The Biotechnology Industry Keeps on Getting Smaller: Celgene Buys Abraxis Biosciences for $2.9 Billion
The recession is clearly taking its toll on the biotechnology industry and continues to force it to consolidate. Today, Celgene announced that it would purchase Los Angeles, CA-based Abraxis Biosciences, Inc for $2.9 billion in cash and stock to expand its cancer drug pipeline. The company hopes to "re-energize" sales of Abraxis' only approved drug, the breast cancer treatment Abraxane, and also win approval for Abraxane as a treatment for skin, lung, and pancreatic cancer. Sales of Abraxane began to tank after Astra Zeneca terminated a marketing agreement with Abraxis in 2008. Abraxane is an injectable medicine that is approved to treat breast cancer in patients who have failed all other treatment options.
New Jersey-based Celgene, the maker of Revlimid (multiple myeloma, and one type of the bone barrow disease myelodysplastic syndrome) and Vidazas (acute myeloid leukemia and five types of myelodysplastic syndrome) expects to seek approval of Abraxane as a treatment for lung cancer early next year. Celegene also sells Thalomid, a modified version of thalidomide, to treat mutliple myeloma and certain forms of leprosy.
Abraxis Biosciences employs about 900 people. While no layoffs or job cuts were announced, don’t be surprised when they happen shortly after the deal closes later this year.
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!
When I was an undergraduate pre-vet student at Cornell, I took a course called “Introduction to Bee Keeping.” In Cornell parlance this was a so-called gut course: one that you took because it was easy to get an A grade. The course was taught by a professional beekeeper named Roger Morse who kept his bees in Ithaca during the Spring/Summer in Florida during the winter. At that time, price of honey had nearly tripled (it was during the counterculture days) and beekeepers were living large. As is often the case, this “gut course” was one of the most fascinating and best courses that I took at Cornell and it provided me with a life long appreciation and respect for honey bees..gif)
BioJobBlog and Career Management Source, a producer of online applications for streamlining job searching and hiring, have teamed to create .jpg)
Summer has finally arrived and everyone I know is kicking back, looking forward to their previously planned vacations and enjoying their four day (summer hours) work week. While many folks still have jobs, the unemployment rates are not dropping as quickly as anticipated and large numbers of layed-off and right-sized former life sciences employees are still without jobs. 
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The once venerable drugmarker Eli Lilly & Co yesterday 
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Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies like to distinguish themselves from companies that manufacture consumer products because their products have the potential to save the lives of patients suffering from a plethora of illnesses. While a life-saving cancer treatment may inherently be more valuable than a pair of snow tires, the goal of the companies that manufacture them is to sell enough products to remain profitable. To that end, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have an edge over consumer products companies because drug makers can use altruism and philanthropy to market their drugs. In fact, many drug manufacturers play up their commitments to altruism and philanthropy to justify high drug prices because of the enormous costs associated with drug discovery and development. This tactic begs the question: “Just how philanthropic are drug makers?”.jpg)
While the layoffs at pharma and biotech companies continue, the good news is that fewer jobs are being lost in 2010 as compared with 2009. Despite the massive loss of R&D and sales and marketing jobs, many life sciences companies are beginning to hire again. In general, job opportunities at emerging growth public biotech and venture-backed start-ups appear to be growing while those at big pharma and big biotech are stagnant or shrinking. Specifically companies are 
More and more people are losing their corporate jobs because of the recession. The bleak job market coupled with diminishing opportunities for older, seasoned employees is forcing many to consider starting their own businesses to join the ranks of the self employed. However, before you take the leap, I highly recommend that you read Phyllis Korkki’s article in this Sunday’s New York Times entitled .jpg)
Earlier this month, Merck BioVentures, the company’s new division focused on developing follow-on biologics aka biosimilars announced that it was 
There is no question that video is taking the Internet by storm and is quickly replacing the written word as a means of communication. Despite the obvious business opportunities offered by videos, most big pharma companies have failed to jump on the video bandwagon. As always, there are exceptions to the status quo and a handful of life sciences companies most notably Johnson & Johnson, have been experimenting with video over the past few years.
Mary Canady who writes the 
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The expanding European financial crisis is forcing drug makers to continue to explore ways in which to cut costs. Faced with budget deficits amid a global economic crisis, European countries such as Germany, France and Greece have cut or plan to cut their health-care spending. Greece last month ordered drugmakers, including France’s largest drug maker Sanofi-Aventis, to cut prices by 3 percent to 27 percent to help rescue its economy. 
Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare, already under Congressional investigation for selling allegedly tainted Tylenol, announced late Tuesday that it was recalling other products made in the Puerto Rico manufacturing facility in question.
Now that the economy is improving and the job market is loosening up a bit, the likelihood of a face-to-face job interview is increasing. The folks over at .jpg)
After weeks of bad press regarding
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The differences between the Millennial (born 1980ish-2000) and Baby Boomers (born 1947-1966) generations are noticeable and stark. To that end, the differences between these two generational groups have been the subject of many articles and many talk radio shows (my friend fellow boomer and host of the always amusing The 
John Lechleiter, PhD, chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly & Co. today told members of the Detroit Economic Club that the US is losing its competitive edge and that “evidence is mounting for an 
Johnson & Johnson is arguably one of the world leaders in bringing social media to the pharmaceutical industry. Marc Monseau and his dedicated team oversee a network of blogs, video channels and Twitter feeds while some of J&J’s brand companies even sponsor patient advocacy communities like ADHD Moms and ADHD Allies. However, the company’s recent handling of manufacturing problems and recall of Tylenol and other pediatric medicines seemingly flies in the face of openness and transparency; two of the underlying tenets and guiding principles of social media.
After several years of taking Donna Roberts to task for fraud and the illegal sale of dogs, she has finally decided to sue me. While I haven't seen the lawsuit yet, I suspect it will accuse me of libel, slander etc.
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I came of age in the late 60s and early 70s and the women’s movement was in full swing. Other men and I worked hard to ensure that future generations of women were treated equally and have the same rights and opportunities as their male counterparts. However, some of the earlier and more radical members of the moment believed that society should be genderless and that there were no differences between the sexes. While that notion was intellectually, emotionally and psychologically appealing, nobody can deny that there aren’t obvious, anatomical, hormonal and genetic differences between human males and females. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that women behave differently than men and visa versa (of course in biology there are always exceptions).
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and MedTrust Online, an online oncology information site 
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There are rumors that companies are hiring again and that pharmaceutical jobs may begin to make a comeback over the next six months to a year. This may be a real possibility based on a new report released yesterday the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc.
Last week I attended the Advanced Learning Institute’s conference on 
About a year ago I posted an 
The fallout from Pfizer’s purchase of Wyeth last year continues to slog on. Today, 