Category Archives: Pharma industry

“May you live in interesting times” – or so goes the phrase. In 1966, RFK Jr’s father famously used that quote to capture the turbulence of the times, and continued: “Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They

By Aimee Raleigh, Principal at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Just in time for new years’ reflections and resolutions, this year’s JPM felt like a refreshing burst of enthusiasm for a sector that

2023 couldn’t end fast enough for most of us in biopharma; its been a tough year in the capital markets, and the industry is facing it’s fair share of headwinds. Fortunately, despite all that, great science and medicine continues to

By Amanda J. Redig, SVP and Head of Clinical Development at HotSpot Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC The American Cancer Society for Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting is among the highlights of the clinical oncology

We just held our 2022 Annual General Meeting for our investors, and a few weeks ago convened our Atlas Venture Retreat – both in person for the first time in 3 years.  Kicking off each of these meetings is our

We just held our first-ever, and hopefully only, virtual Atlas Venture Annual Meeting for our investors. Although science is winning in this pandemic, we’re clearly not back to normal yet so felt it prudent to shift to a virtual format.

Despite saving the world from COVID, pharma and biotech are still in the crosshairs of many politicians. With many anti-Pharma politicians and regulators emboldened in the current environment, and with more aggressive tax and spending policy in the works, there

2020 was an incredibly paradoxical year for those of us in biotech: the striking dichotomy of simultaneously experiencing agonizing tragedy alongside buoyant optimism. It was truly a horrifically tragic year for humanity, and for America in particular.  As everyone knows,

Biotech punches way above its weight-class, and that’s never been more apparent than in this pandemic and the race for a COVID vaccine. For those of us in biopharma, it feels like it’s a large and dynamic sector populated by

M&A is an omnipresent reality in the biopharma industry, from Big Pharma mega-mergers to smaller acquisitions of emerging startups. We’ve recently witnessed several large M&A transactions get closed or announced, including BMS-Celgene, Takeda-Shire, and AbbVie-Allergan; according to BMO Capital Markets

It’s that time of year again when we pause to reflect on the state of the industry – and there’s more to focus on in biopharma today than just the drug pricing debate. As I described last year, we host

The perennial drug pricing debate has reached a fever pitch, as loud as it’s ever been over the past few decades. Politicians on both sides are bashing the drug industry with the typical talking points about exorbitant prices, countered of

The IQVIA Institute released a data-rich report in April 2019 on the state of clinical R&D in the US pharmaceutical industry titled “The Changing Landscape of Research and Development: Innovation, Drivers of Change, and Evolution of Clinical Trial Productivity”.  The

This blog was written by Ankit Mahadevia, CEO and founder of Spero Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Over my experience building several therapeutics companies, I’ve sometimes observed a Field of Dreams approach to therapeutics:

At the end of every year, we host both our Atlas Venture Annual Meeting for our fund investors (Limited Partners) and our Atlas Retreat for senior industry executives.  As a kickoff for these two meetings, we typically open with a

Another year, another JPM week. With a weekend to recuperate and reflect, I come away more concerned than ever about JPM and our industry. For context, by JPM I don’t mean the actual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference at the Westin

Recently there’s been talk of a caravan of immigrants marching towards the United States, principally focused on Mexico and Central America.  But there’s also another caravan, this one at work in the biopharma business: the long term migration of science

Heading into the winter holidays always brings out festive reflections of the past year. Twelve months ago, we were thrilled to say goodbye to 2016 and excited to embrace 2017’s promise.  And in large part, the past year has delivered

It’s been an exciting year for new drug approvals, with the FDA on a similar pace to the gangbuster year of 2015. Many of these new medicines address significant and meaningful needs, or offer additional therapeutic choices for patients and

It’s all about people, it always is. Human capital is a company’s most important asset. Successful companies have human capital management strategies that excel at talent recruitment, and prioritize career development and retention. But human capital is never static, and

