A European friend of mine sent me a link to a video of Sarah Palin espousing her understanding of the relationship between basic research and it application to solving human disease. Along with the video (see below) she sent the message "Please ,please don't tell me they (McCain and Palin) are going to win..." I hope for science's sake they don't....
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!
There was an article in today’s NY Times biz section which suggests that the recent financial crisis is starting to have an effect on the growth of the biotechnology industry, once thought to be a recession-proof sector. The article contends that the lack of available institutional cash and venture money is causing extant biotechnology companies to “tighten their belts.” And, if the trend continues, this lack of capital will stifle innovation, which in turn, will threaten and undermine the stability and future of the entire biotechnology sector. While times are certainly tough, the biotechnology industry, in my opinion, is alive and well and will continue to expand well into the 21st century.
It is important to note that many biotechnology companies that are struggling today are publicly-traded companies not privately held ones. Unlike publicly-traded companies, privately-held ones don’t have to answer to millions of shareholders or worry about their price per share on a daily basis. Further, the expectations for privately held companies are much less than those for publicly traded entities. Based on recent discussions with venture capitalist friends and institutional investment bankers (those that still have jobs) there is still substantial funding out there for start-ups and companies that are trying to advance their products from development into clinical testing. Many of the financially-troubled public companies mentioned in the Times article were struggling (and on the verge of failing) before the recent financial meltdown. The recent financial crisis is simply hastening their demise. The reason why many of these companies are on the brink is that they went public in the late 1990s—a time when writing a business plan on the back of a napkin was sufficient for investment bankers to underwrite a company’s IPO. Unfortunately, many of these companies were little more than research or tool box driven companies whose founders failed to understand that products not technology would make their companies successful. Put simply, these companies should have never gone public in the first place!
Not surprisingly, almost all of the companies cited in the Times article fit the ‘product-less biotechnology company’ profile. For example, Maxygen, a company originally founded as a “molecular evolution” company (that went public in 1999) didn’t identify a lead product until a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, after spending millions of dollars on preclinical development, the company no longer has sufficient funds to move the product into human clinical testing. Late last week, Maxygen announced that it would layoff 30% of its workforce and consider selling itself.
Another example cited in the article is Iceland’s DeCode Genetics, once a high flying genomics and bioinformatics company that regularly made headlines for discovering new genes for cancer, cardiovascular and hereditary diseases. While DeCode has a great genomic and bioinformatics platform (and “did outstanding science”—largely because of the genetic purity of the Icelandic population) it was never able to use its technology to identify a lead therapeutic product. DeCode’s stock price has fallen more than 90% in the last year to 29 cents per share and will likely fail given the horrendous state of Iceland’s banking industry and economy.
The impending failure of many financially-strapped biotechnology companies in the current financial environment should come as no surprise to biologists—is very consistent with Darwin’s theory of natural selection which says “only the strongest and the fittest will survive. To survive in the biotechnology industry, companies must be single-mindedly product-driven. Companies that lack a product focus, in this or future economies will be able to survive for a short while but ultimately they are doomed to fail. That said, while there may be fewer companies as the biotechnology industry continues to evolve, the companies that do survive will undoubtedly be extremely robust and fiercely competitive.
Until next time….
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!
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According to the WSJ Health Blog “Wyeth is overhauling its early-stage research by slashing in half the number of therapeutic areas and diseases for which it will pursue new medicines. The idea is to concentrate on more innovative products and get them to market faster.” Whenever large companies restructure or announce reorganization plans, job cuts are soon to follow. So, if you are a Wyeth employee I recommend updating that resume as soon as possible!
People close to the R&D restructuring (part of a larger plan, dubbed Project Impact) said the overall number of scientific jobs won’t change under the plan but some scientists will be cut because their skills aren’t transferable to other areas. Wyeth will eliminate discovery work in women’ health, reduce its therapeutic areas from 14 to 6 and continue to focus vaccines and biologics, where it has had great success with its pediatric pneumococcal vaccine, Prevnar, and the anti-inflammatory biologic Enbrel.
Wyeth joins several pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer, which have already decided to narrow the focus of their development efforts and focus more on biotechnology products. Don’t be surprise if other pharmaceutical companies announce similar restructuring plans. I predict that within 10 years or so, pharma companies will no conduct basic discovery research and abandon their internal pipelines. Instead, they will become drug “clearing houses” that specialize in developing products that were either purchased or in-licensed from smaller biotechnology and specialty pharmaceutical companies.
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!
