No one knows what the CEOs of the biggest drug companies dream about, but their nightmares probably look a little like this:
Fears about what President Obama's health care reform plan may do to the earnings of drugmakers has caused many Big Pharma stocks to come down with the sickness this year.
These are momentous times for Amgen, the world's largest biotech company. The health-care revolution brewing in Washington could be dramatically good news or bad for a business whose drugs tend to be life-changing -- and highly expensive. Also on deck this year is a critical FDA decision on Amgen's denosumab, a possible blockbuster treatment for osteoporosis and bone cancer on which Amgen is betting heavily. If it's approved, analysts expect annual sales of at least $1 billion -- maybe double or triple that. Overseeing it all is CEO Kevin Sharer, 61, who joined the company 17 years ago as a newcomer to biotech after a career with the U.S. Navy, McKinsey, General Electric, among others. Amgen stock has been up and down during his nine years as chief, but right now Wall Street likes its prospects: 19 analysts rate it a buy or a strong buy, based on denosumab's prospects and further operating efficiencies, while five say it's a hold in light of the recession and strengthening
The Food and Drug Administration announced formal guidelines Thursday that will regulate the production of genetically engineered (GE) animals.
Soon, the food you put on your dinner table may be from cloned animals and chances are, you won't even know it. The Food and Drug Administration announced in January 2008 that's it OK to sell meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs and goats. What does this mean to the consumer? Is cloned meat safe? How does it differ from regular animal products?
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania announced in April 2008 the use of an innovative gene therapy treatment to safely restore vision in three adults with a rare form of congenital blindness. The technique involves an injection that delivers DNA to the nucleus of a cell so it can begin making the protein that the blind patients don't have. Although the patients have not achieved normal eyesight, the results set the stage for possible treatment of other retinal diseases.
As bioengineers continue to build things with the stuff of life itself, the rest of the world is slowly waking up to the power of synthetic biology.
I am one of the most avid sports fans you'll find," Se-Jin Lee says. It's true. He'll watch anything. Basketball. Football. Fútbol. Billiards on channel seven-hundred-whatever. As a graduate student in the '80s Lee used to sit in his car in the driveway with the radio on to listen to the games of faraway baseball teams. Even now, in his lab at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, he easily rattles off the NCAA basketball tournament winners in order from 1964 to 2007. And, like anyone who values fair competition these days, he's disturbed by the issue of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
China is gearing up to dominate the genetically modified crop game. And the West is increasingly worried about monitoring these products around the globe
Food from healthy clones of cattle, swine and goats is as safe as food from non-cloned animals, the Food and Drug Administration said in a report released Tuesday.
No one knows what the CEOs of the biggest drug companies dream about, but their nightmares probably look a little like this:
Fears about what President Obama's health care reform plan may do to the earnings of drugmakers has caused many Big Pharma stocks to come down with the sickness this year.
These are momentous times for Amgen, the world's largest biotech company. The health-care revolution brewing in Washington could be dramatically good news or bad for a business whose drugs tend to be life-changing -- and highly expensive. Also on deck this year is a critical FDA decision on Amgen's denosumab, a possible blockbuster treatment for osteoporosis and bone cancer on which Amgen is betting heavily. If it's approved, analysts expect annual sales of at least $1 billion -- maybe double or triple that. Overseeing it all is CEO Kevin Sharer, 61, who joined the company 17 years ago as a newcomer to biotech after a career with the U.S. Navy, McKinsey, General Electric, among others. Amgen stock has been up and down during his nine years as chief, but right now Wall Street likes its prospects: 19 analysts rate it a buy or a strong buy, based on denosumab's prospects and further operating efficiencies, while five say it's a hold in light of the recession and strengthening
The Food and Drug Administration announced formal guidelines Thursday that will regulate the production of genetically engineered (GE) animals.
Soon, the food you put on your dinner table may be from cloned animals and chances are, you won't even know it. The Food and Drug Administration announced in January 2008 that's it OK to sell meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs and goats. What does this mean to the consumer? Is cloned meat safe? How does it differ from regular animal products?
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania announced in April 2008 the use of an innovative gene therapy treatment to safely restore vision in three adults with a rare form of congenital blindness. The technique involves an injection that delivers DNA to the nucleus of a cell so it can begin making the protein that the blind patients don't have. Although the patients have not achieved normal eyesight, the results set the stage for possible treatment of other retinal diseases.
