Curiosity Killed the Cat

Actually, I'm a bit sad that it was Merck that bought Schering-Plough because I was really hoping for SP-BMS.
But now we get to play "Name that Merged Company" again!
Hmm...it looks like SA-BMS may still be in play... But some folks are saying a Lily-BMS deal is even more likely! And what will the likes of Novartis or AstraZeneca be doing? Too bad J&J always hides its companies under its umbrella name. In their case we tend to rib on "John Johnson from Johnson & Johnson" instead.

So it only took 120-odd pages for Genentech to get a mention.
In the same sentence as Wyeth. And Bio-Syn, which I'm pretty sure was the fake company that was behind the Jurassic Park shenanigans.

Also, AU Google now indexes pages of filetype shmtl!

What a trainwreck of a book. Thank Darwin I never actually paid for it (I got it from the book sale I volunteer at, and that's exactly where it's going back to, once my roommate has a good laugh.)

I was also amused by how many characters (and there were far too many characters to keep track of or even care about) named after famous, Nobel-winning biologists.
Watson. Koch. Sanger. Kendall. If they've won it, they've got someone named after them.

Holy crap, now a company named BioRad does paternity testing!

By the way, if you've ever spent any time in a bio lab, even just taking a class in school, you've probably used Bio-Rad equipment. Their stuff is EVERYWHERE.

In the wonderful, mysterious alternate universe of Michael Crichton's Next, Amgen, the world's largest biotech company¹ is located in Los Angeles² and BioGen³ is a struggling biotech startup⁴ in Los Angeles⁵. Oh, and Huntington's disease has mutated into an autosomal recessive disease⁶.
Holy shit, I'm only on page 50.

( THIS BOOK IS AWESOMESAUCE )

Also, there are talking monkeys. BECAUSE IT'S NOT ABSURD ENOUGH UNLESS THE APES SPEAK. IN DUTCH.
I'm sure this will be explainedBS'd later on.

Venter's advice for aspiring biotech entrepreneurs: Make sure you have something that works.

Pffft, as if that stopped anyone.

If you wear contact lenses, you should be aware that there has been a recent outbreak of Acanthamoeba, which can cause a serious infection of the eye that can easily lead to blindness.
Acanthamoeba is a particularly nasty parasite that's pretty much found everywhere, including tap water, but only in rare cases leads to infections -- my optometrist dad has only seen 1-2 cases in his career. You have to get some pretty powerful (read: nasty) stuff to knock it out, and if you don't catch it in time, you may need a corneal transplant.
There is some (unsubstantiated) evidence that multi-purpose contact lens solution may be partly to blame. My dad has grumbled about this for some years - he wants to go back to the days where we had separate disinfectant tablets for special cleaning of the lens, and regular solution for storing lenses. The disinfectant tablets are quite effective, but somewhat of a hassle and have to be rinsed carefully because they really, really sting your eyes.

For now, the best thing to do is to take good care of your lenses, use new contact solution for storage every night, and change them when the directions say to.

In light of the recent Allerca scandal, this website raises intriguing questions on how we might view bioengineered pets. (Link via The Scientist)

Dude, these folks have one-upped vancomycin.
Do you know how incredibly awesomelly COOL that is?

Ever since I started working at a dot-com, I've had less and less biotech geeky moments.
I miss them.
To make up for it, I read The Scientist last night. Luckily for me, Iatros IM'd me in the middle of it.

Tama: I have to share this with someone because I think it's so cool: The original micropipettor
Tama: it looks like a ballpoint pen!
Iatros: Like my Eppindorf pen
Tama: Now we get ballpoint pens that look like pipettors!
Tama: haha exactly

Also, I wanted a legit reason to use my "MI is REAL science" icon. I love it. IT NEVER GETS OLD.

The website for Parlam BioBiz: Theranostix (theranostics), targeted and individualized medicine: Independent consulting is now live. Could some nice folks please make sure all the links work okay and the layout looks okay in various browsers? (I've tested in FF 1.0.7 and IE 6, so that should be considered the standard to measure by.)
Many thanks.

Man, Eyetech is so screwed.
Genentech's about to eat their lunch.
Lucentis can actually IMPROVE vision in these patients, whereas Macugen merely slows down the loss of vision.
Poor aptamer.

I was part of the group that wrote a case study on the development of Macugen for one of my business classes, so we all grew very near and dear to the drug from its development by Gold out of NeXagen to NeXstar to Gilead to Eyetech to Pfizer. It's a first-in-class drug (first to treat this type of AMD, a disease that causes vision loss) and a first-in-class type of drug (first FDA-approved aptamer drug, which is actually a piece of DNA that assumes a specific structure and mixes some of the benefits of monoclonals (specificity) with those of small molecules (manufacturing.)) It's really quite a story.
Too bad not many stories in industry have happy endings.

Just when Chiron was recovering from last year's US flu vaccine supply debacle stemming from sterility issues in their Liverpool plant, they realize they have similar sterilization issues in their Germany plant that will probably cut their EU flu vaccine supply by 3/4's.
Source
(Note: This has no impact on their US supply since the Begrivac flu vaccine the plant makes is destined for UK and German markets; Begrivac isn't even FDA approved[for US sale], considering Fluvirin is Chiron's US vaccine mainstay, and a search on fda.gov for the term returns 0 documents.)
See also: Official Chiron press release on the incident
Like, dude, seriously... Chiron is so hosed.
Let's hope the FDA inspection of the Liverpool plant (going on right now) has a better outcome.

I swear, the biotech brain of mine won't shut up even when I'm trying to enjoy a movie. Tonight I saw War of the Worlds, which was a really fun, intense movie. It's nice to see Tom Cruise in a role where he's not everyone's hero. He has trouble being his own kids' hero. Sure it played the "loser dad saves the day" card but it was pretty good at showing the growth of Ray's strength of character had as many stumbling blocks as little victories as the world went to hell in a handbasket. The pacing was pretty fast, but they managed to throw in a few bits and pieces here that were so absurd they made you laugh because the situation was so serious, like the part with the easy chair, to keep it from being overkill.
Anyways, I had this odd, non-sequitor thought during part of the movie due to my biotech brain.
( The thought, and a spoiler for the ending )
I can't WAIT for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! But the Oompa Loompas... I miss the OLD Oompa Loompas with their roundness. Even in War of the Worlds, I was so used to the classical description of the tripods as super-round space saucers that their actual mechanical design was a bit jarring at first.
And there's a new Wallace and Gromit movie!!!!!!!!!!
Excited, yes.

Oh yeah. AX. I'll be going Saturday night-Sunday evening. Saturday night is acoustiKaraoke which I may end up guest-judging if there aren't enough judges apparently, and also the FuKu meet-up. Sunday is meet everyone I can attempt to meet day and then dinner with the California-based WC-gumi.
MONDAY IS SHINSENGUMI YAKITORI!!!!! AGAIN!!!! (Hell, I had it yesterday and I'm already drooling for more.)