEO, Kevin Sharer, and its former VP, R&D, Roger Perlmutter, both of whom retired in 2012, will open the way for a new set of salary and compensation leaders to top the list that Sharer, who made $1.7 million in salary in 2011, has led for the past four years.

That is a lot of money, but it doesn’t nearly equal the $16 billion that Amgen made in 2011 or the $140 billion in revenue that the biotech made during the decade of Sharer’s and Perlmutter’s tenures, which oversaw the approval of 10 major drugs and many follow-on therapeutics.

Biotech execs are not paid to concoct gourmet beverages, make designer headphones or score touchdowns. They do not manufacture products that entertain us, recreationally intoxicate or make our lives convenient; rather, they straightforwardly address the consequences of obesity, cancer, addiction, hearing loss and other health outcomes that often arise from partaking in the products that are marketed by other industries.

All that amid the typical complaints that “You’re taking too long to develop life-saving drugs” or “Your curative products cost too much” or “Your one-of-a-kind therapeutics are not guaranteed to work.”

In biotech, success has a price: time and money spent. But it has no guarantees – unless you acknowledge that R&D setbacks are a certainty.

And executive salaries don’t usually bankrupt a biotech, but failed leadership can. So, perhaps taking a deep breath to relax and consider the mission these well-paid executives have undertaken is appropriate.

On the other hand, there is the premise that if you have a passion to do something, you would do it for free. Well, playing a six-years-long game of FDA chess, engaging in a decade-long round of “Are You Smarter Than a Biomarker” and trying to attract, then avoid, and ultimately appease skittish investors in a world in which high technology has eliminated all hiding places, would be too much to expect of a person to do for free.

They both use convoluted processes to accomplish a simple task, but the Goldberg invention still manages to keep the end result pretty simple. And while there may be some unintended consequences with both, they’re not unexpected with the absurd processes of a Goldberg machine. One look shows you what kind of mess you’re going to have if the cracker misses its mark, the parrot misses its perch, the seeds miss the bucket, the cigar lighter misses the fuse . . .

Not so with Congress. By the time all 435 representatives and 100 senators put their stamp on a bill, the legislation is neither simple nor transparent. In fact, the outcome is often so full of ambiguities that even the Supreme Court can’t agree on the meaning. And by time the federal agencies draft rules to implement the provisions of a bill, what started out as a simple, straightforward idea has been transformed into a megalo-regulatory mess that no one can untangle.

Take the crowdfunding provision in the JOBS Act. The simple idea behind it was to allow small companies to raise capital by getting a little bit of money from a lot of everyday people. But the tightly restricted provision that emerged from the convoluted congressional process is so far removed from the original idea that it’s a misnomer to call it crowdfunding. And by time the SEC drafts the rules to implement it, the provision is likely to be so cumbersome that it’s useless.

Even more perplexing is when Congress doesn’t recognize the messes it has created with its well-intentioned but over-engineered legislation. It may see the mess. It may even step in it. But rather than tracing the problem to the cause, Congress instead goes through its drawn-out process of hearings and finger-pointing to develop more legislation and even more regulations.

We’re seeing that with antibiotics. Citing a dearth of new antibiotics and a wealth of scary bacterial and fungal infections that won’t respond to the drugs in our current medicine cabinet, Congress added incentives to the recently passed FDA Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) to get drugmakers to make new infection-fighting drugs. But never once did Congress look at the legislative contraptions it has already created to see if they were in any way responsible for this life-threatening problem.

Consider this. Last year, Dificid (fidaxomicin, Optimer Pharmaceuticals Inc.) was the first new Clostridium difficile-fighting drug approved in more than 25 years. Hmmm, more than 25 years. Say, isn’t that when Hatch-Waxman lifted the floodgates for cheap generics? Could there be a Rube Goldberg connection?

Just follow the chain reaction: Hatch-Waxman opens the market to generic copies of old antibiotics. The price of antibiotics goes down, way down. Reimbursement rates are set to reflect the cheaper price of generics. Hospitals buy the cheap generics. Drugmakers stop developing new antibiotics because there’s no market for drugs that cost more than the cheap generics. The pathogens that hang out at hospitals become more and more resistant to the cheap generic versions of antibiotics, many of which have been used for half a century or more. Hospital-acquired infections become a growing threat, with few new drugs to treat them. Congress passes FDASIA to spur the development of innovative antibiotics. That law gives the Department of Health and Human Services two years to develop rules to implement the incentives and come up with a list of pathogens the new drugs must target.

