"The first molecule, which we gave to ROW2 for RouteDesign project, was already being researched by our process research team for almost 2 years. We knew a lot of chemistry for this molecule. But to our pleasant surprise, in just four weeks time ROW2 team came up with some novel approaches, which we had not considered before. We have now decided to use RouteDesign service early in the development cycle to maximize RouteDesign benefits.”

- Process Development Head, One of the leading Pharmaceutical companies, Europe.

"New additions in SmartChem are truly value adding. Sending an after sales request was little time consuming earlier. But now with the new After Sales Assistant, I can send my requests quickly and easily. I compliment SmartChem team for these additions"

- Sourcing & Materials Manager, One of the leading chemical companies, Europe

"SmartChem now allows us to search for DMF, VMF holders for compounds of interest to us. This information is very useful to my organization.”

- Manager Sourcing, Pharma company, USA

Welcome to CI2E Quarterly– Issue1, 2009!

With the beginning of 2009, CI2E Quarterly enters its 5th year of connecting with R&D, Sourcing and Business Development professionals from Life sciences and Chemical industry. Introduced as a Compendium of Information, Interaction and Entertainment, CI2E family has grown from 3500 readers in 2005 to 5000 readers in 2008. It is now read by decision makers from over 900 companies spanning across 25 countries.

• ROW2 World: Updates on ROW2 and its offerings

• Article: The impact of the recessionary environment on the Biotech Industry in Italy

• Picks of the Quarter: Links to various interesting articles

• My Forum: Claire Francis talks about the upcoming event of Scientific Update

• Entertainment: Interesting facts about chemistry and some more fun!

ROW2 World :

ROW2 News:

With an aspiration to soar new heights, ROW2 team has more ambitious plans and focused objectives for the year ahead. Especially in the current downturn, when our industry colleagues are facing many challenges, we are constantly enriching our services in order to quickly adapt to this changing environment and help our customers in meeting these challenges. ROW2 is determined to help its customers in this tough recessionary environment.

“I like the way the new interface looks and presents information. It is very intuitive and helps in saving a considerable amount of time.”
– Sourcing Manager, One of the top 10 Pharma Companies, USA

ROW2 makes its mark at Informex'09: It was the 8^th year of ROW2’s participation as an exhibitor at Informex’09 in San Francisco, USA. Informex is very special for us and we have an action packed event every year. SmartChem, ROW2’s online knowledgebase was presented to attendees in its enriched format. Some of the key enrichments were REACH High Alert chemicals, information on supplier’s credentials by ways of details on certifications like DMF, VMF, and Online After Sales Assistant. We also had various offers for Informex participants to suit their requirements especially in today’s tough times. For the first time ever, Informex saw activities designed specially for three key fraternities namely Sourcing, Business Development and R&D in the form of Special Lucky Drawing and celebrations with them everyday at ROW2’s booth. To relieve the stressed out minds of the participants, several entertaining activities were planned by ROW2, which were thoroughly enjoyed by the participants. Participants benefited from the SmartChem LIVE program. ROW2 also had a beta launch of SmartChem’s new design at the event.

CI2E in its 5^th successful year: It is a matter of great pride for us to celebrate the 5^th year of our association with our readers. With an objective to update industry colleagues on ROW2’s offerings, CI2E Quarterly was launched in 2005. Our endeavors always have been to make it more informative and interactive for the readers. In 2006, the new section in CI2E called “My Forum” was launched providing readers with a unique opportunity to interact with ROW2's global customers and readers and display their strength to grab business opportunities. The information section was further strengthened with articles from Industry veterans and thought leaders. CI2E's 2006 issues on guidelines for companies to invest in countries like Italy, Germany etc were appreciated. CI2E's “Picks of the Quarter” section that compiles interesting industry articles receives the maximum number of hits. ROW2 thanks all its readers and contributors for their immense support. We assure of delivering value year after year through our CI2E Quarterly e-Newsletter.

Upcoming Events: ROW2 will be participating in Chemspec India on April 15-16 in Mumbai, India, CPhI Japan on April 21-23 in Tokyo, Japan and OPR&D in Florida, USA on April 27-30. ROW2 also plans to participate in Bio International Convention 2009 on May 18-21 in Atlanta, USA and Chemspec Europe on June 23-25 in Barcelona, Spain.

SmartChem News

SmartChem in an entirely new design: The new, streamlined design of SmartChem enables intelligent searching and seamless navigation. SmartChem now provides quick access to required details thus saving search time. To experience benefits of new SmartChem, take FREE SmartChem Trial* today.

More Enhancements in SmartChem: Also introduced into SmartChem are the details on Certificate of Suitability (CEP) Holders.

SmartChem-Ready to confront today’s Sourcing Challenges: An interesting article published in Informex Show Daily (Issue Jan 29, 2009) explains how SmartChem helps the Sourcing professionals to meet today’s industry challenges. To read the article, click here.

ROW2’s product development team is constantly working on enhancing and enriching SmartChem. Please e-mail us any suggestions you may have for enriching SmartChem.

RouteDesign News

With our flagship service RouteDesign, we continue to help customers from Pharmaceutical, Biotech, Chemical and Agro industries successfully handle multiple challenges of process chemistry. We are proud to share that in the last few months, ROW2 entered into further long-term RouteDesign contracts with some of the esteemed Life Sciences companies from Europe and USA.