Neural networks, cloud computing, deep learning, and in silico wizardry are on the cusp of disintermediating pharmaceutical drug discovery, cutting billions of billions off the industry’s cost of new drugs and reducing the time to get new medicines approved to

President Trump’s tenure as the 45th POTUS has begun with even more fireworks than most pundits predicted – protests, marches, bans, and lots of other drama. The coastal Twitter/Facebook bubbles are exploding with anger and rage, while the Trump populists

Good riddance to 2016, and a warm embrace to 2017 – or so is the sentiment of most biotech investors as they head into the 35th annual JPM Healthcare Conference. Many have bemoaned last year as an abysmal one for

Pharma R&D productivity continues to be a critical issue for the industry. Making smart investments in R&D requires an understanding of the risk and return drivers across the product development cycle, as well as some good fortune. This week the

A new FDA approval marks a major milestone in the biopharmaceutical business; relatively few biopharma companies are ever able to lay claim to having discovered, developed, or marketed a recently approved medicine. As of mid-October, the FDA has approved 17

The maelstrom around drug pricing has continued its fury over the past month, which has led to considerable volatility in the biopharma stock market. Investor fears of draconian price controls that will eliminate the return of investment from innovative pharmaceutical

Pharmaceutical pricing got thrown onto the front page again last week, causing the expected anaphylactic reactions among politicians, practitioners, and parents. The root of this crisis: Epipen’s 600% price increase over the past eight years. The biannual upticks underlying that

With the big cancer confab ASCO 2016 fading into memory, R&D teams everywhere are getting back to work on their cancer programs – and across the industry many of them will be doing the same work, on the same targets,

Last week, when the Treasury effectively scuttled the Pfizer-Allergan merger, there was much rejoicing: politicians and pundits alike were thrilled that tax inversion greed had been stopped, and that companies like Pfizer would have to “pay their fair share.”  Investors

For startup and emerging biotech companies, corporate venture capital and direct corporate equity investing are critically important contributors on the spectrum of funding sources – and over the past fifteen years, their involvement as investors in young biotech companies appears

This blog was written by Michael Gladstone, Principal at Atlas Venture, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. The wifi is predictably not working on my flight back from the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference (#JPM16), allowing me the

This blog was written by Mike Gilman, CEO of Padlock Therapeutics, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. I stumbled into a bit of a mess a few weeks ago. It was with the best of intentions, of course.

This blog was written by Ron Renaud, CEO of RaNA Therapeutics, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. It is that time of the year again when we start to get ready for the New Year.  It is

Over the past seven years, Celgene has emerged as one of the most active and creative deal-makers in the biopharma industry. The Boston Consulting Group’s Biopharma Partnering Survey and Benchmarking analysis examines BD activity and perceptions across the industry, and

External models of R&D innovation are the rage in Pharma today, as they should be – the future of our industry depends on a great deal more rather than less collaboration. In a very healthy way, lots of experiments are

With the start of the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, all eyes in the biopharma investor community are on Chicago. Social media is alive with #ASCO15 tweets and companies big and small are firing out press releases. Signal from

Biotech fills the news these days – whether it’s the announcement of exciting new clinical data, another high-flying IPO, or a big M&A deal. Amidst the significant “share of voice” in the coverage of young and emerging biotech in the

This blog was written by Michael Gladstone, Principal at Atlas Venture, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. Youth is often well represented among entrepreneurs – except in biotech. William Osler, founder of Johns Hopkins University and the

Are you ready for the circus?  Next week’s JPM Healthcare Conference is getting ready to kickoff, and much of the healthcare industry is feverishly preparing their materials for the mayhem. Given the biopharma industry pipeline’s exciting clinical progress, a record-breaking

The cost of making a new drug has grown to nearly $2.6B, according to the latest and greatest from Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (here).  That’s a big and almost unfathomable number.  Critics immediately pounced on it,