Then the real work begins. And maybe, in another decade or so, we’ll have a lot of new antibiotics aimed at the pathogens we’re fighting today.

Well, that statement’s certainly applicable in biopharma – particularly in M&A transactions, inasmuch as the pardon-begets-profit model can be observed whenever a hostile takeover finally closes and the executive of a formerly defiant target company signs on the dotted line to receive its recompense, while proclaiming a public veneration for yesterday’s buy-side antagonist.

There’s no way to precisely compare how many patients either forgiveness or biopharma have kept healthy or alive, but we know there is definitely more tangible evidence that the latter has done so with daily regularity for many years.

Conversely, I’d think the most unforgiving group in biopharma consists of the still-unemployed and now-underemployed collaterally damaged industry researchers, sales reps, blue collar staff and executives of the still-growing legion of the downsized.

If public forgiveness is indeed the best therapy and if forgiving those health-related elements that I deem to have affronted me will save me pain, suffering and monthly pocket-emptying pharmacy trips, then I have a list to forgive!

I forgive you, biopharma, for treating, but not curing disease, for I acknowledge the wages of alternative faith-healing are often death! But come on – with the best scientific and medical minds working on disease indications since the dawn of mankind, you’ve cured how many diseases – three? And don’t get me started on the common cold (more like the unconquerable cold – you think?)!

I forgive advancing age, which with each succeeding year, robs me of youth, flexibility, vitality, strength, acuity and general health, while relegating me to a permanent schedule of drug dosing. “Elderly-bots, deterior-age!”

I forgive you, social media, for the deception you perpetrated convincing me that you would compellingly transform the biopharma market by now. Unless you can tweet a drug into my bloodstream, like me into healthiness or otherwise unfriend me from disease, stop interrupting me every 30 seconds!

Short-Circuit the Recession with a Simple Apology?

According to WFA, the reconciliation process can be initiated by either the wronged or the wrongdoer, so now I assume the latter role to help biopharma out with its biggest falling out of this century.

There is one particularly culpable suspect that’s regarded as being responsible for the carnage that has beset biopharma, particularly over the past five years. Every downtick in the biotech index is attributed to it. It is mentioned as the culprit, either prominently or between the lines, in every restructuring notice and in most “Can you come to my office – now?” requests that culminate with an escorted walk-of-no-return to the edge of the corporate premises.

No wonder the economy is perturbed and holding on to its grudge, since only the negative is ever assigned to it. Whenever profits increase, corporate expansion occurs or products are approved, we take the credit, but no one’s good news press release ever thanks the economy for cooperating with business development strategies or paving the way for success.

The economy may be miffed at the lack of respect it gets facilitating the respective biotech market march to profitability and the nonstop pharma market growth to cha-ching! status, so perhaps it is time to issue an apology of pecuniary proportions to the economy.

Since the biotech market’s 1976 founding, economic growth years have outpaced recession years by at least four-to-one, and by twice that much during pharma’s history.

So, to the sulking economy that has taken its leading economic indicators and gone home, I submit, on behalf of biopharma humankind, which allowed you to shoulder the blame for our irrational, misguided or avaricious activities, an apology and request for your forgiveness, and an invitation to please come out and play with us again!

We’ll likely lapse again, but since our friendship usually booms in between downturns – can’t we just get along until, say, biotech’s 2017 patent cliff, meanwhile?

There – cathartic process concluded! The recession aftermath should be over any day now!

BioWorld reports daily on all manner of market news, so I know there’ve been enough layoffs, lawsuits, divorces, missed endpoints, deceptions and blown investments to generate many broken relationships and a cache of hurt feelings.

So, weigh in, biopharm-ers! Whom do you forgive or from whom would you seek pardon for your own biopharma-related peccadilloes? Who do you think should forgive whom (or what) in the biopharma realm? Or who should never be forgiven for offenses against the market?

Editor’s note: The blog editor hereby seeks to be forgiven for missing the Aug. 5 Forgiveness Day deadline in posting this essay.

Pharma may be prehistoric in terms of age compared to biotech, but it maneuvers more like a velociraptor than lumbering brontosaurus, as it commonly consumes everything in its path that can impend, contest or abet its dominance.

Likely, 100 years from now, pharma will still be standing and bio-who? will be so assimilated into the DNA of pharma that its individuality is what will be extinct.

Increasingly, pharma is obliging all of us to disregard the biotech industry as a standalone entity and acknowledge it as part of a seamless “biopharma” industry.

