Insights

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a hemoglobinopathy associated with defective ‘sickle’ red blood cells. Two hemoglobinopathies, β-thalassemia and SCD, are different in the following way. β-Thalassemia has low or absent production of β-globin, while SCD has defective β-globin due to a specific mutation leading to defective hemoglobin. In this article you will find insights about…

Note to readers: A short laymen version of this article with suggested problems and proposed solutions is published in Crain’s Cleveland Business. Here, we present a situation assessment for more advanced readers. If George Orwell were alive today, he could have pointed out that ‘all viruses are equal, but some viruses are more equal than…

In partnership with Case Western Reserve University, we are giving educational webinars on business concepts used in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry including forecasting principles. These webinars are interactive and open to anyone interested. We had very positive feedback from a variety of attendees: entrepreneurs, lawyers, physicians, principle investigators, technology transfer office associates, life sciences…

BioHeights has launched a Risk-Adjusted NPV calculator for an investigational product. In the Main menu, go to Tools – RA NPV forecast. The Risk-Adjusted Net Present Value (RA NPV) is a useful metric to compare several programs in terms of their risk and value. For example, an early-stage (i.e., riskier) product with higher revenue potential…

BioHeights has launched an NRA NPV forecast calculator for an investigational therapeutic. Net Present Value (NPV) calculation is a common tool to assess the value of an investigational product. Importantly, non-risk adjusted (NRA) NPV forecast can help answer the key question: Should you even consider developing this product? By comparing NPVs of different products, we…

In the cell and gene therapy industry people often say that manufacturing is 80% of the business. Naturally, I continue to look for nuggets of wisdom from manufacturing experts. Recently, I had an opportunity to observe release testing for a fresh CAR T product at an academic institution with a state-of-the art cGMP cell therapy…