Ar
e you, like me, wondering how we got into the economic predicament that we are currently in? Do you know what a mortgage-backed security is? For that matter, do you understand the ins and outs of the mortgage and loan business?
I heard a snippet today from a radio program called “A Giant Pool of Money” produced by Ira Glass, the host of NPR’s “This American Life.” I had heard about the program before but didn’t have an opportunity to listen to it. After listening for 15 min, much to my surprise, I totally understood how we got into the financial that we are in. Contrary to what you may think or have been lead to believe, you don’t need a degree in economics or finance to figure out why our financial infrastructure is crumbling before our eyes.
Listen to it—you won’t be sorry.
Until next time….
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!
Merck announced today that as part of its ongoing restructuring plan to cut costs it will eliminate approximately 7,200 positions — 6,800 active employees and 400 vacancies — across all areas of the Company worldwide by the end of 2011. This amounts to a 12 percent reduction in the company’s workforce. About 40 percent of the total reductions will occur in the United States. To streamline management layers across the Company, Merck will reduce its total number of senior and mid-level executives by approximately 25 percent. These positions are in addition to the 10,400 positions. As of Sept. 30, Merck has approximately 56,700 employees. In addition to the layoffs, Merck will close three research facilities; one in Tsukuba, Japan; another in Pomezia, Italy and one in Seattle Washington by the end of 2009.
Merck expects the 2008 cutbacks to save the company $3.8 billion to $4.2 billion over the next five years. BioJobBlog reported several weeks ago that Merck had been quietly laying off employees since September. I suspect that today’s announcement comes as no surprise to employees who still work at the Company.
New Jersey once dubbed “America’s medicine chest” is starting to look less full!
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting
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The Pharmalot blog reported today that Pfizer will likely layoff large numbers of R&D personnel over the next few weeks and months. This should not come as a surprise to Pfizer employees because the company recently announced that it would eliminate research in certain therapeutic areas including heart disease and obesity as part of a global reorganization plan. According to the company, the reorganization is expected to be completed by year’s end and operational in 2009. Inside sources say that the job losses should be significant and far reaching.
In other news, BioJobBlog learned today that Bristol Myers Squibb plans to announce company-wide layoffs by December 1, 2008. As previously reported by BioJobBlog, BMS has been quietly downsizing since last spring because of the impending patent expiry (in 2011) of its blockbuster anticlotting drug Plavix. BMS, unlike Pfizer, has been extremely circumspect about its impending layoffs which is causing a great deal of anxiety among its employees. The recent sale of ImClone, BMS’s partner for the cancer drug Erbitux, to Eli Lilly will undoubtedly contribute to additional layoffs at BMS in the future. Currently, Erbitux is BMS’s top selling biopharmaceutical product.
It goes without saying that it is not a good time to be a pharma employee. Unfortunately, as the old adage goes “things are likely to get worse before they get better”.
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but according to a recent survey of 3,000 job seekers conducted by the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas the time it takes to find a job is growing longer. For example, the median time for job searches conducted by those winning positions grew from 3.6 months in the second quarter to 4.4 months in the third quarter of 2008. Also, it found that 13.4% of job seekers relocated to take new positions in the third quarter of 2008. While this is up from a first quarter figure of 8.9%, it is still lower than the percentage of job seekers (15%-16%) who relocated in 2006 and part of 2007.
As layoffs increase and the US economy worsens the percentage of people willing to relocate for new positions will likely increase even as home prices continue to fall. Unfortunately, some job seekers may find themselves trapped (despite a willingness to relocate) because of an inability to sell their homes. Put simply, this may be one of the toughest job markets in recent history.
However, as a well known recruiter once told me: “All too often, job seekers allow themselves to get mired in the doom and gloom of a failing job market. However, if they can remember to approach a job search with a mindset of “all I need is a single job offer” then they will undoubtedly be successful.” That said, while your next job may not be the one that you really wanted, simply having a job is what matters in uncertain financial times.
Until next time….
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!
A friend sent me a link to the video shown below. It is called the Sarah Palin Song and it rocks!!!
Back in 1993 when I was looking for an industrial job, I came across an ad for a research scientist at a Philadelphia-based biopharmaceutical company called Neose. Unlike most other biotechnology companies at the time, the company was focused on identifying and discovering drugs against carbohydrate-based targets—a novel idea at the time. Because I had spent the previous seven years working on carbohydrate biochemistry, I applied for the job and I was invited to interview for the position. At the time, Neose was a small, marginally-funded biotech company that was started in 1993 by a cell biologist from the University of Pennsylvania.
