D-Wash Out

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It is true that imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

I am saying goodbye today to my comrades at voiceofsandiego.org, and taking the amazing lessons they've taught me up to Orange County where I will be helping my longtime friend and colleague Norberto Santana start up a nonprofit online news organization.

Our new venture is aptly named Voice of OC. The organization is completely separate from VOSD, but Norberto chose the name Voice in honor of the pioneering work done by the great journalists here. If Voice of OC has half the impact on public life in Orange County as VOSD has on San Diego, then Norberto and I will consider our venture a smashing success.

We are especially excited about the possibility that the two organizations will at some point collaborate on some of the many stories that cross county lines in Southern California.

In addition to my colleagues at VOSD, I want to thank the politicians, scientists and other interesting folks I've had the pleasure of covering over the last two years for a great ride. And finally, I want to thank all of the people to have and continue to support the great work being done here. Please keep it up.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Wednesday, November 25 -- 3:35 pm

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Court Reportedly Allows Brain Scans as Evidence

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Wired News is reporting that a type of brain scan has been used in a court case, a murder trial in Chicago, for what appears to be the first time.

This could be a big deal for No Lie MRI, a San Diego company that has been trying for years to get its brain scan technology admitted into court. We reported in April on the technology, and an attempt to get it admitted in a San Diego juvenile sex-abuse case.

-- RANDY DOTINGA

Tuesday, November 24 -- 3:38 pm

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The Medipacs Story

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In my story today on the new nonprofit start-up incubator EvoNexus, I briefly described the product being developed by Medipacs, one of the first three companies invited into the incubator. But I didn't detail what the product could mean for hospital safety.

The product is an iPhone-sized, wearable wireless medication pump that would replace in many instances the syringes and intravenous bags that now deliver medications in hospitals. The product, which is still in development, uses small rubbery pumps to administer medications from insulin to pain medications to fertility drugs, said Medipacs CEO Mark McWilliams.

The wireless technology in the pumps will allow doctors and nurses to monitor and adjust the dosage amounts being delivered to patients in real time. This, McWilliams said, will address medication dosage errors, one of the biggest safety issues in hospitals.

At least 1.5 million people are injured because of medication errors each year, according to a study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. And the cost to hospitals of treating these injuries is at least $3.5 billion.

McWilliams claims the pump will not only lead to fewer errors, but free up nurses to concentrate on other parts of their jobs.

"We can save 25 percent of a nurse's day," McWilliams said.

The company hopes to have the device fully developed by next year and on the market by 2011.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Wednesday, November 11 -- 2:57 pm

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Another Take on Garbage Gyres

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New York Times reporter Lindsey Hoshaw filed a story this week from the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre. Yes, the same garbage patch that voiceofsandiego.org contributing writer Rebecca Tolin wrote about when a group of Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers visited in the summer.

For the uninitiated, the garbage patch is a collection of floating trash piles -- thanks to litterbugs from around the world -- that have been caught up in the gyre, a vortex of currents about 1,000 miles northeast of Hawaii. It's accumulated an estimated 3.5 million tons of plastic debris -- bottles, bags, and other litter from North America and Asia.

The Times story doesn't mention the Scripps mission, but it does feature Charles Moore, the ship captain who first discovered the garbage patch about a decade ago. It also discusses the possibility of several garbage patches existing worldwide:

Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.

Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.

The Scripps researchers are now busy culling through the debris and data they gathered on their trip, and Tolin will check back with them when they are ready to release their findings.

Update: The Times story was partially funded by Spot.us, a nonprofit that organizes community-funded journalism projects.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Tuesday, November 10 -- 1:11 pm

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Local Antibiotic Developer Files for IPO

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Trius Therapeutics, one of a handful of San Diego-based biotechs developing drugs that target antibiotic-resistant bacteria, has filed for an initial public offering. The Friday filing, first reported by Xconomy, is one of only three IPOs filed by San Diego companies this year.

Trius is in clinical trials with a drug that targets antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA. The company hopes to raise as much as $86 million, according to the filing. It will use the money for late-stage clinical trials it plans to begin in 2010.

