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Some of you may have noticed that I have not been uploading new posts as frequently as I have in the past.  I have been blogging @BioJobBlog for the past five years and quite frankly I need a little break. Traffic at the site is typically lower during the summer months so I decided to ratchet back a bit and think about the future direction of the blog.  That said, I will be writing new posts from time to time but will not be back to full time blogging until after Labor Day.

Those of you who may be interested in guest blogging please contact me and we may be able to work something out.  Also, any persons interested in advertising @ BioJobBlog ought to contact me for pricing.

I want to thank those of you who have helped to make the blog a success by reading it!  At present, BioJobBlog averages between 60,000 to 65,000 unique hits per month! I hope to continue to grow its readership in the future. To that end, I welcome any ideas, suggestions, kudos, kvetches etc to help me to reach that goal.

Until next time... 

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting

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Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Japan’s largest pharmaceutical company, yesterday announced its intention to purchase the Swiss drug maker Nycomed for 8 to 10 billion euros ($11.4-14 billion). While the deal is not certain to close, it signals Takeda’s intention to purchase its way into the US and European markets.

Takeda acquired Cambridge, MA-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals in 2008 for $8.8 billion, the largest foreign acquisition ever by a Japanese company. The Millennium acquisition was intended to bolster Takeda’s competencies in genomics and oncology drug discovery. If Takeda is successful in its bid, Nycomed would enhance the company’s standing in treatments for gastric, respiratory and inflammatory disorders. Nycomed has operations in roughly 70 countries, with Europe representing 50 percent of the company’s sale and emerging markets 38 percent.

Takeda’s chief executive officer Yasuchika Hasegawa has pursued an aggressive M&A strategy since assuming control of the company in 2003. Historically, Japanese drugmakers intentionally remained small and were content doing business in local and other Asian markets. However, Hasegawa has changed the “game” and has forced some of Takeda’s rivals to emulate his global strategy. To that end, in recent years Daiichi Sankyo Company has purchased Plexxikon and Ranbaxy and Astellas acquired OSI pharmaceuticals as part of a westward expansion.

While Takeda remains Japan’s largest pharmaceutical company, net profit slumped 17 percent last year and the company is losing patent protection for its largest selling drugs, Prevacid (ulcers) and Actos (diabetes). Like Takeda, Nycomed sales are being hit by the loss of patent protection for its largest selling drug Protonix (antacid). Worldwide sales of the drug plummeted by almost 28 percent. Therefore, it would appear that Takeda’s pursuit of Nycomed is based more on its pipeline rather than currently marketed products.

Stay tuned for late-breaking news on the deal!

Until next time,

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!

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On episode #5 of the podcast This Week in Microbiology, Vincent, Cliff, Michael and Ron discuss the genome sequence of a mercury-methylating bacterium and the antimicrobial effects of nanoparticles on polar soil microflora.

Right click to download TWiM #5 (52.5 MB .mp3, 76 minutes).

Subscribe to TWiM (free) on iTunes,  Zune Marketplace, via RSS feed, by email or listen on your mobile device with the Microbeworld app.

Image of Biofilm of Desulfovibrio desulfuricans by PNNL - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory via flickr

Links for this episode:

• Genome sequence of a mercury-methylating Desulfovibrio strain
• Desulfovibrio commentary in ScienceDaily
• Review on the genus Desulfovibrio (pdf)
• Perturbation of an Artic soil microbe community by nanoparticles
• Nanoparticles and microbes - commentary at PopSci
• Biodegradeable nanostructures with antimicrobial activity
• Potential bacteriophage applications (Microbe)
• Letters read on TWiM #5

Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twim@twiv.tv , or call them in to 908-312-0760. You can also post articles that you would like us to discuss at microbeworld.org and tag them with twim.

 Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Listening (to TWiM)

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Believe it or not, I was interviewed by Karl Schmieder of Bridge 6, a digital healthcare marketing firm about the genesis of BioCrowd and why online networking is important for bioprofessionals and healthcare providers. This is a first for me and it signals that online networking for life scientists and other bioprofessionals may actually be starting to catch on. You can read the entire interview by clicking here.

