However, in looking at this policy one continues to run into some of the larger industries (corporations) running and directing the policy of our non-representative governments (US, state, county, regional, etc.).

See the list @ What Brings All These Companies Together in One Electronic Place and for One Cause?” (July 7 LGH post)… That question is still on the table; most of my comments these days are “spam.” However, there are other networks (like phone, email, etc.); the word is out.

This post is a bit of a wild ride, which is better than the straight path to poverty and drudgery, and narrating who paved the road… I think it shows there IS an alternate way to live, and one of the better ways to get there is to ignore the advice, and perhaps follow the career paths of people who are arrogant enough to believe they should be planning for the planet, and coaching people what kind of jobs to work, inbetween inventing and merchandising new technologies, raising capital for startups and then selling them and with the profit, starting up some more things, most of this related very, very (very very) closely to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, who are most likely to sponsor professorships, fellowships, centers of excellence at the university level, and all kinds of projects which might improve THEIR profits.*

(Don’t miss the part where a leading geneticist George Church (see Human Genome Project) is interviewed by a German magazine about the theoretical and technical possibility bring the Neanderthals back to life through DNA (and of a surrogate human mother). And where he figures, well, there’d need to be a cohort of them… This mindset probably wouldn’t be welcome in any welfare-to-work programs as a legitimate work-activity — creative thinking and inventing “disruptive technologies” which some of these below are called. In fact, in my experience, the extended gauntlet of the family courts is about THE best way to squelch any creative thinking — if one parent exhibits it, the other can simply get them labeled as an oddball or eccentric thinker, and next moment it’s — where are my kids? Thus while it’s not quite LEGAL to actually OUTLAW creative thinking or resourcefulness in single parents (or their exes), a lot of it can be screened out in the family law arena, preserving the status quo of “divorce” as a crime, and non-collaborative (with the ex) behaviors as a thought-crime close to it. ]]

[*And sorry about all those long opening sentences. I can’t reconstruct DNA, so apparently like stringing those ideas together in a sentence; and yes, that is a form of play…)

Particularly if one wasn’t born into the privilege and/or hasn’t hit the ground running from an early age…to end up at Harvard, Yale, etc. it might be good to look at the flip side of the social science research and demonstration fields one is constantly exposed to while going through the courts, custody, etc. matters….

How each of these corporations got started and what they are doing is downright inspiring and enlightening. It’s a history lesson — on the actual mutual-benefit factor, as opposed to the alleged public benefit factor, which sometimes turns out to be just myth. It takes money to keep the myths spinning, too — so like I continue to say, “follow the money” and “educate yourself.”

This Top section is just to brush some biotech language in front of our faces, maybe as an industry alert that, finding minimum-wage jobs for those on welfare may not be the best idea for them, at least if “income self-sufficiency” is the long-term goal… in THIS global corporate climate?

From “FierceBioTech.com (“The BioTech Industry’s Daily Monitor”) we see a Harvard Biological Chemist dive into the thrill-seeking team science environment of searching for things to help the Pharmaceutical companies come up with new drugs. Look at the startup funding, and the companions (not to mention the company names):

Prolific Harvard chemist Greg Verdine takes helm at Warp Drive
July 2, 2013 | By Ryan McBride

Professor Gregory Verdine has founded plenty of biotech companies, but Warp Drive Bio has become the first one he has ever helmed as CEO. After co-founding Warp Drive, which launched last year to discover natural product drugs, Verdine has taken over the chief executive role from Third Rock Ventures partner Alexis Borisy.

Based on Verdine’s original scientific idea, Warp Drive took off last year with a $125 million financing deal to mine bacterial genomes for drug compounds. Sanofi signed on as a funder and collaborator from the start, helping Third Rock and Greylock Partners to finance the drug-discovery effort. Borisy, who Verdine credits for the business plan behind Warp Drive, has become the startup’s executive chairman.

That whole article is fascinating; towards the end it mentions GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, and Novartis as companies willing to come “back to earth” in searching for great bacteria to test new drugs on. That’s where Warp Drive and a Harvard chemistry professor seem to come in.

Related, earlier this year (like, January), we learn about the Financial Power of Syndication:

UPDATED: Fueled by Sanofi, Warp Drive Bio takes off with $125M deal
January 12, 2013 by Ryan McBride

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Biotech startup Warp Drive Bio has scored $125 million in financing from a syndicate that features the French drug giant Sanofi ($SNY) along with founding backer Third Rock Ventures and the VC firm Greylock Partners. More than just an investor in Warp Drive, Sanofi has an option to acquire the startup if the new company can hit certain goals in developing drugs found in microbial genomes.