Last week I wrote about how the burden of developing drugs that fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which kill tens of thousands annually, has fallen largely to biotechs such as Trius. Large pharmaceutical companies have, for the most part, determined that they are not profitable enough.

It is clear from the filing that Trius believes the market for a new generation of antibiotics is strong and getting stronger. The company said total U.S. sales for antibiotics targeting MRSA that are currently on the market grew from $778 million in 2005 to $1.4 billion in 2008.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Monday, November 9 -- 6:27 pm

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Amylin Makes Move in Obesity Drug Race

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San Diego's Amylin Pharmaceuticals announced a deal this week with Japan-based Takeda Pharmaceuticals to develop and market experimental obesity drugs, making it the third San Diego-based biotech to make big news this year with potential weight loss therapies.

The deal calls for Amylin to get $75 million upfront, plus milestone payments based on whether the drugs make it through clinical trials and achieve certain revenues, according to Xconomy. It also gives the company a boost in its effort to keep up with San Diego-based Arena Pharmaceuticals and Orexigen Therapeutics, both of which are in late-stage clinical trials with their obesity drugs.

Here is what Xconomy had to say about the deal:

Amylin is betting it has found a way to breathe new life into one of the most overhyped biotech drugs of the 1990s -- Amgen’s leptin -- by packaging it in combination with its own pramlintide drug for diabetes. While the Amylin drug needs to be taken by injection and its rivals are oral pills, it has shown some strong promise that it can help people shed pounds in clinical trials, and the market has big potential. About two-thirds of people in the U.S. are considered overweight or obese, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This is an important year for both Amylin and Arena. Arena has had a bumpy ride with its obesity drug lorcaserin.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Thursday, November 5 -- 7:09 pm

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Algae Guru Heading to UCSD

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Stephen Mayfield, a world-renowned researcher who studies the use of algae as a biofuel, is leaving his post as the dean of graduate studies at The Scripps Research Institute for a faculty job at the University of California, San Diego.

Mayfield, who is also a co-founder of locally based biofuel company Sapphire Energy, will join a dream team of biofuels experts at UCSD. It includes Steve Kay, who is dean of UCSD's Division of Biological Sciences; Steve Briggs, who was recruited from the San Diego biotech Diversa; as well as Susan Golden and James Golden from Texas A&M University.

Mayfield and Kay have worked together for year, co-founding the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology.

"Together with our colleagues at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, we have assembled one of the world’s leading centers for algae biotechnology research," Mayfield said in a UCSD news release. "I am very much looking forward to working with this team to make algae biofuels a reality."

In January, I reported on Mayfield's work, and the algae boom in general. And one of our top stories today by contributing writer Jonathan Parkinson examines jatropha, another plant that has received a lot of attention as a potential biofuel.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Tuesday, November 3 -- 1:09 pm

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Ligand Buys Metabasis

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Metabasis, the San Diego-based biotech that created a run on the bank among its laid-off employees in May, has was recently purchased by Ligand Pharmaceuticals, another San Diego company.

Ligand was able to purchase Metabasis for just $3.2 million, according to the industry website FierceBiotech. In addition to the purchase price, Ligand agreed to spend $8 million to develop drugs in the Metabasis pipeline.

The deal comes less than two months after Metabasis CEO Mark Erion announced he was jumping ship for a job with pharma giant Merck.

In July we chronicled the Metabasis debacle, which included a mad scramble among employees to cash their last paychecks after senior management told them in May that they were laid off and the company didn't have enough money in the bank to pay them.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Tuesday, November 3 -- 1:09 pm

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San Diego Researchers Win Stem Cell Grants

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Three San Diego-based research teams garnered a total of $55.6 million from the California stem cell institute today. The San Diego awards were among 14 totaling $230 million that the institute handed out statewide.

Here is a rundown of the local awards:

• A team led by University of California, San Diego researcher Dennis Carson was given $20 million for the use of stem cells in leukemia research. The UCSD team is partnering with a team for the University of Toronto.



• A team led by Emmanuel Baetge, chief scientist at San Diego-based Novocell, was awarded $20 million for research into using stem cells for diabetes research. Baetge is partnering with a team from the University of California, San Francisco.



