|
|
|
European Biopharmaceutical Review
|
EBR: What attracted you to the pharmaceutical industry?
Bill Newell:
The ability to make a difference in the health and wellbeing of others
is an important motivator for me. The potential to actually improve an
individual’s physical and/ or emotional wellbeing brings me a lot of
personal satisfaction. By enabling the creation of new therapeutics for
important unmet diseases, we are making a significant contribution to
society.
What inspires you in your daily life?
The
creativity and persistence of our scientific team is a daily source of
inspiration to me. The biopharma industry is unique in that some failure
is an inherent part of the drug discovery process, yet we continue to
ask the difficult questions. We subscribe to Voltaire’s belief that ‘No
problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking’.
Sutro Biopharma collaborates with select pharmaceutical and biotech companies. What is the secret to your success?
At
Sutro, we firstly strive for excellent and transformational science,
and aim to communicate our work to as broad a group in the scientific
community as possible. Our talented group of scientists understand that
our success depends on the success of our collaboration partners.
The company is also in the process of developing its own drug pipeline. What will this mean to you and your colleagues?
The
opportunity to create a novel therapeutic is a tremendously exciting
and rewarding opportunity. We are focusing our current research efforts
on cancer, which is very challenging, and hope to be able to add to the
armamentarium that is used to battle this disease.
Which novel classes of therapeutics should we keep our eyes on?
The
classes of therapeutics that will be most interesting over the next
five to ten years are targeted therapies that have multiple methods of
affecting the course of a disease. I believe we will begin to see more
therapeutics that use multiple mechanisms for targeting the underlying
cause of a disease, which can range from antibody drug conjugates to bi-
or multi-specific antibodies. These therapeutic approaches hold promise
in our battle to transform cancer into a chronic, rather than
life-threatening, disease.
What can governments do to encourage life sciences and biotech start-ups?
Currently,
the government allows for the delayed recovery of the significant
investment required to develop therapeutics by permitting unprofitable
biotech companies to build up their net operating losses and then,
eventually, allowing these losses to be used as offsets against some
future profits. New initiatives that enable companies to get value in
exchange for these losses – similar to the way that pollution credits
can be exchanged for current value – would be extremely encouraging and
beneficial for start-ups.
What are your goals for the coming year?
At
Sutro, we are working on forging additional collaborative relationships
with cutting-edge pharmaceutical companies. We see 2013 as a year of
tremendous promise on the deal-making front, and look forward to the
opportunity to collaborate with leading biopharmaceutical, ADC,
bispecific antibody and vaccine companies.
What does the pharma sector need to focus on in 2014?
An
area that can be improved in the pharma sector is to better understand
what pharma’s strengths and weaknesses are. A lot of innovation is
occurring outside of pharma, and with better self-awareness – and by
examining potential ways to collaborate – it will bring optimal
resources from each party to a partnership, thus our industry will have
more success. Smaller companies bring cutting-edge technologies to the
table, and large pharma can provide development, commercial expertise
and financial support, creating a partnership that can result in
mainstream success for all.
|
Read full article from PDF >>
|
|
 |
|
| Rate this article |
You must be a member of the site to make a vote. |
|
Average rating: |
0 |
| | | | | |
|
|
 |
News and Press Releases |
 |
Catch Up With PHARMAP 2023: Pharmaceutical Challenges And Strategies
Design and optimization of the supply chain, packaging solutions for security and brand protection, cost-effective technologies towards continuous manufacturing, and transformation of pharmaceuticals with robotic solutions and AI are going to be discussed at the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Packaging Congress 2023 (PHARMAP 2023). The Congress gathers the whole value chain of the pharmaceutical industry on June, 12-13, 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland.
More info >> |
|
 |
White Papers |
 |
|
Quality of Steel
Natoli Engineering Company, Inc.
Steel quality is the summation of how well a steel meets its specified chemistry, the cleanliness of the steel or degree to which it is free of impurities or inclusion, homogeneity of the microstructure, grain/carbide size and in some instances if it meets the mechanical requirements for that particular steel. In the design and manufacture of tablet compression tooling, nothing is more important than the quality of the materials being used. The best manufacturing principals maintaining the tightest tolerances will result in tool failure if the initial material quality is poor. Material quality is the fundamental building block upon which all successive value added steps are laid. The majority of all tablet compression tooling is produced from steel and steel quality is the subject of this article.
More info >> |
|
|
