USC to Acquire Scripps?

Other perspectives: The Scientist, Science, L.A. Times.

Well, that's not something you see every day.

Courtesy of U-T San Diego* - with bonus Derek Lowe quotes! - comes talk of the University of Southern California taking over gobbling up "acquiring" the Scripps Research Institute. I'm sure we'll hear much more about the motivations as events develop, but the early suggestion involves cold hard ca$h - declining NIH funding paired with expiry of major pharma partnerships on the Scripps side, billions in fundraising** on the USC side. I've been hearing about salary squabbles and shrinking department budgets at Scripps, but didn't realize things had gotten to this point.

Clouds in parking lot, 2014

I don't see the press releases on either side that U-T San Diego alludes to,
[UPDATE 6/19 - Here's the releases!]
Perhaps someone on the inside of either institution knows more? seearroh_AT_gmail

*The guys who helped break the Nicolaou to Rice saga!
** I mean, they did just get all that money from Dr. Dre...

Why Aren't Correction Articles Free?

Update (1/31/14) - Tweet from ACS Publications:

@SeeArrOh Corrections are considered additional materials, but we appreciate your feedback and will take it on board.
— ACS Publications (@ACSPublications) January 31, 2014

This morning, a friend pointed out an interesting bit of data in a recent Organometallics Correction article. I clicked on over, only to find myself stuck behind the ACS Pubs paywall:

$35.00! This left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and an obvious follow-on question: Why aren't Correction articles free? Are they peer-reviewed? (Don't think so). Do they contain amazing scientific advances? (Not usually).

Here's the correction process at a few other publishers, for comparison:

Angewandte Chemie Int'l Edition

Tetrahedron

Nature Publishing

What's the deal, ACS?

"Under 40" Biotech Billionaires?

I assume he started young.
Credit: Forbes

Since the dawn of capitalism, Americans have been entranced by rich youngsters. Their quirks, foibles, and outrageous lifestyles make magazines' front pages and serve as cultural touchstones; Richie Rich, Eloise, Bruce Wayne, and Montana Max all represent the genre well.

Forbes recently got into the "Youngest Billionaires" game, with the 2013 list featured prominently on the website. Forbes profiled 29 individuals under 40 with net worths >$1 billion, whose life stories reveal several interesting trends.

How does one become an "Under-40" billionaire?

1. Drop out of college to start a tech firm, or
2. Inherit your wealth.

That's just about everyone on the list. By 'tech,' I mean computers, gadgets, or apps - nary a biologist or chemist among the ranks (there are three engineers, but they've made their fortunes on the business side of things).

Thought Experiment: What would one need in order to be a baby-faced biotech billionaire? 

(For the purposes of this exercise, we'll ignore inheritance, and focus on "bootstrapping" from a standard middle-class childhood.)

For one, you'd likely need to forego college, and probably grad school. A five-year Ph.D., coupled with a 3-year postdoc shaves eight potentially game-changing years out of your 20s and 30s. Not to mention you're still paying back student loans and likely making below-market wages the entire time. Make no mistake, you'll have to start early, and perhaps look to hire your Ph.D. friends on the other side.

Next, you need what folks in the tech sector call a killer app. What does that mean for biotech? Something cheap to produce, easy to sell, relatively non-toxic and easily handled, and usable by people around the globe. A simple cancer diagnostic, perhaps, or a revolutionary photocatalyst. Maybe a new strain of fungi or bacteria for food production, or a serendipitous discovery of a new dye or drug (Hey, it worked for Perkin!)

Credit: Shutterstock

Third, since you'll have to weigh each wild idea or ground-shaking concept you create against its future commercialization value, you'd need a fundamental shift in your view of scientific communication. Open-access journals, blogs, national meeting presentations? Not for you. Timely patent applications and I.P. guardianship will be your bread and butter, so no sense in risking inadvertent disclosures. 

So, follow these easy 1-2-3 steps to biotech billions, right? Well, of course it's never that easy. Luck plays a crucial role in start-up ventures, as do connections. In this field, one's credibility might be undermined without a college degree, which might make initial fundraising tough. The barrier to entry might also be too high; tech entrepreneurs can start with a laptop, but biotech needs lab space, reagents, journal access, safety gear...the list goes on and on.

Readers, I'm sure this sounds nice and logical on paper, but I must have missed something along the way. Can you think of any high-net-worth youngsters who cut their teeth in chemistry? Why don't more young people see science entrepreneurship as a valid career direction?

A Jump to Conclusions...Based on Data?

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery recently released a spate of articles recapping the tumultuous past decade in drug development. 

I'd like to highlight a specific article, titled "From the Analyst's Couch - A Decade of Drug Discovery." Written by one John Arrowsmith (of Thomson-Reuters data-crunching fame), it shows how the major players in the pharma biz have juggled around in the past 10 years. Note Roche and Novartis' upward trend: from 2001-2011, Roche went from 10th to 5th in market cap, and Novartis from 5th to 3rd.

Source: Thomson Reuters

Not bad at all. Any specific reasons behind those climbs? First, Roche's acquisition of Genentech certainly helped them out, with less of the messy transitions of the Pfizer-Wyeth or Merck-Schering mergers. Second, look at the massive uptick in R&D spending by Roche (blue) and Novartis (pink) over the past decade! 

Unless I'm mistaken, I read both companies' spending as roughly quadrupling, from ~$2 billion to nearly $8-9ish billion over the past decade. Wow.

Note also that Pfizer, making double their Lipitor take from a decade past, still showed mostly flat investment in R&D from 2003-2009.

Page Two shows us a bar graph of the radical shift in therapeutic areas (this include all drugs from P1 -> NDA). 

Source: Thomson Reuters

Looks like cancer meds / pain / diabetes are WAY up, and cardiovascular is way down. 

Perhaps another sign of a graying population? Readers, what's your take?