While most other sites like Benchfly, Epernicus, Labspaces, ResearchGate and others cater almost exclusively to scientists, BioCrowd was created as an online networking and career development site for ALL bioprofessionals including those involved with marketing, manufacturing, publishing, writing, fun raising etc. We want prospective BioCrowd members to think of the community as a “one-stop-shopping” site for life sciences professionals who want to network, advance a career or even start  up a biotechnology company! Check us out!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (I hope to see you at BioCrowd!)

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Layoffs at big pharma companies have become commonplace but downsizing at generic manufacturers? Aren’t generic drugs sales exploding through the roof? And, aren’t all major pharmaceutical companies facing patent cliffs responsible for the massive downsizing that has taken place over the past four years? Teva executives apparently didn’t get that memo and announced today that the company will lay off 200 employees at its Irvine, CA manufacturing facility. Of the 200, 195 will lose their jobs by February 6, 2011.

This is the second round of layoffs at the manufacturing facility that Teva acquired after purchasing biosimilar manufacturer Sicor Inc., in 2003 for $3.4 billion. Last July, 70 jobs were eliminated at the plant which previously manufactured Propofol, the powerful sedative implicated in Michael Jackson’s death. Teva has since discontinued production of the drug because of the drug because it was hard to manufacture and that the company got little or no profit from it.

The company had to halted production and recalled some Propofol in 2009 after 41 patients were sickened with flu-like symptoms. The problem resulted from elevated endotoxin levels found in some vials of the sedative. Several lawsuits also were filed over the drug.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!

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I started writing BioJobBlog about three years ago mainly to express my personal views on a variety of topics ranging from science education and career development to happenings in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. At the time, blogging was a relatively new phenomenon (especially in the life sciences space) and I had no idea whether or not anybody would really care about what I thought or had to say. 

Apparently, some people do—last week the number of visitors to BioJobBlog quietly surpassed the 1,000,000 unique visitor mark. I say quietly because I had been assiduously watching my stats (like most bloggers) over the past few months to craft a post as soon as I surpassed the mark. Ironically, I inadvertently took my “eye off the ball” and unknowingly passed the mark earlier this week by about 15,000 page views. Go figure.

I want to thank everybody who reads BioJobBlog and finds my post useful. I know that at times I can be vitriolic and pedantic; but I am who I am and I guess you have to take the bad with the good—or not!

For those of you who may not know, BioJobBlog is self-funded (I have no sponsors or paid advertisers). Because of this, I get to say what I want, when I want and how I want to say it. Hopefully, my financial situation will remain stable so that I can continue to self finance the blog and “tell it the way it is” (or at least how I SEE it).

Finally, I want to thank the readers who send me comments and notes about my posts and the blog in general. Generally, they are helpful, incisive and thought provoking and provide fodder for new posts. With this in mind, if anyone is interested in appearing as a guest blogger at BioJobBlog, please don’t hesitate to contact me! While blogging is often fun and even addictive, it can become extremely tedious and  labor intensive at times.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Reading!!!!!!!!!!

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By now, most of you have heard at some point or another that networking is critical when it come to trying to land a job. Unfortunately, networking is not an inherited genetic trait and it takes a fair amount of skill (some say art) to develop and excel at it! To make matters worse, most scientists are told and frequently reminded that networking for career advancement is equivalent to shameless self promotion and that “good scientists” generally refrain from doing it. Consequently, most scientists are not good at networking and in some cases shamefully inept.

The advent of social networking sites like BioCrowd, Facebook and others provides an opportunity for scientists to overcome their fear or guilt about networking. More importantly it provides a “safe haven” for scientists who want to avoid the anxiety and pressures of face-to-face networking at live events. While online networking may be a surrogate or substitute for the real thing, if leveraged correctly, it can be used to find and land a job or advance a career. 

Surprisingly, the use of social networking by life scientists lags behind that of the general public. After all, many life scientists pride themselves as being on the cutting edge or part of the vanguard pushing new technologies that can be used to “push back the frontiers of science.” Nevertheless, social media and online networking sites have become routine parts of most job searches and both are used by employers and prospective employees alike. To that end, I crafted a Powerpoint presentations that describes the “dos and don’ts” of social media for job searches and career advancement. 

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting

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Emily Johnston of Medicareer sent me a message last night to inform me that BioJobBlog made its top 50 biotech blog list. While I don’t know much about Medicareer (nor does BioJobBlog have a business or financial relationship with the organization) this is a first for the blog and it is quite an honor to be included on the list. I guess spending hundreds of hours over the past three years writing blog posts is actually beginning to pay off!