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With a brand new approach for discovering drugs from nature, Warp Drive aims to search the genomes of microbes for molecules that have the potential to target disease pathways that the have eluded all other attempts to do so. It’s the brainchild of Greg Verdine, a chemical biologist at Harvard and venture partner at Third Rock. His fellow founders include Harvard genomics pro George Church** and James Wells, who studies protein-to-protein interactions at the University of California, San Francisco. (“UCSF”)

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“This is the type of early-stage, blue sky, innovative, transformative company that a lot of people are saying just isn’t getting created anymore,” Alexis Borisy, a Third Rock partner and interim CEO of the startup, told FierceBiotech. “But here we are. We have created it.”

James A. Wells vita (above) shows he started out at Genentech (one of the companies on “The List”) and in 1998 co-founded “Sunesis Pharmaceuticals. The Vita says more than I can summarize (not understanding all the terms).

Bio at “ACS” (American Chemical Society) blog. Notice that his work is aimed towards helping drug discovery, particularly it looks like cancer and inflammation.

James A. Wells, PhD, an internationally recognized biochemist and leader in the development of new technologies for engineering proteins and for identifying small molecules to aid in drug discovery, is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.

He joined UCSF in 2005 as the first holder of the Harry Wm. and Diana V. Hind Distinguished Professorship in Pharmaceutical Sciences, and has been the chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the UCSF School of Pharmacy since July 1, 2008.

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[[Harry Wm. Hind, 1939 graduate of UCSF School of Pharmacy, developed wetting solution for contact lenses that helped them becaome widespread, and more — lived to be 96 (til April 2012), more than $7.5 million to UCSF, see bio. He and partner (who left for the Navy in 1941) co-founded Barnes-Hind Pharmaceuticals. Later, in 1989, he worked to help his wife with shingles, and created Lidoderm anesthetic gel patch.]]}}

Wells is a professor in his home Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and holds a joint appointment as professor in the UCSF School of Medicine’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology.

At UCSF, Wells’ research group focuses on the discovery and design of small molecules that trigger or modulate cellular processes in inflammation and cancer. Using small molecules and engineered proteins, the Wells lab is studying how enzymes known as proteases are turned on to cleave particular proteins in cells. The lab is focusing on one set of proteases, known as caspases, that kill virally infected or precancerous cells. These enzymes act as demolition experts and help us understand the essential protein struts that support life. Wells’ research spans the multiple disciplines of biophysics, cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry and chemistry.

The Wells Lab at UCSF:

The Wells Lab is interested in designing proteins and small molecules that trigger cellular processes, in order to better understand and treat cancer and inflammation. Our research spans the multiple disciplines of chemical biology, biophysics, cell biology, molecular biology, enzymology, and proteomics. Our passion is to identify, activate, and inhibit critical signaling nodes to better understand how these drive responses such as cell death and differentiation.

GEORGE CHURCH

George Church, Huffington Post 1/2013, denies that he’s looking for an “adventurous woman” to become surrogate for a Neanderthal, although apparently the possibility is not off the table…

Church says those reports are based on misunderstandings of an interview he gave the German magazine Der Spiegel. The publication had approached him to talk about his recent book, “Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves.”

Church said the idea of bringing back Neanderthals gets brief mention as a theoretical possibility, and the book refers to an “adventurous” woman merely to point out that the process would require a woman who no doubt would be adventurous.

“It said you’re going to need someone like that if you’re going to do it,” he said. “It’s certainly very different from taking out a want ad.”

Neanderthals were stocky, muscular hunters who lived in Europe and western Asia. They died out sometime after modern humans arrived in Europe, which occurred some 40,000 to 45,000 years ago.

Scientists have recovered DNA from Neanderthal fossils. Making a Neanderthal would start with putting such DNA into human cells. They would be used to make an embryo, which would be carried to term by a surrogate mother, Church said…. Such a process would face ethical questions involving respect for the mother and child, as well as safety issues, and it would also require societal approval, Church said.

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I’ll say so. Right now, divorce isn’t receiving societal approval, and retaining contraception appears to be an uphill battle; can you imagine the custody issues if the surrogate wanted parental rights? What about foster care if the genomics genius couldn’t make time to be a good Dad?

Here’s that SPIEGEL interview, posted (in English) on SPiegel.de, also gives quick summary of Gregory Verdine’s co-founders. Several paragraphs in the table below — up to the line about, the importance of social diversity:

[A whole other arena than the “responsible fatherhood healthy marriage” talk, isn’t it?]

