The Life Sciences in New York State

China overtakes India...or does it?

I'll take their word for it. But without seeing how this study was actually conducted, it's hard to make any definitive conclusions. For example, are they counting trials being outsourced into the country versus those for domestic approval and commercialization?

China overtakes India in drug testing

...China now has a cumulative total of 510 completed or ongoing trials compared with 471 in India, which had until recently been ahead on both measures. The trend reflects intensifying interest by the healthcare sector in China, which is growing rapidly as a result of rising income and expanding health coverage and is already forecast to be the world's fifth-largest pharmaceuticals market by 2010.

The Future of Work

The 20 August issue of Business Week has a series of articles on The Future of Work. On the surface, this may appear to be old news, that is, using the Internet, VOIP, IM, etc. to coordinate workers around the world. Any number of books have covered this topic. But this series of articles stresses the challenges embedded in this novel way of doing business. One of the key themes, in my view, is that coordinating global teams may lead to a loss in efficiency due to time zone differences, other (unknown) demands on worker time, etc.

Where I think these articles fall a bit short is that they are overwhelmingly focused on multinational companies such as IBM and Dow. Precious little space is devoted to entrepreneurs and small companies. Yet many of my clients struggle with these very issues, i.e., how to coordinate drug development teams in the US and India.

Regardless, I think these articles are worth a poolside read.

A Guide For Multinationals

For global corporations, the borderless world of Willy Chiu offers a glimpse of what's to come. International success once meant having bodies and factories on the ground from São Paulo to Silicon Valley to Shanghai. Coordinating their activities was a deliberately planned effort handled by headquarters.

The challenge now is to weld these vast, globally dispersed workforces into superfast, efficient organizations. Given the conflicting needs of multinational staff and the swiftly shifting nature of competition brought about by the Internet, that's an almost impossible task. And getting workers to collaborate instantly—not tomorrow or next week, but now—requires nothing less than a management revolution.

On Oil, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia

I digress from my usual life science-related banter to post a few words on oil.

There’s an interesting article in today’s Falls Church News Press on how the Saudi’s can react to a US pull out of Iraq. The article discusses an earlier Op-Ed piece in last week’s Washington Post.

Take a look at the Washington Post piece, then the Falls Church News Press piece. Of interest is the claim that the Saudi’s could devastate Iran by flooding the market with oil, driving prices downward and devastating the Iranian economy. Quote:

If Saudi Arabia boosted production and cut the price of oil in half, the kingdom could still finance its current spending. But it would be devastating to Iran, which is facing economic difficulties even with today's high prices. The result would be to limit Tehran's ability to continue funneling hundreds of millions each year to Shiite militias in Iraq and elsewhere.

Anyone who follows these issues closely knows that this is rubbish. The Saudi's cannot increase production far beyond their 9 million barrels per day. If anything, cutting production would help give Ghawar and their other major fields some much needed rest. Cutting production, of course, would hurt the US and other oil importers, but it would remind the World that Saudi Arabia can still speak softly and carry an enormous stick. Quote:

Could a major cutback in Saudi oil production bring down America? Maybe not, but it sure could do a lot of harm. The most blatant action would be cut their oil production in half. Taking 4-5 million barrels a day off the world oil market would get everybody's attention very quickly. Oil prices would certainly go well over $100 per barrel. In short order, the US and world economies would suffer greatly.

 Thus:

• We are going to be in Iraq for a long long time. Our current situation will be the status quo.
• So long as we continue to drive our cars and trucks and refuse to invest in wind and solar, we will continue to be at the mercy of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, and other net oil exporters with unstable governments.

 What we also need to keep in mind is that conservation needs to be discussed in a geopolitical context. Too often, we hear about conservation as a way to conserve and protect the environment, i.e., the ozone layer, water pollution, etc. The reality is that we as a society have not responded to conservation in an environmental context. We still drive, we still pollute our air, and we still tolerate it. However, placing this discussion in a geopolitical context, where oil and gas prices visibly and quickly rise in response to events thousands of miles away, will, in my view, spur all of us to conserve much more than we have in the past.

