ARTICLES BY LOUIS

• Will Providers Compete With Hubs – And Pharma – For Drug Discovery Customers?

  8/19/2014

  Here’s hoping this doesn’t rise to the category of grandiloquent theories, but the convergence of two global trends in drug discovery should be considered by business strategists at outsourcing providers as well as pharma sponsors. 

• For Life Sciences, Enter London, Cambridge, Oxford Via MedCity

  8/6/2014

  The U.K. sounds a challenge to Boston and San Francisco bio-clusters. MedCity is a newly formed organization to support all the life science activity in the region in once compact area (London, Cambridge, Oxford) that forms an equilateral triangle of about 100 miles on each side, The Golden Triangle.

• Can't Escape Outsourcing Anywhere

  8/6/2014

  I picked up a copy of Fortune to read on the train home. Before we were out of Penn Station, I was already deep into a section titled “Outsourcing for GOOD.” This 12-page spread in Fortune is a “special advertising section,” which means it offers a clear idea of how outsourcing providers in other industries think about themselves and market their services. Would they have a different tact than service providers for drug discovery, development and manufacturing?

• Puerto Rico Back On The Map Of Pharmaceutical Locations

  7/24/2014

  There were many options (and precious time) for a journalist at BIO 2014 in San Diego: pharmaceuticals, biotechs, academia, countries, regions, consortiums and the like. One place I just had to find: Puerto Rico. Where had the Commonwealth gone? Was it still on the map of pharmaceutical development, manufacturing and outsourcing?

• AAIPharma/Cambridge Major: A CDMO With Two Names And A New CEO

  7/23/2014

  Stephan Kutzer took the time to speak to Outsourced Pharma on July 9, the day AAIPharma Services Corp. (AAIPharma) and Cambridge Major Laboratories, Inc. (CML) announced he had become the combined companies’ new CEO.

• Fibrotech Knows Translational Research Methodology, Shire and Pharma Industry Agree

  7/8/2014

  Australia-based biotech with anti-fibrosis program designs the best path to clinical success. By Louis Garguilo, Executive Editor, Outsourced Pharma

• Fireworks At BIO 2014 San Diego

  7/1/2014

  Aboard USS Midway, San Diego Bay – The late evening sky west of the ship’s deck lights up with fireworks feting the assembled attendees and honorary of the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s 21^st annual international conference and exhibition. Bright lights rise meteorically and explode in an array of color and excitement, illustrating visually the enthusiasm and energy of the biotechnology industry gathered on board, and by extension around the world.

• Pharma Might Learn About M&A Integration From The CMO World

  6/9/2014

  The urge to merge in the pharmaceutical industry has been strong in 2014. However, the ability to get a deal done and successfully integrate those that transpire is far from guaranteed. This might ring true particularly with the kind of high-profile deals we are seeing recently. Pharma might benefit from some insight into one such deal from the provider side of the business.

  This spring Jim Mullen became CEO of DPx Holdings B.V., formed in a $2.65 billion transaction combining JLL Partners’ assets Patheon and Banner Life Sciences, with Royal DSM’s Pharmaceuticals Products business. Mullen previously held the title of CEO of Patheon. This was a large deal in the service provider sector. In a recent interview with Outsourced Pharma, Mullen walked us through some of the key elements that allowed the deal to transpire.

• The Genes Of The Industry From BIO 2000 – 2014

  6/9/2014

  The first Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) annual conference and exhibition I attended was in 2000 in Boston. Early registrants had to be accompanied through cordoned walkways by Boston police mounted on large horses. There were crowds of people, some quite angry, waving creative signs and yelling about staying out of their genes and stopping the altering of their food.

  I am not one to be overly squeamish, but I remember thinking it was fifty-fifty: Either a protester would get me or I would be trampled by one of the horses. I was working in economic development for the state of New York as a Senior Director of Industry Development, and had just been handed the biotech industry cluster. Now I thought I knew why. Maybe I should have asked a few more questions.

• Just When You Thought It Safe….Another Pfizer-AZ Preview

  5/15/2014

  Please consider giving us a bit of credit here at Outsourced Pharma. We reported, like everyone else, the news of Pfizer going after AstraZeneca. What we did not do was inundate you with a whole bunch of conjecture and speculation on the potential deal.

  A lot of attention is of course expected and needed when the biggest pharma in the world goes after an international firm that also makes a lot of news. The media coverage has indeed been informative, well thought out, and thought provoking. It has also reached levels of opining on opinions of the opinions quoted by other sources. Discussed has been whatThere has been discussion of what  this deal might mean for the independent companies, respectively; their separate and combined pipelines and therapeutic areas of prowess; the portents for the entire pharma industry; the impact on patients and drug prices; employees and lay-offs; the economic development, tax policies, and the national pride of the U.S. and U.K. governments; and the newcombined corporate entity that then might be split up again. And all this is happening before we know if the merger is even going to occur.