Jim the Realtor has some local numbers on pending resets of negative-amortization loans in the upper-end. That slice of the market has been the subject of speculated declines among housing analysts because it has lots of supply and few sales.
Click here for Jim’s numbers … be sure to put down your coffee before reading the last line.
Wireless technologies will be applied to health care with a $45 million grant from the Gary and Mary West Foundation, named after the Rancho Santa Fe philanthropists.
The grant creates the San Diego-based West Wireless Health Institute, sponsored by Qualcomm Inc. Scripps Health is the founding health care affiliate. The Institute will apply wireless technology to held commercialize wireless sensors that monitor patient health.
By providing continuous monitoring, these sensors are expected to catch problems early on, when they’re more easily treatable. They can also alert doctors in emergencies such as heart attacks, and provide information to make a diagnosis at a distance.
And the country’s aging population can benefit from the monitoring, which will allow them to “age in place” according to the institute’s Web site. That means older people can go about their routines as usual for longer, without requiring expensive care such as assisted-living facility or having health care workers at hand.
Disease prevention is another focus. Continuous monitoring can identify people who are developing a disease, and also keep track of whether patients are comploying with their doctors’ instructions, such as taking their medicine.
Dr. Eric J. Topol, a noted cardiologist and head of the genomic medicine program at Scripps Health, is chief medical officer. Topol has been active in applying wireless technology to health care.
(This is my article on the deal described in my previous post).
LA JOLLA —- The Salk Institute will pursue stem cell research with a large drug company under a wide-ranging deal announced Thursday.
Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis will work with Salk scientists and fund Salk’s new stem cell laboratory for up to five years, according to the announcement. The collaboration aims to hasten translating scientific discoveries into useful disease treatments.
The deal brings together two powerhouses. Salk is a world-renowned leader in San Diego’s large biomedical community. Sanofi is valued at $80 billion on the stock market. It also has research centers around the world, although not in Southern California.
The exact amount of funding is not determined, but will significantly boost Salk’s research capabilities, said Michael White, senior director of Salk’s office of technology management and development.
“This is going to be a multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal,” White said. “It’s very helpful in these economic times.”
Stem cells are the body’s “ancestral” cells that turn into its distinct cells and tissues. They are believed to hold great promise for treating disease. California is funding its own stem cell research under a $3 billion program. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been awarded to local institutions and researchers.
The research partnership covers both human embryonic stem cells, grown from days-old embryos, and non-embryonic stem cells.
Embryonic stem cell research is controversial because some believe the embryos, destroyed to get the cells, are individual human beings. Non-embryonic stem cells do not raise these objections, although their power to morph into different cells is more limited. Non-embryonic stem cells are found in adults, umbilical cord blood, or made from cells regressed to an embryolike state.
Sanofi-Aventis scientists will collaborate directly with Salk scientists on projects of mutual interest, freely sharing information, White said. That gives Salk researchers access to information that drug companies normally keep hidden, he said.
“Our scientists can benefit from the expertise and capabilities of Sanofi, and Sanofi can benefit from our expertise in basic research,” White said.
Sanofi is considering research alliances in three of Salk’s laboratories, in addition to providing funding for the stem cell laboratory, White said.
Research of interest to Sanofi will be available for license, under equal terms with other companies, White said. In addition, Salk scientists will be free to publish any discoveries made under the deal, without restrictions.
These points are important in such a partnership between a major research center and a for-profit drug company.
In 1992, the Scripps Research Institute signed a 10-year, $300 million funding deal heavily criticized for giving a drug company preferential rights to license research, influence research priorities and limiting the rights of other companies to strike deals with Scripps. Under pressure from Congress, the deal was ultimately scaled back to meet the objections.
The Salk-Aventis deal as described does not have those concerns, said Shu Chien, a stem cell researcher at UC San Diego.
“It sounds like a very good collaboration,” said Chien, singling out a statement by Salk’s president, William Brody, that the agreement comes “without restrictive preconditions.”
“That’s a pretty clear statement to me that it is very positive,” said Chien, a director of the Whitaker Center for Biomedical Engineering at UCSD. “If that’s really the way it’s going to work, I think it’s a nice model.”
The Salk Institute has just announced a major alliance on regenerative medicine with French drug giant sanofi-aventis (e.e. cummingsesque lack of caps theirs).
Salk says the dollar amount is not determined, but expected to be very significant.
From the press release:
For a period of up to five years, the sanofi-aventis Regenerative Medicine Program (SARP) will sponsor institute-wide discovery grants in promising research areas that address the organizations’ mutual interests. SARP provides for long-term, multiple-participant collaborations between Salk and sanofi-aventis scientists – allowing both groups to benefit from each other’s specific areas of expertise and potentially develop further partnerships. SARP will also provide unrestricted support for the Institute’s stem cell core facility.