A quick perusal of the list reveals some very interesting and useful biotechnology blogs that are worth reading. And, surprisingly, there are a couple of blogs on the list that I previously didn’t know about.

Hat tip to Medicareer!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Blogging

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For those of you who want to learn about  why Vincent and I created BioCrowd, listen to our very first podcast!   Anybody who is interested in doing a podcast for BioCrowd, please send us a note along with your ideas and when you might be available for recording the session.

Hope to see you at the Bcrowd!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Listening

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Yes, even the Ivy League isn’t immune to food poisoning outbreaks from time-to-time. There are currently 10 confirmed cases of Salmonella food poisoning at Princeton U. Another 50 people or so have also fallen ill with gastrointestinal symptoms consistent with Salmonella food poisoning.  As a precaution, university officials have temporarily discontinued doing business with their produce suppliers. For those of you who don’t know, Princeton is famous (infamous?) for its so-called dining clubs. These clubs take the place of sororities and fraternities which are not allowed at this august institution of higher education. Obviously, there is more than eating that goes on at these “dining clubs.”

The reason I am blogging about the outbreak is two-fold. First, I live about seven miles from Princeton and it has been all over the local news. Second, I did my PhD work on the pathogenesis of Salmonella gastroenteritis. So, Salmonella food poisoning is dear to my heart (thankfully, not my gastrointestinal tract). Many infectious disease experts tend to dismiss the seriousness of Salmonella gastroenteritis. This is likely because it is usually not as devastating as shigellosis or infections caused by enteroinvasive strains of Escherichia coli (which is actually Shigella masquerading as E. coli). As my major professor once put it “You know when you have Salmonella gastroenteritis—if you can’t decide than it is not salmonellosis.”

I am happy to report that I never came down with gastroenteritis while working for over three years with enteroinvasive Salmonella strains (even though I was routinely mouth pipetting and eating lunch in the lab; practices which aren’t acceptable by today’s standards). I like to think that “the bugs” were afraid of me. Alternatively I had either a great immune system or extremely good aseptic techniques. Whatever the reason, it is always embarrassing when card-carrying microbiologists come down with the disease(s) that they are studying. Luckily, I never came down with the disease caused by the bacterium that I was studying during my first postdoctoral fellowship—Neisseria gonorrhoeae. That would have been extremely difficult to explain!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (remember to wash your hands)!!!!!!!!

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I have been following the trials and tribulations of New Jersey-based Enzon Pharmaceuticals for the past decade. My interest in Enzon was kindled because of a friendship with Abe Abuchowski, Enzon’s former Chairman, CEO and Founder.  For those of you who may not know, Abe is sometimes called the “father of protein PEGylation” because he was first to harness the commercial power of the technology (he played a pivotal role in creating the technology as a graduate student in Frank Davis’ lab at Rutgers University).

Abe left Enzon in the early 1990s (after shepherding the US regulatory approval for Adagen®, Oncospar®, and PEG-Intron®) and in 2004, he (along with my help) founded Prolong Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in PEGylation of biogenerics. Prolong is also using protein PEGylation to create new antimicrobial and blood replacement products.

Over the years, Enzon has had its share of “ups” and “downs.” Although profitable through much of the 1990s, Enzon is now a company riddled with huge debt– mostly because of bad decisions made company executives in the post-Abuchowski era.  Since 2004, Enzon’s Chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Buchalter, has worked diligently to “right” the company. He realigned and focused the company’s strategic objectives and, through some creative financing, reduced some of Enzon/s more onerous debt obligations. To that end, he was able to restore shareholder confidence and stabilize Enzon’s stock price. Unfortunately, Jeff’s efforts may not be enough to save the company from acquisition or merger.

Many industry insiders believe that Buchalter was hired four years ago to prepare the company for sale. Yesterday, Enzon disclosed in a SEC filing, that the self-proclaimed biotech maven, Carl C. Icahn, increased his Enzon stock position from 1,760,001 to 3,072,103 shares. After the purchase, Icahn owns about 6.93% of the company’s outstanding shares and is one of its largest, single shareholders. Not surprisingly, Icahn now wants the company to consider putting itself up for sale. Maybe the insiders were correct in their thinking?

Stay tuned for more details.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (forget New Jersey)!!!!!!!

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