As bioengineers continue to build things with the stuff of life itself, the rest of the world is slowly waking up to the power of synthetic biology.
I am one of the most avid sports fans you'll find," Se-Jin Lee says. It's true. He'll watch anything. Basketball. Football. Fútbol. Billiards on channel seven-hundred-whatever. As a graduate student in the '80s Lee used to sit in his car in the driveway with the radio on to listen to the games of faraway baseball teams. Even now, in his lab at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, he easily rattles off the NCAA basketball tournament winners in order from 1964 to 2007. And, like anyone who values fair competition these days, he's disturbed by the issue of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
China is gearing up to dominate the genetically modified crop game. And the West is increasingly worried about monitoring these products around the globe
Food from healthy clones of cattle, swine and goats is as safe as food from non-cloned animals, the Food and Drug Administration said in a report released Tuesday.
In a long-awaited and controversial decision, the Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that food products derived from cloned cattle, swine, goats, sheep and their offspring are safe enough to enter the U.S. food supply.
As early as Tuesday, the FDA is likely to issue U.S. food producers an approval to begin selling meat and dairy from cloned animals and their offspring.
Ever wanted to be a new you? Recent developments in cloning mean that day might be possible without therapy, a new diet or fitness regime.
For three decades, biotech drugmakers have led a charmed existence. Unlike their Big Pharma peers, biotechs - companies such as Amgen, Genentech, Gilead Sciences and Genzyme - have never had to fret over future competition from generic versions of their medicines.
British authorities ruled Wednesday that research using animal eggs to create human stem cells could go forward in principle.
In 1913, the New Jersey poet and critic Joyce Kilmer wrote "Trees," a poem which concludes with this simple rhyme:
Amgen, king of the biotechs, sits on a shaky throne.
Back in the spring of 2001, a 64-year-old Texas rice farmer named Jacko Garrett watched a fleet of 18-wheelers haul away truckloads of rice that he had grown with great care. "It just bothers me so bad," Garrett said. "I'm sitting here trying to find food to feed people, and I've got to bury five million pounds of rice." No one likes to waste food, but for Garrett, who runs a charity that collects rice for the needy, the pain was especially acute.
A procedure that replaces faulty genes in the blind might hold cures for all kinds of genetic diseases and for cancer
India's fast-growing biotech business has the potential to be one of the driving forces behind its enviable 8 percent GDP growth, and a government estimate sees the industry increasing 15-fold over the next eight years.
Lawmakers are pushing forward with legislation that could help create generic competition for Big Biotech, drastically lowering the costs of expensive biotech drugs and changing the landscape in the pharmaceutical industry forever.
Senior Democrats and Republicans in Congress are hard at work on bills that would provide millions of Americans with cheaper copies of biotech drugs that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, a news report said Saturday.
Generic drugmakers, fresh off a profitable and product-heavy year, will seek future growth in fast-growing markets outside the U.S. and the burgeoning expiration of biotechnology patents, according to analysts.
Lorence Nyaka hacks at the root of a cassava plant, slicing away one fresh tuber after another until he has a small pile, enough to make a midday meal for his wife and three young children.
Genentech will unveil new details this weekend on tests of Avastin, one of its biggest-selling medicines, as it seeks to find new markets for the cancer drug.
Last year, Hwang Woo-suk was Korea's scientific Superman. He had three institutes, a stamp created in his honor, and, over the years, $60 million at his disposal. His face was plastered on buses in...
Imagine a world with no cancer, Alzheimer's disease or diabetes, where people routinely live to be 140 years old.
On the site of a former amusement park in a small Pennsylvania town, technicians sheathed in plastic suits labor over stainless steel fermentation tanks that look like brewery vats.
It wasn't that long ago that fast-rising biotech stocks were selling for boutique prices. Well, those days are done, and biotech's slumping performance this year has put them within reach of the bargain bin.
Question: You are a big, behemoth drug company with a maturing set of products, little in the way of new research horizons, and generic competition nipping at your heals. What do you do?
Generic drug giant Barr Pharmaceuticals is trying to buy its way into the biogenerics industry.
A huge new industry - biogenerics - is waiting to be born.
Amgen Inc. Thursday reported a surge in second-quarter earnings and sales, soundly beating Wall Street forecasts.
"Would you or do you eat G.M. food?"
Putting fish genes in plants? It's messing with nature, isn't it?
