Free Republic

Fresh off its successes in the green-energy patch, the Obama team is turning its investment skills to the life sciences. Last Friday, President Obama announced his intention to increase the federal government’s involvement in the business of biotechnology. His plan is for a new federal center inside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that would be focused on the development and commercialization of new drugs. The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) would engage in early drug-development work, eventually handing off programs to private companies for completion. In return, the government would take a guaranteed royalty stream on drugs...

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - With "superbugs" stalking hospitals and old killers such as tuberculosis re-emerging, the world badly needs more powerful antibiotics. Yet the pipeline of new treatments is drying up as drugmakers -- citing poor financial returns -- focus instead on chronic conditions, such as high cholesterol, where medicines are taken for years rather than curing patients in one or two weeks. The shrinking of the medical armory is a growing worry for health care officials and has sparked a debate between regulators and pharmaceutical companies over ways to kick-start investment. "The relative lack of research on anti-microbials is...