“This is a collaborative relationship without restrictive preconditions between two leading organizations,” said William R. Brody, president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Our scientists will continue to freely explore cutting-edge research and publish their work, with the added benefit of advancing the science through this unique association that provides access to extensive resources at sanofi-aventis.”
“Further collaboration and scientific exchange will be reinforced through annual Salk/sanofi-aventis research retreats and extended working lab visits between scientists from both organizations.”
Housing news is starting to turn from depressing to optimistic, but that doesn’t mean that prices have stopped their precipitous fall.
In his latest analysis, IHS Global Insight economist Patrick Newport headlined the note “Five for five,” meaning the five latest housing reports all came out better than economists expected.
The California Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that existing home sales across the state were up 83 percent in February.
Even San Diego’s most famous housing bear, Rich Toscano of piggington.com, has declared that local housing prices have reached affordability.
San Diego Association of Realtors President Erik Weichelt wrote in the group’s publication that “every day I feel more optimistic that we are indeed seeing the start of better times.”
Does this mean the bottom is here? The pain is over?
Not so fast…
The structure of a protein pump that removes chemotherapy drugs from cells has been solved, according to scientists at The Scripps Research Institute. The paper, “Structure of P-glycoprotein reveals a molecular basis for poly-specific drug binding,” was published in the March 27 issue of the journal Science.
The National Institutes of Health will hold a seminar on the paper at the NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md. on Tuesday, March 31. Stephen Aller, one of the Scripps scientists, will conduct the seminar. More information is available on the NIH calendar. NIH was a study sponsor.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and Texas Tech University determined the structure of the protein, P-glycoprotein, or P-gp, through X-ray crystallography. The protein has a cavity where substances are trapped and then expelled. According to a Scripps press release, the biggest challenge in the task was getting enough protein to use in the laborious crystallography process.
The paper’s revelations about the protein structure should make it easier to design drugs that defeat chemotherapy resistance, the scientists said.
The scientists worked with the murine version of P-gp, which is very much like the human version. The mammalian structure resembles that of MsbA, a bacterial protein that removes lipids from their cells. However, P-gp contains special amino acids that bind with many more substances.
Nanoparticles may wind up in your medicine chest, on your money
BRADLEY J. FIKES
Staff Writer
Specks of semiconductors called quantum dots, could soon spread around the world, around us, and perhaps, even inside of us.
A few billionths of a meter in diameter, or 5,000 to the width of a human hair, quantum dots glow fluorescently in a variety of colors. Once strictly a lab curiosity, they can reveal molecular processes inside cells, detect dangerous chemicals and improve the efficiency of solar power systems.
Pioneering work on quantum dots is being performed at Carlsbad-based Life Technologies, at UC San Diego and other local biotech companies and non-profit research institutes.
On Monday, Life Technologies, one of San Diego County’s biggest biotech companies, and Palo Alto-based Nanosys announced a partnership to use quantum dots to fight counterfeiting.
The potential market is huge, with the annual trade in counterfeit goods as much as $1 trillion by some estimates.
Under the partnership, the companies would work with manufacturers to place counterfeit-proof markers in electronics, currency, arts and even drug labels. said Vicky Singer, global head of out-licensing at Life Technologies.
Quantum dots can be mixed in ink and printed onto surfaces in a precise pattern of colors, providing a fingerprint detectable under blue, violet or ultraviolet light, Singer said.
“They could be on the (drug) vial, they could be on an outer packet, many drugs are foil-wrapped, we don’t anticipate any of them would actually end up in the food, drug or beverage,” Singer said.
Huge market
No agreements have been announced yet, Singer said, but talks are under way with potential customers, including foreign governments.
“One of us might work with an electronic goods manufacturer for DVDs. Another might work with Pfizer, and help them with an anti-counterfeiting solution for drugs,” Singer said.
Nearly $300 billion in counterfeit goods were sold in the U.S. in 2004, according to a report by New York City Comptroller William Thompson. These include everything from golf clubs made by Carlsbad’s Callaway Golf Co. to designer handbags and clothes, watches and software.
Counterfeit drugs are an even more serious threat, as they can put patients’ health at risk. Moreover, terrorist groups such as Hezbollah have used counterfeit drugs to finance their operations, according to an indictment, unsealed in March 2006, and obtained by the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Hard to make
Quantum dots, also refered to as nanocrystals, provide a practically forge-proof stamp of authenticity to thwart such counterfeiting, Singer said.
