• Roche Bids Again for Illumina?

    Bloomberg | A Swiss newspaper is reporting that Roche and Illumina may have come to a purchase agreement, eight months after Illumina rejected Roche's last proposed bid. The two companies will announce a January $66/share sale price, the paper reported.

    Dec 21, 2012

  • Going Long vs Going for the Sale

    Xconomy | Do biotechs today have a long term plan or vision? Should they? With Big Pharma seemingly always on the hunt for new technologies and targets to snatch up, do you need a long term plan?

    Dec 20, 2012

  • December Product and News Briefs

    Bio-IT World | Briefs for December include new products from Linguamatics, PerkinElmer, Titan Software, SoftGenetics, and Optibrium; industry news from IBM, Agilent, CLC bio and an internship opportunity in Singapore; a free trial from Partek; and more.  

    Dec 20, 2012

  • Challenges and Luck in Clinical Genomics

    Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel | Three years after Nic Volker, researchers and physicians discussed advances and challenges in genomic medicine this week at Marquette University. Today, the sequeincing and analysis that saved Volker can be done in a couple of days, but that hasn't made it mainstream.

    Dec 19, 2012

  • Amgen Guilty of Off-Label Marketing, $762m Fine

    LA Times | Amgen pleaded guilty in federal court to improper marketing of its anemia drug Aranesp and has agreed to $762 million in fines and settlements. Prosecutors said the company was encouraging doctors to use its popular anemia drug for unapproved uses in efforts to boost its bottom line.

    Dec 19, 2012

  • Broad Institute Names Matthew Trunnell New CIO

    Bio-IT World | Matthew Trunnell has been named the new chief information officer (CIO) of the Broad Institute, effective January 4, 2013.

    Dec 18, 2012

  • 2013 Enterprise Sofware Predictions

    Computerworld | Computerworld lays out its predictions for enterprise software vendors and users in 2013. Among them: heavy investment in mobility, an Oracle pullback on hardware, more momentum for Hadoop, and clouds, clouds, clouds.

    Dec 18, 2012

  • Oracle Big Data System Launched with Cloudera

    eWeek | Oracle announced a new big data appliance with Cloudera yesterday. Oracle Big Data Appliance X3-2 system of hardware and software has been upgraded to include Intel’s newest processors and the latest release of Cloudera.

    Dec 18, 2012

  • Best Biotech CEO of 2012

    The Street | The votes are in and Leonard Schleifer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has been named the best biotech CEO of 2012 in The Street's annual contest.

    Dec 18, 2012

  • Rackspace Offers Cloud Database Services

    Network World | Rackspace has announced new capabilities for data hosting and management. A NoSQL database as a service (DBaaS) from a company named Cloudant is now available in Rackspace's cloud. The service adds to database tools Rackspace already provides.

    Dec 17, 2012

  • More to Cancer than DNA

    Reuters | In findings published on Thursday in Science, researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto showed that cancer cells' DNA is not wholly responsible for cancer. Researchers found that despite having identical genetic mutations, colorectal cancer cells behaved as differently as if they were genetic strangers.

    Dec 17, 2012

  • Ten Rules for Open Source Software Development

    PLOS Computational Biology | In a paper published earlier this month in PLOS Computational Biology, Andreas Prlić of the San Diego Supercomputing Center and James B. Procter of the University of Dundee lay out ten simple rules for open development of scientific software. Among them: Don't Reinvent the Wheel; Be Your Own User; Nurture Your Community; and Science Counts.

    Dec 14, 2012

  • BGI-Complete Deal Continues to Raise Questions

    Bio-IT World Roundup | The BGI-Complete Genomics deal continues to stir controversy. Yesterday, Michael Wessel and Larry Wortzel, congressionally-appointed members of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, raised national security concerns about the deal. Complete Genomics' CEO Cliff Reid answered their claims--and others proposed by Illumina--in a memo this morning to Complete Genomics' staff.

    Dec 14, 2012

  • Overselling the Genomics Revolution

    Globe and Mail | Are the promises of personalized genomics being oversold? We are not in a personalized medicine revolution, Timothy Caulfield contends. Overhyping the promise, "can hurt the science, by creating unrealistic expectations, and distract us from other, more effective areas of health promotion."

    Dec 14, 2012

  • Andrew Hopkins and Algorithmic Drug Design

    BBC | University of Dundee researchers are applying advanced statistics and data analysis to drug discovery. Andrew Hopkins, Chair of Medicinal Informatics at Dundee, says he and his colleagues have "effectively proved the concept of automated design of new compounds showing that by using algorithms to process massive amounts of data, we can tackle problems of huge complexity."

    Dec 13, 2012

  • Population Diagnostics Aids Identification of Autism CNVs

    Bio-IT World | A small biotech company, Population Diagnostics (PDx), has collaborated with researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (SickKids) to provide a potentially major step forward in the search for a diagnostic test for autism. 

    Dec 13, 2012

  • Complete Genomics and China's Ulterior Motives

    Mercury News | Michael Wessel and Larry Wortzel, congressionally-appointed members of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, recommend the utmost scrutiny of the BGI-Complete Genomics deal on national security grounds.

    Dec 13, 2012

  • AWS Recognizes Innovative Uses of Spot Instances

    eWeek | Amazon Web Services announced the winners of its first annual Spotathon event last week. The competition recognized innovative uses of Spot instances to help small companies achieve massive scale and save time and money.

    Dec 12, 2012

  • 2012's Best Biotech CEOs

    The Street| The Street has nominated four biotech CEOs for the title of Best Biotech CEO of 2012: the heads of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Gilead Sciences, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and Sarepta Therapeutics.

    Dec 11, 2012

  • Big Claims, Big Promise?

    Technology Review | Moderna Therapeutics has billed itself the next Genentech. It's raised more than $40 milion and has attracted some big names for its Scientific Advisory Board. But questions remain about the company's RNA technology.

    Dec 11, 2012