ROW2's article on Expanding Horizons of Process Research & Development: In the current macroeconomic conditions, entire Life Science Industry is experiencing escalating pressures to increase profitability across all departments. All critical functions in the organizations are undergoing reorganization in order to ensure better efficiencies. This article from ROW2 experts sheds light on expanding role of Process Chemistry function and its impact on Return On R&D Investments. To read the article, click here.
Published in Informex Show Daily – January 30, 2009

Important Events: Apr’09 to June’09

April:
15-16 : Chemspec India: Mumbai, India
21-23 : CPhI Japan: Tokyo, Japan
26-29 : ACS ProS: Discovery and Selection of Successful Drug            Candidates: Boston, MA
27-30 : OPR&D: Florida, USA

May:
18-21 : Bio International Convention 2009: Atlanta, GA, USA

June:
08-11 : World Pharma Congress: Philadelphia, PA
17-18 : Chemspec Europe: Barcelona, Spain
23-25 : CPhI China: Shanghai, China

Featured Article

The economic crisis is not affecting the final market of biotech products, but it is certainly affecting the "fuel" of the biotech development i.e. the availability of risk capital for the growth. Big companies and multinational corporations are optimising their cost through a process of restructuring and merging and at the same time these companies are focusing more and more on less risky projects with short term returns. Biotech companies are facing problems in raising funds for the product development and only those projects, which are in really advanced stages of product development, are of interest to big companies. But contrary to this trend, in the last weeks we noticed a growing interest of multinational corporations for early stage products and the primary reason given was these early stage products are cheaper than Phase II products and they can constitute the core of a future pipeline.

To read the full article click here.

Interesting Links

Will Pharma Companies Win Against Economic Recession?
Published in Articles Base: Feb, 2009 issue

This article sheds light on how pharma companies are trying out various ways in their pursuit to fight back the current recessionary environment.

Surviving the slowdown
Published in Express Pharma Online: Feb, 2009 issue

Read this article to get answers on: “How Biotech companies survive this economic slowdown?” etc. It also brings out the dilemma and risk involved for an investor while investing in a Biotech company at this particular situation.

European Bioindustry Upbeat in the Long Term
Published in GEN: Feb 1, 2009 issue

An informative article from the experts on impact of the global financial crisis on biotech and pharma companies in Europe.

FDA launches Global supply chain pilot scheme
Published in Outsourcing-Pharma.com: Jan, 2009 issue

Any pharma company sourcing drugs and APIs from outside USA is supposed to volunteer supply chain information to USFDA. Such is the newly launched scheme of USFDA. Read the article to know more about it.

Big Pharma Money Spent on Marketing Exceeds Drug Development Costs
Published in NaturalNews.com: Feb, 2009 issue

An interesting article that reveals how US is spending more money in marketing a drug rather than developing new drugs.

Featured Article Cont'd.

In Italy, as per the last analysis (Blossom & Company - Assobiotec report "Biotechnology in Italy - The financial Perspective, March 2009”, there are around 260 companies with a turnover of 15.3 billion euros in 2008, 1.5 billion euro of R&D expenses and more of 41.000 employees (8.847 involved in R&D). Most of the companies are SMEs though we have an interesting presence of branches of foreign companies. For the small companies, it is getting really hard to access risk capital, which is definitely affecting their growth. Italy has always been characterised by the scarcity of venture capitalists, particularly venture capitalists with specialisation in Biotech. The economic crisis has widened this problem and probably this is resulting in lower number of start-ups when compared to past and some difficulties in the development process of already existing companies.

Measures companies are taking to cope up with the current situation:
There is an interesting aspect of the actual situation one needs to look at. In general, the companies that are concentrated at territorial level in clusters are suffering less from the crisis than companies that are isolated. The cluster system offers some territorial support to companies that are affected by the crisis. It is easy for the cluster members to identify partners and potential clients for their products/services. These clusters are quite active in lowering the negative influence arising from the crisis through the activation of direct or indirect public support schemes. Cluster system also helps in positioning the entire system at international level with a goal to attract foreign venture capitalists. The results can be observed in Italy and in other parts of the world where companies are trying to concentrate at territorial level in biotech clusters. Biotech clusters are becoming “standard ecosystems” of the biotech development process. They are perceived as a way to lower the risk of failure and as a tool to support the development of specific companies.

In addition to above, companies are also focusing on optimising cost and restructuring development strategies in order to reschedule milestones and redefine priorities. This process together with a strong effort in rebuilding alliances and networks has now become a prime strategy for biotech companies. On one hand, companies are trying to consolidate what they have and on the other hand they are trying to make their portfolio more appealing for medium and big companies.

What are the improvement signs?. . .

How should companies handle the current situation?

To get answers to these questions and read the remaining article, click here.

Author:

Fabrizio Conicella
General Manager - BioIndustry Park Canavese
conicella@bioindustrypark.it

To sponsor future newsletters, write to us here.

Claire Francis talks about Scientific Update’s Organic Process Research & Development Conference in Fort Lauderdale, USA – April 27-30, 2009.

Top international chemists discuss the latest issues relating to synthetic route design, development and optimisation. Speakers include:

For full programme information, please click here.

Interesting facts about Chemistry:

Do you know?

Fun Trivia:

Take a look at the words given below. They are similar in a very specific manner. Find the similarity in all the below given words:

Banana, Dresser, Grammar, Potato, Revive, Uneven, Assess

As a part of our 5^th year celebration, first 5 correct answers will win exciting prizes. You can post your answers here.