[2010 New York Times article gives the flavor of Church and his background. If I’m reading it right, he MIGHT have been at least at one point raised by a single mother? At least, something happened when she married a physician, indicating yet another among the world’s notables of how such kids are truly at risk of being failures in life…like this one, who distinguished himself in the 1980s around gene sequencing, and has started several dozen companies. He wants to get the genomes of 100,000 people (or did in 2010>

Verdine’s vita shows plenty of pharmaceutical and other fellowships (Eli Lilly, DuPont, NIH, Searle, Roche, Zenecca Pharmaceuticals, Enanta Pharmaceuticals, plus Alfred P. Sloan et al.) He has a lab at Harvard, two-paragraph description gives an idea of the context, currently has himself, a lab administrator and about 18 Grad, Undergrad or Postdoctoral members:

The research interests of the Verdine lab lie in the emerging area of chemical biology.  We study biologic processes underlying growth and proliferation of human cancer cells, control of gene expression, and preservation of genomic integrity.  Our research has led to the invention of new and powerful approaches for the discovery of unconventional bioactive ligands termed “synthetic biologics” that have proven effective at addressing therapeutic targets previously considered “undruggable.”

Verdine and coworkers have elucidated the mechanism by which DNA methyltransferases catalyze epigenetic modification of the genome, as well as the structural basis for sequence specific DNA recognition by NF-κB and NFAT, master regulators of acute phase and immune responses and organ development.  Our work has illuminated the biochemical and structural basis for enzymatic recognition and removal of mutagenic damage in DNA.

OK, Greg Verdine as partner in Third Rock Ventures is also involved in startup Warp Drive Bio.

It sounds more than exhilarating.

Discovering drugs from microbes has its roots in the early days of the pharmaceutical industry, and it has produced many popular medicines such as the heart pill Lipitor, Borisy said. Yet Warp Drive is assembling a specialized search engine to hunt for molecules encoded in microbial genomes and make dipping into nature’s medicine chest far more efficient than past methods, he noted. Fast and cheap DNA sequencing has enabled groups like Warp Drive to assemble troves of genomic data on organisms of interest, Borisy explained, and the discovery work that the company is pursuing wouldn’t be possible without advances in sequencing genomes.

Warp Drive’s $125 million in committed capital, which the startup is expected to get in separate chunks based on the firm achieving certain goals, is enough to fund the company’s main R&D efforts for 5 years, Borisy said. The company, which is based in Cambridge, MA, has been incubating at the offices of Third Rock for the past two years. Its release says that $75 million of the total $125 million deal is equity investment.

In related news: Sanofi has struck a collaboration deal with another Third Rock-backed company, Foundation Medicine. Cambridge, MA-based Foundation announced the deal this morning, saying it plans use its genomic sequencing and analysis services to provide genetic biomarkers and companion diagnostics for Sanofi’s experimental cancer drugs. Sanofi is the latest of five drugmakers to form partnerships with the startup.

– here’s Warp Drive’s release
– see Xconomy’s story
– and Dow Jones Newswires’ report

ThirdRockVentures.com

(click title for the website, with maps of Boston and San Francisco. The dots on the maps are companies Third Rock has launched. Its motto is: Launching Extraordinary Healthcare Companies.

We are not just launching new healthcare companies – we are rapidly growing them, advancing pipelines to the clinic and developing new products. In just six short years, and during a period of time when early stage investing has been in flux, we have successfully raised more than $1.3 billion and invested in more than 31 companies to accomplish this mission. We truly believe that nothing is impossible.

[And it was only founded in 2007…) It kind of reminds me of ISIS Innovation Limited in Oxford, which is a wholly owned (by University of Oxford) subsidiary to professionalize technology transfer, i.e., turn those ideas into products — and money, and fast:

Isis was established by Oxford University in 1988 as its wholly owned technology transfer company.  Isis has developed substantially over the years in a number of phases, as the technology transfer activity has grown, and with the formation of Oxford University Consulting and Isis Enterprise.

Our mission is to be the leading international technology transfer organisation, to transfer technology and expertise from the University of Oxford, to deliver value to all our clients, and to maximise social and economic benefits in a commercial manner.

Isis manages the University’s intellectual property portfolio, working with University researchers on identifying, protecting and marketing technologies through licensing, spin-out company formation, consulting and material sales. Isis funds patent applications and legal costs, negotiates exploitation and spin-out company agreements, and identifies and manages consultancy opportunities. Isis works on projects from all areas of the University’s research activities: life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences and humanities.  Isis provides access to Oxford’s expertise and provides researchers with advice on commercialisation.