Remember way back in 2005, when Big Pharma was the whipping boy, but biotech stocks were so hot they could do no wrong?
The worldwide biotech industry is bigger than ever, with revenues exceeding $60 billion for the first time in the industry's 30-year history, according to a report released Tuesday.
Drug sales, bolstered by Medicare coverage, are projected to keep rising for the next 10 years, and biotechs are expected to get the lion's share of that increase, while the more traditional Big Pharma companies get squeezed by generic drug makers.
Drug sales, bolstered by Medicare coverage, are projected to keep rising for the next 10 years, and biotechs are expected to get the lion's share of that increase, while the more traditional Big Pharma companies get squeezed by generic drug makers.
Investors who stuck with their biotech stocks this year are sitting pretty but will the good times roll through 2006?
WHEN SENATE MAJORITY LEADER Bill Frist backed a bill to expand the number of federally funded stem-cell lines a few weeks ago, he laid claim to something increasingly rare in America's polarized "e...
Deep in the bowels of Monsanto's sprawling headquarters' research complex, in a room protected by a heavy steel door, 672 corn seedlings repose in plastic trays. The temperature in the room, known ...
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Biotech stock prices surged after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist stated his support for a bill that would provide federal funding for stem cell research, but analysts urged investor caution even as they hailed the good news.
The biotechnology sector continued to lose money last year, even as its sales increased, according to a report released Wednesday by the accounting firm Ernst & Young.
A California biotechnology company has started taking orders for a hypoallergenic cat for pet lovers prone to allergies.
Airdate: September 4th 2004.
It's hard to find a riskier bunch of stocks than biotechs. Consider the roller-coaster ride experienced by investors in IntraBiotics, maker of an antimicrobial drug that it hopes will prevent a con...
The European Union, one of the major holdouts against genetically modified foods, will start opening the door wider next week, with huge implications for farmers and agricultural companies around the globe as well as European consumers, Friday's Wall Street Journal reported.
The manager of a truck plant faces hard physical limits to how many vehicles his factory can make in a year. But in the blossoming industry of biotech drugs, where production takes place in a ferme...
I've decided to add a small component of high risk to my IRA, and I can't think of anything riskier than to buy a mutual fund that invests in nothing but biotechnology. I'm not talking about some w...
Johnson & Johnson stock got hammered in mid-July when the government launched an investigation into its plant in Puerto Rico that makes Eprex, a bioengineered medicine sold outside the U.S. to trea...
Call it a great leapfrog forward: Chinese medicine is jumping into the genomics era while still at one with remedies like bear bile and dried sea horse. Barely three years old, the Beijing Genomics...
For years Amgen has seemed biotechnology's best answer to the likes of Merck--a sector leader with so much heft and momentum that you'd recommend its stock to your mom. But now making that analogy ...
The first wave in biotechnology investing arrived back in the late 1980s, when revolutionary new medicines created by pioneers like Amgen alerted investors to the fledgling sector's potential. The ...
On Dec. 17, Amgen, the flagship company of the biotechnology world, closed the biggest merger in the sector's history. It agreed to pay $16 billion to buy rival Immunex, primarily for the right to ...
Grab those white lab coats and protective goggles; biotech doesn't look like the safest place to be right now. Many companies are trading at less than half their 52-week highs. Only three biotechs ...
For anyone in the business of growing corn, one of the biggest frustrations of the job is a brown inchworm-like creature that spends most of the summer and fall munching and tunneling through the c...
Loss threatens young biotech companies in more forms than any other kind of business. Investors can lose millions when a promising drug fails to work or funds run out before testing is complete. Re...
In 1998 biotechnology's jauntiest visionary, J. Craig Venter, stunned fellow scientists by declaring that a company he was forming would decode human DNA's sequence of chemical building blocks by t...
Last June, Gordon Conway, a scholarly British ecologist, walked into the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., for a momentous meeting with Monsanto's board. The company had invited him for a private ...
A breakthrough by a group of researchers in Philadelphia may help reinvigorate the struggling field of gene therapy and portend a future in which Just For Men hair color is history.
Idec Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego biotech company, is hardly a household name. But that's not stopping investors. Its new drug, Rituxan, is rapidly becoming a key weapon in the war against lymphoma...
SEPTEMBER '98 "The Biotech Boom"
From the look of its stock-price chart, you'd think Millennium Pharmaceuticals was a hot Internet company. Its share price almost quadrupled between September and February--nearly matching Yahoo's ...