 UPDATE: Extraordinarily interesting parallel drawn by Andrew Sullivan:

The major powers in the Middle East, in other words, are on the verge of behaving like the major powers in Europe centuries ago: they will act as expressions of national interest but also of sectarian theology...The difference between now and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe is that this regional war within a divided monotheism will take place in a time of vastly greater technological capacity for destruction…So what took Europe two centuries may take the Middle East a decade.

 

 

Nice way to make a living

Essentially force a company to take on debt, then force the company to pay you from the proceeds. Slick.

Gluttons At The Gate

"It feels a lot like 1999 in venture capital," says Steven N. Kaplan, finance professor at the University of Chicago. Indeed, it shares elements of both the late-1990s VC craze, in which too much money flooded into investment managers' hands, as well as the 1980s buyout binge, in which swaggering dealmakers hunted bigger and bigger prey. But the fast money--and the increasingly creative ways of getting it--set this era apart. "The deal environment is as frothy as I've ever seen it," says Michael Madden, managing partner of private equity firm BlackEagle Partners Inc. "There are still opportunities to make good returns, but you have to have a special angle to achieve them."

Comments on Twilight in the Desert

I rarely post book reviews on my blog, but I have to make an exception for Twilight in the Desert.

Let me cut to the chase and say that this book is simply outstanding. Why?

1. Rarely does one see a topic so thoroughly researched by someone who is already an expert in the field. Simmons had already spent the bulk of his career in the energy business. He decided to conduct extensive, quality research to shape his hypotheses and conclusions. Any student of research methods would benefit from understanding how this book was crafted.

 

2. Having such a data-driven body of knowledge means that the discussions surrounding peak oil, environmentalism, conservation, and geopolitics (perhaps the term should be geopetroleopolitics?) can be based on some semblance of fact, not rhetoric. Saudi oil fields are declining. This is a fact. We don not have good data to project when these declines will become irreversible. This is also a fact. How we react to these facts as individuals, as a nation, and as a planet, is vitally important. Simmons has crafted the foundations upon which these discussions can be conducted.

 

I do have some minor quibbles about the book. The index could be a bit better. Some of the technical terminology could have been defined in the text a bit better with footnotes. Some terms are used early, but not defined until much later. Again, I think these are minor points.

I highly recommend this book.

Las Vegas targeting NJ biotech firms

Interestingly strategy. Rather than growing their biotech industry organically, Nevada is looking to entice companies to move to Nevada. Sure, taxes in Nevada are minimal compared to New Jersey, but how many companies/ entrepreneurs and their families are going to want to make the move? Where is the safety net for failed entrepreneurs? Do they then become blackjack dealers?

Las Vegas Targets States' Biotech Firms

Competition among states for biotech companies with high-paying jobs appears to have reached a new level, with Las Vegas targeting other states _ first California and now New Jersey _ in the high-stakes battle for up-and-coming companies.

NY...A Minnesotan's perspective

Stadium mania is producing illusion of forward movement

The reality is this: States like New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina and California are literally "pulling away from the gate" and investing aggressively in emerging fields such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, alternative energies, the life sciences and, most importantly, science and technology education. The question we in Minnesota must ask ourselves is whether we are content to wait at the gate for the privilege of giving a free ride to few wealthy first-class passengers who will take us nowhere, or whether we want to get serious about catching a flight to the future.

Yet another reason why I Love New York

Extraordinarily pessimistic picture being painted here.

100 Years Later: Is S.F. Prepared?

Over the next 30 years, the USGS estimates that the chances of a major quake hitting the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California are 67% and 60%, respectively.

Yet another reason why I Love New York

Extraordinarily pessimistic picture being painted here.

100 Years Later: Is S.F. Prepared?

Over the next 30 years, the USGS estimates that the chances of a major quake hitting the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California are 67% and 60%, respectively.

Definition of a bubble?

I bet if you look up the word "bubble" in the dictionary, somewhere there will be a definition similar to this person's comments.

Bulls Are Running to India, Raising Fears of a Bubble

Now Mr. Reddy is preparing to get even more aggressive. "Indian companies are doing extremely well," he said, "and I plan to soon start investing half my earnings in the stock market."