Seth Godin on Recruiting

I was poking around the 'Net this morning and came across a fantastic post by Seth Godin.
Seth is a best selling author/entrepreneur who focuses primarily on the subject of Marketing.
In this post, Seth discusses the importance of Talent to an organization, and then wonders why most companies do such a poor job recruiting the type of superior talent they need.
Seth writes:

"Most hiring managers don't understand organizations that go to extraordinary lengths to find and retain amazing people."

Unfortunately, Seth continues:

"Most hiring, especially in a down market, is handled as a mostly bureaucratic task. Find people who fit in, do a rudimentary background check to eliminate problems, try not to break any hiring laws..."

And Seth closes his post by asking:

"If talent is so important that you are betting the company on it, why aren't you actually investing in finding and retaining that talent?"

So we all need to ask ourselves....What are we doing, both as companies and as Recruiters, to ensure that we are hiring and retaining the best talent on the market?

Another article about the trouble at the FDA

Today's Washington Post has an article that discusses the issues facing the FDA....and the article does not paint a pretty picture. William Hubbard, a long time former employee at the agency is quoted as saying:

"FDA is close to being at a tipping point -- the agency is hanging on by its fingertips in protecting us,"....If something is not done, they could become a failed institution, and no one wants that. The FDA is not only important to protecting the public health but also to the industries it regulates."

David Ross, another former FDA employee says:

"I'm afraid we're going to see more horrible things happen if we don't get our act together on this."

The problems are not just related to Pharma though according to Christopher Waldrop of the Consumer Federation of America.

"Food safety tends to get short shrift...The drug side tends to get much more attention than the food side. Food is equally important and needs to get the attention it deserves."

Some of the problems the article cites are woefully inadequate and antiquated computer systems
and a lack of resources and people with which to execute much needed inspections....especially overseas.

Today's article in the Washington Post couple with the recent New York Times Magazine article [discussed in an earlier post] present us with a frightening commentary with regards to the state of the FDA. Unfortunately the problems won't be solved overnight. But there is no question that the problems at the Agency need to be addressed quickly and aggressively....for all of our health and safety.

Obama and Big Pharma

Well....it looks like Barack Obama is going to be the next President of the United States.
Now the question is how will his victory affect the Pharma industry?
Here is an article from the Wall Street Journal from two weeks ago that laid out how an Obama or a McCain victory would impact the industry. According to the article, Big Pharma could be the biggest loser no matter who won the race.

The Safety Gap

Today's N.Y. Times Magazine contains a frightening article about the about the challenges facing the FDA. The short version is the FDA is under-equipped, under-staffed, and under-capitalized to deal with the challenges of a Global economy. For example, the FDA's limited resources prevent it from adequately policing the very manufacturing sites where there are most likely to be problems. And even if inspectors do successfully audit a site, they rarely if ever are able to go back to follow-up. The article states:

"And when inspectors find dangerous conditions at domestic plants, they generally return promptly to ensure that those conditions get fixed. Not so in foreign plants. In a report released Oct. 22, government auditors reported that between 2002 and 2007, F.D.A. inspectors found dangerous conditions in 15 foreign plants. Only one of those plants was reinspected within two years, the auditors found. In every other case, the agency took foreign managers at their word that promised changes were made."

The article goes on to cite numerous examples that illustrate the issues and problems that the agency faces.

Bottom line...the Food and Drug Safety system in this country is broken and it desperately needs to be fixed.

Cash Poor Biotech Firms

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the impact that the global crisis in liquidity will have on small biotech firms. According to the article:

"In the U.S., 38% of 370 small biotech companies are operating with less than a year's worth of cash, and nearly 100 publicly traded biotech companies have less than six months' cash..."

Unless these companies find capital....the majority of them will cease to exist.

Bottom line: For the sake not only of the Pharma/Biotech industries, but for the sake of the economy in general, we have to find a way to increase the flow of capital. Without access to capital,
good ideas are never developed and good companies cease to exist.