The Bio Report

Sleep researchers and clinicians will be gathering in Seattle June 6 - 10 for SLEEP 2015, a joint meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. It is the largest gathering of sleep medicine physicians, sleep and circadian researchers, and health professionals in the sleep field. We spoke to Chris Winter, a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a board-certified sleep specialist with a background in neurology, about our understanding of sleep today, how genetics and digital health technologies may be altering our understanding of sleep, and what we should do to get a decent night’s rest.

Wall Street’s attention will turn to Chicago as the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology runs from May 29 to June 2. Some 5,000 abstracts became available mid-month and investors have been sifting through them to gain insights into which drugmakers will rise and fall on news from the meeting. We spoke to Adam Feuerstein, senior columnist for TheStreet, about the ASCO meeting, what the early abstracts say, and who will likely be making headlines at the meeting this year.

A recent article in Nature Chemical Biology that shows it is possible to convert sugar into morphine with genetically engineered yeast has sparked public attention over the potential illicit use of the technology and the need for regulation. The work, though, also opens up significant possibilities for producing a wide range of drugs and the discovery of new ones to treat everything from cancer to infectious diseases. We spoke John Dueber, assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the authors of the study, about the work, its implications, and what role biologists need to play in regulating themselves.

Universities are moving away from a passive approach to technology transfer to engage with industry in new partnerships, put a greater emphasis on translational research, and nurturing technologies so they can give rise to new products and companies. We spoke to Eric Tomlinson, chief innovation officer of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, about these changes, the approach Wake Forest is taking, and how it is forging new relationships with industry and the regional economy.

With the mapping of the human microbiome, a new understanding is emerging of the complex relationship between the microorganisms that live in the human gut, skin, and elsewhere on the body, and the role they play both in disease and in maintaining health. Along with growing concerns about drug resistant bacteria, this is giving rise to opportunities for narrow spectrum antibiotics. We spoke to David Martin, founder and CEO of AvidBiotics, about the problems of antibiotic resistance, the benefits narrow spectrum therapies offer, and how the sequencing of the microbiome is leading to new approaches to not only treat infectious diseases, but other diseases not traditional thought of as being driven by microorganisms.

AgeneBio is developing drugs to treat the pre-dementia stage of Alzheimer’s disease, and other neurological and psychiatric conditions. The company announced encouraging mid-stage results for its lead therapeutic, which works by quieting hyperactivity in the hippocampus portion of the brain, which plays a critical role in the formation of memory. We spoke to Jerry McLaughlin, CEO of AgeneBio about the company’s efforts, why this approach holds promise in delaying the onset of dementia in Alzheimer’s patients, and whether this approach may have implications for other neurological and psychiatric diseases.

In April, the IMS Institute released a new report that U.S. drug spending in 2014 rose 13.1 percent to $373.9 billion, the largest single year increase in spending since 2001. A number of factors drove the increase including the launch of innovative new therapies such as Gilead’s hepatitis C drug Sovaldi. We spoke to Murray Aitken, executive director of IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, about the new report, the confluence of factors that drove spending higher, and what the outlook is for 2015 and beyond.

AARP, the advocacy group serving people over the age of 50, is taking steps to ensure that digital health technologies best serve its membership. The organization has embarked on an initiative to test the design and functionality of digital health devices for older people and provide feedback to the marketplace. It’s enlisted partners United Healthcare and Pfizer as part of its effort. We spoke to Jeff Makowka, director of thought leadership for AARP, about its efforts, how it’s going about testing devices, and what it hopes to accomplish. We had some technical difficulties on this podcast that were not apparent during the interview. We’ve done our best to clean it up, but you will hear some static early in the recording. We apologize to our listeners and our guest, who we think you’ll find nonetheless interesting.

A newly discovered archive of documents reveal the sugar industry’s efforts to shape the national research agenda away from the effects of sugar on tooth decay and push for programs to focus on alternatives to reducing consumption. We spoke to Cristin Kearns, a University of California, San Francisco postdoctoral scholar who discovered the papers, about her research, how the agenda of the National Institute of Dental Health became aligned with the sugar industry’s, and how industry can subvert research agendas to protect their economic interests at the expense of public health.

Drug resistant bacteria cause 2 million illnesses and approximately 23,000 deaths each year in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The problem of resistance also limits the ability to treat patients using certain medical procedures, such as chemotherapy, surgery, and organ transplants. Last week, the Obama Administration released its National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria, a multipronged approach to cut inappropriate use of antibiotics, improve surveillance, and develop new drugs. We spoke to Amanda Jezek, vice president of public policy and government relations at the Infectious Diseases Society of America, about the administration’s plan, whether it offers any new ideas, and what needs to be done to ensure its success.

