How Varian Complements Agilent for QbD

Agilent's purchase of Varian should give the company much more prominence in the QbD space. As Investor's Business Daily put it, "Varian's products are used to help design new therapeutic drugs, while Agilent's products help analyze the causes and cures for diseases."

Here are a couple white papers out from Agilent this year:

Using Design of Experiments for HPLC Method Development

Using Fiber Optics to Speed and Simplify Formulation and Method Development

--Paul Thomas

Forbes: Scale is the Real Reason for Big Pharma Mergers

Interesting article from Forbes, which posits that the real reason that big pharma companies are merging is not to shore up their weak pipelines, but to increase their scale in order to increase the likelihood of bringing more products to market, faster, and in more parts of the world. No longer is approval by the U.S. FDA the preeminent goal for any drug, but rather getting approved in many markets as quickly as possible.

--Paul Thomas

How Conformia Will Help Oracle

Oracle's purchase of Conformia is sure to further enhance Oracle's growing reputation in the life sciences space. Here's one account of what the marriage will mean, as well as some thoughts from Agnes Shanley on Conformia's resurfacing after a dormancy.

--Paul Thomas