Sure, the biotech sector is projected to be the leading drug development market component by 2020 in terms of growth, R&D, new product development and well, just about everything except the executive management of the market.

Often, biotechnology company evolution entails the biotech progressively learning to stand on its own, just in time to be rancorously swept off its nimble feet in a late-stage takeover by a supposedly unwieldy pharma antagonist.

Resistance is Futile

The pharmeleon is trans-pharming again to assimilate with biotech, its latest target. Since 2000, pharma has recurrently been able to assume the persona or façade of a biotechnology entity, a VC, a med-tech, a generics developer or whatever was necessary to fend off internal and external potential maladies such as patent cliff obsession, pipeline arrhythmia, product envy, market share anxiety and stockholder disorder.

Pfizer Inc. is staving off the evolution of the generics companies by extending the reign of the Lipitor pharm-ulary with a discount on the brand drug that undercuts the generic price. It won’t work forever, but the tactic is, so far, out of the scope of regulation and has kept Lipitor from the extinction list past its expiry date. It’s not new product development, but it is innovative survival skill.

Selling brand drugs at generic prices to thwart generics cannibalization and instead parasitize the 180-day generics exclusivity period? That’s pharma-tastic!

The top-selling pharma drug list leaders will likely change every quarter for the remainder of 2012 and into 2013, reflecting the patent loss frenzy. Much analyst speculation exempts none of biotech’s best and brightest – ranging from the rare disease prodigy BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., to Amgen Inc., the market’s most profitable biotech – from the pull of pharma’s big deal crusade, as biotech’s vanguard is projected to be continually conscripted into pharma’s M&A time machine throughout the decade in order to keep repeating the history of pharma’s success.

So, Sanofi’s road to the future suddenly looks clotted with regulatory setbacks and blockbuster expiries? Implement Plan B: move Genzyme Corp. into pharm-ation to attack the clinic!

It’s a Pharma World!

Pharma permeates all it encounters. If you are waiting for the patent cliff asteroid to knock the pharma market off its axis and into extinction – give up on that thought! That threat is being flicked off more like aggravating grains of sand than a deadly space rock in hurtling free-fall.

After all, this may be pharma’s most serious patent cliff, but it isn’t its first, as the species has survived the end of gilded eras including that of Valium, Prozac, amoxicillin, Ritalin and more, and has also regularly withstood periods when more than 100 pharma patents per year expire.

Around 2030, when market archeologists excavate for clues to the fate of the self-sustaining biotechnology industry, the only artifacts they will find will be the well-preserved in-house carcasses and the fossilized stock tickers of the legendary alpha male biotechs such as Human Genome Sciences Inc., Genentech, MedImmune Inc. and also the likely additions of current market leaders such as Celgene Corp., Gilead Sciences Inc. and any other brave souls game enough to evolve to the large cap food chain menu.

In maintaining its status as the pharm-most drug development market, pharma has mastered the pharm-ula for success that relies on making the biotech market dependent on its pharm subsidies to survive.

Biotech may be first-in-brains, but pharma is first-in-business. Original innovation may be coming from biotech, but just about all else resides in the Cave of the Small Molecule Clan.

Where would the biotech market be without pharma, and more to the point: where would you, I and about a pharma-trillion other patients who have popped a pill within the last century be without the reliable presence of the ancient ones?

We all want the biotech industry to succeed and it likely will – under the general auspices of pharma.

Conceived as Europe’s answer to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ESOF has become an increasingly visible element in Europe’s efforts to foster a shared scientific identity. Although different European countries have vastly differing scientific heritages, their scientific futures are converging, thanks to an increasing level of recognition, both in Brussels and across the continent, that the region can only compete on a global basis if it acts in concert.

Ireland’s bid to host the event was originally conceived as its coming of age as a location for high quality scientific research, following an expansive strategy that began just over a decade ago. At present, however, the mood is not entirely celebratory. The present government’s commitment to open-ended, blue-skies research has wavered, following a catastrophic banking collapse in 2008, which culminated in the country entering a bailout program administered by the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Although funding for science has held up, just about, a recent sharp turn to a more industrially focused research agenda has been met with anger and dismay by some of the country’s leading scientists.

