Dec 21, 2012, 08:00 AM by Michael Croft

Bloomberg | A Swiss newspaper is reporting that Roche and Illumina may have come to a purchase agreement, eight months after Illumina rejected Roche's last proposed bid. The two companies will announce a January $66/share sale price, the paper reported.

Dec 21, 2012, 08:00 AM by Michael Croft

AWS Blog | Amazon Web Services has launched its Data Pipeline. The new services allows users to automate the movement and processing of any amount of data using data-driven workflows and built-in dependency checking.

Dec 20, 2012, 09:00 AM by Michael Croft

Xconomy | Do biotechs today have a long term plan or vision? Should they? With Big Pharma seemingly always on the hunt for new technologies and targets to snatch up, do you need a long term plan?

Dec 20, 2012, 07:00 AM by Michael Croft

Bio-IT World | Briefs for December include new products from Linguamatics, PerkinElmer, Titan Software, SoftGenetics, and Optibrium; industry news from IBM, Agilent, CLC bio and an internship opportunity in Singapore; a free trial from Partek; and more.  

Dec 19, 2012, 10:00 AM by Michael Croft

Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel | Three years after Nic Volker, researchers and physicians discussed advances and challenges in genomic medicine this week at Marquette University. Today, the sequeincing and analysis that saved Volker can be done in a couple of days, but that hasn't made it mainstream.

Dec 19, 2012, 09:00 AM by Michael Croft

LA Times | Amgen pleaded guilty in federal court to improper marketing of its anemia drug Aranesp and has agreed to $762 million in fines and settlements. Prosecutors said the company was encouraging doctors to use its popular anemia drug for unapproved uses in efforts to boost its bottom line.

Dec 18, 2012, 12:00 PM by Michael Croft

Bio-IT World | Matthew Trunnell has been named the new chief information officer (CIO) of the Broad Institute, effective January 4, 2013.

Dec 18, 2012, 07:55 AM by Michael Croft

Computerworld | Computerworld lays out its predictions for enterprise software vendors and users in 2013. Among them: heavy investment in mobility, an Oracle pullback on hardware, more momentum for Hadoop, and clouds, clouds, clouds.

Dec 18, 2012, 07:00 AM by Michael Croft

The Street | The votes are in and Leonard Schleifer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has been named the best biotech CEO of 2012 in The Street's annual contest.

Dec 18, 2012, 07:00 AM by Michael Croft

eWeek | Oracle announced a new big data appliance with Cloudera yesterday. Oracle Big Data Appliance X3-2 system of hardware and software has been upgraded to include Intel’s newest processors and the latest release of Cloudera.

Dec 17, 2012, 10:00 AM by Michael Croft

Network World | Rackspace has announced new capabilities for data hosting and management. A NoSQL database as a service (DBaaS) from a company named Cloudant is now available in Rackspace's cloud. The service adds to database tools Rackspace already provides.

Dec 17, 2012, 09:00 AM by Michael Croft

Reuters | In findings published on Thursday in Science, researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto showed that cancer cells' DNA is not wholly responsible for cancer. Researchers found that despite having identical genetic mutations, colorectal cancer cells behaved as differently as if they were genetic strangers.

Dec 14, 2012, 14:00 PM by Michael Croft

PLOS Computational Biology | In a paper published earlier this month in PLOS Computational Biology, Andreas Prlić of the San Diego Supercomputing Center and James B. Procter of the University of Dundee lay out ten simple rules for open development of scientific software. Among them: Don't Reinvent the Wheel; Be Your Own User; Nurture Your Community; and Science Counts.

Dec 14, 2012, 10:00 AM by Michael Croft

Bio-IT World Roundup | The BGI-Complete Genomics deal continues to stir controversy. Yesterday, Michael Wessel and Larry Wortzel, congressionally-appointed members of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, raised national security concerns about the deal. Complete Genomics' CEO Cliff Reid answered their claims--and others proposed by Illumina--in a memo this morning to Complete Genomics' staff.

Dec 14, 2012, 09:00 AM by Michael Croft

Globe and Mail | Are the promises of personalized genomics being oversold? We are not in a personalized medicine revolution, Timothy Caulfield contends. Overhyping the promise, "can hurt the science, by creating unrealistic expectations, and distract us from other, more effective areas of health promotion."

Dec 13, 2012, 15:00 PM by Michael Croft

BBC | University of Dundee researchers are applying advanced statistics and data analysis to drug discovery. Andrew Hopkins, Chair of Medicinal Informatics at Dundee, says he and his colleagues have "effectively proved the concept of automated design of new compounds showing that by using algorithms to process massive amounts of data, we can tackle problems of huge complexity."

Dec 13, 2012, 09:00 AM by Michael Croft

Bio-IT World | A small biotech company, Population Diagnostics (PDx), has collaborated with researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (SickKids) to provide a potentially major step forward in the search for a diagnostic test for autism. 

Dec 13, 2012, 09:00 AM by Michael Croft

Mercury News | Michael Wessel and Larry Wortzel, congressionally-appointed members of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, recommend the utmost scrutiny of the BGI-Complete Genomics deal on national security grounds.

Dec 12, 2012, 08:00 AM by Michael Croft

eWeek | Amazon Web Services announced the winners of its first annual Spotathon event last week. The competition recognized innovative uses of Spot instances to help small companies achieve massive scale and save time and money.

Dec 11, 2012, 13:00 PM by Michael Croft

The Street| The Street has nominated four biotech CEOs for the title of Best Biotech CEO of 2012: the heads of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Gilead Sciences, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and Sarepta Therapeutics.