As these drug corporations are often (as well as R&D in technology and “disruptive science,” patenting genome search engines, and professionalizing the “ideation” process, while facilitating company and product launch for some very nice profits (it’s hoped) — they are ALSO funding different nonprofits specializing in the social science of human populations, i.e., to study and better regulate “us” (people who have major issues with the status quo of the court systems, and are struggling to survive it, or relatives of those who did NOT survive it), why not at least do them the favor of studying ’em back?

As I do this (unfunded) it seems that the playbooks some of us are supposed to use have almost no resemblance to the playbooks those promoting “Federal Designer Families” themselves use. They are on the corporate level; we are supposed to succeed through diligence, smarts, and above all, obedience to the rules (which the same — and this post shows a good example — don’t themselves obey, even in their own court, which is essentially capitalism, especially marketing to the sectors that the federal government controls (i.e., people in its systems).

Continued from post on “What are these companies doing in the same electronic place?” Here’s the list again, in different format (but same companies):

Any link — all those links — would lead to a history of corporate owners who are NOT living paycheck to paycheck, and do not get lectures like this — and are not the topic of lectures and discussions like this “The State’s Role in Supporting Marriage and Families“?

Anything seem a bit “off” here?

Coaching the Poor to THIS road to “Self-Sufficiency. . . .”

First of all, now that welfare law has been radically reformed (Family Support Act of 1988) which is to say, the thing is now in serious motion for the first time since about 1935, why not reform it some more — and more — and more?

Sometimes I read this and wonder how many people would continue poor after separation or divorce if they’d not been, initially, encouraged to think in terms of buying and selling corporations, taught (as in, taught in school) about investments, and accounting — rather being instead encouraged to learn become, according to the sorting mechanism of the schools — either blue-collar workers or (if sorted out), white-collar professionals. I also wonder if more business weren’t taught at the K-12 level, there might not be an inherent interest in math (which is necessary to engage in it), and/or reading (which is helpful if one hopes to run a business) and history (which reveals the patterns of business in our country — unless it’s taught from dumbed-down and sanitized textbooks! (See “Diane Ravitch” et al.)

Basically, sounds like if it has “child, family, parent, or social services” on it somewhere — funding can be found. The Children’s Trust fund factor is one to watch. All the blue-color programs in last paragraph (as well as all bulleted federal programs, above) are strictly speaking — public money, which comes in part from everyone who contributes anything by way of taxes into the federal or states system, and prior generations who also did; not to mention as we can see, people who get married and pay the state license fees. The “and foundation grants” is a very vague reference to what is, in fact, a LARGE source of aid to this programming — and it represents private money. Foundations are usually formed from corporate wealth or family wealth with the goal of controlling to what use that money is put. (See Private Equity page, right sidebar).

Moreover — as we can see this nice “Welfare Information Network” 2003 issue above, helpfully tells groups so very many ways one can start sucking liquid gold (all but) off the federal faucets — i.e., where they might get some (hint, hint….) grants and funds to promote more “Marriage Promotion” projects — doesn’t it bring up the obvious question:

From where did the United States (federal departments, that is?) get all these billions to divert, in the first place? Why does Congress appropriate money for such programs? Why do state DHS directors think they’re such a great idea when their own constituents are raising hell about the programs, as happened in Kansas not long ago, when a secret convoy of family values people were flown in and met behind closed doors to discuss transforming Kansas into, well, something a little closer maybe to Oklahoma and it’s (in)famous Marriage Initiative?

Maybe our own government is just a little over-paid; perhaps if the government weren’t operating at such an astronomical profit (that it owns most of the infrastructure of the globe, at this point) — perhaps there’d be less poverty around? I mean, think about it!

By contrast the corporations on “the list” (top table)

This type of corporation (and those specific ones) prefer to fund the discussions about managing the poor, thereby framing, interrupting, and through sponsorship intercepting any truly open dialogue between the poor — or even normal, working, middle-class, un-incorporated citizens — and the government about the corporations. Any such conversations are colored by, who’s paying for them.

I cannot in one post, or even one blog, communicate how very saturated is governments at all levels by corporate influence to frame social science policy to manage the masses.