Even so, there will be plenty to celebrate in Dublin this week ‑ in terms of both homegrown successes and the very best of international science. The recent (apparent) detection of the Higgs boson at CERN, in Geneva, will provide one important focus for the meeting. CERN’s director general Rolf Heuer will be in town. But the physicists will have to share the limelight with a clutch of heavyweights from the life sciences world, including Nobel laureates Jules Hoffman (2011), Peter Doherty (1996), Torsten Niels Wiesel (1981) and James Watson (1962).

One event of interest to both camps will be Craig Venter’s What is Life lecture at Trinity College Dublin on Thursday evening. This will commemorate the original 1943 lecture series by Erwin Schroedinger, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, who spent 14 years in Dublin during and after the Second World War. Schroedinger’s book of the same name, which appeared in 1944, was a key text in the early development of molecular biology and a source of inspiration for James Watson and Francis Crick. Watson will be on hand to respond to Venter’s address. It might be an exaggeration to dub the event Clash of the Titans, but it’s an intriguing prospect nonetheless.

Fiction: 16^th Century England to 20^th Century Los Angeles

Diego Miralles, head of Janssen West Coast Research Center and Janssen Healthcare Innovation, recommended Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, calling the novel set in Tudor England “great fun and superbly well written.”

Donald R. Johnston, senior vice president and group publisher at AHC Media, BioWorld’s parent company, is working his way through Walter Mosley’s novels, based on mentions by author Greil Marcus in Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads – also recommended by Johnston. Early Mosley novels feature Easy Rawlins, a detective in 1950s and 1960s Los Angeles who was portrayed by Denzel Washington in the movie version of Mosley’s most famous work, Devil in a Blue Dress.

Anette Breindl, BioWorld’s science editor, recommended State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. The bestselling author’s novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice is set in the Amazon rainforest, offering a take on the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love.

Mary Webster, a patent attorney with Nixon Peabody LLP, is reading Intellectual Property: The Law of Trademarks, Copyrights, Patents, and Trade Secrets by Deborah Bouchoux (for a course she’s teaching at Georgetown University), the Game of Thrones series by George R.R. Martin (“everybody is talking about it”) and Extreme Rambling by Mark Thomas (“recommended by a friend”). But her favorite summer read is Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. “The characters are full of heart, and the setting in the Blue Ridge and its valleys is lovely. Hunters, gatherers, lovers, haters, laughter, sadness, birth, death, hopes for rebirth and renewal, all interwoven within a wonderful cast of characters ranging in species, age, and gender,” Webster said. “I really think this work ranks ‘Masterpiece.’”

Biotech Nonfiction: Genes and Faith

Earlier this year, BioWorld staff writer Nuala Moran read Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, “which not only captures all the science but also is a really interesting history that puts so many things in context,” she said.

BioWorld’s Breindl also cited The Forever Fix: Gene Therapy and the Boy Who Saved It by Ricki Lewis, which explores the next frontier in biomedicine through lives already touched by the science.

James Bradner, scientific founder of Tensha Therapeutics recommended RNA: Life’s Indispensable Molecule, in which author James Darnell offers a captivating account of RNA research, illuminated by his lifelong engagement in the field.

Am I My Genes: Confronting Fate and Family Secrets in the Age of Genetic Testing by Robert Klitzman was the pick of Alexis Borisy, CEO of Warp Drive Bio and partner at Third Rock Ventures. The book explores the vast implications of genetics testing and reveals how real people have balanced their desire, and fear, to learn their hereditary fate.

In a slightly different take on biotech, Mari Serebrov, BioWorld’s Washington editor, recommended The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis Collins, which examines whether science undermines or supports faith in God.

And BioWorld staff writer Cormac Sheridan cited Experiment Eleven: Deceit and Betrayal in the Discovery of the Cure for Tuberculosis by Peter Pringle, a fascinating read that details how Selman Waksman claimed sole credit for discovering streptomycin and attempted to disregard the key role of his PhD student, Albert Schatz.

At the intersection of science and business, Janssen’s Miralles suggested The Social Transformation of American Medicine by Paul Starr, which offers interesting insights into the reasons that socialized medicine did not take root in the U.S. – at least not yet. Miralles recommended the book “for those who are trying to understand how doctors and hospitals developed in America and why the U.S. is the only developed country that does not have social provision of medical care.”

And Carolyn Wang, group director for healthcare at WCG, just finished Eric Topol’s The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care, a book that’s also on the reading list of many biotech clients. Topol provides terrific context for the evolution of each part of the industry, Wang said, concluding that technology has already revolutionized every important industry except health care.