There's a revolution going on. You may know it as cloned mice, or the Human Genome Project, or perhaps insect-resistant corn. It's a revolution with many fronts but one clear quest: unlocking the s...
Major demographic shifts, a bulging pipeline of new drugs, expiring patents on existing drugs, fresh questions about the future of managed care--the health-care sector is one of the toughest to pre...
Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro was ambling through a Sheraton Chicago ballroom at the finale of a three-day company offsite not long ago when an employee named Rebecca Tominack walked up and startled ...
Since before ovinophiles even thought of altering the genes of their beloved farm animals, people have been putting their hopes into biotechnology stocks. Alas, it hasn't always paid. Over the past...
Want an extremely volatile stock that plunged 39% in the past five months and probably won't turn a profit for two more years? If so, you've come to the right place. Oh, one more thing: The company...
MENTION drug companies and you'll most likely think of such household names as Merck, Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, or Bristol-Myers Squibb. But some fresh new players are on the brink of glory. After ...
LAST JUNE a biotech company called Icos became the envy of anyone who had ever spliced a gene. Its three founders all had superlative records at their * previous ventures. They also had a fascinati...
BUGS -- viruses and bacteria -- cause most minor diseases, and some of the major ones like AIDS. But many of the real killers and cripplers, including cancer, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, a...
AS RECENTLY as last June, some top guns in the war on AIDS seriously doubted that an effective vaccine against it could ever be found. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the deadly ...
WALL STREET is sending a persistent message to its onetime favorites, the health biotech companies: You don't have the kind of future you thought you had. Some of you figured you would turn into th...
NOT BAD FOR a company that began life a dozen years ago when a scientist and a young MBA put up $500 apiece: Genentech Inc. now has nine low-slung, crowded buildings on breezy Point San Bruno, whic...
OF ALL THE REASONS bright people once chose careers in biology, getting rich surely was not one of them. The challenge of unraveling life's deepest mysteries -- and the tantalizing chance for a Nob...
YOU'VE HEARD the band music and the rest of the hoopla about the high-powered health products turned out by genetic engineering -- a cornucopia that ranges from new vaccines to promising drugs for ...
IT WAS a moment of high drama for America's promising young biotechnology industry. And it unfolded theatrically before a disbelieving audience of more than 400 health care executives, Wall Street ...
Firms in the far-out field of genetic engineering have long been high on promise and short on profits. Now, after years of painstaking development, they are poised for the payoff. The product pipel...
IN THE CLOSELY WATCHED arena of biotechnology, the spotlight so far has been on genetic engineering -- tinkering with the genetic blueprints of living things to try to devise exciting new products,...
HOLLYWOOD honors its stars by casting their footprints in cement. Wall Street firms put portraits of their founders in gilt frames. But at the New Jersey headquarters of Merck & Co., office corrido...
THE VISIONARY who did most to turn the arcane genetic engineering revolution into a new industry is an unimpressive-looking fellow. But behind that unprepossessing exterior, Robert A. Swanson, 39, ...
IN THE HEADLONG RUSH of high technology, the driving force has been the computer and everything connected with it -- semiconductor chips, robots, telecommunications. By the year 2000 the electronic...
For all the oohs and ahs about gene-splicing feats in the lab, biotechnology has delivered next to nothing in the way of bankable profits. Lately, though, wondrous discoveries have begun making the...
Hairy cell leukemia is a rare form of cancer that affects about 2,000 Americans. But in approving alpha interferon in early June to treat the disease, the Food and Drug Administration has given bio...
When Advanced Genetic Sciences, a tiny biotechnology company, got the first Environmental Protection Agency permit to test genetically engineered bacteria outdoors, environmentalists protested that...
BY NOW MANY health-conscious Americans can readily reel off the four main risk factors commonly associated with heart disease: a high cholesterol level, a diet heavy in saturated fats, high blood p...
A SMALL CALIFORNIA biotechnology company is battling for the right to be first in the world to test genetically engineered bacteria outdoors, where the mutants might be free to roam. Advanced Genet...
THE VISIONARY who did most to turn the arcane genetic engineering revolution into a new industry is an unimpressive-looking fellow. But behind that unprepos-sessing exterior, Robert A. Swanson, 39,...
AGRICULTURAL biotechnology is finally emerging from a miasma of wild-eyed claims and promises that have swathed it in recent years. After researchers at the Max Planck Institute in West Germany suc...
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