• A team of Salk Institute for Biological Studies researchers were given $15.6 million for stem cell research focused on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. The Salk researchers will partner with UCSD and the locally based Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Wednesday, October 28 -- 7:24 pm

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Was Amylin's Drug Unethically Boosted Down Under?

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Xconomy has an item about a brewing controversy in Australia that revolves around San Diego-based Amylin's diabetes drug Byetta.

Reportedly, a study co-sponsored by Eli Lilly & Co., which partners with Amylin on Byetta, asserts that drugs in the same class as Byetta will do more to improve the health of diabetes patients than exercise.

A story in the Australia's national newspaper, The Australian, reports on concerns that the study is part of a marketing effort to win public subsidies for Byetta.

From the Xconomy post:

Although the study mentioned exenatide, the generic name for Byetta, only in a footnote, it asserted that drugs in the same class as exenatide could produce greater health improvements for diabetic patients than exercise or existing drugs. And that seems to have sparked a bit of a controversy Down Under.

The newspaper reports that some experts were concerned that the report was part of a marketing push to win public subsidies for the medication. Australia’s Public Benefits Scheme recommended the drug for inclusion last year, but the federal government has yet to respond. This means exenatide is available only on private prescription at a relatively high cost. Consequently, it is not widely used.

NATSEM defended the integrity of the research, saying the projected increase in type 2 diabetes was a legitimate concern.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Tuesday, October 27 -- 7:16 pm

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Spotlight On: Sangart

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In 1971, with the Vietnam War still raging, the U.S. Army was intent on developing a blood substitute that could be used on battlefield casualties. The Army's goal was one of the primary reasons it established the Letterman Army Institute of Research in San Francisco.

The Army researchers working there tried for decades, but never produced a viable blood substitute. They couldn’t develop a safe product that replicates all the things our blood does for us, from coagulation to immune response.

While the institute was de-activated in 1995, Robert Winslow, a top researcher there, remained convinced that a product could at least perform one vital blood function -- the delivery of oxygen to trauma victims' organs and tissue.

Winslow dedicated his career to the effort, going so far as to climb Mount Everest to study the effects of oxygen deprivation on the body. In 1998, Winslow founded San Diego-based Sangart. The company subsequently developed the molecule MP4OX, which in clinical trials has shown the ability to deliver oxygen directly to capillaries without the side effects -- particularly high blood pressure -- that haunted previous blood substitutes.

If MP4OX gains approval for widespread use, Sangart CEO Brian O'Callaghan claims it will save thousands of lives annually. MP4OX could potentially take the place of blood transfusions in certain circumstances and allow paramedics to more quickly re-oxygenate trauma patients.

Winslow did not live to see his discovery come to full fruition -- he died in February at the age of 67 from complications of an inoperable brain tumor. But O'Callaghan said the world could soon reap the benefits of Winslow's work. MP4OX is now in clinical trials in Europe and the United States, with U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval possible within five years.

"His legacy lives through MP4," O'Callaghan said.

This is the first in an occasional look at potentially life-changing products being developed in the world of San Diego science and technology. Do you know of such a product? If so, shoot me an e-mail: david.washburn@voiceofsandiego.org

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Monday, October 26 -- 6:01 pm

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Update on H.M.'s Brain

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While reporting on my story about the Whole Brain Catalog, I had occasion to catch up with Jacopo Annese, the University of California, San Diego neuroanatomist who runs the Brain Observatory.

He told me that the much anticipated slicing of H.M.'s brain is scheduled to commence on Dec. 2, the first anniversary of the famous amnesiac's death.

If you recall from my story in December, Annese took possession of H.M.'s brain shortly after his death. H.M., who now can be identified as Henry Molaison, suffered a debilitating loss of short-term memory after undergoing experimental brain surgery in the 1950s. He became the most widely-studied brain patient in history.

Annese's plan is to slice H.M.'s brain into 3,000 fraction-of-a-millimeter thin sections that can be placed on oversized microscope slides and scanned into a computer. He and his colleagues will then construct the first ever three-dimensional, high-resolution digital map of a complete human brain, and make it available online.

Annese said everything is proceeding according to plan. Several MRI's have been taken of the famous cerebrum, and Annese and his colleagues have even done some practice runs on other brains in preparation of the big event.

