If you're trying to develop a new drug, that costs you a billion dollars to get through the FDA. If you want to start a software company, you can get started with maybe $100,000.
There is no doubt that the Mindset failure is a major setback for Axovant, but it is not the end of the road.
Over time, yes, countries will need to look at specific GMO products like they look at drugs today, where they don't approve them all. They look hard at the safety and the testing. And they make sure that the benefits far outweigh any of the downsides.
Aspen's investment in TesoRx will assist in the work being undertaken to bring this product to market and in investing behind TesoRx's pipeline and technology that has the potential to be used for a wide range of different applications.
Financial risk is always associated with drug discovery. But the benefit that a blockbuster drug can bring to the business can be phenomenal if you can take that risk.
Hyperloop is a decades-long effort. You're moving steel and reshaping physical things, so you need government to help you build.
Sirius and XM went on air in 2001. It's taken 14 years for that to be a real business. It took them combining to be a real business.
Getting a traditional pharmaceutical to the market can cost a billion dollars or more. Newer, more tailored and targeted drugs called biologics are even more complex and expensive. Simple economics dictates that companies and venture funds will invest more in products that can generate a sufficient return.
My original intent for investing into Sprint - the main strategy was to buy Sprint and T-Mobile at the same time, so we'd have a critical mass to fight against AT&T and Verizon. The U.S. government didn't accept that. They rejected it. So my fundamental strategy was broken.
I think there's no question that vaccines have been absolutely critical in ridding us of the scourge of many diseases - smallpox, polio, etc. So vaccines are an invaluable medication. Like any medication, they also should be - what shall we say? - approved by a regulatory board that people can trust.
When a company is fairly certain of a profit margin that is substantial, it can assume responsibility for the clinical trials to develop a blockbuster drug.
You can't build the hyperloop without the government saying, 'We want this in our country.' We want to build it the right way.
The FCC has delayed the decision on the Time/Warner Comcast merger. So how do you think those folks like being put on hold?
There is no reason why T-Mobile can't be successful on its own and the only real reason AT&T would want to own T-Mobile is to increase its exclusivity by owning more spectrum.
It's very important to have the comfort of the regulator in every geography where you operate.
Fundamental discoveries can and should be made in industry or academies, but to carry that knowledge forward and to develop a new drug to the market has to depend on the resources of industry.
FDA clearance is an important step on the path towards getting genetic information integrated with routine medical care.
The blessing of the state, implicit or explicit, has been crucial to every twentieth-century information empire.
Do I think that if Google wanted to go acquire a competitor, another big company, we should say no? Of course. We shouldn't be approving them acquiring AT&T or Sprint or some big company.
I used to be a health-care investor a long time ago in the public markets. One thing I learned that we tried to apply here is that investing in small molecules, trying to invest in the next treatment, there's an element of gambling to that.
Bayer's planned acquisition of Monsanto promises to increase concentration in both the seed and agrochemical markets.
It seems paradoxical that, as medical scientists make huge advances in discovering the mechanisms of common diseases, fewer and fewer innovative drugs are reaching the market.
While I am prepared to look at all options and to think 'outside the box' for effective treatments, I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public.
Cadila, India's sixth-largest drugmaker by sales, spent $250 million developing Lipaglyn, a new chemical entity or new discovery, and aims to spend another $150 million to $200 million to launch the drug outside India.
Would-be drug companies must either produce medicines that stand up to federal scrutiny, demonstrate that their data has value to other companies, or go out of business.
