While You Were Advancing

Despite Saturday's game three hiccup the Fightin' Phils advanced to the NLCS this weekend with a 6-2 win over Milwaukee to cap a 3-1 NLDS victory, taking the sting out of another Iggles loss at the Linc. (Celebrate while you can, Ramsey, St. Louis is tough coming off the bye week ... OK maybe not.)

It's nearly enough to take one's mind off the economic crisis--now spreading even further--and the potential impact that broader financial malady might have on the health care world. For those of you keeping score at home more than two out of three of our respondents agree that the industry universe is shrinking.

While you were dusting off your Beat L.A. signs from 1983 ...

• We get a lot of crazy ideas (support of Philadelphia sports teams can do that to blogger) so we're not normally ones to throw too many stones. But we simply can't get our heads around this 'fast track IPO' proposal described in this Guardian article from last week. Please, anyone, explain it to us. Does this make any sense whatsoever?
• OSI and Genentech report that Tarceva plus Avastin didn't improve survival in advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients better than Tarceva alone, though there was a clear improvement in progression-free survival.
• Genome sequencing is getting cheaper. Harvard's George Church, an adviser to Complete Genomics, the company that this morning announced it could lower the cost of sequencing your As, Ts, Gs and Cs to a cool $5k, called the price "shockingly low." In this economy, George? Call us when we can buy a kit at the Dollar Store.
  
• Biolex this morning bought OctoPlus's 50% commercial rights to the companies' Locteron interferon alfa, which is in Phase II in HCV. Octoplus gets $11mm upfront and up to $138mm in milestones. Meanwhile Biolex also said it raised $60 million in Series D funds in a round led by Clarus Ventures.
  
• Oh yeah. It seems Lilly is buying Imclone. You may have heard about this one. But why do we feel like there's going to be a some sort of Scooby-Doo-esque plot twist at the end of this too-long drama? As of 5a ET still no official word from the companies nor any last minute rubber mask reveals or muttering about getting away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids. Yet. [UPDATE: 7am, and it's official. the deal values Imclone at $6.5bb, or $70/share.]
  

game 2 photo from flickr user nickhall used under a creative commons license.