San Francisco Mayor London Breed has suggested that vacant downtown office spaces should be made available for biotech companies to expand, according to the San Francisco Business Times. The biotech industry could help breathe new life into the area, Breed argued. She highlighted a 5% life sciences vacancy rate in the city in contrast to…
Why hospital biobanks should supply biotechs
When it comes to using biospecimens for research, the saying “garbage in, garbage out” applies (Compton, 2018). This maxim has been a driving force in biospecimen science: a field in which the focus is pre-analytical factors affecting biospecimen quality. It has also been a driving force in the professionalization of biobanking. As a result, the…
Private equity and SPACs in the biopharma and biotech landscape
During the past few years, the biopharma and biotech markets have seen rapid growth. The global biotechnology market was worth $266 billion in 2019 is projected to reach $505 billion by 2026.1 In those strategic and important markets, what roles do private equity and Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) play? An overview of the biotech…
Answering the CDMO shortage: A new paradigm for drug development
What can the pharma industry do about the critical shortage of contract manufacturing organization (CMO) and contract development and manufacturing company (CDMO) facilities? For a growing number of young entrepreneurial drug companies, the answer is a middle ground between building their own facilities and outsourcing to the saturated CMO/CDMO market. This middle ground lies in…
How COVID-19 has affected Big Pharma and biotech
Biotechnology traces its roots to the Neolithic era when early civilizations discovered how to ferment grains to prepare alcoholic brews and bread. It wasn’t until genetic engineering became mainstream in the mid-1970s, however, that biotechnology, as we know it today, was launched. The field continues to evolve today. The advent of new technology has revolutionized the market…