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Editor's note:
Monday, February 7 is the last day to register at the early bird rate of $595 for the Burrill 2nd Annual Digital Health Meeting in San Francisco. Register now and save.

The long time and high cost of drug development has investors and entrepreneurs searching for new business models that will provide them with lower risk and greater predictability. Jim Posada, founder and CEO of Resolve Therapeutics, thinks he's got a solution. Resolve has licensed from the University of Washington a promising experimental drug to treat lupus. The plan is to take the drug into the clinic and carry it through a proof of concept study where it can be licensed to a pharmaceutical partner. Posada figures it will take about three years and $12 million to get there. With success or failure, the company's life will essentially end at that point. We spoke to Posada about his plans for Resolve, the changes in capital markets that led to this approach, and why betting it all on a single asset may actually provide less risk than conventional company building. Read More Here

Pfizer Slashes R&D Spending
Company looks to partners as it narrows therapeutic focus.
Pfizer, the self-proclaimed "world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company," will pare nearly $1.5 billion from its 2012 research and development budget as it steps up its dependence on external partnerships to supply both new innovations and cost savings. Read More Here

Biotech Billionaire Buys Digital Health Company Vitality
Startup's device reminds patients to take their medications.
Vitality's GlowCap seems like a simple enough device. It sits on top of a pill bottle and begins to flash a light to signal it's time to take a pill. If that doesn't work, the GlowCap begins to ring like a cell phone. If that still didn't get noticed, it will call the patient's phone with a reminder to take the medicine. It will also call the doctor and whomever you have designated, to report your compliance. When it is time for a refill, it will automatically contact the pharmacy. Read More Here

New Hurdle for Orexigen
FDA rejects diet pill and calls for additional, expensive study.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's surprise rejection of Orexigen Therapeutics' experimental diet pill Contrave has investors wondering if the company will be able to stomach the steep price of proving the drug safe for widespread use. Read More Here

AstraZeneca Makes Foray into Comparative Effectiveness
Deal with WellPoint subsidiary fleshes out real-world evidence on drugs.
Big Pharma has expressed suspicion about comparative effectiveness research fearing it will be used as a blunt tool to cut costs, but AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals is charging ahead into an area others have feared to tread. The company says it is entering into a collaboration with WellPoint clinical outcomes research subsidiary HealthCore to conduct real-world studies to determine how to most effectively and economically treat disease. Read More Here

Jury Nails J&J with $482 Million Patent Infringement Verdict
A federal jury in Marshall, Texas said Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Cordis should pay a $482 million verdict for infringing on a patent held by Bruce Saffran, according to Saffran's attorneys Dickstein Shapiro. The jury found that the patent was valid and the company willfully infringed. In January 2008, Saffran won a $432 million verdict from another federal jury against Boston Scientific, which the jury said infringed Saffran's patent with its drug-eluting cardiac stent. Read More Here

U.K. Could Save $324 Million with Generic Heart Drug
National Health System faces mandate to do more with less.
A simple switch at the pharmacy could save the U.K.'s National Health Service $324 million (£200 million) per year, a new study finds. The savings would stem from using a generic blood pressure and heart failure medicine instead of brand name drugs of the same class, say researchers. Read More Here

What A Dog's Nose Knows
Cancer-sniffing canines may point the way to new means of early detection.
My dog's nose is a bit of a wonder. It's just cold and wet enough that he can prod me with surprising effect when he wants to eat or go outside. It also has a way of winding up in places it doesn't belong when we go to the dog park. But it turns out there actually might be some medical value in his snout. Read More Here

Commentary: Counterfeit Drugs and Economic Self Interest
Can regulators across borders overcome the barriers to working together.
This week the Council on Foreign Relations held a conference on the issue of global counterfeiting of both food and drugs. Appropriately, the U.S. Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Peggy Hamburg, was the keynote. And she had some interesting and important things to say. Read More Here

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