I was very impressed with the company and thought that my background was consistent with the company’s long-term goals. Unfortunately, they never made me an offer and I went to work for one of Neose’s main competitors, a small, start-up company called Transcell Technologies. Plagued by poor management and a weak technology platform, Transcell Technologies was sold and liquidated in 1999.
Neose ultimately went public and had to reinvent itself several times over the past 14 years. At one point, it had developed a novel carbohydrate-based PEGylation technology for recombinant therapeutic proteins and monoclonal antibodies, which appeared to be gaining traction in the biogenerics market space. Unfortunately, it was “too little, too late” and like most other companies focused on carbohydrate drug discovery, Neose couldn’t sustain itself. Consequently, Neose recently inked separate deals with Novo Nordisk and BiogeneriX to liquidate most of its assets for cash deals worth only $43 million. Both companies had been collaborating separately with Neose on it clinical development programs.
Neose reported that it would retain certain intellectual property rights including those related to producing glycolipids. Like Pharmacopeia, another biopharmaceutical pioneer that recently sold its assets, Neose had a solid 15 year run—something that most biotechnology companies can only dream about!
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!
My recent post about Donna Roberts appears to be a very popular one. No fewer than 50 peo.jpg)
ple have read the post and I am now starting to receive comments from people who have had similar experiences to mine after purchasing puppies from Ms. Roberts and her daughter Grace aka Dawn Abrams. Check out this story and another that I found on the Ripoffreport.com after being alerted about them by one of my readers.
It appears that I am not the only person who received threatening comments from Ms. Roberts. Check out this bogus diatribe against a former customer who dared to question Ms. Roberts’ integrity and veracity after she purchased a very sick puppy from her.
Donna, in case you are wondering (I know you will read this), veracity means “truthfulness”—something that you know nothing about.
Stay tuned for the next installment of the Donna Roberts and Grace Abrams story.
Each year the World Bank compiles a report that assesses the world’s friendliest business climates for small companies. The top three companies on this year’s list, Singapore, New Zealand and the US have been there four years in a row. The real shocker this year was that several previously lagging nations moved up on the list, mostly because of business-friendly reforms. This year’s most improved nation is Azerbaijan, which moved up 64 spots to a overall ranking of 33rd because it reduced the time required to start a new business from 122 to 16 days, reforming its civil code and creating an online tax filing system.
Singapore has habitually been number one on the list because of its low import and export costs, strong government-imposed legal protections for investors and lopsided, employer-friendly labor regulations. The US placed high on the list because its labor laws are among the least rigid in the world and because business can be started quickly with a minimum amount of “red tape”.
For those of you who may be interested the top ten list looks like this:
To see the rest of the list and find out more about starting a small business in your own click here
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (why not start one?)
Let me begin with the good news. The Indianapolis Business journal reported today that Schwarz Pharma Manufacturing, Inc is planning a $12 million expansion of its Seymour, Indiana manufacturing plant and distribution center. When completed the expansion is expected to increase the company's employment in the southern Indiana city from 366 to 516 by 2011. The drug maker-a unit of Schwarz Pharma AG of Monheim, Germany-said it plans to begin hiring managers, business associates and production staff later this month.
And now, the bad news. The Pharmalot Blog reported today that the New Jersey-based generic manufacturer Par Pharmaceuticals is eliminating 26 percent of its workforce expected to save from $45 million to $55 million a year. Jobs will be lost in manufacturing, research and development, and other departments. How much more downsizing and job elimination can New Jersey take before it goes bankrupt? Maybe Icelanders can shed some light on that?
Until next time….
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting
As many of you may know, I annually participate in several career fairs (sponsored by scientific societies) wher.png)
e I present seminars to students and postdocs who are desperately seeking employment. I talk about resume writing, interviewing techniques and designing and managing job searches. While all of these things are helpful, in the end, finding a job really comes down to one thing—networking or perhaps more aptly put —self promotion. Yes, I said it—you really do have to SELL yourself when trying to land a job! This is very difficult for scientists because we are taught (and it is hammered into us) that self aggrandizement is a cardinal sin if you are to be taken seriously as a serious scientist. While this may have been true in the past, it is no longer the case in today’s highly competitive and shrinking job market.
With this as a backdrop, I found a compelling article by Alina Tugend in Sunday’s New York Times that offers insights into self promotion and how to integrate it into routine job searches. I hope that after reading the article you will begin to understand why those scientists who shun the art of self promotion are typically the ones without jobs!
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!