Those wishing to counterfeit the technology would first have to get their hands on these quantum dots, which are available from only a few sources or require expensive expertise to make, Singer said.
Manufacturing methods include lithography, a process similar to that used in making computer chips, which uses light waves or electrons to etch a pattern from a semiconductor material, such as selenium. Dots can also be grown as crystals using chemical methods.
Life Technologies, formed when Carlsbad’s Invitrogen merged with Applied Biosystems of Foster City, sells a quantum dot-based product under the Qdot brand for cell and tissue imaging.
Qdots are made up of “nanocrystals” of quantum dots plus a molecule that attaches to structures of interest, such as a target molecule inside a cell. When illuminated, the Qdots glow, revealing their location, hence the Qdots can be used in living cells to reveal metabolic processes.
Fighting cancer
Quantum dots are also being studied for a cancer treatment that also shows where the tumor is, in a collaboration between researchers at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
UC San Diego chemistry professor Michael Sailor announced in October he had developed nanometer-sized “cargo ships” carrying quantum dots, superparamagnetic iron oxide and doxorubicin, an anti-cancer drug. These cargo ships are surrounded by fatty molecules called lipids, which help the “ship” blend into the body, and a protein that sticks to cancer cells.
Toxicity is a concern with medical uses of quantum dots, as some contain potentially harmful heavy metals.
In February, Sailor said he had developed a safer technology that uses minute fragments of silicon instead of quantum dots. These nanoparticles temporarily lodge where targeted, such as tumors, and are then removed by the body.
The quantum dots themselves are now being engineered to be safer. Researchers at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology announced in December they had made safer quantum dots using less of the toxic element cadmium and more zinc and selenium, which are lower in toxicity.
Biomed Realty Trust was one of the biggest losers in the stock market Thursday, dropping 17 percent in one day after an analyst downgraded the stock of the Rancho Bernardo company. This week alone, the company’s stock has lost about a quarter of its value, dropping from about $8.50 Monday to $6.10 Friday.
The company, which focuses on leasing commercial real estate to biomedical companies, has seen its stock get hammered over the last year, dropping 78 percent from its 52-week peak.
Another local REIT, Escondido-based Realty Income, has held up better, falling only 53 percent from its year-long high to $16.40 Friday. And Realty Income’s week has been pretty volatile, which appears to becoming a trend for the company. It started at $16.80, dropped to $15.60, peaked at almost $18 and then fell back down to its perch at $16.50.
It seems investors have been spooked by real estate, as both these companies have been stable with their dividend payments.
America’s Finest County’s housing market got a couple shoutouts recently from some national publications.
First, via Freakonomics, San Diego placed No. 3 in the nation on metropolitan areas with the lowest levels of carbon emissions per household. Of course, it’s in large part because the weather here means less heating and cooling costs. But the county also fared pretty well on average miles driven. I’m skeptical of this. I’m guessing it only counts people within San Diego city proper, whereas we’re really a suburban-heavy community with Escondido and Temecula residents galore that should be counted as San Diegans. In any case, the article argues for more “smart growth,” or high-density housing in urban cores — something we’ve been hearing more about lately.
Next, a top 25 list from BusinessWeek. I hate these lists, and this one proves why. It calls Mira Mesa the fourth-hottest ZIP code in the nation for home sales. I don’t cover the market, so I don’t have the stats to check the publication’s assertion of a 119 percent jump in home sales in the fourth quarter. But in any case, the idea that Mira Mesa is the county’s hottest market, let alone the nation’s fourth-hottest, is boohickey. Assuming their data is correct, it doesn’t hold a candle to Oceanside’s 92057 ZIP code, which saw sales jump 173 percent from the previous year during the fourth quarter, according to HomeDex data.
Apparently, BusinessWeek picked just one ZIP for each metro area and for some reason settled on Mira Mesa. Especially given the ZIP code’s most recent performance, I have no idea why. This data was just released by the San Diego Association of Realtors:
February 2009 sales, year-to-date, compared to 2008:
Mira Mesa (92126): Up 9.1 percent
Oceanside (92057): Up 55.9 percent
Escondido (92027): Up 111.5 percent
Vista (92083): Up 109.1 percent
Carmel Valley-based Victory Pharma, a specialty pharmaceutical company, said it has closed a $45 million equity financing.
The financing round was led by Essex Woodlands Health Ventures. Ampersand Ventures, an existing investor, also participated.
The money will be used to support growth, including buying products, the company said.
Victory’s lead product, Naprelan Controlled-Release Tablets, are sold to pain management specialists, rheumatologists, orthopedic surgeons and primary care physicians. Victory is also developing its own drugs for the treatment of chronic pain and opiate-induced side effects.