The Pharma Dispatch is a hand-curated newsletter compiled weekly to go beyond the headlines and bring you the most interesting developments related to the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical research from around the world.

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Pharma Cos Take Page from Hollywood to Spread the Risk

In Hollywood, big production companies have long sought to attract upfront investment—in exchange for a cut of box-office sales or royalties—as they gamble on the next blockbuster film.

Large pharma companies, like big movie production houses, must contend with “most innovation occurring outside your walls, and your cost structure varying over time and project type,” said Richard Evans, an analyst at SSR LLC

Clues to New Antibiotics Could Lie in Medieval Texts

Ancientbiotics team, a group of medievalists, microbiologists, medicinal chemists, parasitologists, pharmacists and data scientists from multiple universities and countries, believe that answers to the antibiotic crisis could be found in medical history.

Right Approach for Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing

Dr. Stuart Goldberg writes that although direct-to-consumer advancement and FDA approval for 23andMe should be celebrated, it is by no means an endorsement to open a floodgate of genetic testing.

Here’s What Your Future Doctor Visits Could Look Like

Eric Topol discusses the move to a decentralized healthcare system through the use of virtual care, remote monitoring, and smartphone-based physical exams.

Doctors Prescribe More Generics When Drug Reps Are Kept At Bay

A newly published study reveals that when teaching hospitals put pharmaceutical sales representatives on a shorter leash, their doctors tended to order fewer promoted brand-name drugs and used more generic versions instead

WHO to Help Bring Cheap Biosimilar Cancer Drugs to Poor

The World Health Organization (WHO) is to launch a pilot project this year to assess cheap copies of expensive biotech cancer drugs in a bid to make such medicines more widely available in poorer countries.

An AI-Driven Genomics Company Is Turning to Drugs

Deep Genomics, a Canadian company that uses machine learning to trace potential genetic causes for diseases, announced that it’s getting into drug development. It joins a growing list of AI companies betting that their techniques can help produce powerful new drugs by finding subtle signals in huge quantities of genomic data.

China Pushes into the Emerging Field of Precision Medicine

A fund backed by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma and Singapore’s state-owned investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte made new investments in contract genomics organization WuXi NextCODE, which is expanding in China as the country pushes into the emerging field of precision medicine.

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