Sev­er­al biotech col­leagues and I were in­spired by the Neu­ro­science Lab at Cold Spring Har­bor’s clever and strik­ing pro-im­mi­gra­tion GIF an­i­ma­tion. We thought a sim­i­lar pho­to wall on be­half of the biotech/life sci­ences com­mu­ni­ty would be a grip­ping state­ment that’s hard to look away. Here’s a su­per start.

Want to add your com­pa­ny to this col­lec­tion? Use the icon next to my by­line to send an email.

Akcea

Al­ny­lam

Deci­bel

De­nali

Geno­cea

Mor­phic

NGM Bio

Ovid

Pax­Vax

Schro­ding­er

Xen­cor

Praveen Tipir­neni is the CEO of Mor­phic Ther­a­peu­tic. Biotech Voic­es is a con­tributed col­umn writ­ten by se­lect End­points News sub­scribers.

While Novartis painstakingly works to mop up the stench of the data manipulation scandal associated with its expensive gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) Zolgensma— rival Biogen is attempting to expand the use of its SMA therapy, Spinraza. 

The US drugmaker $BIIB secured US approval for Spinraza for use in the often fatal genetic disease in 2016. The approval covered a broad range of patients with infantile-onset (most likely to develop Type 1) SMA. 

After months of buzz from both sides of the aisle, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will today introduce her plan to allow the federal government to negotiate prices for 250 prescription drugs, setting up a showdown with a pharmaceutical industry working overtime to prevent it.

The need to limit drug prices is a rare point of agreement between President Trump and Democrats, although the president has yet to comment on the proposal and will likely face pressure to back a more conservative option or no bill at all. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is reportedly lobbying his fellow party members on a more modest proposal he negotiated with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden in July.

Jeffrey Kindler’s plan to take his biotech — which is developing a slate of non-opioid painkillers — public, is back on.

The Boston based company, led by former Pfizer $PFE chief Kindler, originally contemplated a $70 million to $80 million IPO last year— but eventually postponed that strategy. On Wednesday, the company revived its bid to make a public debut in a filing with the SEC — although no pricing details were disclosed.

It was the cellular equivalent of opening your car door and finding an active, roaring engine in the driver seat.

Scientists learned strands of DNA could occasionally appear outside of its traditional home in the nucleus in the 1970s, when they appeared as little, innocuous circles on microscopes; inexplicable but apparently innate. But not until UC San Diego’s Paul Mischel published his first study in Science in 2014 did researchers realize these circles were not only active but potentially overactive and driving some cancer tumors’ superhuman growth.