PROBLEM: Government itself is NOT reportable and prosecutable under the SEC for conspiracy to commit securities fraud and rob millions of dollars of profits from the shareholders, as were the executives of ImPath, below, were. Some got jail time, most got heavy fines, and properly so — because they conspired to lie to THEIR “public” (which bought and sold stock to help fund the company — not pad the executives payrolls when the company went under through their fraud….).

What do we do when the same activity occurs — only government is involved, and there’s no Government-run “Securities Exchange Commission” on its own trading of debt, securities, investments, etc. while they are also figuring out how many programs to benefit which corporations they can divert into social science demonstration pilot projects into? And when there is a literal teaching and research “institution” blending government (which is not reportable for securities fraud) and corporations (which aren’t likely to GET reported for securities fraud to the point they lose their government contracts) — what is the public, who foots the bill (while being researched and demonstrated upon, in addition to their own work lives) — supposed to do? Just go with the flow, lest they lose the corporate jobs? or someone simply opens the jail doors and lets the local community handle their own criminal element (after the same communities have been better disarmed, justified by the same criminal element….) ???

Another institution representing this blend to examine might be the “Center for Court Innovation” in New York — which is a joint project between “The Fund for the City of New York” and the Unified Court System of New York (between corporation and courts — private and government). Who funded the fund? Who funds the Courts (answer: should be, taxpayers — not private interests!).

The “WIN” article above is already ten years old — it’s from 2003.

I did not even discover any of this information, or comprehend is significance to me (and my children) personally, (see “Support This Uncommon Analysis” sidebar) until nearly 2009; in fact NO effort was made by any government entity to get this information to the average female (although there is outreach to males to enroll them in the various diversionary programs, such as compromise of arrears in exchange for starting a custody battle, or winning in one; or coparenting, batterers intervention, etc.) in the family courts!

But the policy began back in 1996, and the passage of the 1996 PRWORA definitely had some advance lead time. ERGO, I have to conclude that whatever else I was doing at the time (which I guess is a clue that I’m over 30 years old here), it wasn’t — understanding what my own government was doing, or who ran it. Nope, I was being a good citizen, nose to the grindstone, college, profession, working, serving and helping the local communities and schools.

This is exactly where most of the population is supposed to be — while fewer and fewer others actually set the rules and devise ways for them to be ignored or broken, etc., for example, if one of their own gets snared by mistake in the same nets actually designed for low-income population control.

POURING WEALTH INTO FOUNDATIONS, OR TOWARDS POLICY-SETTING NONPROFITS with GOVERNMENTAL INFLUENCE….

These multi-million (or, billion)-dollar corporations then pour their wealth acquired, in part, by buying and selling parts of each other, raising capital for strategic positioning and targeting the US Government for contracts — and at times acquired by setting up monopolies via immoral and illegal means, or exploiting cheap labor, slave labor, etc. — and with their excesses, they can also afford to pour wealth into privately controlled foundations (reducing taxes as well) to run social science R&D on “how to reduce poverty” and lecture already poor people to do what they themselves, did not do to become wealthy.

And we’re not supposed to notice this?

This type of inquiry tells me why so many of these companies need to stay really closely connected to political leadership in particular of the Health and Human Services [HHS] stakeholders. “Stakeholders” are not generally considered the public, the public are future consumers, not a serious market force when forced-consumption is already available through the various courts (family, juvenile, dependency, mental health, drug, etc.) a significant Archipelago).

and looked up that Company. See recent post What Brings All These Companies Together in One Electronic Place and for One Cause?”, for the list.. (or, see top of this post)… There is much more information available on the companies in the post’s title here, some may have been posted already; hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I did learning about it.

[Organizations coach the poor on how to succeed in life by obtaining employment]… While schmoozing and strategizing a completely different path to not just self-sufficiency, but ongoing wealth.

GENZYME

:

Do I not keep squawking about that? Educate Thyself – -Love to Learn and Experiment!

However it doesn’t hurt to have some prep school encouragement for placement and ending up in a good place for this to start with.. and some networks in place.  Read on….

WELL, after getting Impath, Genzyme decided to get BioEnvision.

Genzyme had a sub-license from Bioenvision to market clofarabine in North America. On May 29, 2007 Genzyme made a tender offer to purchase Bioenvision for $5.60 per share. On October 27, 2007, a majority of shareholders voted to approve Genzyme’s acquisition.[6] In 2007, CEO, President, and Board Chairman Henri Termeer, earned a salary of $2.5 million, and non-cash compensation worth $129 million.[7]

Bioenvision Shareholders Approve Acquisition by Genzyme Corporation [That press release isn’t dated, but it must’ve been somewhere around the end of May, 2007 — see my next quote, another press release of a Bioenvision shareholder protests Genzyme “low-balling” Bioenvision’s stock.]

