While You Were Cheering on the Celtics

Yes, yes, yes, the rolling rally for the World Champion Boston Celtics was Thursday, not this weekend, so the typical "While you were.." parameters might not apply. And, IN VIVO Blog hears that Boston sports teams and their fans aren't all that popular these days, so it's unlikely many of you were cheering for the Green anyway.

But Mark Wan, general partner of Three Arch Partners, was cheering, and we've got pictures (courtesy of the Boston Globe.)

Wan, the cross-armed fellow in the Celtics Green T-shirt, is part of the ownership team that includes many life sciences/

venture capital types including Wyc Grousbeck, Highland Capital Partners, Richard H. Aldrich, Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer, RA Capital Associates; David Bonderman, Managing Director, Texas Pacific Group; James Breyer, General Partner, Accel Partners and many others.

No doubt, Wan hasn't faced this big or energetic a crowd since he attended one of our medical device conferences.


Now, onto some news from this weekend.

Eli Lilly might hire a few Duck Boats itself if the FDA gives a thumbs up this week on use of its anticlotting drug prasugrel. The Wall Street Journal says analysts aren't ready to hop on Lilly's bandwagon just yet, in some cases giving Lilly slightly better than a 50% chance of getting approval. That's okay, seven out of eight of ESPN's so-called experts picked the Lakers.

European pharma execs are at a bit of a loss. The International Herald Tribune reported on the gloomy mood from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations where executives at top European pharmaceutical companies wondered how to stop the industry's tailspin. Diversification? Increased R&D? Everything is on the table.

According to the The Wall Street Journal, Merck and Schering-Plough got a dose of bad news/good news regarding US prescriptions for their co-marketed cholesterol drugs, Vytorin and Zetia. IMS Health Inc. says sales of the drugs slipped in May, but at a smaller rate than in previous months. Prescriptions for the two drugs dropped 1.1% to 2.5 million last month after declining 23% since January. The drugs began taking a dive when data from an "Enhance" trial showed showed that Vytorin, which is a combination of Zetia and the generic drug simvastatin didn't perform any better than simvastatin alone "at slowing thickening of the arteries despite producing a greater decline in bad cholesterol." Simvastatin was once known as Merck's Zocor before its patent expired in 2006.

Finally, the Corn Refiners Association wants you to have a Coke AND a smile.