I invite those of you who have been following this story to take a few minutes to read the comments that Donna Roberts continues to leave on my blog. Ms Roberts, who was convicted of several counts of animal cruelty in New Jersey last summer, is the mother of Grace aka “Dawn” Abrams who fraudulently sold me my dog Moose several months ago. Although, Ms. Roberts was not involved in the transaction between Grace and me, she continues to send me threatening and bullying e-mail messages proclaiming her daughter’s (and her own) innocence.
I continue to post Ms. Robert’s comments because I want people who read my blog to understand the type of person that I am dealing with! Unfortunately, she reminds me a lot of Sarah Palin—another woman of questionable ethics and integrity. And, I am sad to say that Ms Roberts is about as bright as Ms. Palin too!
Until next time….
Good Luck and Vote for Obama
Since change is in the air, I decided that the time was right to make a few changes at BioJobBlog. For the past two years I’ve been writing about jobs and how to get them. Unfortunately, people who read my blog can’t search or apply for jobs without leaving the BioJobBlog website. With this in mind, I added an Indeed job widget to the side panel and Google ads at the bottom of BioJobBlog. The addition of these new features will allow readers to search and apply for jobs directly from BioJobBlog.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the Indeed job widget, it displays several sponsored jobs and also allows job searches (scroll down to the search box at the bottom of the widget). If you are interested in a sponsored job or any returned from an Indeed job search, simply click on the links and you will be directed to a site where you can apply for them. By now, everybody knows how Google ads work (scroll all the way to the bottom of the blog) so I won’t bother to explain.
I hope that you like the changes and use them! Look for other changes and improvements to BioJobBlog in the very near future.
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (now from BioJobBlog).jpg)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said about 25% of teenage girls received at least one dose of Merck & Co.'s Gardasil vaccine in 2007, providing the first national estimate of usage of the company’s controversial anti- HPV (cervical cancer) vaccine.
A 25% usage rate for a a new vaccine during its first year on the market is outstanding. That said, Merck’s Gardasil is the only approved anti-HPV vaccine in the US. Approval of GlaxoSmithKline’s competing product, Cervarix, by FDA has been delayed for so-called “regulatory issues.” Also, Merck has been heavily promoting Gardasil use via well-crafted DTC ads and a variety of clever promotional campaigns aimed at adolescent girls and their mothers.
Despite all the negative press and Merck’s questionable marketing practices, Gardasil appears to be doing very well—something that Merck desperately needs.
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!
As you may have heard, three scientists Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien shared this 
year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry for their pioneering work on the Green Florescent Protein (GFP). GFP revolutionized the fields of molecular biology and cell biology and led to a greater understanding of the roles of proteins in cell, physiology, development and molecular trafficking.
I first became acquainted with GFP back in the mid 1990s when I was working in Bill Ward’s laboratory at Rutgers University. Bill had worked on GFP for over 25 years and I convinced him that GFP would be an ideal educational tool to teach biochemistry and molecular biology to undergraduate students. Prior to my arrival in Bill’s lab, a couple of graduate students had created so-called, “brightness” GFP mutants using molecular evolution techniques that were en vogue at the time. Because they were much brighter than wild type GFP, I used these mutants to develop laboratory exercises that showcased the principles of protein purification, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and molecular cloning. Although I published a paper on my work, it was the pioneering work of Ron Mardigian at BioRad that ultimately led to the development in 1997 of GFP-based education kits. Ron’s GFP kits were a huge success and are now used to teach biochemistry and molecular biology at the high school and college levels throughout the world.
GFP is an effective educational tool because everyone including children and adults is fascinated by things that glow. This brings to mind something that happened at a global GFP conference that Bill Ward organized in 1997 at Rutgers University. There were over 300 GFP researchers from all over the world in attendance. Bill, who is something of character and has a flair for the dramatic, wanted to WOW the conference attendees. Prior to the meeting, Bill asked us to prepare 2 liters of bacteria that over expressed the GFP “brightness” mutant. During the opening session of the conference, Bill had the 2 liter flask (sitting on a UV lamp) at the podium with him. The room was very dark (on purpose) and without warning he switched on the lamp—I will never forget the collective, audible gasp from the audience upon seeing the intense green glow emitted from the flask.
Even though I don’t work much with GFP anymore, I still get very excited when I see it. I suspect that many other people who also work with GFP or any of its color variants BFP (blue), YFP (yellow), RFP (red) etc feel the same way I do about GFP--you just can't wait to see it!
Until next time….
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!