Genzyme Corporation and Bioenvision announced this afternoon that Bioenvision stockholders have voted to approve the acquisition of the company by Genzyme at a reconvened special shareholder meeting in New York. The transaction will be effective tomorrow. Bioenvision shares have now ceased trading and the company will be delisted from Nasdaq.

Fifty-six percent of Bioenvision’s issued and outstanding shares of common stock and preferred stock, voting together as a single class on an as converted basis, supported the merger. This represents approximately 67 percent of the total shares voted.

With its acquisition of Bioenvision, Genzyme takes a significant step in enhancing its existing oncology business by gaining the exclusive, worldwide rights to clofarabine.

[[note — horizontal lines in next article are my way of FORCING wordpress to keep the paragraph breaks in….]

Investor hits Genzyme’s plan to buy Bioenvision
Firm calls the offer lowball, ‘ill-timed’
By Stephen Heuser, Globe Staff | May 31, 2007

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Genzyme Corp.’s planned takeover of New York cancer drug maker Bioenvision Inc. has already hit a bump: A key Bioenvision shareholder is calling the deal a lowball offer and digging in against it.

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On Tuesday, just hours after Genzyme said it had reached an agreement to buy Bioenvision for $354 million in cash, investor Steven Rouhandeh sent a fax to Bioenvision’s board calling it an “ill-timed” deal that didn’t fairly value the company. His fax was disclosed in a filing yesterday.

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Rouhandeh’s firm, SCO Capital Partners LLC , owns about 7 million shares of Bioenvision, or 13 percent of the company. …

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The deal requires half of Bioenvision’s shares be tendered to Genzyme within the next 19 days. Rouhandeh doesn’t control enough of Bioenvision’s stock to block the sale, but if his complaint galvanizes other shareholders, it could make the deal more expensive for Genzyme.

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Genzyme and Bioenvision’s boards have both already agreed to the sale. The deal would give the Cambridge company full control of a cancer drug called clofarabine , to which the companies currently share the rights. Genzyme sells the drug in the United States as Clolar, and Bioenvision sells it elsewhere in the world as Evoltra .

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Clofarabine is approved only to treat children with one type of recurring leukemia, but the companies have been testing its effectiveness against other cancers. Genzyme expects the drug eventually to be approved for wider use.

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In his letter to the board, Rouhandeh suggested Genzyme was swooping in while Bioenvision’s stock was at a low. The company just diluted its share value to pay for new clinical trials, he said, and is awaiting a decision on whether Evoltra will be approved to treat another type of cancer. If the company wins approval, the news would sharply increase its value.

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“The company just traded off a 52-week low, so it seems odd that buyout negotiations would be taking place in this time-frame,” Rouhandeh wrote.” [etc.]
Stephen Heuser can be reached at sheuser@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

So, Cambridge, Mass-based Genzyme was hoping to go more global with a certain drug it already shared rights with; Genzyme got US rights and BioEnvision got the rest of the world (same drug, different name, apparently they’d also co-developed it.) About 2007.

More news from the Genzyme Wikipedia page, ca. 2009-2010 — just a little contamination in Massachusetts (and Belgium) plants, not to mention bits and pieces of non-drug material start showing up in the drugs…. Oops…. See “Contamination” section of the Genzyme “Wiki” page. But no one died, and it’s for treatment of rare diseases, so the FDA let it stay on the market….

In June 2009, Genzyme’s Allston, Massachusetts plant was shut down to correct a viral contamination (Vesivirus 2117). A similar event had occurred in 2008 at the Geel, Belgium facilities. By April 2010 it had restarted operation at diminished capacity.[9]

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In November 2009, fragments of stainless steel, rubber, and fiber-like material were discovered in some of Genzyme’s drugs. The FDA found these materials in Cerezyme, Genzyme’s treatment for Gaucher disease, a rare genetic disorder that can lead to life-threatening organ damage. The FDA is permitting the drug to stay in the market, due to a lack of adverse events, and a critical need for the product.[10]

Anyhow . . . . further reading on ImPath (or Genzyme) should prove interesting. It’s a biotech world these days. And in the ocean of commerce, the plankton of job-seekers are the most common food source; further up the chain, bigger fish run in schools sometimes, or predator becomes prey, etc. Among them all swim vast whales of government funding platforms which are either hospitable, or inhospitable, to fishies coming to them for help, or shelter.