"We've done the dress rehearsals to make sure everything is working well," Annese said.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Friday, October 23 -- 1:47 pm

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Trying to Answer Venture Capital's Questions

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It seems inevitable that when the powers that be are faced with a crisis, or want money directed in a certain way, they form a task force.

The realities of San Diego's venture capital industry capture both of these scenarios at once: There is a crisis in the local innovation economy because money is not being invested venture capital funds. This is an issue we've covered extensively n reporting on both the dearth of traditional venture funding and new ideas for raising seed money for start-ups.

The task force is now at hand, Xconomy's Bruce Bigelow is reporting today. Organized by Connect chief Duane Roth and industry titan David Hale, the group is being led by David Titus, the managing director of locally based Winward Ventures. It will also include folks from Biocom, CommNexus, Cleantech San Diego, the San Diego Venture Group, San Diego Software Industry Council, and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation.

Here are some things Titus had to say to Bigelow:

Titus says Windward raised its last venture fund in 2000, and the firm made its last new investment from that fund in 2007. Since then, Titus says, "We're managing our [existing] portfolio of companies -- like many others." And for at least the past two years, Windward has been unable to raise a new fund from pension funds, college endowments, and other institutional investors. As Titus put it, "The meltdown in the public equity markets and the global economy has really shut that door tight."

The situation, which was only compounded by the credit crisis that began last year, has created a void in funding for San Diego's early stage startups that was not immediately apparent -- largely because out-of-town venture firms continued to invest heavily in many of San Diego's mid- to later-stage startup companies.

With venture capital continuing to flow into the region, some San Diego business leaders questioned whether there was really a dearth of venture capital in San Diego, or even much need for San Diego-based VCs. Their argument, basically, is "if you build it, they will come." That is, if San Diego's early stage startups have truly innovative technology, then venture capital will come from far and wide to invest in it.

Titus doesn't see it that way. "I can only speak personally," he says, "but when you're talking about early stage companies, they don't get done by out-of-town venture capital firms. They just don't."

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Wednesday, October 21 -- 12:32 pm

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Another Guilty Plea in SPAWAR Bribery Case

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Kelly Alexander, a former SPAWAR official charged with participating in a bribery scheme centered at the agency, pleaded guilty Monday to wire fraud and filing false tax returns, the Union-Tribune reported today.

Alexander faces a maximum of 23 years in prison, and is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 8.

She is the third person to plead guilty in the decade-long scheme that was allegedly masterminded by her husband and high-ranking SPAWAR official Gary Alexander. The Alexanders steered nearly $5 million in military contracts to National City-based Technical Logistics Corp. in exchange for kickbacks totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to federal prosecutors.

Technical Logistics owners Elizabeth Ramos and Louis Williams pleaded guilty in August and are cooperating with prosecutors in exchange for lesser punishment. We published a detailed account of the case in August that chronicled the alleged scheme from its beginnings in the late 1990s.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Tuesday, October 20 -- 6:35 pm

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iPhone Apps for Biologists

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I just ran across an item on the Scientist.com site (requires free registration) that gives a rundown of 10 must-have iPhone apps for scientists.

The apps include a 3D protein structure viewer, an iTunes for scientific papers and one called The Chemical Touch that is essentially a souped-up mobile periodic table. Most of the apps are free, and the research paper app, at $9.99, is the priciest.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Tuesday, October 20 -- 4:46 pm

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New Deals & Data

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Biocom’s Terri Somers is out with another issue of Deals & Data, the periodic rundown of the haps in the biotech world.

Among them are the liquidation of La Jolla Pharmaceuticals, which went out of business this year, and the patent infringement battle raging between San Diego biotech titans Illumina and Life Technologies.

I’m going to be looking into this suit in the coming days, so if you are following it feel free to e-mail me at: david.washburn@voiceofsandiego.org.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Tuesday, October 20 -- 4:31 pm

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Update on Race for Obesity Drug

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The New York Times’ Andrew Pollack weighed in over the weekend on the race among three biotechs n two from San Diego -- to be the first to market with a safe and effective obesity drug.