Pharmaceutical Technology Europe published a list last month called the Pharma Exec 50 for 2008. To qualify for the list, companies had to have more than $510 billion in sales. Unlike other lists of this ilk, it is easy to read, visually appealing and mentions each company’s top selling drugs and their annual R &D spending. It is definitely worth a read by people who need or like to stay abreast of the life sciences industry. And for a change, the list was compiled by a European rather than an American publication. Not that there is anything wrong with that!
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!
After months of melodrama and acrimonious exchanges between Jim Cornelius and Carl Icahn, Eli Lilly, not Bristol-Myers Squibb, will acquire ImClone and gain access to the multibillion Erbitux franchise. In the end, Carl Icahn, ImClone’s Chairman, got the $70 per share that he wanted for ImClone stock.
BMS’s reluctance to purchase ImClone at the $70 per share price is puzzling. The Pharmalot blog reported that Jim Cornelius, BMS’s CEO, released the following statement after the ImClone/Lilly deal was finalized “We are pleased to have initiated a process that has resulted in the substantial increase of ImClone’s value for all of its stockholders. Perhaps Bristol-Myers has made a comfortable bid for ImClone which would be, in our view, very attractive to the company. If however, it did not succeed then it can liquidate its stake at a premium.” This makes about as much sense as Sarah Palin’s explanation of the factors responsible for global warming—the amount of money that BMS would garner if it liquidates its 16% stake in ImClone would pale in comparison to revenues that would annually accrue from Erbitux sales. Apparently I am not alone in my thinking. According to a financial analyst “the stake’s value independent of full ownership of IMCL is NOT strategic, and gets BMY nothing,”
In my opinion, Jim Cornelius’s failure to acquire ImClone (at any cost) has jeopardized BMS’s future. He had the opportunity to right the wrongheaded licensing deal that his predecessor Peter Dolan entered into with ImClone. The inability of BMS to retain at least partial ownership of its flagship biotechnology product doesn’t bode well for a company that is trying to reinvent itself as a “next generation biopharma company”—if there is a next generation at BMS.
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!
New Jersey-based Pharmacopeia, the first-ever combinatorial chemistry company, announced that it had agreed to be purchased by Ligand Pharmaceuticals in a stock deal worth about $70 million. Onetime a leader in combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening, Pharmacopeia has struggled of late after it jettisoned its profitable molecular modeling division several years ago. While the company was able to advance several of its lead compounds into early phase clinical testing, its longtime business model, predicated on multiple, small discovery deals with large pharmaceutical companies, was unable to provide enough capital to continue to sustain operations.
Pharmacopeia was established in 1993 after its founders licensed from Columbia University several of the first issued combinatorial chemistry patents. The company was a pioneer in combinatorial chemistry (and subsequently high throughput screening) and was the first to publicly tout the virtues of combinatorial chemistry in drug discovery. By the mid-1990s, many pharmaceutical companies had embraced combinatorial chemistry as the “next big thing” and began eliminating traditional natural product and medicinal chemistry jobs. The industry’s love affair with combinatorial chemistry grew so strong that many companies (most notably Merck), completely eliminated their natural products discovery departments in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, the role of combinatorial chemistry in drug discovery never lived up to its promised potential and was largely abandoned in the early 2000s. Although combinatorial chemistry is now part of the modern day drug discovery paradigm, this onetime “shining star” has largely been relegated to a minor supporting role.
I first became acquainted with Pharmacopeia in 1994 after I took a job with Transcell Technologies, a now-defunct biotechnology company that was co-located with Pharmacopeia in a research facility in Monmouth Junction, NJ. While Transcell and Pharmacopeia shared a cafeteria and some common laboratory equipment, Pharmacopeia employees were strictly forbidden to talk with Transcell employees— lest they inadvertently divulge proprietary combinatorial chemistry concepts that might jeopardize the company’s future. Coincidentally, a guy who lived two doors down from my family and me turned out to be Pharmacopeia’s in-house intellectual property attorney. Although, Ron and I became good friends, he was also extremely tight-lipped about the “goings-on” at Pharmacopeia. Privately-held Pharmacopeia went public in 1995 and at one time, its market capitalization was almost $1.0 billion.
By any reckoning, a 15-year run is outstanding for a biopharmaceutical company. However, as the old adage goes, “All good things must come to an end.” At present, it is not clear, whether or not California-based Ligand will relocate the company or cut jobs. Nevertheless, Pharmacopeia’s impending demise sends a clear signal that the golden age of combinatorial chemistry has ended!
