| Today's Top Story |  |  | | - Is focusing on rare diseases becoming all too common?
 As more drugmakers shift their focus to finding cures for rare and orphan diseases, research and associated funding on more common diseases might fall by the wayside, writes biopharma consultant Stewart Lyman. The 1983 Orphan Drug Act offered tax and regulatory incentives that encouraged research on long-neglected rare diseases, but society now faces a choice between funding research on diseases that affect a relative few versus diseases that affect the masses, Lyman writes. If drugmakers and publicly funded researchers collaborate on a large-scale project focused on repairing broken genes rather than attacking individual diseases, they might find treatments for both rare and common diseases, Lyman posits. Xconomy/Seattle (3/14)       | Health Care & Policy | | | | - Report: Global spending on APIs reached $113B last year
The global market for active pharmaceutical ingredients grew from $91 billion in 2008 to $113 billion in 2012, according to the Italian Chemical Pharmaceutical Association. The market grew at an average annual rate of 5.6% compared with a 7.2% average in the previous four years. The slower growth rate was attributed to several factors, including price controls, patent expirations, competition and rising research costs. In-PharmaTechnologist.com (3/14) - FDA approves Lymphoseek for lymph node mapping
The FDA has approved Navidea Biopharmaceuticals' radioactive tracer Lymphoseek for breast cancer and melanoma intraoperative lymphatic mapping. The FDA said the tracer is the first agent for lymph node mapping to gain approval in more than three decades. "Removal and pathologic examination of lymph nodes draining a primary tumor is an important diagnostic evaluation for some patients with breast cancer or melanoma," said Dr. Shaw Chen of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Medscape (free registration) (3/13) - ICR licenses prostate cancer biomarkers to Oxford Gene
Oxford Gene Technology secured licensing rights from the Institute of Cancer Research, London, to develop a panel of prostate cancer microRNA biomarkers into a new diagnostic test. The biomarkers were jointly discovered by Oxford and ICR. The biomarkers have a specificity of more than 90% and they can be used to assess the aggressiveness of prostate cancer, Oxford said. GenomeWeb Daily News (free registration) (3/13) - Sinovac's HFMD vaccine hits primary goal in trial
A late-stage study showed that 95.4% of infants who received Sinovac Biotech's investigational hand, foot, and mouth disease vaccine demonstrated immune response to the infection. The vaccine was tested in 10,000 healthy infants. The vaccine is expected to be launched in China next year. Reuters (3/14) | Company & Financial News | | | | | Food & Agriculture | | | | - Opinion: What motivates the anti-biotech movement?
The idea that genetic engineering is unnatural and thus unethical may be the main reason why some people continue to reject biotech foods despite numerous studies and expert opinion backing their safety, Dr. Henry I. Miller writes. Contrary to critics' beliefs, biotech foods may be safer than other foods because they are produced using modern genetic engineering techniques that are more precise and predictable than their predecessors, Miller says. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News/BioPerspectives blog (3/14) | Industrial & Environmental | | | | - Exec: Biofuels sector now focused on operational improvements
The biofuels industry has left the era of talking about "game-changing inventions" and entered "what one might call the really hard yards" of improving operational output, BP Biofuels CEO Philip New said during a keynote address at the World Biofuels Markets. "If we have grown out of the phase of hyping step-change innovations, we are now seeing innovation in the smaller things; the incremental improvements that mean the difference between business survival and failure," New said. BiofuelsDigest.com (3/13) | News from BIO | | | | - BIOtechNOW
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