Adverse events from drugs cost the U.S. healthcare system an estimated $25 billion in 2013, but data from adverse events reporting is generally not factored into payer and provider decisions about what drugs are most cost-effective. The healthcare analytics firm AdverseEvents is trying to change that by turning adverse events data gathered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration into actionable information. We spoke to Brian Overstreet, CEO of AdverseEvents, about its RxCost offering, why payers and providers rely on mostly pre-approval clinical data in their drug decision making, and why it’s important to consider the broader costs associate with a drug.

Tomasz Sablinski believes the drug development process is broken and has sought to reinvent it. His company, Transparency Life Sciences, relies on crowdsourcing to design its clinical trials, makes all of its data public, and employs digital technologies to remotely monitor participants and dramatically reduce the costs of studies. Now, several years into his efforts, we checked in with Sablinski, CEO of Transparency, about the progress he’s made, what barriers his encountered, and whether his success is having any impact on the way other companies are conducting drug development today.

The biopharmaceutical industry has long been considered immune to the threat of patent trolls, patent holders who seek to monetize the value of a patent through enforcement rather than productive use. But a paper by UC Hastings Robin Feldman and Harvard Fellow Nicholson Price argues that the biopharmaceutical industry should be worried and that steps should be taken now to counter the threat before it blossoms into an industrywide problem. We spoke to Feldman, professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Innovation Law at the UC Hastings College of Law about the study, why the biopharmaceutical industry should be concerned, and what steps can be taken to deter abusive behavior while protecting innovation.

A first of its kind study of venture investment in therapeutics by disease area and innovation finds that venture investment following the Great Recession has not yet recovered to the levels seen in the years leading up to the financial crisis. In addition, the study shows great disparities in the level of funding of disease categories and finds that chronic diseases with large patient populations have seen some of the biggest drops in investment. We spoke to Dave Thomas, one of the authors of the study from the Biotechnology Industry Organization, about its findings, where dollars are going and where they are not going, and what effect recent policies may have had in attracting investment to certain areas.

At the end of January, after nearly a year of hearings, roundtables, and white papers, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health released a draft of the much anticipated 21st Century Cures Act. The draft, nearly 400 pages long, addresses a broad range of issues in the drug and device development and review process. We spoke to Nick Manetto, principal with the national advisory and advocacy firm FaegreBD, about the legislation, where the points of controversy lay, and whether despite its bipartisan birth political brawling is ahead.

There’s no shortage of data created in the world of healthcare, but harnessing it to improve care and reduce costs remains a challenge. Apervita, backed with $18 million recent venture investment from GE Ventures, Baird Capital, and others is a marketplace for people to buy and sell their healthcare analytics. We spoke to Paul Magelli, CEO of Apervita, about the pressures on healthcare providers today, the challenges to integrating analytics into practice, and how Apervita hopes to change that.

President Obama unveiled the details of his $215 million precision medicine initiative, the centerpiece of which is a 1 million person study that seeks to correlate genetic data, with health records, lifestyle information, and more to better understanding wellness and disease and fuel the development of new therapies. We spoke to Amy Miller, executive vice president of The Personalized Medicine Coalition, about the initiative, if the funding for it will match its ambition, and whether concerns about privacy will stand as a barrier to its success.

CAR-T cell immunotherapies seek to harness the body’s immune system to fight tumor cells. The promise of this new class of therapies has ignited investor’s imaginations, but a new report from EP Vantage argues that the enthusiasm that has driven valuations of CAR-T companies should be tempered by an eye towards the risks. We spoke to Jacob Plieth, report author and senior reporter for EP Vantage, about the promise of these therapies, what we know about their safety and efficacy, and why the muddy intellectual property landscape is a concern.

Investment in biomedical research in the United States is declining at a time when other countries have been increasing their spending. While this is raising concerns about the threats this poses to the nation’s economic competitiveness, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests new strategies will be necessary to fund research and development if the clinical value of past investments and opportunities to improve care are to be fully realized. We spoke to study co-author Ray Dorsey, Professor of Neurology and Co-Director of the Center for Human Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, about the findings, what strategies can be employed to reverse the trends, and why new investment alone is not the answer.

It was an unprecedented year for M&A activity in the life sciences, but even though Big Pharma returned to dealmaking after largely spending 2013 on the sidelines, it’s been unable to close its growth gap through acquisitions. Specialty Pharmaceutical and Big Biotech have been building muscle and key acquisitions that could address growth for Big Pharma continue to be snapped up by competitors. We spoke to Jeff Greene, EY’s Global Life Sciences Transaction Advisory Services Leader, about his firm’s new M&A report, at what point the growing price of assets becomes too rich, and what the outlook is for 2015.