• Partnering with Pharma: A New CRO Approach

    Bio-IT World | Mike Wilkinson, CIO and executive vice president at PPD, has a message for pharma: “We’re in this together as partners; we’re not a vendor anymore. I think we need to move away from that kind of transactional approach where all they’re looking for is to have a vendor and buy a service. That’s not going to work in this environment.”

    Jan 26, 2011

  • High Performance Computing, GPUs, and Cloud: A Perfect Match?

    Bio-IT World | Guest Commentary | In 2010, the high performance and high throughput computing (HPC/HTC) communities saw two major technologies go mainstream: the use of general purpose graphical processing units (GPGPU or just GPUs) and Cloud computing.

    Jan 26, 2011

  • Realizing Value from Technology

    Bio-IT World | A former senior executive at Wyeth for many years, followed by spells at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Susan Ward has spent the past eight years translating her detailed appreciation of the R&D process for numerous clients, helping companies translate technology into products. “Ask any CIO in the drug industry what keeps him/her up at night, and it won’t be too many sentences before the ‘value’ issue comes up,” says Ward.

    Jan 26, 2011

  • The Era of Big Data Analytics

    Bio-IT World | Toward the end of 2010, two systems biology (SB) pioneers, GNS Healthcare (formerly Gene Network Sciences) and Selventa (formerly Genstruct), underwent name changes and took major steps to reposition and grow their businesses. Time will judge the effectiveness of the moves. Today, the systems biology label seems mostly forgotten while its tenets live on, and perhaps that was to be expected.

    Feb 8, 2011

  • The $10,000 Genome and counting: The Complete Picture for 2011

    Bio-IT World | Complete Genomics CEO Cliff Reid says that the newly public genome sequencing service company is on course to sequence 1,000 human genomes by the end of 2011, and has already cracked the $10,000 genome "all in" pricepoint. Reid is also considering expanding Complete's range of service offerings and locations. 

    Feb 7, 2011

  • Oracle Builds Operational Efficiency, Empowers Patients

    Bio-IT World | Nicholas Giannasi is VP Life Sciences Product Strategy, sitting within Oracle’s Health Sciences global business unit, covering clinical development and safety. At Oracle, Giannasi has responsibility for the requirements, design, and direction of some 46 eClinical and safety products, including the recently acquired Phase Forward. Giannasi offered Bio•IT World chief editor Kevin Davies an overview of Oracle’s clinical offerings and aspirations, as well as steps to guard against complacency.

    Feb 7, 2011

  • Scientists Identify Druggable Target in Schizophrenia CNV

    Medscape | Scientists at UCSD have identified a copy number variant (CNV) in 1 in 300 schizophrenia patients that contains the gene for a known neuropeptide receptor called VIPR2, presenting a new and highly druggable target against the disorder. 

    Feb 4, 2011

  • Linking Data: New Life for Semantic Technologies

    Bio-IT World | A small software company formed by a group of former IBM staffers is breathing new life into semantic technologies. But don’t look for Cambridge Semantics to harp on the term. “The world of people well versed in semantic technology is still quite small,” says co-founder Lee Feigenbaum. “It’s important that anyone working with our software should not be IT... We can’t build our software without these technologies, but we’ve no interest in preaching that you’re using semantics.”

    Jan 26, 2011

  • A Prescription for Transforming Clinical Trials

    Bio-IT World | Becky Kush believes we still have work to do on clinical trials. The president and CEO of the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) says, “We haven’t done the real transformational move yet that’s really new and different. And the process is broken.”

    Jan 26, 2011

  • BGI Cloud on the Horizon

    Bio-IT World | SHENZHEN, CHINA—Tianjian Chen, an architect in BGI’s computing platform group and a key engineer in the development of BGI’s new cloud computing resource, is 26 years old. No wonder his colleagues call him the “old man” of the team. 

    Jan 26, 2011

  • Pfizer to Close UK Research Facility

    BBC News | Pfizer has announced it will close its R&D facility in Kent, England, which employs 2,400 people. The move has raised concerns that the UK is losing highly-skilled jobs although Pfizer insists the decision is not a reflection on the quality of UK research, 

    Feb 1, 2011

  • The New Normal for Clinical Development

    Bio-IT World | An assortment of emerging clinical trial technologies over the past decade are providing creative ways for pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organizations (CROs) to boost the quality, pace, and efficiency of their drug development programs. The promise is sporadically realized by companies that selectively and appropriately apply these tools and use timely and visible performance metrics as the basis for relationship-building with clinical investigators. Working recipes are not often diligently followed, however. Thus clinical trials performance, in the main, remains dreadful.

    Jan 26, 2011

  • A Preview of Bio-IT World Expo 2011

    Bio-IT World | On April 12-14, Bio•IT World will host its tenth annual conference. All signs point to this being the biggest and most exciting event yet, with two new conference tracks added by popular demand, bringing the total to nine; more than a dozen pre-conference workshops; and a record number of exhibitors. All the regular highlights are there as well, including the 2011 Best Practices Awards dinner, the Benjamin Franklin Award (presented by Bioinformatics.org), and the Best of Show exhibit prizes. Here are just a few of the potential highlights.

    Jan 26, 2011

  • Oxford Nanopore Spikes Sequencing Field with GridION System

    Bio-IT World | It’s hardly an all-out media blitz, but Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) has finally sneaked the first details of its next-generation sequencing playbook, a highly configurable prototype sequencing system dubbed GridION. 

     

     

    Jan 27, 2011

  • RainDance Closes $37.5m in Financing

    Bio-IT World | RainDance Technologies closed a $37.5 million Series D financing. According to the company, RainDance will use the funding to drive new applications for its commercial targeted sequencing and sequence enrichment solution in the medical genetics and research markets, as well as grow the company's global sales and support infrastructure. 

    Jan 25, 2011

  • DataCore Announces VDI Benchmarks

    BrianMadden.com | DataCore Software has announced benchmark results and a research paper reporting less than $35 per desktop for platform hardware and a total system cost of less than $70 per vDesktop for all hardware and software.

    Jan 24, 2011

  • Government to Fund Drug Research

    New York Times | The government's new drug development center, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, isn't intended to be comptetitive with the private sector, says NIH director Francis Collins. The center is slated to open in October and will be one of the 27 centers and institutes under the National Institutes of Health.

    Jan 24, 2011

  • Pfizer Signs $632m Deal for Biotech

    Seattle Times | Pfizer is paying $632 million in a research collaboration with Theraclone Sciences, a Seattle-based biotech working on antibody drugs for cancer and infectious diseases.

    Jan 20, 2011

  • 2011 Best Practices Deadline Extension

    Bio-IT World | Bio-IT World is announcing a deadline extension for its 2010 Best Practices awards program. In keeping with extensions given in previous years, the 2011 extended deadline is February 4.

    Jan 20, 2011

  • ONC Releases Final Certification Rule

    Bio-IT World Expert Commentary | New details of the health information technology (HIT) permanent certification program have been released, and it appears that the federal government will be leaning heavily on the private sector to oversee the electronic health records (EHR) certification process.

    Jan 18, 2011