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TOP BIO CLUSTER CITIES is rather US-centric, and might also be expanded to include up-and-coming cities like Barcelona, London, and clusters in Taiwan, Japan, India, Singapore, Saudi, and China. Let us not forget that China is building whole new "medical cities", and already has significant clusters in places like Shanghai. These emerging clusters already have critical mass. The world is shrinking, so our horizons should expand. http://lnkd.in/iHsRQ2 View in LinkedIn

THE OPTIMIZED CUSTOMER is a business strategy employed by many huge companies. In short, while the customer is very unhappy, they are either tied to the service or it is a monopoly. The company does not care about these unhappy customers. Tried to complain in these situations and get the "on hold" loop and more? This strategy is cynically anti-innovative, anti almost everything good about great customer relations. See it with telecom, electricity, and credit card giants. Even Kafka would have been driven mad. It is a sign of Big is Awful. View in LinkedIn

THE INVENTION OF THE LIDODERM PATCH is an interesting story. Dr Harry Hind was a bay area pharmacist in the days when they did a lot of creative compounding of medicines. His wife had herpes simplex neuralgia (excruciating pain). Weekly lidocaine irrigations gave temporary relief. He went into his basement and tinkered around with topical lidocaine formulations, and found, surprisingly, it had lasting efficacy on his wife. He got a Japanese patch manufacturer involved, and licensed it to Athena Neuroscience for 1 million upfront and 10% royalties. This product grew to a billion in sales. View in LinkedIn

A GOOD BOARD CAN BE INVALUABLE and this article offers some useful guidelines, and sanguine cautions about inexperienced or over-reaching VCs. Choosing compatible VCs is perhaps more important than choosing a good board, especially as they often have a big say in the board composition. http://lnkd.in/nTNYVQ View in LinkedIn

73% OF THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF DARK MATTER AND WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS. This should be a humbling piece of information to those who believe we know more. Science is a process of hypothesis, and experimental verification, and new theory building, an ongoing and cyclical process. Be humble. Be curious. View in LinkedIn

BEING A PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANY IS ENORMOUSLY BURDENSOME and difficult. If entrepreneurs think this is the best outcome for liquidity, please think again. Clue: why would companies spend vast resources to go private? I am waiting for this liquidity option to be disrupted by some clever alternative, because the whole industry around public companies is strangling the life out of innovation. http://lnkd.in/vz6DHd View in LinkedIn

BIG PHARMA'S OLD MODEL IS BROKEN : throw huge amounts of money at R&D and hope that something emerges. This spurred the commonly quoted myth that it costs a billion dollars to come up with a new drug. Only true if your broken innovation system is vastly inefficient. Combine that with the bizarre fact of the Patent Cliff, and innovation is the last straw before complete collapse. It takes great pain to stimulate change in comfortable environments. Finally the world of drug discovery is changing, and changing radically. http://lnkd.in/e4P48y View in LinkedIn

WAITING TO FILE IP? Read this about an important deadline. http://lnkd.in/u7cSRf View in LinkedIn

BIG PHARMA CONSORTIUMS emerging everywhere. A NewThink moment. http://lnkd.in/cFXMcN View in LinkedIn

GROWING ORGANS IN A TEST TUBE was a dream of mine 20 years ago (Nephros) but VCs did not believe it could be possible (and perhaps back then it was not). But so much more is known today that the reality is much more credible, and POC has been achieved for some systems. No longer waiting lists for donors, or a sordid black market from developing countries: this is a dream coming true. http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/dn23133-need-an-organ-just-print-some-stem-cells-in-3d.html View in LinkedIn