As has been well-chronicled in our pages, locally based Arena Pharmaceuticals and Orexigen Therapeutics are tantalizingly close to applying for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for their drugs, lorcaserin and Contrave, respectively.

But the ride hasn’t been without its bumps, especially for Arena, which has been criticized for overhyping its clinical trial results. And I got the sense from Pollack’s story that both Arena and Orexigen are lagging behind Bay Area-based Vivus, at least when it comes to trial results. But questions surround that drug as well:

Vivus’s drug, Qnexa, provided the greatest weight loss, which is why that company’s stock is up 90 percent this year, more than that of the other two companies. But Qnexa’s ingredients may raise the biggest safety questions, although the clinical trials did not detect major problems.

--DAVID WASHBURN

Monday, October 19 -- 2:18 pm

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Does Tech Rate at City Hall?

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Over the past generation, the high technology and biotechnology industries have become pillars of the local economy. All told, the industries employ more than 100,000 and have a multi-billion dollar impact on the region.

But does their influence on policymakers at City Hall match their impact on the economy?

Tech and biotech leaders have at times during the city’s history wielded significant influence locally. In fact, the biotech cluster on the Sorrento Mesa exists because 50 years ago leaders of the fledgling industry pushed for zoning changes.

And in 2008, the industry successfully fought off an attempt by residential builders to rezone swaths of Sorrento Valley land from industrial to residential.

Yet in recent years the proposals for big public projects that have gained the most traction are those geared toward the so-called "old San Diego" industries of tourism and development -- things like convention centers and stadiums.

And there is a sense among many that the tech community could do more to push its agenda downtown, and downtown policymakers could do more to recognize the needs of tech industries when drawing up big public projects.

What do you think? Shoot me an e-mail at david.washburn@voiceofsandiego.org. Or a tweet at: twitter.com/davidwash.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Date: 10/16/09

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Dissident Amylin Shareholder Cashes Out

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After spending half the year fighting to remake the board of San Diego-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals, dissident shareholder Eastbourne Capital has unloaded all of its shares, according to this Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Eastbourne, along with Carl Icahn, spent much of the year waging a proxy battle against the Amylin board under the pretext that a series of bad decisions by the board had caused the company's stock to plummet.

In the end, Eastbourne and Icahn, who together had an ownership stake in Amylin of around 20 percent, were able to get two of their nominated directors on the board.

Eastbourne did not disclose what price it sold its stake for, but the stock has been hovering near its 52-week high of $15.90 in recent weeks. Shares in the company have traded as low as $5.50 over the past year.

A hat tip to Xconomy for news of the sale.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Date: 10/12/09

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Sequenom Fires Top Brass After Investigation

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San Diego-based Sequenom Inc. today forced out its CEO and three other executives, including its research and development chief executive, after an in-house investigation into the mishandling of test results for its potentially breakthrough blood test for Down syndrome, the Associated Press is reporting.

The company, according to the AP story, fired CEO Harry Stylli, and Elizabeth Dragon, senior vice president for research and development. Sequenom's chief financial officer Paul Hawran and an unnamed executive resigned on Friday. Three lower-level employees were also fired.

The news caused shares of the company to plunge 44 percent -- from $5.69 to $3.21 -- in after hours trading Monday. Shares have been as high as $29.14 during the past year.

From the AP story:

"While each of these officers and employees has denied wrongdoing, the special committee's investigation has raised serious concerns, resulting in a loss of confidence by the independent members of the company's board of directors in the personnel involved," the company said in a statement.

The company did not say that any deliberate wrongdoing was discovered, but in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it said it did not put adequate protocols and controls in place. Some employees were not adequately supervised, it said.

Sequenom acknowledged on April 29 that employees had mishandled trial data on the test, which, because it is far less invasive than amniocentesis, could revolutionize how pregnant women are tested for the presence of Down syndrome in their babies.

As we chronicled in May, stock analysts and other industry watchers were shocked not only with the news that data had been mishandled, but also with the way the company managed the fallout. Since Sequenom's April admission, several class action lawsuits have been filed against the company on behalf of shareholders.

-- DAVID WASHBURN

Monday, September 28 -- 3:03 pm

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