Category Archives: Biotech/Pharma

Do Biopharma workers hate their jobs? Answer, I don’t think so, but…

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All opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Novo Nordisk

A colleague of mine when I worked for Merck used to drop by my office to discuss project management, and one of his favorite terms was “engagement.”  I was reminded of this when the people at Gallup published their most recent results about their polling of the American workplace.  You can find their report here, and a writeup here.  One of the interesting/sad findings was that only 30% of their survey respondents (and there were 25 million respondents) report being engaged in their work.  This astounds me.

One of the many perks of science is that far more than 30% of the people I work with on a daily basis are very engaged in what they do.  By engaged, let me refer to the Gallup report:  “Gallup defines “engaged” employees as those who are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and contribute to their organization in a positive manner.”  Sounds like a good working definition.  There are a number of reasons to go into science, but rarely do I find people saying they’re doing it for the money.   Probably because that just doesn’t compute when you say it out loud. Continue reading →

Lack of replication no surprise when we’re studying really complex problems

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All opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Novo Nordisk

For another nice take on this topic see Paul Knoepfler’s blog post here.

One of the sacred (can I say sacred in reference to something scientific?) tenets of the scientific method is reproducibility.  If something is real and measurable, if it’s a fact of the material world, then the expectation is that the result should be reproducible by another experimenter using the same methods as described in the original report.  One of the most well known (among physicists anyway) examples of irreproducible data is the Valentine’s Day Magnetic Monopole detected by Blas Cabrera back in 1982.  Great experimental data.  Never repeated, and therefore viewed as insufficient proof for the existence of a magnetic monopole.

So it’s troubling that in the past few years there have been numerous stories about the lack of reproducibility for different scientific experiments.  In biomedical science the number of  reports on the difficulty of reproducing results has gotten so great that the NIH has begun thinking about how to confirm and require reproducibility of some kinds of experimental results.  Just a few days ago another field, that of psychological priming, saw the publication of an article that the effects of “high-performance priming,” could not be reproduced.  This is another field undergoing serious questioning about whether/why results don’t reproduce, with commentary from such luminaries as Daniel Kahneman. Continue reading →

What does the Hela genome agreement imply for consent and genome data usage?

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All opinions my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Novo Nordisk.

A fair amount of reporting (for example here, here and here) has gone into the recent news that the NIH and the descendants of Henrietta Lacks have reached an agreement about the conditions under which the genome sequence of the HeLa cell line will be shared.  The basic parameters are that researchers wanting access to the data will need to apply for permission, the application committee will include members of the Lacks family, any publications will acknowledge the contribution of the Henrietta Lacks, and future genome sequences will be submitted to dbGAP.

This is a generally welcome development, and in no small part due to the work of Rebecca Skloot.  Her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks provided the impetus to the current developments by popularizing the story of Ms. Lacks and the cell line derived from her tissues.  However, this agreement also can be seen as a precedent of sorts, and the future implications for the ethics of consent, genetic information sharing and genomic research are unclear.

Whose genome is it, anyway?

In Pasco Phronesis, David Bruggeman penned a post on some of the possible implications.  He discusses one of the key elements of genetic consent that I generally haven’t seen elaborated on much in the current literature: familial consent and exposure.   To what extent do those who share part of a sequenced genome have a say in the granting and rescinding of consent for the usage of genetic information?   Continue reading →

Are Biopharma reagent companies sitting on a pile of gold (or at least poptarts)?

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All opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Novo Nordisk

The recent news about the United States Government monitoring a great deal of both general and specific electronic data has had one beneficial outcome (or at least, one I feel is beneficial):  it has made more people aware of what can actually be done with data, and also that we’re leaving massive amounts of personal data out there that can be traced to the behavior of individuals or organizations.  A few months ago, the Seattle Times published an article describing the explosion of big data and how that can be leveraged in so many ways.

This led me to speculate, in a very out-there kind of way, about what kinds of data Biopharma companies produce and whether there’s any hidden value in that.  Now, certainly companies are very careful about communicating information to the outside world.  Contracts with collaborators routinely contain embargo clauses, and presentations and posters are carefully vetted by legal and communications departments.  So companies would appear to be covered there.  But what kinds of data are out there that might be available, maybe not freely, but in potentia, to an interested audience?

Let me digress for a moment about mergers.  Biopharma over the last few years has seen a flurry of merger and acquisition activity.  The big pharma deals, like Pfizer/Wyeth, and Merck/Schering-Plough, have gotten big press, but there has also been a lot of consolidation among reagent suppliers.  To take one example, I’ve shamelessly taken Life Technologies’ merger history off of Wikipedia and condensed it into this table (after the jump): Continue reading →

When a grand old scientist talks, you listen: Maynard Olson and Genomic Medicine

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All opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Novo Nordisk.

Last night I had the great opportunity to hear Maynard Olson give a public lecture on Genomic Medicine.  As one of the founders of the Human Genome Project, he’s been around in a pivotal role for much of the revolution in our understanding of the genome.  A revolution, as he himself points out, that we are still just beginning.

He gave his speech as part of the UW Genome Sciences Department’s summer lecture series, and spoke to a packed auditorium about how the information we are learning about the genome has implications for diagnostics, therapeutics, and public policy.  I’ve heard Maynard speak before, and he’s always refreshingly down-to-earth, candid and measured in his descriptions and comments.  Not for him are flights of speculation or hyperbole, and he actually ended his talk with a call to stop the hype.  As he said, “The product is solid.  It doesn’t need hype.”  Maynard, who is slim, with a fringe of red hair that’s silvering at the sides (kind of like Reed Richards), does not look at all near his age of about seventy years. Continue reading →