More Nonfiction: Avarice, Courage and Ingenuity

Johanna Holldack, CEO of Telormedix SA, described Thinking Fast and Slow, by Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman, as “useful for every aspect of life.” The book summarizes more than 50 years of research seeking to understand how humans make choices when faced with uncertainty.

Chris Raymond, equity research analyst at Robert. W. Baird & Co., just finished reading Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis, which investigates the tidal wave of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008. Raymond called the book enlightening “for anyone wondering how we got to this surreal place where the outcome of an election in Greece can influence the financing environment of the U.S. biotech industry.”

Leslie J. Williams, president and CEO of ImmusanT, described as “provocative” The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Revolutionary Thinking for a New Age of Prosperity by Matt Miller, which focuses on the theme of “letting go of the old ways of thinking to unleash new prosperity.” With the U.S. at a crossroads, it’s imperative “to think in news ways to remain competitive on the global stage,” Williams said.

Arthur Hiller, CEO of SciFluor Life Sciences recommended Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, author of the bestseller Seabiscuit: An American Legend. “Unbroken is the true story of Louis Zamperini’s miraculous survival after his plane went down in the Pacific during World War II,” Hiller wrote. “Zamperini and his pilot survived on a fragile raft traveling roughly 2,000 miles in about seven weeks. He then survived unimaginable tortures in Japanese prison camps, and his persistence and unbroken spirit is a true inspiration for anyone facing the daily hurdles of business or life.”

Hiller also suggested the more recent Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell, a Navy Seal who was the only member of his team to survive a mission in Afghanistan. “It’s one of the most inspiring stories I’ve ever read or heard,” Hiller observed. “The writing isn’t spectacular, but you come away from it with a profound sense of the importance of never giving up.”

And Kollol Pal, president and CEO of Mnemosyne Pharmaceuticals Inc. cited The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer as “a truly inspirational book about a student in Malawi who learned how to build a windmill from a book and brought electricity and hope to his village.”

Advice and Personal Improvement, with a Bio Twist

Jason Slingsby, CEO of ProtAffin AG is reading SHAOLIN: You Must Not Fight in Order to Win (Shaolin: Du Must Nicht Kampfen Um Zu Siegen) by Bernhard Moestl. The book examines the Chinese martial arts, which are rooted in learning about oneself in order to defeat others in battle.

ImmusanT’s Williams recommended two books in this category. True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership by Bill George “is a great book on leadership,” she said. “Follow your passion and internal compass, and your leadership will be authentic and people will follow.” She called The Complexity Advantage by Susanne Kelly and Mary Ann Allison a “fascinating” book that uses complexity theory to help adapt individual strengths to working teams.

Trista Morrison, former BioWorld Insight editor and now associate director of corporate communications at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, suggested a peek into the beginnings of the biotech industry with Career Imprints: Creating Leaders Across An Industry, penned by Monica Higgins, spouse of Ironwood CFO Michael Higgins. The book not only offers insight into industry icons but also a compelling theory about the events that shape the careers of leaders in innovation and entrepreneurship.

Morrison also recommended Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech by Sally Smith Hughes. Released last year, the book draws on two decades of research, thousands of conversations and hundreds of documents to portray the deals, the science and the business strategies that helped to launch one of the biotech industry’s behemoths.

The Classics

Kosta Steliou, president and CEO of PhenoMatriX Inc. and professor emeritus at the Cancer Research Center in the Boston University School of Medicine, recently finished The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer and The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories, edited by Robert B. Strassler. In a trifecta of Greek classics, Steliou is now reading The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, also edited by Strassler. “One cannot understand the present without knowledge of the past, and there can be no future without surviving the present,” Steliou observed.

Lynn Yoffee, BioWorld’s executive editor, picked an American classic. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is “a favorite movie of mine but I never read the book,” Yoffee said. Since 2012 is the 50th anniversary, “I’m spending the summer with Atticus, Scout, Jem, Dill and Boo.”

Yoffee’s also about to dive into a story about the 1904 Herero genocide in German South-West Africa that served as the training ground for the Holocaust in a completed manuscript called Mama Namibia, by none other than BioWorld’s Washington Editor Mari Serebrov, who is shopping it for a publisher.

And Finally . . .

As for me, I suggest The Ride of Our Lives: Roadside Lessons of an American Family by television journalist Mike Leonard. This book is the perfect antidote for hectic days filled with research, business development, financing and regulatory minutiae. The story of a classic American family road trip – with laughter and tears along the way – will put almost anyone’s summer vacation into perspective.