Thursday, December 18, 2008

Funding for biotechs in Canada

Lost in the financial turmoil is the impact on basic health research. Even though the Bush administration has essentially frozen NIH spending, there has been no word from the Conservative government here about the future funding levels.

Because of the relative strength of the U.S. dollar, supply companies who report in U.S. dollars are seeing a squeeze on their international sales in terms of margins and sales.

My friends at the new Life Technologies are particularly hurting, given the overall weakness in some of the equipment sales. Also, as Life starts to focus more on instrumentation, it seems to lose it core reagent market. Gibco, I think is still strong, but it is hard to say where enzymes will end up.

The consumer here in Canada is making out quite well because of all this turmoil. The year-end sales have been very much welcomed. I don't know if we will see a big jump in our prices next year since the U.S. dollar is still 20-30% stronger than this time last year. We'll see....

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