Until next time….
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!
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The New York Times reported today that the Wuhan Zoo in Central China has taken to feeding its two 3-year-old pandas homemade chicken soup to reduce stress and provide them with a “nutritional boost.” Xiwang and Weiwei needed a boost after China’s weeklong National Day celebration. As many as 30,000 visitors swarmed the zoo this past Wednesday and over 1000 people packed into panda enclosure to see them. This caused the pandas to pace restlessly and zoo officials decided that it would be good to give them some chicken soup because they were “fatigued and had a bit of a shock.” Their normal diet consists mainly of bamboo, milk and buns.
The pandas apparently love chicken zoo and according to the zoo “They drink it like they drink their milk.” That said who can resist a steaming hot bowl of mom’s chicken soup when feeling ill or when things just aren’t going well? Personally, I like matzo balls in my chicken soup—but that is a different story!
Until next time….
Good Luck and Have a Cup of Chicken Soup on Me!!!!!
As you may recall, I purchased two dogs, a 10 week old Havanese puppy and a supposed 9- month old male Havanese “rescue puppy” named Marcus (now called Moose, see pic) from a New Jersey dog breeder named Dawn aka Grace Abrams. From the outset, we had suspicions about Moose’s age and true heritage. Our suspicions were heightened after our veterinarian announced that Moose was much older than 9 months and that he was suffering from ear and urinary tract infections, two types of intestinal worms and had 4 loose teeth because of periodontal disease. Also, Moose didn’t look anything like Sandy. Based on photos we found online, Moose looked more like a Maltese than a Havanese—something that was verified by casual conversations with Maltese owners and many veterinary professionals.
Because of my molecular biology training, I wondered whether a genetic test, similar to those used for human genetic testing, was commercially available for dogs. Much to my delight, I discovered that Mars Veterinary had developed a test called the Wisdom Panel that can be use to analyze and verify or refute the lineage of over 135 breeds of dogs. Because of our growing suspicions, my wife and I decided to have both of our dogs tested to verify their breed designations. We received the Wisdom Panel results for Sandy and Moose last week. Like other things in life there is some good news and some bad news. First, let me give you the good news.
The Wisdom Panel results revealed that Sandy is truly a Havanese (there were negligible traces of other breeds but they were consistent with the Havanese breed as a whole). Now, the bad news (which is actually good news for us). Moose the supposed 9-month old Havanese is in reality a mixed breed dog whose lineage consists of equal amounts of Havanese, Miniature Poodle, Shih Tzu and Maltese. This result coupled with the bogus Havanese pedigree papers that Ms. Abrams gave us when we purchased Moose, suggests that Ms. Abrams, who claims to be an experienced Havanese breeder, likely committed fraud when she sold him to us. After all, how could an experienced Havanese breeder like Dawn, who has been selling “Havanese” puppies for the past few years, mistake a 2 year old mixed breed dog for a 9-month old Havanese puppy?
Despite mounting evidence against Dawn and her mother, Donna Roberts, they continue to sell dogs to unsuspecting would-be pet owners. With this in mind, I recently came across several new ads likely posted by Dawn and Donna using old and sometimes new aliases to sell their dogs!
http://www.breeders.net/detail.php?id=210048
http://www.breeders.net/detail.php?id=143532
http://www.breeders.net/detail.php?id=210055
http://www.breeders.net/detail.php?id=21004
Until next time….
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!
Carl Icahn wasn’t bluffing—there really was another company conducting due diligence on ImClone. And, true to Mr. Icahn’s word, Eli Lilly finished its due diligence late Wednesday and announced today that it will bid $6.1 billion or $70 per share to purchase ImClone. Mr. Icahn has steadfastly insisted that $70 per share was his magic number and that he wouldn’t sell the company to anyone for less than that. While I have been critical of Mr. Icahn in the past, I have to tip my hat to his negotiating skills and his ability to seal a deal.
Lilly’s bid places enormous pressure on Bristol-Myers Squibb to offer considerably more than $70 per share to prevent Eli Lilly from acquiring ImClone. Given BMS’s tenuous status as an independent pharmaceutical company, it cannot afford to lose its share of the $1.3 billion in sales that Erbitux generates annually. Further, BMS is trying to reinvent itself as “next generation biopharma company” using Erbitux as its flagship product. That said, BMS’s future may hinge on its ability to purchase ImClone— something that it ought to have done years ago to avoid the bidding war with Lilly that is about to ensue.
Stay tuned for the next installment of “As the deal turns.”
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!
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