Patients' tales, biotech legends add weight to BayBio awards

Genentech co-founder Herb Boyer.

When two or more biotechs are gathered, you hear the usual phrases, including the old standby, “We're serving patients with unmet medical needs.”
Box checked, move on to other things and the phrase quietly floats away.

BayBio, Northern California’s life sciences industry trade group, has been beating the “for the patients” drum for the past couple of years especially -- and it didn’t stop at the organization’s annual Pantheon event Thursday night. Problem is, when you hear rote phrases so often, they start to bounce off of you.
That is, until something like this year’s Pantheon ceremony. Many of the companies winning BayBio's DiNA awards brought patients with them to accept their plaques; some actually let patients tell their stories.
Putting patients in front of corporate slide decks is needed by the biotech industry, which has been wringing its collective hands over cuts in research funding and the drought of venture capital cash. Telling those stories, or actually helping patients tell their own stories outside of industry settings, could win over leery legislators and a weary public that feels bombarded with stories of unsafe drugs and failed clinical trials.

Molecular diagnostic test developers, BayBio hunt for lab talent

David Levison of CardioDx.

Even as cash-conscious drug developers carefully hire, there’s an employment bright spot in the larger life sciences industry: diagnostic test developers. Advances in the understanding of how genes interact and show the course of a disease or predict the recurrence of cancer have led to a boom in personalized medicine. Hundreds of jobs have been created in the Bay Area over the past five years. Someone needs to run molecular diagnostic tests through complex equipment and get results back to doctors and patients in days. The readouts help doctors shape treatment plans or make life-saving decisions on invasive surgeries. Molecular diagnostic test developers can’t find the right people to fill the jobs, which pay $60,000 to $75,000 a year. To hire clinical laboratory scientists, they must pit their startup cultures against that of hospitals, which can offer stronger benefits packages and job security.

Veracyte thyroid test gets boost with Genzyme deal

When biotech drug developer Genzyme Corp. said Friday that it will market a thyroid nodule analysis test, South San Francisco-based Veracyte Inc. got a big boost.
Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, Genzyme’s promotion means the Afirma test from Veracyte will get higher visibility. Genzyme, which was bought last year by French drug developer Sanofi, markets Thyrogen for patients with well-differentiated thyroid cancer.
After a Johns Hopkins study last year found that Afirma’s use could save money for the health care system, I spoke with Veracyte co-founder and CEO Bonnie Anderson.

Lab worker shortage threatens hot molecular diagnostics industry

A tug-of-war for hiring specialized, hard-to-find lab workers could pull a potential growth industry out of California.
Molecular diagnostic test companies — part of the personalized medicine boom — are competing with hospitals and reference labs for master’s degree-level clinical laboratory scientists, or CLSs. That conflict is driving wages higher, company leaders say, as underfunded job-training programs can’t keep up with demand.
But leaders in the life sciences industry and academia will launch a program in September that could alleviate the supply-demand crush. Tapping federal economic stimulus program cash, the program will narrow the scope of CLS training for molecular diagnostics companies, helping them land the workers they need to quickly send test results back to doctors and patients.
At the same time, the new program could allow hospitals to hold onto more broadly trained lab workers.