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A few years ago, news articles in Business Week, Nature, and elsewhere described a veritable stampede among big pharmaceutical companies like Roche, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKline to work with contract research organizations in China and India.

As it turns out, some of San Diegos smallest biotech startups have been doing the same thing.

The reasonfor big and small drug development companies alikeis that the scientific capab...

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Things were hopping over the past week in San Diego. Get into the rhythm here.

San Diegos West Wireless Health Institute named Donald Casey chief executive officer. Casey was formerly worldwide chairman of Johnson & Johnsons comprehensive care group. The Institute was founded last year with a $45 million gift from telemarketing and communications entrepreneurs Gary and Mary West.

Tocagen raised nearly $7.8 million in a Series D round that began Fe...

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Memjet, the San Diego printer technology startup that named former Qualcomm COO Len Lauer as its CEO in January, took a step toward becoming a conventional company by naming Mark W. Legg as chief financial officer, according to a statement issued today. Legg was previously the CFO at privately held General Atomics of San Diego. Lauer is in the process of reorganizing Memjet, which was founded by Australian Kia Silverbrook and did not previo...

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San Diegos Fallbrook Technologies, which is developing a new and more-efficient design for a continuously variable transmission, says today it has signed an agreement with Hodyon of Austin, TX, for joint development of a new air conditioner compressor for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Fallbrook says its deal with Hodyon is part of its broader effort to develop its technology for ...

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Isis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ISIS), the Carlsbad, CA-based biotech company, said today it has earned a $6 million payment from Bristol-Myers Squibb for getting clearance from regulators to begin clinical trials of a new cholesterol-lowering drug. Isis and Bristol are collaborating on BMS-PCSK9Rx, as a targeted antisense therapy which seeks to lower cholesterol by hitting the target PCSK9.

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Roche and Cambridge, MA-based Biogen Idec are halting development of an experimental drug for rheumatoid arthritis because of safety concerns, according a report today by Bloomberg News. The drug, ocrelizumab, was designed to hit the same protein target on cells as the hit antibody ritxumimab, (Rituxan), albeit in a form thought to be more conducive for chronic autoimmune diseases than rituximab, which was originally developed as a cancer drug. Still, ...

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Qualcomms chairman and CEO says the San Diego wireless company is in the drivers seat when it comes to setting the agenda for the wireless industry. Were here to tell you what that means, so you dont miss the on-ramp.

When Paul Jacobs was named to head San Diegos Qualcomm five years ago, the No. 3 son of Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs came across as a bit wonky. But Paul Jacobs is getting better at public speaking, as he demonstrated last week in a ...

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HIV has taught the pharmaceutical industry that the best way to fight an infectious virus that resists a single drug is to make a cocktail that attacks the virus in more than one way. Vertex Pharmaceuticals and its competitors are now following a similar formula with new therapies for hepatitis C.

Vertex, the Cambridge, MA-based company with operations in San Diego, offered a glimpse last week into its strategy for a two-drug combo that could signifi...

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The La Jolla Research & Innovation Summit held yesterday at the Salk Institute was a smaller and a much more modest affair than the inaugural summit that Connect CEO Duane Roth organized last year. I have some impressions from the morning presentations:

Climatologist Dan Cayan of UCSDs Scripps Institution of Oceanography explained why multiple computerized models of climate change indicate that Southern California will become significantly hotter ...

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There was a flurry of San Diego life sciences news over the past week, but weve got it all sorted for you here.

Politicians sometimes complain about voter apathy, but consider the plight of San Diegos La Jolla Pharmaceutical. The biotech, which failed to develop a drug for lupus, has been unable to muster enough shareholder votes to put itself out of businessor to approve a proposed merger with Adamis Pharmaceuticals (OTCBB: ADMP). In ...

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Some local biotechnology companies landed funding deals during the past week. Weve got that and other highlights below.

Tioga Pharmaceuticals raised $18 million in private equity to fund a late-stage clinical trial of asimadoline, its experimental drug for irritable bowel disorder.

San Diego received $4.95 million of $225 million in stimulus funding awarded nationwide to increase educational, training, and placement services for people se...

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Just before the financial crisis hit in September 2008, Cambridge, MA-based Proteostasis Therapeutics was fortunate to snag $45 million of initial venture financing to pursue a dream. It has been pretty quiet since then. But behind the scenes, the idea has morphed into a company built to make convenient oral pills for diseases of aging.

Proteostasis was started by a big-name investor syndicate led by HealthCare Ventures. The founding science came from the ...

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San Diego drug developer Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals says it has changed its name to Harbor BioSciences, nearly a year after the company fired Richard Hollis, the biotechs namesake founder and CEO, for cause unknown. Harbor BioSciences also changed its ticker symbol to (NASDAQ: HRBR), saying that shares would begin trading under the new ticker today. The biotech says it is continuing to develop a new steroid analog that stimula...

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Thanks to KISSmetrics for supporting our interview with Sean Ellis. If you want an intro to KISSmetrics, send me an email. I’ll put you in touch if there’s a fit. Thanks. – Nivi

Hiten Shah from KISSmetrics recently sat down with me to talk about how you can optimize your funnel with their upcoming analytics tool, KISSmetrics.

You may remember Hiten from his Crazy Egg days and survey.io, which Hiten and I discussed in How to measure product/market fit with survey.io.

SlideShare: How to optimize your web apps with KISSmetrics
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