Life Sciences Newsbrief – March 2012, Issue #41

New addition to PwC’s Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences

On April 3, 2012, PwC’s Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences practice is very pleased to welcome Nitin Kaushal to our team and back to the firm. Nitin joins us with more than 25 years experience focusing on the life sciences, consumer healthcare, healthcare services and medical device industries. He will work alongside our Corporate Finance team and brings a strong aptitude to bridge the financial and scientific areas, providing significant value to our clients.

Nitin’s past roles includes Board of Directorships with many pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. He also brings experience from investment banking, venture capital, and consulting firms. He was ranked as the Top Healthcare Investment Banker by Brendan Wood in 2008/2009. Nitin has performed over 40 merger, acquisition, strategic advisory and licensing assignments. He was advisor to 2 of the top 5 global Pharma companies and M&A advisor on one of the top licensing deals in Canadian healthcare history (Dirucotide with Eli Lilly). Nitin is a regular speaker at biotechnology conferences including BIO and Biofinance and past educator at the University of Toronto.

If you would like to arrange a meeting with Nitin please contact us.

Thought Leadership

California Biomedical Industry: 2012 Report
After two decades of steady annual job growth, employment in California’s biomedical industry stalled while the state has struggled to recover from financial shortfalls and the industry adapts to a sharp pullback in funding from risk-averse investors in an uncertain regulatory environment, according to the 2012 California Biomedical Industry Report published by the California Healthcare Institute, BayBio and PwC.

This report presents a portrait of California's biomedical industry at the beginning of 2012 and includes data on employment, wages, education and investment, as well as a snapshot of the product development pipeline. As part of the report, a survey of 100 companies that conduct business in California in the areas of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices and diagnostics was conducted, asking leaders at these companies about their outlook on the industry and the key challenges and opportunities they see ahead. Based on employment trends, the survey found that while the employment levels in the biomedical industry fared better than most other industries, they have felt the effects of the economic downturn and changing dynamics of the healthcare market. Download the full report at www.pwc.com/us/CalBiomedical2012

MoneyTree™: Zigzagging upward
Venture capital (VC) funding in the Life Sciences sector, which includes the Biotechnology and Medical Device industries, increased 21% during 2011, according to the Q4 2011 MoneyTree™: Report from PwC and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), based on data from Thomson Reuters. Venture capitalists invested a total of $7.5 billion in 785 life sciences deals during the year, topping 2010 performance despite a drop from the third to the fourth quarter of 2011. To download the report click here.

Events

The National Disclosure Summit
March 26-28, 2012, Washington, DC
This summit is the leading forum on disclosure, transparency and aggregate spend for drug, device and biotech companies. PwC is a sponsor of this event to examine changing rules around physician interactions. PwC’s Jonathon Kellerman, Partner, Global Pharmaceutical Advisory Services Group, will be speaking. For more information visit www.disclosuresummit.com

CBI’s 3rd Annual West Coast Forum on Sunshine, State Laws and Aggregate Spend
April 16-17, 2012, San Diego, CA
A mid-year update tailored specifically for companies in the Midwest and West Coast on the latest issues related to industry’s efforts to improve solutions to collect, aggregate and report HCP spend to meet Sunshine and state requirements for transparency and disclosure. This meeting addresses the latest legislative and regulatory updates on CMS’ development of regulations related to the Sunshine Act and current challenges and best practices by companies to improve their aggregate spend solutions. Benchmark with Peers and Hear Expert Insights on federal requirements from CMS on transparency and disclosure, communicating transparency efforts with HCPs, clinical compliance considerations in aggregate spend collection, ensuring an accurate customer master, improving spend data efficiency and integrity and addressing inquiries and disputes of spend data. PwC is a sponsor of this conference and Jennifer Colapietro will be speaking. For more information visit http://www.cbinet.com/conference/pc12256